Contributor, Rick Paine, is a friend and an expert on the college recruiting process. He is also the Director of Swimming at American College Connection.
So you have signed your NLI and scholarship papers and are headed off to college next fall. What a relief.
Now you are contemplating your summer plans. You are thinking the next four years in college swimming will be a real challenge and a lot of work and dedication so maybe I should take a little break this summer and just train and not compete. That way I will be fresh when school starts.
I will go to 5 or 6 practices a week in order to “maintain” my swimming and maybe I can get a part-time job and make a little extra money and not worry about going to meets. I will get to hang out with my friends one last summer and generally have a lot of fun. I will be fresh and ready for the college season when it starts in five months…..Right?
WRONG!!!!!!
First there is no such thing as “maintaining” is swimming. While you are “maintaining”, the swimmers slower than you are catching up and the swimmers faster than you are pulling away.
Taking the summer off from competition is like saying, “I am going to college next fall so I need to give my brain a rest and not read anything this summer.”
Second you owe it to your club team, club coach, college team, college coach and yourself to work on improving this summer and the only way to do that is to compete. After all, this is what got you to where you are.
I coached at the Division I level at Nebraska for 17 years and I hated to see incoming freshman report for the first day of practice mentally and physically out of shape. You will very quickly find out that college swimming includes a lot of kicking in practice. During the first week of practice I would tell my training group to grab a kick board, we are going 10 x 100’s kick on 1:30, on the top, ready go. Most of the freshmen would have a total look of terror and disbelief on their faces. They would spend the next month kicking a straight thousand until they figured out that things weren’t going to get easier.
Sit down with your club coach (remember them? they are the main reason you have the privilege of swimming in college) and lay out a plan for the summer that includes a shave and taper meet. It is certainly OK to have a couple of weeks out of the pool before you start your college season.
The last thing you want to do is to start your college career by digging a hole for yourself by not being in shape because you took the summer off. Swimming in college will be one of the most exciting times in your life and it only comes around once. Be ready to make the most of it……….and Congratulations!
ACC is SwimSwam partner.
PAC12BACKER, FYI, I was the Associate Head Coach and Recruiting Coordinator for Men’s Swimming at Nebraska, 23 Men’s NCAA All Americans, 9 Academic All Americans, 11 Men’s Conference Team Champions and 6 Olympians.
I am not so sure about much of a gender difference, but an elite athlete is an elite athlete.
I do appreciate your opinion.
Thank you Rick for the correction on Nebraska swimming. For some reason I didn’t remember Nebraska ever having a men’s team, and I was an NCAA swimmer in the late 70’s, early 80’s. I see the men’s team was dropped before the 2001/2002 season. Sorry.
There is a difference between sprinters and distance swimmers wrt pool-out-time and quantity of practices/yards. There is also a gender difference in play between men and women swimmers. Since Nebraska does not have a men’s program, and the author coached there for 17 years, perhaps the author’s experience and case study evidence is more relevant to women swimmers. Good article overall, but I challenge the assertion that 6 pool-time practices a week, once a day, excluding Sunday’s is not enought to keep an elite level swimmer in good shape for the next collegiate season. The smaller level of pool time should be coupled with solid dry land based training, i.e weight training, running, etc.
Ironically, I have a swimmer who swims for a school in the SEC who says they haven’t swam since conference. Now I get to get her in shape before she goes back…..
Unfortunately is sometimes works both ways. That is shocking that an SEC school would not have their swimmers in the water. They are only allowed to require 8 hours a week after the season, but as you know most of coaches “offer” more training than 8 hours a week.
Give the college coach a call. You should not have to deal with a returning swimmer who has not been in the water. It’s pretty tough to have a successful summer with only a month and a half of training.
I have had this happen at the lower levels with some of our swimmers and I called the coach to make sure they got the kids in shape before… Read more »
Rick,
2 years ago I had a talk with my graduating seniors (that were going off to college to swim) about a plan for training, competing, etc. 1 of the three listened to me and when she arrived at University of Nebraska-Omaha, she was in far better shape than any of the other incoming freshmen. Todd had a little money left over and gave it to her because she took her committment to the university seriously. The amount was way more than she ever would’ve gotten from working a part-time job for 10 weeks during the summer.
I use this story constantly with my seniors and I have found that it is their parents that tend to lean on them… Read more »
Thanks NM Coach, You have a great story to tell your swimmers and yes it does work that way sometimes. I wish all club coaches had their swimmers ready to move on to college swimming like your kids are. Keep up the great work.
Great article Rick! I’ve seen more swimmers never recover from the enticing summer off before college. Once the NLI is signed, the goal is not achieved, simply a door has been opened.
Randy Horner
Head Coach
FIU Swimming
Agreed Randy… I have graduated a few athletes who wanted nothing more than the article in the local paper that said they signed with a school, and you can see it on their face that they don’t have any intention to keep swimming. It makes me sad when they can’t see the door of opportunity that just opened for them. For some I think the summer off is their way of sabotaging their swimming so they can start off with a reason to quit. I promise you bud, I will let you know if you sign a kid and I see that coming.
The article talked about the period between High School and College. Some people seem to feel this period before they join college is the same as that between college years, it isnt. This is a major life segue and the setup period for the next four years and there is a lot more to that than just being swim ready. For some young people, “fast from the start” can be “broken in the middle” or “jaded at the end”. Between college seasons is a different matter entirely, although “need to refresh” may mean a lot more than I need a rest.
Unlike the author, I dont think there is one prescription for having young adults move to College swimming or… Read more »
There are many stressful things that a student/athlete cannot necessarily control once they step on a college campus…. being away from home, meeting new people, adjusting to academics, the list can go on. One thing they can control is what type of shape they are in. Eliminating that stress can make a huge difference on how they adjust to college life.
And, I would think that most college coaches are looking for kids who can make an impact all season and not one they have to bring back to full fitness throughout the season.
CAPNGOGGLES (and MARTIE) hit the nail on the head- If a swimmer WANTS to take a month or two of reduced training or even a full vacation before college, they sure as hell should. Frankly, for the long run a college coach is probably better off with a kid who felt like he needed little break and then took it compared to a swimmer who felt like they needed a break and didn’t take it.
I started D-1 college almost 20 years ago. I trained lightly for the first half of the summer (working the rest of the time) then took the second half off (working/ really enjoying myself the rest of the time with HS friends I’d be… Read more »
Rick–this is just great. When we recruit the student-athletes we do so when they are in shape and with peak performance. So, Come in ready to go! You should do so for yourself, your teammates, your club program, and the college program.
If one comes in to school in good shape, a bad day is just something that happens once in a while ( and coaches understand a bad day when it rarely happens……. come in out of shape and then bad days are the norm (not a good way to start out!)
Another reason keeping in shape is important – swimming fast at early intrasquad meets in the fall might be essential for getting yourself on the travel team, and actually getting a chance to compete for the rest of the season. The dual meet-centric character of the college swimming season is VERY different from the lots-of-invitationals-building-to-taper-meet seasons that most club swimmers are used to. You have to be on the ball, and FAST from the start.
Especially if you are typically a slow in-season swimmer, it is important to be as ready as possible to be as fast as you can be, as early as you can be when you get to campus.