Covington Swim Team
c/o Los Altos Masters
P.O. Box 809
Los Altos, CA 94203
CovingtonSwimTeam@hotmail.com
This page has general information about team: the swimmers, the coaches, the pools, and the parents.
Covington is a community team, open to any swimmers. There is no club membership required: anyone can join us. (Please do!) By league rules, swimmers who have USS "Q" times can't swim as many events as non-Q swimmers, to help maintain the flavor of summer swimming.
Covington Swim Team practices 5 days a week. We understand that children are often involved in several activities, and invite you to participate at your own level of commitment. Swimmers who attend more practices are more likely to progress faster…the more you come, the more you learn. We strongly recommend swimming at least three days per week during the summer.
Coaches place swimmers into appropriate practice groups, based on age and experience. Please respect the coaches' decisions about the best group for your child.
Group 1 is for swimmers who are not yet comfortable with all four competitive strokes. Time is spent on learning good stroke technique, race starts, and swimming rules with games interspersed. Group 1 swimmers also begin learning swimming terminology (what's a 100 IM?) and how to read the pace clock. Swimmers in Group 1 are typically 10 years of age and under.
Group 2 is for swimmers who are comfortable with the four strokes. Group 2 is usually appropriate for swimmers with previous summer-league swimming experience. Although much of the time is spent on re-enforcing good stroke technique, workouts are also focused on building swimming endurance. Swimmers also learn more about reading the pace clock, workout sets, and racing starts and turns. Swimmers in Group 2 are usually between 8 and 12 years old.
Group 3 is based on training harder, yet maintaining fun as its main emphasis. Group 3 swimmers swim all four strokes well and know how to read the pace clock and swim on timed intervals. Swimmers know how to do racing starts and turns and use them in their training sets. It is strongly suggested that swimmers attend at least three workouts per week. Swimmers in Group 3 usually are aged 9 & up.
The High School Group is for swimmers who are entering or are currently in high school. The group focuses on training harder and staying in shape for high school water polo and swimming. Swimmers should have prior swim team and/or water polo experience. It is strongly suggested that swimmers attend at least three workouts per week.
Covington's coaches are the heart of our program. The coaches teach swimming technique, but more importantly, they teach sportsmanship, team spirit, and what it feels like to be part of a community.
Aside from your swimmer and lots of enthusiasm, here is a list of recommended items to bring to the meets. This may vary depending on weather, but a general motto for meets is "more is better."
There's usually about 30 minutes of warm-up before each meet. It's a good idea to get there for warm-up so you can find out what you're swimming, meet other swimmers on your relay teams, and familiarize yourself with the pool. The coaches are usually pretty busy during warm-up, so it's best to find out ahead of time what sort of warm-up they want you to do.
The order of events in the summer league dual meets is always the same:
Medley Relays
Freestyle
Backstroke
Breaststroke
Butterfly
Freestyle Relays
There are six age groups - 6 and under, 7/8, 9/10, 11/12, 13/14 and 15 - 18, which are each separated by boys and girls. The youngest age groups swim first, boys first. So the first event is very young boys swimming Medley Relays, and the last is older girls swimming Freestyle Relays.
The easiest way to keep track of what's going on is to listen to the starter. He or she will always announce the event number for every race.
When there are more kids in a race than there are lanes in the pool, there are several heats. The first 6 kids are in the first heat; the second 6 kids are in the second heat, and so on.
At a meet, the coaches are there to coach…not to run the meet. Your assistance is essential since our ability to run an efficient swim meet depends upon a volunteer staff of parents. Therefore, we count on parents to volunteer at all swim meets.
Parent volunteer jobs include timers, recorders, runners, course clerks, pre-meet
shoppers, snack bar/concessions staffers, set-up & clean-up assistants,
ribbon writers, and helpers to assure the younger swimmers get to their events.
Parent volunteer jobs are easy to learn and do not require previous experience.
Most parents can be trained at the swim meet just before their volunteer shift.
Most of our jobs require a short-term commitment at the swim meets themselves, but we have other behind-the-scenes jobs available for those for whom volunteering at a meet is absolutely impossible. If you can't volunteer at a meet, let us know so that we can help you fulfill the volunteer requirement. If you have a special skill you think we can use…please let us know!
Please download a Volunteer Sign-Up Form and mail it in with your swim team registration form.
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Covington Swim Team |
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Last modified: March 10, 2006