Deck policies

There are different deck policies. There is an Open Deck policy which is great because it makes a team feel welcome to parents, but creates problems at times. A closed deck is definitely more conducive to a better learning environment for the swimmers, but it makes new parents uncomfortable. 

Over the years I have athletes and parents move to other states, and they have kept in touch with me. This has been educational for me as they tell me things are different. I have come to realize that there is no right way of doing things, but that a program must decide what their way of doing things is going to be.

The deck policy has been one of the bigger differences that I have noticed. I have always ran an Open Deck except when the Senior Group was in the water when I coached for my father. He had a closed deck policy for the senior group. I have heard of teams that have a closed deck policy to the point that parents didn't really talk to coaches. Everything was passed through the athlete or they could schedule an appointment to meet with the coach.

Why would a closed deck policy be better? I write this as I know most who read this are probably used to an Open Deck. Think about a classroom. What chaos would be created if every parent sat in the back of the class? It adds another distraction for the swimmer. New young parents think they should add instruction. What they actually end up do is distract the swimmer and the coach must regain the attention. Even when the parent goes back to sit, the swimmer is paying attention to the fact that the parent is still there. When a parent adds there two cents in the middle of a workout they also let the swimmer know that the coach doesn't need to be listened to since the parent will just tell them later. This really hurts the swimmers development in the group as they aren't getting the information that is necessary to advance in the group as they just refer to the parent.

I watched a parent the other day for a private lesson spend half the time yelling to the swimmer what they were doing wrong. That was a waste of money, as the teacher didn't teach a thing as he never got the attention of the swimmer because the parent wouldn't just step back and allow him to teach.

Closed Deck policies though do have problems. First being that new parents like the idea that they can be on deck. The second being that it can lower the amount of parent coach interaction depending on how the facility and policy is setup. A closed deck policy tends to have a "we're trying to hide something" feeling to some people. Even though we are not hiding anything, this does arise from what I have heard.

I like the Open Deck. You see as parents realize that there is no reason to be there, and they are more distraction than not. They tend to disappear without forcing them to with a closed deck. I see removing some situations from new swimmers and their parents with a closed deck because they haven't figured out that they are only hurting their swimmers development. I still like to see the parents improve, so I get more comfortable about how they are away from the pool with their young swimmer.

Reflecting on the article with Aaron Piersol's Mom

It is interesting to hear the point of view of a parent who has been through it. Watched their children develop and experience our crazy world of competitive swimming. The observation that the worst thing about Youth Sports being parents is a generalization. As a coach, you do see the parent who feels like they need to say something to the child, or the parent who thinks that they need to repeat what the coach says. You see the parents who video tape their kids and then analyze the race with them. You see the parents that get worked up over the awards because they need them to fill that section of awards at the home.

It is not all parents though. Some parents do just allow the kids to participate. Allow them to just race and enjoy that moment. It is not about time standards or awards. Obviously this is not every parent as Aaron's mother seems to have not been an over active parent. I remember hearing Kohlton Norys' mother talk about the same things, as she talked about being a swim parent to some TNT parents (Kohlton being one of the most successful TNT swimmers as a NCAA champion and a Team USA representative for the University Games).

I think back about my upbringing in swimming. My brother and I would make little places for our awards when we younger, but we eventually had to clean them up and put them away. By about 11 years old I really stopped collecting the ribbons. I got to the point that both my brother and I just threw them away before even leaving the pool deck. It was a little different for us though. Our summer league had an evening meet from 5:00pm - 10:00pm every Tuesday and Thursday night for 4 weeks straight. We participated since 6 and 7, so the ribbons just added up. Add the ribbons from the USA Swimming meets, and we learned very early on that ribbons were kind of silly.

My father was a senior coach, he was too busy with his own swimmers to really analyze anything of our swimming until we were in his senior group. He never told me or my brother much about swimming until we were in his group. We reported to who ever was our coach at the time (Mark, Dennis, Pokey, Bill, Heidi, Phil, and others that I can't seem to remember all their names).

My mother coached us from time to time when we were age-groupers, but was always more of spectator and fan of us. I think my mom was just happy that we wanted to swim. She'd bring my step dad to meets and laugh at him as he tried to really get into it. I think she spent more time trying to explain things to him than worry about how we swam. She saw us having a good time, and as a former swimmer, she understood the importance of that for us.

I can say that my swimming career belonged to me from the very beginning. In the end, it was hard to deal with it being over because it belonged to me so much. I remember deciding to not pursue college swimming because of my time at Junior College I had fallen in love with coaching. It was hard to make the phone calls to the college coaches who had been watching me since I was a senior in  high school to let them know that I was choosing to not pursue college swimming. The battle in my mind about the decision was hard, but I knew the decision was mine alone, as it had always belonged to me. I am thankful that I was able to own my swimming, as I think I learned more from it, and I really grew to love it. Where I saw many others who swam against me grow to resent swimming because it wasn't theirs, but their parents. I didn't understand it at the time; I didn't get how somebody could grow to hate a sport before they even get out of high school, but now as I have coached club swimming for almost 12 years now I can see how it can happen.

Parent article: Aaron Piersol's Mom

http://www.momsteam.com/blog/may-sports-moms-month/wella-peirsol-hartig-being-mom-2-olympic-athletes-says-no-pressure-on-kids-to-succeed

Above is a URL of an interview of Aaron Piersol's mother. She talks about what she took from being a swim parent, and her thoughts of being a swim parent.

You'll need to copy and paste the address, as I had difficulty with adding the link with the Blogger iPhone app.

Insanity

3rd straight afternoon workout cancelled due to poop in the pool. Still had the 2 morning workouts in the last 5 days. We did a dryland workout. It was supposed to be a sprint workout so we focused on fast hip rotations with ab work.

At the end I had a talk about first dreaming and challenging the impossible. I added some talking about training. I used Einstein's definition of insanity, "To continue to do the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result."

Tied it in to training. If a swimmer continues to swim on the same interval, and swimming the same speed at workout, but expects faster times as a result, would be insane. As a swimmer gets faster they should be able to train faster. 

Tie it all together. How many times does a senior swimmer hear a set and decide that they can't do that, or doesn't want to do that. They are content with their current training with no big challenges and then expects to swim fast. Believe that you can accomplish which once was deemed impossible. Face that challenge with vigor and determination. Go outside your norm and do something amazing at workout, and then you can expect a different and better result.