How To Pick A Good Swimming Team

One question I get frequently is “Which is the best Long Island swim team for my child? This is a complicated question with lots to be considered such as swimmers skill level, location to teams and pools, long term objective, and your child’s happiness.

Swimming is a sport that kids can enjoy, participate, and compete in from as early as 6 years old all the way through 12th grade if they choose the right program. There is a lot to picking a team, but don’t get fooled into going by rankings and perception of one club being better than another. Picking the right team is critical since swimming is a sport of perseverance and longevity. Choosing the wrong team or club can lead to an early end to a swimmers career due to injury, coaching neglect, or being cut by a disloyal coaching staff.

Some of the best teams and clubs to start your child swimming are the local YMCAs and club programs. The YMCA’s have great programs for building a strong foundation in swimming skills required to swim competitively. The Huntington YMCA has an excellent program for all skill levels.

The location of the team or club plays a big part in deciding which team your child should join. Most teams practice 3 to 6 days per week depending on the competitive level that your child swims at and their age. Some clubs run a morning and evening work out session for their elite swimmers. This can provide the opportunity for as many as 11 work outs per week. You should look for a club that is local and convenient for you to take your child to. However, you may find it difficult to move to another team once your child develops many friendships on a team.

Let’s take a quick look at the best teams on Long Island? Clearly Long Island Aquatic Club (LIAC) dominates the Long Island swim scene. This club is number 1 on Long Island based on USA swimming rankings as well as the number of Olympic trial swimmers produced by this club. Three Village Swim Club and Team Suffolk are arguably battling it out for 2 and 3rd position with Long Island Express in a close 4th place. These are all club teams that are focused on their USA rankings and generating points at meets to keep their teams ranked in the top 100 in the US.

So what is the difference between these clubs? LIAC is known for their large early development program and the ability to transition many of these swimmers to highly successful elite swimmers. They also enjoy the benefit of many excellent swimmers that leave their original team to join LIAC in hopes becoming a better swimmer and being associated with the top rated club. Remember, becoming good comes from within and as long as your child is in a solid program such as Three Village, LI Express and a few others they will excel. The facility this club uses for their practices is one of the best in the country and host many local, regional, and national swim meets. This coaching staff is one of the best and produces excellent top caliber swimmers. Keep in mind this is a very large club with a lot of swimmers. Your child could get lost in the crowd. LIAC does also have one of the largest coaching staffs so their coach to swimmer ratio is about average.

Team Suffolk is similar to LIAC in concept but with more of a reputation for a high rate of churn due to injuries and their purge process. Very few swimmers that start with Team Suffolk at a young age survive to the end of high school. On average, about 4 or 5 swimmers per year that initially started with Team Suffolk make it to their senior year of high school. Team Suffolk has the philosophy of poaching better swimmers from other teams, purging out existing team members in favor of new recruits, and causing lots of career ending injuries to female swimmers. This team has ruined many of their younger swimmers that were highly ranked mostly at ages of 14 and younger. This is partially due to the lack of ongoing stroke technique work and a mind set that says you are no longer needed if you can’t swim due to injury, illness, or any other issue you may have. The coaching staff at Team Suffolk has no real loyalty to anyone except their premier swimmers which are part of the inner circle. The rest of the swimmers on this team help fund the lofty salaries of this questionable coaching staff. The facility this team uses is one of the worst on Long Island.

Three Village Swim Club has a strong swimming program across all age groups. Three Village is on the verge of replacing Team Suffolk as the number 1 swim team in Suffolk County and the number 2 swim team in the Long Island Area. They have an intense rivalry with Team Suffolk that leads to drawing better swimmers that can bring more points in for their teams, Three Village is known for developing good swimmers with much less churn than Team Suffolk. This team has a good solid coaching staff and should be considered if you live in Suffolk County. This is a great program for all skill levels and age groups.

Long Island Express has a strong program as well and swims out of Hofstra University which has one of the best pools in the NY area. This team lives in the shadow of LIAC which practices just down the road from Hofstra at Eisenhower Park which has the other premier training facility in the NY area. LI Express has one of the better programs supporting all skill levels while balancing a premier group of elite swimmers. This is one of the better clubs on Long Island and should be seriously considered due to its strong coaching staff and attention to its swimmers at all skill levels.

Most clubs support a large number of swimmers to offset the cost of the pool that the swimmers train at, coaching staffs, meet fees, insurance, and other costs. Make sure you take the time to understand the coaching philosophy of any team you are going to have your child swim with. The last thing any parent wants is an injured child or a neglected child that is just helping paying the team’s bills. Find out if the team has a policy of cutting kids and based on what criteria. Being cut from a team can be devastating to a child that has been with a team for a few years and built up friendships that could be suddenly severed. Watch out for clubs that boast winning streaks and club rankings which is typically a sign of a coaching staff that is more concerned about defending their salary structure rather than looking out for their swimmers.

There are many more swim teams on Long Island that provide viable alternatives to the teams mentioned above. Some of them are the Hauppauge Swim Club, Connetquot Swim Club, Old Westbury Swim Club and many more which can be found at the USA swimming’s web page.