For tomorrow’s meet, are we doing the thing again where we drop-off our kids and park on the street?

Yes, please. We want to be good hosts and save as much of our parking lot for our guests from Wildwood Manor as we can. When parking on the streets, please note that some of the smaller streets (Watergate Rd and Centergate Dr come to mind) can only accommodate parking on one side of the street. There’s always the Elementary School…

On Wednesdays, why do we sit/stand around and wait forever to try to start the meet when it feels like a lost cause?

It certainly does seem like it rains (or worse) every Wednesday during the Summer!?! I suppose the simplest answer to the ‘waiting around’ part of the question is that our options regarding re-scheduling Wednesday meets are extremely limited (in fact, non-existent).

Ultimately, the swim team is just a tenant of the swim club. The swim club is very generous in letting us block off hours upon hours for practices; when needed, it opens late on Saturday (and one Sunday) mornings and closes early on Wednesday afternoons/evenings for meets; and, next Saturday, it will close down entirely so that the swim team has exclusive use of the pool for our Banquet. We submit our list of dates in the Spring and the swim club accommodates us 100%. At a certain point, the other tenants of the swim club are entitled to use the pool too.

I could go on and on about conflicts with the Coaches’ schedules on non-Wednesday afternoons/evenings, about how most parents would not be able to be at a weekday morning meet, and about the fact that we face a ‘hard stop’ after the day of Divisionals and Banquet. For all intents and purposes, it is Wednesday-or-bust for our ‘B’ Meets.

My point is not to solicit suggestions (if you are thinking it, the Coaches have long since considered it). And my point is definitely not to ‘gaslight’ you into thinking that this is an entirely satisfying situation. Instead, I would just encourage you to root for good weather for this coming Wednesday at our Blue vs. White Meet. Do whatever rain dance you can (or perhaps the opposite of a rain dance?). Bring your patience and be prepared to wait out a little weather as we really want to give the swimmers an opportunity to show off their skills.

I probably should have asked this at the beginning of the season, but why are you always asking for volunteers? Didn’t I pay for my swimmer(s) to be on this team??

In my mind, the best way to think of this is to draw the distinction between summer swim and other youth sports/activities. If you have kids that play Little League or youth soccer (or dance or…), you pay at the beginning of the season, you drop your kids off at practice where there’s a coach (who may or may not be a parent), and you show up at games where there is a paid umpire or referee (who is very likely not a parent). As a parent, your role is to support your player/dancer/whatever during the game/performance and be ready with snacks after the event.

And then there’s summer swim. The Coaches have their hands full with 60 to 160 swimmers, depending upon the meet. Once there are swimmers in the water, they do not have the bandwidth to also manage the logistics of the meets.

There are no paid officials. There is probably another youth sport out there somewhere that can say the same, but I know none of my kids were involved. And then there’s the need for someone to do the timing, for someone to enter the times into the computer, and for someone to take printed labels and affix them to ribbons. Oh yeah, and the kids (and parents) still want snacks/concessions after their events.

Here's the good news, when your kids get to high school swim, everything changes. Wait, what? You’re saying that it doesn’t change? That’s exactly what I am saying. High school swim is essentially the same as summer swim. Parents fill all of the volunteer roles. I know for sure that swim (& dive) is unique among high school sports in this respect. And to make things a little more challenging, many of the kids drive themselves to the meets in high school, which means parents may not even be present, but now I am venting…