Hammerheads Parents Handbook
2008
Welcome to the Hunting Hills Hammerheads!
The Hammerheads swim in Division V of the Central Maryland Swim League
(CMSL), along with 5 other teams. If this is your first time participating in a competitive summer swim league, then there
is a lot to learn and it is highly recommended that you become familiar with this handbook as well as the coaching staff and
other parents.
Mission Statement:
Our philosophy
at the Hammerheads is to encourage a love of swimming and competition while maintaining a fun and social atmosphere. We strive
to foster the emotional and physical growth of all swimmers, at every age and level of ability while adding to the spirit
of the community.
Eligibility:
Because we
are part of such a large organization as CMSL and because our team, as well as many others in our division, has such a significant
roster in terms of number of swimmers, we do have to place some boundaries on participation.
The Hammerheads
welcome anyone who is capable of swimming one full length of the pool on their own, without touching the bottom of the pool,
or holding the wall or lane line. If a swimmer is unable to swim one entire length of the pool, without stopping, then the
parent of that child should consider enrolling him or her in swimming lessons and wait until next season for swim team. Most
young swimmers will see significant improvement in their swimming skills by being part of the team and attending regular practices,
however, a child who has not yet learned the basics of swimming skills will be much better served by gaining confidence in
the water through swimming lessons.
CMSL rules
state that only children of dues-paying full family members of summer community pools shall be eligible to swim in CMSL competition.
Registration:
Registration for
the Hammerheads swim team will begin the first week of May and may be completed by printing off a copy of the registration
form from the team website www.hhhammerheads.com . Instructions for where to send the completed registration are on the form.
Poolside
registration will begin the Tuesday after Memorial Day from 6 – 7:30 pm. We will be available every evening, Tuesday through
Friday that week and again, Tuesday through Friday the following week. Registration will close after 2 weeks. We must have
all of our materials submitted to CMSL for their records before the first meet; late registrations will NOT be accepted.
Important
Note: Included in your general registration fee is a fee we submit to AAU on your child’s behalf. Each child must have
a parent’s signature on the AAU form. If you choose to register through the mail, you will still be required to come down to
the pool area during one of the designated registration times to sign this form.
Practice:
Practices
are held daily beginning the Tuesday after Memorial Day. The eligibility of a swimmer to compete in an age group is determined
by that child’s age on May 30th of the current season.
After our
Purple and White Meet, also known as Time Trials, the coaches will select a certain group of senior swimmers for 7 – 8 am practice.
The practice schedule is posted on the practice page.
It is very
important that children attend the appropriate practice for their age group. The Coaching Staff works with each age group
to not only build swimming skills but to also guide the swimmers for their age appropriate events. If the parent does not
follow the guidelines set by the Coaching Staff, then that parent is undermining their child’s abilities to perform
their best at the meets on both an individual and team basis.
Parent Responsibilities:
Unlike most
other sports, swimming requires a great deal of participation from the parents. It would be unrealistic to assume that a summer
swim meet could take place without the help of dedicated parents. At registration and at the designated Parent’s Meeting,
parents will be asked to volunteer to help in various capacities.
We need people
to help with:
- Friday Night Pep Rallies and Social Activities
- Scorer’s Table (tracks meet score, writes ribbons, data entry,etc.)
- Clerk of Course (lines up swimmers for their events)
- Stroke and Turn Judges
- Meet Clean Up
- Fundraising
Whether you
are new to competitive swimming or have years of experience, please know that at Hunting Hills we want to make this summer
experience good for all who participate, and we will do our best to help everyone find the job that best suits them. There
is always an experienced parent that is willing to help the new families! Just let us know! We want your help!!
Parents are
also expected to keep the coaching staff informed of any meets their child will not be able to attend. They can do this by
leaving a message in the Coach’s folder in the deck box, or filling out their information on the weekly Sign Out Sheet,
posted on the wall outside the Snack Bar. It is critical that parents let the Coaching Staff know as soon as possible of any
missed meets, it creates a lot of extra work for the coaches as well as other parent volunteers when this is not honored.
Swimmer
Responsibilities:
- Remind parents to keep the coaches informed if you will not be able to attend a meet
- Conduct yourself with respectful behavior toward your coaches, teammates and parents
- Participate in practices for your age group
- At meets, be respectful of meet officials, workers, parents coaches and the other
team
- Wear your team suit to meets and show proper support of your fellow teammates
Pep Rallies:
At Hunting
Hills we pride ourselves on not only having a great team, but on the fun we provide for our families. Summer swim team covers
an intense few weeks, and we want to make the most out of it for everyone. Every Friday night, beginning the night before
the Purple and White Meet, we have a Pep Rally. Each week we have a different theme with different activities for the kids
to enjoy. We need the help of many parents to make this happen, but the camaraderie these Friday night events instill in our
swimmers is what distinguishes us from the rest.
Gear:
We choose
a new team suit every two years. Cy’s Swimwear of Catonsville will usually come to the pool one evening during the first
two weeks of practice to fit swimmers and sell the team suit. If for some reason you are unable to make that practice, or they don’t have your child’s
size on hand, you can go to Cy’s, which is located on Frederick Road
in Catonsville and purchase the suit there. Most swimmers wear goggles of their choice and those with longer hair usually
wear a swim cap. The team suit is a competitive style, racing for girls and jammers for boys.
Communications:
Every family that
registers a swimmer with the Hammerheads will have a folder with their name on it in the Swim Team Box. The Box is left either
in the Pool office or on deck during practice times, please check it on a regular basis. The team also has a website that
is updated regularly. Information regarding meet locations, times, practice schedules and social activities will be posted
to the website, www.hhhammerheads.com . We also communicate by email. This is probably our most effective method of communication,
so please include an email address on your registration form and remember to check your emails regularly during the season.
Communication is a very important part of running a smooth swim team.
The cure for parents'
Swim Team Syndrome
By Rob Kasper
YOU KNOW you have Swim Team Parent Syndrome when you show up at
a pool filled with screaming kids, and none of them is yours. That happened to me a few Saturdays back. Our kids were in Kansas,
yet I found myself in Baltimore running index cards from one end of the pool to
the other as the team that my boys belong to swam against a visiting team. I showed up out of habit, like one of those horses
that used to pull milk wagons and routinely stopped at houses on their route. It was a Saturday morning in July, and I knew
I was supposed be at a swim meet.
The summer swim meet is an event that chews up Saturdays. This afternoon
great whoops of delight will be heard throughout the metropolitan area as the swim team season winds to a close. The cheers
will come both from kids delighted at their performances and from parents delighted that the six-week-long commitment is over.
The concept of swim teams is simple. Kids 6 to 18 years old join teams,
usually at their neighborhood pools. They learn to swim and compete against swimmers from similar-size teams. The commitment
from parents, however, is anything but simple, either logistically or emotionally. There are stopwatches to be held, and times
to be recorded, points to be added up, lists to be checked, ribbons to be awarded, doughnuts to be sold, kids to be herded.
Some of the meets are at distant, well-camouflaged pools. So that means there are plenty of opportunities to get lost and
fight with your spouse.
After experiencing almost 10 years of Swim Team Parenthood, I have noticed
changes in my behavior. I have noticed little things, such as how I tend to measure a couple's moral worth by whether or not
their kids participate in the swim team. Participation is a moral plus, particularly when talking about 9- or 10-year-old
boys. Our team needs every one of those we can get our hands on. And I have noticed other things, like our family's habit
of plotting our social life around the schedule of the swim team. I won't say this has made me a twisted adult who views life
through the narrow perspective of what happened at this week's swim meet. But as a public service, I feel compelled to pass
along seven warning signs of Swim Team Parent Syndrome. Perhaps the folks baking at pool-side today, or their loved ones,
will recognize some of the symptoms and get help.
1. You fret on Friday nights. The kids have been fed their pasta (complex
carbohydrates make better swimmers) and sent to bed early to get rested for the big meet. You, however, can't get to sleep.
You toss and turn, plotting strategies for their races.
2. You buy your own stopwatch. You don't trust the equipment, the reflexes
and the easygoing attitude of the three adults assigned to time your kid. Besides, suppose your kid breaks a world record;
you'll want to feel you did your part.
3. You possess more suits than strokes. You spend so much time at the
pool watching your kids swim that you feel you must buy a new swim suit or two every year. However, you don't feel any need
to expand your repertoire of strokes beyond the dog paddle.
4. You don't trust the directions sent by the opposing team on how to
locate their pool. You check their directions with your own detailed maps. You fight the tendency to believe you have been
to this pool before. You might have been there, or you might be confusing it with another pool on another street named after
another flower or another flowering tree. There is also a chance the synapses in your brain have misfired, and while you think
you are driving to a distant swimming pool, you are really taking the route you took several summers ago to get to a distant
baseball field.
5. You value width over depth. The more lanes a pool can accommodate,
the more swimmers you can funnel into heats, the faster the swim meets move along. When you walk in a pool and see only four
lanes, you grimace. A six-laner means you could be finished by early afternoon. Encounters with eight-laners have been known
to send you into ecstasy at the prospect of a meet ending early and your getting a few free hours.
6. You want your meet judge to behave like the flight director of an
aircraft carrier. The judge is the boss of the swim meet. He starts each heat and controls how quickly the meet moves along.
Parents want judges who combine heats, sending waves of swimmers off the blocks like jets taking off from an aircraft carrier.
Each wave is full. Each wave is orderly. Each wave moves along.
7. You, who can't attempt a flip turn without filling your lungs with
water, start giving your kids advice on how to improve their turns. Be thankful that kids usually pay little heed to parental
advice. The tribal nature of swim teams, with older kids helping younger ones, takes care of most problems created by the
Swim Team Parent Syndrome.
As for what kids want from swim team parents, it seems to work this way.
When swimmers are young, they want parents to hold their goggles. When they get older they want parents to drive them to pizza
joints after the meets. And at all ages they want parents to provide them with plenty of small bills to finance visits to
the concession stands.
Originially Published on 7/27/96
[Back to Suburban]
“Ten Commandments for Swim Team Parents”
By Rose Snyder
(Adapted from Ed Clendaniel’s “Ten
Commandments for Little League Parents’)
1. Thou shalt not impose your ambition on thy child.
Remember that swimming is the
child’s activity. Improvements
and progress occur at different rates for each individual.
Don’t judge your child’s progress based on the performance of
other swimmers or based
on what you think should
be achieved. The best thing about swimming is that everyone
can strive to be his or her
personal best, regardless of age or ability.
2. Thou shalt be supportive no matter what. There
is only one question to ask your child:
“Did you have fun?” If meets and practices are not fun, your
child should not be forced to
participate.
3. Thou shalt not coach your child. You have taken
your child to a professional coach. Do
not undermine that coach
by trying to instruct your child on the side. Your job is to
support, love and hug your
child no matter what. The coach is responsible for the
technical part of the job.
You should not offer advice on technique or race strategy. That
is not your area. This will
only serve to confuse your child and prevent that
swimmer/coach bond from forming.
4. Thou shalt only have positive things to say
at a swimming meet. If you are going to
show up at a meet, you should
cheer and applaud, but never criticize your child or the
coach.
5. Thou shalt acknowledge thy child’s fears.
A first meet, or first 1650-yard freestyle, can
be a stressful situation.
It is totally understandable for your child to have apprehension.
Don’t yell or belittle; just assure the child that the coach would
not have suggested an
event or situation if the
child was not ready.
6. Thou shalt not criticize the officials or other
volunteers. If you do not have the time or
desire to volunteer, don’t
criticize those who are doing the best they can.
7. Honor thy child’s coach. The bond between coach and swimmer is special,
contributing to your child’s
success as well as enjoyment. Do not criticize the coach in
your child’s presence.
It will only serve to hurt the child, in and out of the water.
8. Thou shalt not jump from team to team. The water
is not necessarily bluer at the other
team’s pool. Every
team has its own internal problems, even championship-winning
teams. Better to teach children
loyalty and responsibility in helping to solve problems
than run from them.
9. Thy child shalt have goals besides winning.
Giving an honest effort, regardless of
outcome, is more important
than winning. One Olympian said, “My goal was to set a
world record. Well, I did
that, but someone else did it too, just a little faster. I achieved
my goal and I lost. This
does not make me a failure. In fact, I am very proud of that
swim.”
10. Thou shalt not expect thy child to become an
Olympian. Of the over 200,000
registered swimmers, only
52 make the Olympic Team every four years. Be realistic in
goal setting, but nurture
the child’s dreams as well.
