Building A Masters Swim Club

[Ahelee Sue Osborn]

I can't say I know John Bitter as a coach, but USMS and World Champion Masters Swimmer Laura Val trains with the Santa Clara Masters and it is one of those quietly thriving masters clubs.

A former swimmer of Coach Bitter's forwarded this article to me. Although it appears to be a talk to USA Swim Clubs or coaches, it has some good thoughts for masters coaches trying to add or build their own masters swim club.
Thanks Coach John - and Caroline!

http://www.santaclaraswimclub.org/masters/bitter.htm

The Marriage of a Successful Masters Program with a Swim Team
by John Bitter, head coach of the Santa Clara Swim Club

The sport of fitness swimming or adult masters swimming in this country has experienced tremendous growth over the last ten years. Today there are over 38,000 registered adult masters' swimmers (numbers from USMS information 2001) training, competing, and enjoying the benefits that the sport of swimming has to offer.

In certain parts of the country the registered masters’ swimmers far outnumber those registered for United States Swimming. Clubs in Texas, and across California are reaping financial profits that were unheard of in previous years.

So why would a club not seek out this opportunity to add a masters program to their already existing curriculum?
The answers to this question are often more complex than they appear. In this article, I will explore several of these answers and also give some advice on how our team, the Santa Clara Swim Club, has managed to make both programs successfully co-exist.

In discussing issues of coaching with other coaches, it has become an age-old adage that the worst problem we face daily is the swim team parent. After all, the most cherished thing is this world is a child, therefore parents often act out of character when it comes to their children’s needs and wants. So taking that adage a step further, if the worse thing is dealing with parents and their dreams for their children, now imagine dealing with parents themselves who are swimming and creating their own dreams. Just as a parent can be selfish when it comes to their child, now they get to be even more selfish when it comes to them.

A daunting fear that many coaches see is how to handle the adult swimmer, when it comes time to talk about whether to run a masters program or not.
Often when I go to camps, clinics, or meets and the subject of masters’ swimming comes up, I can see the cringe in the eyes of many of my fellow coaches. But when I tell them about how much the program at Santa Clara brings in each year and how the potential for even more growth exists, their eyes widen and the questions come forth.

Through a successful Master's program, there is a tremendous opportunity for financial success that can benefit the swim club. Learning to coach the "grown up" is a small price to pay for the opportunity of financial success. I have mentioned those words twice, financial success, but to say that this concept is the only reason to develop a Masters program would be to diminish what can truly be a special part of your overall curriculum.

When I came to Santa Clara Swim Club in 1995, we offered an age group program, a senior program, and a small, but regularly attended masters’ program. My first year at the club, the head coach Dick Jochums added a learn-to swim program to the mix. We now had a swim program that covered from toddler to adult, but the strategy about how to market it and make the entire team a success was the next step in our development as a club.

Santa Clara had its name, but in master’s swimming a name is not always the reason to swim at a particular place. Master’s swimmers want a program where they feel wanted. They will go to a pool where they feel they can get a good workout (usually one with variety), a place were the coach to swimmer familiarity is high, where there is a set workout schedule, and finally, where there are some social aspects to the pool and lane structure.
In the first two years at Santa Clara, our program was one that could best be described as disjointed and sparsely populated.
To be exact, many of those early regulars bemoan to me that they wish the old days were here, without the crowded lanes, even though they understand the need to grow.
We had no regular coach, the program had no real structure, and the swimmers who were there came to swim because of the convenience the pool had to their work or homes.

Something had to change, for the program had the potential to be something the club would be proud of and would benefit the adult swimming community.

In November 1998, I took over the program from top to bottom and I began coaching all of the workouts on a regular basis.
At Santa Clara we run workouts Monday through Friday from 6 to 8 am and from 6 to 7:30 p.m. On Saturdays the workout is from 9:30 to 11 am and on Sundays from 9 to 10:30 am.
For the last three years I have been running almost all of those workouts, with the goal of creating a familiarity in the program and to advance it to where it was standing on its own two feet financially.
Of course, this is a difficult task to ask of any staff member and familiarity or consistency can be achieved through less extreme measures.

Last year we were able to achieve financial independence, as the program paid for my salary, plus pool rent, and was still left with money in a reserve account.
This year we are already over budget by 125%.
In the year 1998-1999 the program had a membership under 135 and brought around $40,000 into the team.
The following year 1999-2000 the program grew in numbers to 240 registered swimmers and the program exceeded budget by a little over $30,000.
This year the club has continued its growth and registered masters' swimmers is approaching 300.
The eventual goal of the program is 400 registered masters' swimmers.

The financial profit generated at that point will create the ability to sponsor relay teams at different competitions that are offered to adult swimmers.
Putting our club in such a position is another way to support our adult athletes, while also creating a lasting bond between the adult swimmer and the club.

So what do you do to make this happen?

One of the first ways to develop a successful masters programs to give it structure, but with flexibility.
By that I mean set up a working schedule for workouts, but add some flexibility in how members can pay.
At Santa Clara we have created daily, monthly, half-yearly, and yearly payment options. Also, through agreements with many of the local triathlete clubs, special discounts have been honored. Discounts for city residents, students, and former swimmers and parents of the club have been established.

Each of these plans has been established as a way to attract the adult to try the program.

Flexibility also means making sure you create the workout for the group in the water, not just run a generic workout to see how many laps they can do in one hour. Adults understand what is going on; they want a practice that not only gives them a great workout, but one that also has some variety and purpose to it.

Don’t just assume and don’t just send them back and forth. Listen, create, and provide multiple workouts within the pool if you need to.
There is nothing worse than having a pool full of swimmers creating their own workouts because your workout shows no concern for them.

A master's workout should not be an open lap swim. Have a few lap lanes available, but make the workout lanes the place to be.

Also, I make myself available for clinics and for one-on-ones, something that gives me more contact to the swimmers and their needs.

Finally, don’t ever pass up an opportunity to speak when asked. Getting yourself out there as often as you can helps with the marketing of the program and more than likely it will also help some adult feel more comfortable about coming to their first Master's workout.

Make everyone feel welcomed and find a lane for even the slowest beginner to swim and perform a workout you have given.

Something else that I feel is important is participation in a few of the events your swimmers do. This year, and in 1999, I did Masters Nationals with my team, I have also done a few open water swims, and I have participated in triathlon relays. I am in no shape to do a triathlon, but doing the swim alone and cheering on the many triathletes who swim at your pool, helps give you a small perspective of what your adult athletes are going through.
It is this listening, watching them compete, and congratulating them for their efforts that you can create that partnership that leads to loyalty to your club's Master's program.
This is another way to keep your program a step ahead of the others and a success for years to come.

A masters' swim program is an excellent way to create revenue for the club, create more recognition for the club, and a way to give your club a true place in the complete development of a swimmer from infancy to old age.

The positives outweigh the negatives if you take the time to create a program and put the time into it to bring it to a level in which everyone who may participate feels good about what they experienced.
Remember that you only will see many of these people twice a week for a grand total of 3 hours, what you do and how you do it will leave a lasting impression for the future.

The best marketing for a master's program will always word of mouth from those who are swimming in it. People talk at work about their exercise or fitness programs and where they do it. Make your club the name that they mention and enjoy what a successfully run masters' program can do for your club.

[Ahelee Sue Osborn]

And 2 other good interviews posted recently discussing the rebuilding of Curl Burke Masters:

http://www.usms.org/articles/articledisplay.php?a=226

by Frank Marcinkowski and Ashley Gangloff


Curl-Burke is a big Masters program that has seen a lot of growth. With multiple sites and nearly 500 swimmers, Curl-Burke and head coach Frank Marcinkowski know the importance of a good coaching staff. Below Frank provides some insight into growth, coordinating an appropriate coaching staff and finding new coaches to be a part of the team.

USMS: When did you realize that Curl-Burke was growing and that the program was too big for just one coach?
Marcinkowski: A bigger driver than the number of swimmers in the pool is the average ability of the swimmers and the differences in ability between them. For an eight-lane workout, we generally have at least six different levels, in terms of intervals or distances, present. To observe stroke and individual performance and to provide meaningful feedback to swimmers during workout, we have found that a good coach to swimmer ration is 25 to 1. I believe two coaches can comfortably handle 40-50 swimmers of different abilities in one workout. When teaching stroke technique vs. a purely hard training workout, we have found that a swimmer to coach ratio of seven to one is ideal and 12 to one is a max.
Curl-Burke Masters has five locations each with a designated site head coach. Each location also enlists two assistant coaches.

USMS: What is the first step in finding an assistant coach? Where do you look? How do you advertise the position?
Marcinkowski: Our first step in finding assistant coaches is to recruit from within. Most of our assistant coaches have come up through our own swimming ranks. 100 percent of our coaches also have other jobs, none are full time coaches. Be careful about hiring coaches who may be burnt out, tired or lifeless because of their other jobs, coaching or otherwise. We are lucky to have a close relationship with American University, a local college, and its coach and swimmers. This relationship has provided us with several great coaches over the years.

USMS: What makes a qualified assistant coach?
Marcinkowski: Interest, dedication and reliability; a good working knowledge of all four strokes; and a comprehensive understanding of streamlining, balance, starts and turns, as well as the ability to communicate and organize.

USMS: What makes a GREAT assistant coach?
Marcinkowski: Leadership, unfailing dedication, reliability, commitment, and the ability to coach swimmers at every level. And passion for swimming.
Often Masters programs have little or no money to offer an assistant coach (some may not even have a budget for a head coach). This problem often prevents programs from recruiting new coaches.

USMS: What if a program doesn’t have a lot of money to pay an assistant?
Marcinkowski: Money should not be the primary motivator for a Masters coach. In fact, the volunteer coaches or those whose salaries, at best, pay gas, are often the best Masters coaches. If a team does not have much or any money to pay a coach or assistant coaches, it needs to find the passionate, dedicated and knowledgeable individuals willing to coach for free (or cheap) for the period of time it will take to build a team and create some revenue. Provide a half decent facility and a great coach and the Masters swimmers will come … and pay to come.
Teaching and mentoring a new or assistant coach can seem like a daunting task. Ensuring a good coach becomes a great coach, it is vital to mentor him or her.

USMS: How can a head coach mentor an assistant or new coach? Do you write the workouts for him or her to implement?
Marcinkowski: I prefer to show new assistant coaches my workouts, let them draft their own, and then review their workouts. There are more tools available now online to help us write workouts than ever before. The most important factor is that all coaches understand the energy level at which the team is training and the goals of the program, then design a workout appropriately.

USMS: Why is a good coaching staff the difference between a good Masters program and a GREAT Masters program?
Marcinkowski: Ultimately, a good coaching staff will be the difference between a team and not a team. Our team is a good example. We have no charter, no by-laws, and no management committee, per se. Our swimmers are our customers; they communicate to us where they want to go individually and as a team, and then the coaches help them and the team achieve these goals. Passion, dedication, commitment and foresight!


U.S. Masters Swimming comprises over 2,000 Masters coaches. Each program and coach is different and requires different structures and organization. Curl-Burke, a program that has experienced a lot of growth, has offered its experience through the eyes of Head Coach Frank Marcinkowski, who hopes that Curl-Burke’s experience with growth can help other teams grow.

AND:


One Big Happy Family: Marcinkowski’s Masters
By Amy Shipley

When Frank Marcinkowski, a longtime masters swimming coach, talked to Ed Zerkle, a coach of local triathletes, about merging their groups for swim training, Zerkle laid everything on the line: Some of his athletes could not swim fast. Some had poor technique. Some couldn’t dive; many couldn’t do flip turns. But they were in great shape, and worked hard, and were interested in swimming with Marcinkowski’s Curl-Burke Masters group.

Zerkle looked at Marcinkowski to gauge his reaction.
“I thought he would say, ‘We’re looking for real swimmers,’” Zerkle said. “Instead, he said, ‘Wow, that’s fantastic.’ It sounds like a part of our program we would like to grow.”

Zerkle could not sign his Tri-Team Z training group up fast enough. His triathletes had grown accustomed to being shunned by hard-core runners, cyclists and swimmers who seemed to resent the intrusion of non-specialists. The reaction from Marcinkowski was, he said, a welcome first.
“He’s our godfather, so to speak,” Zerkle said. “Frank’s vision is to create one of the most complete masters swimming programs in the country in the same way Curl-Burke has a world-class, age-group program.”

Marcinkowski is doing exactly that. Not in a small, subtle way, but in a huge, almost incomprehensible manner. The club for non-elite adult swimmers had about a dozen members in 2004; this year, its membership swelled to 525, making it the largest masters program in the nation outside of California. The furious growth of the team under Marcinkowski, assistant Jim Halstead and their staff of part-time coaches is regarded with nothing short of awe and reverence by officials at the U.S. Masters Swimming, the sport’s national governing body.

“They are growing like wildfire in that program,” USMS Executive Director Rob Butcher said. “They’re a terrific model for us.”

Butcher, Zerkle and others say numbers have soared because Marcinkowski has tried to strip the elitism from masters swimming, often thought to be populated with former competitive stars who have little tolerance for learners.

At the Colonies Zone Short Course Yards Championship in April, many Curl-Burke Masters swimmers drew stares, then cheers, for competing in the 1,650-yard freestyle – a race preferred among triathletes because it is not a speed event and doesn’t require, say, the butterfly or breaststroke – despite not diving in to start or executing flip turns.
Despite the obvious inexperience in certain corners, Curl-Burke Masters still took the overall team title, topping Virginia Masters, a one-time perennial champ that has felt Curl-Burke’s rise.

“We have now lost three out of four years to Curl-Burke,” Virginia Masters swimmer Dick Cheadle wrote in the club’s Aug. newsletter. “Why? One only has to look at the numbers to answer that question … This year Curl-Burke had 111 swimmers, and we only had 47, thus yet another discouraging loss.”

Marcinkowski said the team’s recent success is almost beside the point.
“We’re very competitive, but that sort of just falls into place,” Marcinkowski, 50, said. “The team is not, on its face, competitive. That’s a fun by-product of the team.”
Between 2000 and 2004, the Curl-Burke Masters Swimming team languished. It was home to between seven and 26 swimmers during that five-year span. At the time, Marcinkowski thought it was flatly ridiculous that his masters group in swimming, a true sport for life, could not attract more athletes in the swim-crazy Greater Washington region.

Yet he understood the club’s reputation for imperious and unwelcoming athletes.
He didn’t like it, and he didn’t want it.

“When Frank took over, the club had an elitism mentality and Frank just cleaned house,” Butcher said. “They started over.”

Marcinkowski, a swimmer at the University of North Dakota, recruited fitness buffs, triathletes, casual swimmers, serious swimmers, anybody with an interest in the sport. He and his coaches had a firm policy: Everybody who walked on the pool deck – everybody – would be welcomed. He also fought for lane space at pools around the District to accommodate growing membership, and tried new things: his club has been conducting open-water practices for eight years despite occasional trouble claiming sufficient park space.

“Over time, word got out that we offered a fantastic place to train and develop your stroke,” Marcinkowski said.

Rufus Harris, 68, said he tired of jogging around the block and took up triathlons in his late 50s. In search of a place to swim, he said, he visited a number of clubs around town until he tried Curl-Burke Masters four years ago. He immediately knew he had found a home.
“Some of the other places were, ‘There’s a lane and go swim and don’t bother us,’” Harris said. The Curl-Burke Masters coaches “seemed genuinely glad to have me there, and they made me feel part of the group.”

As Marcinkowski strove to build the club, he juggled his full-time job as a vice president at the Alexandria-based PCCI, an environmental engineering company, as well as responsibilities to his late wife, Tricia, and four children, who range in age from 14 to 24. The most traumatic period for Marcinkowski came near the end of his wife’s eight-year battle with breast cancer.
After several nerve-rattling but hopeful years in which she seemed to have beaten the disease, doctors discovered the cancer had spread. She died in February 2008.

“We didn’t quite make 25 years” of marriage, Marcinkowski said. “It was 24-and-three-fourths … Her last two-and-a-half years were really rough. Her diagnosis was very bad… When [the cancer] came back in spots, it was very serious.”
In the years before her illness, the family had spent plenty of time in the water together, tubing, water-skiing and fishing in Marcinkowski’s boats, and diving and snorkeling on vacations. There were soccer games and swim training with the masters team and, finally, late nights spent at Tricia Marcinkowski’s bedside.
Marcinkowski remembered her final six months as “very dismal.”
But he also remembered the place he was able to heal. His whole family came together.
Both of them.

“After my kids and my family, the swim team was the best way to be able to make it through,” Marcinkowski said. “You’ve got 500 friends out there.”

[Rnovitske]

In no way should the rapid growth of Curl Burke be discounted, but there are a few pieces of information missing from this success story that might help readers put this club's rapid growth into perspective.

A few existing Masters clubs in our area decided to take Curl Burke up on their offer to be absorbed into Curl Burke Masters. This was partly a financial decision based on the way our suburban county rents pool space, where rental rates are determined on the number of lanes rented. The larger the rental contract, the greater the discount the team receives.

As a result of this policy, a few smaller existing Masters clubs paying the highest rate for their lane rentals decided that it was in the best interest of their swimmers to be absorbed into Curl Burke Masters, rather than to remain an independent Masters club. These clubs retain their cohesiveness, their coaches, and now function as Curl Burke workout sites. Swimmers on these former clubs now save about 25% in lane rental costs after being combined into Curl Burke, and also receive the benefits of a vibrant, quality Masters program that their smaller organizations would have a difficult time providing.

There were a few other area clubs that were approached (our club included) about being combined into Curl Burke Masters, but our members declined and decided to try to remain an independent Masters club.

The clubs that were combined into Curl Burke numbered about 100 total swimmers, according to our LMSC web site club statistics for those years. In no way do they account for all of Curl Burke's growth success, but do account for a portion.

[Paul Smith]

Although this article was written about coaching age group swimmers I think the fundamental message here is equally or more applicable to masters swimming. Sadly far to many teams I have visited simply don't "engage" their team enough...the ones where the coaches make a concerted effort to get to know their athletes and always add a little fun to the workout are almost always the most successful.

Good Coaches, Bad Coaches -- November 3, 2009
Guest editorial by John Craig

"What I've observed over time is that the good coaches, the ones who can admit their errors and learn from them, are almost always the same ones who are generous with their praise. And those are the same ones who don't overtrain their swimmers, and who realize their swimmers need balance in their lives, and who make the sport fun for their swimmers. These also tend to be – not coincidentally – the same coaches who end up with the fastest swimmers.

The common thread here is good character."


http://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com...0Bad%20Coaches