Should Your Child be Swimming in the Summer League?
April 10, 2007
Should Your Child be Swimming in the Summer League? WILLIAM J PRICE Saluki Head Coach While a graduate student back in the 80s I was also chief baby-sitter for my niece and became quite familiar with the various songs and bits on Sesame Street. One of my favorites was a song called Put down the ducky. The catch line was "You’ve got to put down the ducky if you want to play the saxophone." The message: Growing up means moving on. To an athlete in our sport this means accepting new challenges, perfecting skills, training more intensely, and participating in meaningful competitions.
Summer league is a great learning situation that, initially, has gotten almost every one of our year-round swimmers interested in the sport. Some swimmers though never wean themselves from the summer league experience. Instead of moving on to a new challenge some never see summer league as a developmental step and find themselves involved year after year.
At some point a swimmer has to realize that making time to participate in summer league activity is detrimental to long-term development. "Talking the talk" is easy. But for continued improvement the swimmer has to "walk the walk." The work will...
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