Nazareth/Easton YMCA Swim Team

Dual Meets - Mandatory Attendance Declaration ***

PLEASE declare swimmer attendance as soon as you can for dual meets; it takes 6-7 hours to create the line-up and it's a delicate balance, so I start the week before.

• • Click on Meet Entry (green button in the schedule next to the listed meet)
  • Click Edit (located at the bottom of the page under swimmer's name)
  • Choose "Attending" or "Not Attending" (change from "undeclared")
  • *** Leave a NOTE if arriving late, leaving early, or requesting an event(team needs at dual meets come 1st, but on occasion a request will be considered).
  • **** See "MEET EXPECTATIONS" below since everyone is REQUIRED to stay until the end of the meet AND stay in uniform.
  • Coaches make the line-up and choose all events for all swimmers.
  • Sign-up for a job to meet family "volunteer" obligations. Meets cannot and will not run without positions being filled.
  • I know…, swim meets are long; they last about 4.5 hours, and EVERYONE must stay until the end***. However, think of the swimmer who sat there all meet long, cheering her heart out, only to see her team leave when it’s her turn, swim in a quiet pool, finish, and no one is there to cheer for her. It’s a really cruddy thing to do.
  • Also, think of it as a family day trip with cheering, competing, and a stop for dinner on the way home. :)
  • We leave only after we do our last cheer for the other team, thank the officials, shake hands, and all swimmers pick up at least one thing to help clean up.
  • For us, it’s a matter of sportsmanship, team spirit, and leadership.
  • Everyone must keep their racing suit on until the end of the meet. Often times we may call for swimmers to be in another race; or they forget, or they didn’t realize they had another event. Either way, they need to stay in uniform. Like any other sport when you’re sitting the bench.., no one would ever tell a football, basketball, or soccer coach, “Hey coach, since you’re not going to play me the last part of the game, I’m going to get changed. See you later.” If swimmers are leaving early or changing early without prior approval, it’s disrespectful to their teammates, the coach, and the other team***.
  • On occasion you will see other teams mostly leave, not cheer, and not shake hands. So while we’re proudly still 100+ strong, they’re down to less than a dozen. It’s at those moments when we know who the real best team is, no matter the score.
• *** IF your family must leave early for another obligation, it’s completely understandable and we’d rather you make some of the meet than none of it. However, PLEASE leave a NOTE when you sign up in the notes section, and/or email me ahead of time. A swimmer coming up to me the day of the meet, is NOT a good time, and often results in other swimmers losing opportunities to swim.
• Swim caps do not really keep hair dry or non-chlorinated. They only keep long hair in-tight to reduce drag and not get in one’s mouth and eyes. Some kids with short hair like them anyway because to them it “feels” faster, but for others with short hair it feels slower. Unless a swimmer has hair length that will get in the way, they are not necessary. BUT everyone if free to wear one if they like. :)

Common Concerns at dual meets: (parent survival guide link) -job descriptions included.

• Everyone who signed up for a meet on Swimtopia will swim in that meet.
• Each swimmer is in a minimum of two events. The league maximum is 3 official events allowed per meet, per swimmer.
• All swimmers MUST sit together on deck.
• Exhibition events (“X” on the lineup) count as races, times are official, but they do not score points.
• Ages 10/Under are lined up to swim by the marshallers.
• Ages 11/Above need to look at the line-up posted on the wall each meet.
• If a swimmer visits a parent or goes to the bathroom, they should bring a swim buddy, and tell someone they are sitting near.
• Kids may bring cards, books, and electronic devices to keep themselves busy during the meet, and in-between cheering.
• The line-up always changes, and is never set until the morning of the meet; and even then it may change during the meet. The entries you see on Swimtopia during the week are NOT set in stone and sometimes are just placeholders as we balance 130 swimmers in 86 races with 300+ entries.
• I send out the line-up via email the morning of the meet. Unless you CANNOT make it because of an emergency, please do not call, text, or email asking for the line-up. If you missed the email, the marshallers will have them, and copies posted on the wall at the meet.

Dual Meet “Volunteer” Obligations

• It’s not really volunteering but mandatory. Swim meets do not run without 20+ workers per meet.
• Each family is required to work in a minimum of two dual meets.
• There are around 160 open positions for all dual meets, and we have 78 families so far, so two per family works mathematically to as close as we can get it, hence the requirement.
• However, things don’t always work out mathematically, nor logically in life..., which definitely includes swim meets, so there WILL be times when we need people to step up and work again. Please be open to that when we call for more “volunteers”.
• End of Season Meets - If your child attends, you should be volunteering; it’s separate from our team dual meet requirements, because they are PennDel league and PA YMCA requirements for each team to provide a certain number of “volunteers”.

Invitationals - Not Mandatory, but we highly encourage them :)

• If you’re a YMCA/USA swimmer, sign up for any Invitational.
• If exclusively a YMCA swimmer, do NOT sign up for “USA Only” meets.
• For info on USA swimming go to https://neys.swimtopia.com/usa-registration-info, and email Coach Carlton at [email protected].

We encourage swimmers to attend at least one invitational and to choose events you may not have gotten the opportunity to swim in dual meets as much as you wanted.

Looking to leave early disrespects our team, the other team, and the coaches. Basically, it says that what ever that swimmer has to do, is more important than everyone else still competing. Sometimes that is the case, and a parent needs to leave by a certain time to get to work, or to get to an important function they committed to as a family. In that case, we'd rather have you for a little bit than not at all; I understand that swim meets can be very long. We will accommodate a family's schedule, but you need to declare that ahead of time so we can plan for it. Asking to leave the day of the meet NEVER is a good time.