Parent Meeting, Sunday, November 14, 2010

Thank you everybody for coming by today. I'm very excited for our first meet next weekend, and I wanted to review several things regarding basic meet procedures at USA Swimming meets. Hopefully this will make everybody aware of what to expect next weekend.

Meet warmup-
Most meet warmups are an hour long (some meets will split an hour warmup into two sessions to accommodate a large meet). The goal of any warmup should be to swim comfortably for a while in the host pool to get acclimated to its walls, markings on the pool bottom, ceiling & lighting, etc...before going through some pacework (senior swimmers, mostly) and sprints (everybody) to raise each swimmer's heart so they are ready to race. Most senior swimmers at big meets will swim warmup with one suit, then go change into their racing suit either after the warmup, or just before they sprint. The warmup is usually the time when the coach will positively check in swimmers for certain events, attend a coach's meeting, fix entries or pay entry fees. I personally try not to do too much coaching in warmup - unless a particular swimmer requires it. There will usually be a 5-10 minute break after the warmup before the meet starts. Some meets may assign lanes to each team for warmup.

Meet events-
USA Swimming meets offer just about the entire slate of events for each age group, so as to accommodate the development of each athlete as a complete swimmer, rather than just a 50 Freestyler. This is because what one swimmer may excel in as a ten year old, may not be what they excel in as a sixteen year old. Also, college coaches tend to look for versatile student-athletes who can swim a host of events well. Most meets will be held to the "Four Hour Rule," meaning they need to be completed in four hours, or the meet host can be fined. This is usually waived for bigger, championship-calibre meets. A lot of meets will be run as "timed finals," meaning everybody swims once, then all the times are scored fastest to slowest, and points are awarded to the fastest swimmers, once everybody has swum the particular event. The bigger meets are swum as "prelims & finals," meaning that everybody swims prelims, then the fastest 24 (or 16, or 30, or 18- depending on the meet), come back to swim finals at night. Points will be awarded in finals based on the order of finish in the finals race.

Meet Entries for SMAC
The deadline for the entries for SMAC swimmers will have to be one week prior to the published meet entry deadline, so I can submit a check request to the county in time to have it for the Meet Director at the start of the meet.I'll choose the events for each swimmer.


QUESTIONS?? This is the time to ask, don't be bashful...

Thanks for coming by today, I'm looking forward to the meet!

EC
erikcollins19@gmail.com