Summer League Swimming:
Essential Reading

Total Swim offers its own version of the “summer reading” list. Our lists
are naturally swim-centric. This list focuses on Summer League Swimming – neighborhood teams with kids who mostly have little formal swimming experience. The same is often true of their coaches. Summer League is
where most kids gain their first exposure to racing, and “working out.”

The season usually lasts eight weeks or less and races are primarily 25 and 50 yards. With time so limited, many summer league coaches feel a certain pressure to “get the kids in shape” which is frankly impossible in two months. However it is possible for kids to learn significant and lasting lessons about effective strokes, starts and turns. These two articles offer guidance.

In the first, Michael Winton and Matt Shirley describe how they coached a summer team at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois. In their words:

“Our coaching philosophy was similar to enlightened little league baseball coaches we’d observed. We wanted to stress fun, learning and the chance to race, and let conditioning happen as a by-product of the time we spent teaching and practicing good stroke mechanics...an approach that generated far more success, in every way, than we ever anticipated.”

June 2003: Summer League Success for the Scott Sharks, 2002 Season
by Michael Winton and Matthew Shirley

June 2003: Six Quick Tips for Summer-League Swimmers and Coaches
by Terry Laughlin

The final article is a review of Long Strokes in a Short Season, by Art Aungst, the just-retired coach of Orchard Park HS near Buffalo NY. In a review written for “Swimming World” magazine, Michael Collins wrote:

“Coach Art Aungst has written an informative day-by-day chronicle of his girls’ high school swim team over a full season. He shares a rare level of detail on the methods that helped his team rise to an unprecedented level of success when he changed the focus of his program from training-based to technique-based.”

This book would be an invaluable guide for summer league, as well as high school teams…or any swimmer who would like to use their time better. Read the entire review.

July 2003 Review: Long Strokes in a Short Season
by Donal Fagan AIA