Courtesy of Elizabeth Wickham
I volunteered at a meet recently, even though my kids weren’t swimming. It made me reflect on our years at swim meets. Parents of youngers, enjoy it. Embrace this experience while you can.
Here are my ten favorite things about age group meets:
1. The Little Ones
Is there anything more adorable than five and six-year-olds swimming 25 fly? Or, walking hand in hand to the staging area?
2. Team Cheers
Enthusiastic and loud. You won’t see this again until college.
3. Best Times
Witnessing 10, 15 and yes, 30-second drops.
4. Friendships
Observing your kids playing cards with their teammates under the tent, laughing together for hours.
5. The Spectacle
Multi-colored pop-up tents. Teammates cheering at the edge of the pool. Parents yelling and whistling. Coaches jumping up and down.
6. Volunteering
Helping out, keeping busy, and knowing that in some small way I made a difference.
7. Laughter
We always shared a laugh with other parents, kids, officials or coaches. Age group meets are fun.
8. Family time
Driving to the meet, we shared a quiet anticipation of the day ahead. Driving home, we sang loudly together to the blasting radio. Those were the days!
9. Breakfast burritos
I love a breakfast burrito and hot coffee from the snack bar before the meet begins.
10. Accomplishment
Is there anything better than seeing your kid excited for finally accomplishing a goal?
What are your favorite things about age group swim meets?
Elizabeth Wickham volunteered for 14 years on her kids’ club team as board member, fundraiser, newsletter editor and “Mrs. meet manager.” She’s a writer with a bachelor of arts degree in editorial journalism from the University of Washington with a long career in public relations, marketing and advertising. Her stories have appeared in newspapers and magazines including the Los Angeles Times, Orange County Parenting and Ladybug. You can read more parenting tips on her blog.
I’ve started recently to watch age group meets in webcast and every time I watch meets like Tom Dolan or a few others, I say WOW!
I’m always amazed by the versatility of these very young US swimmers. The size difference between same aged kids behind the blocks makes me smile too. It’s funny when the small kid beats the giant kid.
I don’t know how it looked before but most of the kids I watch are very serious and have a very professional behaviour. Some of them already have the killer instinct and refuse the idea of defeat. 🙂
The only thing I can’t stand during an age group meet webcast is to hear the unbearable huge… Read more »
Watching the crazed parents is part of the fun …speaking as a reformed crazed parent
I’m sorry but i have to yell at least one time, just to release some of the emotions out. Then I’m good. 😉
Crazy screams from the swim mom whose 12yr old has just swam a 50 free in 1 min 52 seconds.
In regards to #1, you can add, at least once during the summer season you will see one 6/7yr old doing their 25back see their mom/dad/grandparent and wave to them mid stroke. But I have to agree seeing a line of them holding hands going from heating tent to the blocks is adoresballs.
In Colorado we have year round (USA) and summer club (non-USA). Summer club is everything you wrote about and more. Year Round you are lucky if you can get a burrito. Other differences:
-indoors (crammed side to side in a hot indoor chlorine steam bath) vs outdoors (camp chairs set underneath trees breathing real air),
-all come open meets (no team atmosphere) vs dual meets (it’s… Read more »
My swimmer also runs track (great swimmer but GOOD runner – imagine that!) and the male distance runners on her team often point at, and wave to, their friends who are cheering. It cracks me up. The past-runner in me wants to yell at them to “JUST RUN”, but the dad in me is just happy they are having so much fun! LOL
This is pretty much spot on outside CO as well (at least in the two east coast LSCs we’ve lived in).
There is no substitute for fresh air, seeing all of the kids having fun, and getting 75% of your weekend back (unless you have a LC meet on Sunday… well, at least you get Saturday afternoons off!).
Luckily our summer club league has strict policies against dual citizenship in SummerClub and Year Round so Sundays are mostly free. It seems like half the SummerClub leagues here allow it and half don’t.
Other fond memories of the little ones including watching a 6yr old. win the 50, in the 25FR event.
As an age-group coach it was a great gift to be able to play a small role in the development of young people! 🙂
I learn something here. You were an age group swimming coach. And you wanted to make us believe that you didn’t know much about swimming? 😉
Thanks Bobo! I enjoyed coaching 10&U swimmers at my local YMCA immensely, but I wouldn’t say it gave me “expert” knowledge in our sport! 😉
I DO brag to anybody who will listen, however, that I “discovered” and taught the competitive strokes to Nick Brunelli, who went on to win gold at the SC World Champ’s and to miss the US Olympic Swim Team (heartbreakingly) by only one place in both 2004 (50 free), and 2008 (100 free – he would be an Olympic gold medalist right now)! 🙂
Spot on! Love these aspects about swimming.
Seeing kids swimming for the joy of it, free from pressures of swimming a PB or making a QT
A million thumbs up for all of this! Age group meets are the best! 🙂 🙂 🙂
Officials love them to for all of the same reasons you mentioned because we all have kids and experienced the same joys and still do. Greatest life time family sport in the world for kids and families no matter the age or abilities. In Master swimming the roles get reversed where the kids get to cheer on there parents and grandparents.