A great and useful (seriously) debate came up recently in my masters team. Should coaches attend meets that team members go to? Sounds like an easy question, but it led to a good amount of time being spent in debate.
Masters swimmers attend meets throughout the year, whether it's short-course indoor meets or long-course outdoor meets during the summer. But not too many of my team's members take part in meets. And according to the USMS, only about 25 percent of the national membership ever compete in a pool meet or open water competition. I'd say in my club of over 200 members, that percentage is even lower.
So, should a club coach attend a meet that one of our members is participating in? Shouldn't the coach want to attend, to support his/her swimmer? Sound like easy questions, but there are other components to the debate.
The club certainly can't expect the coach to go pro bono. One of our members was a USS coach (and an incredible marathon swimmer) and would get a flat $50 to coach a meet. Sounds reasonable, especially since some of the meets are more than an hour away from our "hometown."
But do we send a coach to every meet that one of our swimmers will swim in? There are many meets throughout the season. Just in the past few months there seemed to be one every weekend. Do we send a coach even if only one of our swimmers is there? The coach fees begin to build up. Is it fair that the other ~180+ members pay a larger membership charge to cover coaching for the 20 or so swimmers who swim meets during the year?
Several points were raised both for and against:
-Membership fees pay for the annual picnic which a minority of club members attend;
-The amount of increase in membership fees would be minimal, maybe a dollar or two each;
-How about designating 4 meets during the year that coaches will attend and support club members?
-Swimmers going to an event pool their money together to pay for the coach, either fully or partially.
I don't know where I stand on this issue. I think maybe we can set a limit, like 5 swimmers. If we have more than 5 swimmers attend a meet, a coach will go. But that brings up so many other issues. Some swimmers don't even tell anyone that they're attending a meet! What if we hit the number of swimmers, but then the morning of the meet one or more don't show up. Does the coach still get paid. Is that fair to the rest of the membership?
Maybe a combination. Designate 4 meets that our coaches will support. Any meets above and beyond that, the swimmers can get together and request a coach. If there is only 1 swimmer going, he has to pay the coach's fee. 2-5 going, they pay 50% of the coach's fee, the club pays the remainder. More than 5 club members, the club pays in full.
Questions that yet remain: What if we have a contingent of Alexandria Masters swimmers at an open water event? I think in years past, we've had a large number (15+) of swimmers attend both the Jim McDonnell Lake Swim and the Chris Greene Lake Cable Swims. Do we demand a coach? (What would a coach do, without a boat or binoculars? Or a helicopter.) What if a member is willing to pay the $50 coach fee for an open water swim of some distance, say 10 miles? Is the coach then required to attend as escort?