There is a trend in swimming, specifically on the east coast, of clubs expanding and growing bigger-and-bigger into related, similarly-philosophied clubs, but with each operating with some level of autonomy.
Following this trend, NOVA of Virginia (NOVA) and the Virginia Association for Competitive Swimming (VACS) have formed an alliance, and are competing under the same banner, the NOVA banner, for the first time at the Virginia Long Course Senior Championships this weekend.
This is not an unfamiliar marriage. NOVA was originally part of VACS before spinning off into its own organization. Since, NOVA has grown into a large and very highly-ranked club, placing 5th in USA Swimming’s Virtual Club rankings and earning prestigious gold-medal distinctions.
VACS, meanwhile, has remained a smaller program, focused on the highly-individualized attention that a smaller club can give, and have qualified several swimmers for Junior Nationals and swept the short course and long course Virginia Swimming Small Team Senior Championship meets in 2012.
We had the chance to sit down with NOVA head coach Geoff Brown and VACS head coach Jamie Greenwood about their new partnership.
“Jamie and I have been discussing this for some time,” Brown said. “The coaching staff at NOVA has debated the value of what we termed ‘off-site’ operations for some time. In the past, we opted to remain under one roof while studying the multi-site operations in Potomac Valley and North Carolina. In Jamie in particular and in VACS in general, we saw a partner whom we admired and trusted and who was familiar with our “NOVA-brand”. For the past four years or so, we have been joining each other for a wake-up swim at NCSA’s, so this move was a logical extension of that already friendly relationship.”
“NOVA and VACS both share the same core philosophy. We emphasize stroke mechanics over yardage with our younger swimmers, and underscore that importance by having our most experienced coaches spend significant time with some of our youngest swimmers. Combined, we’ll continue to focus on good sportsmanship, integrity and humility. Teaming up with VACS will begin the process of allowing us to extend the NOVA brand and experience to a much broader group of age group swimmers than we have traditionally been able to serve out of our single facility. As an organization, we will greatly benefit from this alliance as we will be blending the vision and wisdom of a smaller footprint team with our own business model. I am especially delighted by the prospect of adding Jamie, Lauren and Shannon to our coaching staff. Our staff has long admired the results of Jamie’s vision and their collective hard work.”
“VACS has been very successful in taking swimmers from beginners to the junior national level and beyond, only to have those swimmers pressured to join a larger club,” Greenwood said. ” This alliance takes care of that since now they are already part of the best team in the area.”
“The win-win nature of our teaming up was the attraction,” Brown echoed. “Jamie and I insisted on that. Each team had to have something to gain. In a very peripheral way, this could be construed as a response to the mega-clubs just north of us, but it is worth remembering that the club we now call NOVA was once part of VACS. So maybe it’s a homecoming of sorts.”
Though the day-to-day operations of both clubs will remain largely the same, Brown does foresee some “staff cross-pollination” between the two clubs, allowing the staffs to work together to provide the best training possible.