Observations from Aggieland | Social Media
I had the complete pleasure of spending a Friday thru Sunday in Aggieland – otherwise known as College Station, Texas, as the big kids and I were attending Senior Gulf Champs for a swim meet. This is a prelim/final swim meet attended by all of the usual teams we normally see – teams from just North of Conroe, to Humble/Kingwood, to Beaumont, Port Lavaca, Deer Park, Pearland, Katy, Sugar Land, Spring/Klein, CyFair….you get the picture. A few exciting ads this year are from Colorado and Arizona. So it’s a pretty good sampling of people. All swimmers are 15 years old and older, everyone for the most part is pretty dog-gone fast. There are just different levels of fast. We’ve seen swimmers that are “just exercising” all the way to a few “junior national times” achieved AND we’ve also seen some wicked fast Olympic Trial cuts achieved. Just fast swimming…….
As I’m sitting in the stands at the BEAUTIFUL Texas A&M University Student Recreation Center, trying very hard to work, my eyes keep wandering to the swimmers in the water, as well as the swimmers/parents sitting around me. I’ve made quite a few observations this weekend while hanging out with this incredibly diverse group of people. You know…..watching people’s social (media included) skills LIVE.
Parents | I don’t understand sitting in the stands for 3 days in a row, from 8 in the morning to 9 at night, and NOT sitting with your team. Seriously? Are you SO into your own kid’s performances that you can’t sit with and cheer on your swimmer’s teammates? You know those teammates that they probably spend more time with than you? I just don’t get it, I know I’m relatively social, but geeez – so are these people. I see some that sit off by them selves as if they are too good to sit with “the masses” – need to look REALISTICALLY at those times again…..
Teen Swimmers | Those dang earphones. Really? You are NOT in school, NOT being preached at or coached. Take the time and get to know the swimmers that you spend 3-4.5 hours with a day, that share your passion of swimming. You can’t socialize when you are face down in the water staring at that little black line. Turn the dang music off, pack up your earphones and practice the social skills that you need to home for later on in life. And your music isn’t that good anyway – ha!
Social Skills | Wow. Should I have said, “Lack there of?” As a native Texan and Aggie – yes, I bleed Maroon – there are just some things that I expect from the youth of today. Guys – hold the dang door open for girls. I don’t care if they are a 4 years old with untied shoelaces and dragging a teddy bear, someone you hang with daily or a little old lady fighting an umbrella in this blustery, rainy weather. Hold the door open. You never know when you are going to make someone’s day. Your mom should have taught you that by 15. Pay attention. Yes, it matters. Girls – you can’t whine about the guys “not noticing you” if you are constantly staring at a phone, texting about how cute the guy is WHILE he’s sitting next to you. Yes, we know you are doing it. Here’s an idea – TALK TO HIM. With words, this is NOT the time to hone your social media skills. Try practicing those VERBAL skills. When you are older and in a meeting at your office of choice, you will not be able to text (if we are lucky). You’ll have to depend on your interpersonal skills that almost every last one of you are lacking. Including my own kids – yes, I said it.
Social Skills & Competition | In “the old days,” we were expected to root on our teammates (and mean it), not sit in the stands being unsociable, listening to music, and staring at the ground in hopes that no one would talk to us. That was simply not acceptable. Were we competitive with each other? HELL YEH we were. You ALWAYS try to improve your time, but we swam for bragging rights as well as “beating the clock.” In the water, it was no holds barred. This was a very important meet. These kids work all year long for meets like this one. Some are trying to simply better their times, while some are vying for Junior National cuts and Olympic Cuts. It’s the same sport, just different levels of goals. A little extra support from teammates would do nothing BUT HELP! Try it, you might get it back in return.
Digital Social Media Skills | Wow. Where do I go with this one? Parents – do you have a clue what your kids put on Facebook and YouTube? Really. Most of my friends have their kids’ passwords and SAY they are watching their kids’ pages – but there is NO FREAKING WAY they are. The only way kids are going to learn REAL social skills, is if someone calls them out on their behaviors. Like their parents. Like their coaches. Am I saying ride their butts all the time, no? They have to learn from their social mistakes, but I’ve seen some REALLY rough things – socially rough, not illegal/mean rough – this weekend. I really feel if some of these parents were watching what their kids were writing sometimes, it would get better. Now, some of these parents need to grow a backbone and actually “discipline” their kids as it helps them learn. They’ll still talk to you. REALLY. If they want to eat……
Now……Alexandra – get that 7 paragraph, re-post off your front page. Really.
Summertime
Summer always brings that welcomed relief from the every day insanity during the school year. But I’ve started thinking, I like the structure of the school year. You can almost always predict what is coming next. With three kids all involved in two different types of swimming, we always know what’s coming next……… swimming. Some sort of swimming. With the big kids being active on a USA Swim Team – year ’round swimming and competition – and the littlest of offspring still involved in local neighborhood swimming, I thought I could manage going back to coaching. Did I mention NO ONE CAN DRIVE THEMSELVES ANYWHERE WITHOUT ME GOING? We are close to Chase driving, but October is still a ways off. The schedule has been a bit brutal for me as I’m still trying to get work done for Bizopia, all while coaching the Tarpons and carting the FCST’ers to practice. Weekends have been full of swimming for the kids and fun for the adults (I think we’ve had about 5 going away parties for awesome neighbors). An uneventful summer so far. And that’s NICE!
The main part of both swim seasons are now over. Coaching was a BLAST – summer league kids are just the best. Not sure about the parents (wink wink), but for the most part, the kids are doing it because they like it. Some parents, just like other sports, are living vicariously through their kids and imposing their own “gotta go faster” mentality upon their young swimmers. JUST LET THEM HAVE FUN. If they like it, they’ll stick with it. Pressuring summer league swimmers is just nuts……buying a 5 year a $170 Fastkin II Recordbreaker (as illegal as it is) is even crazier………..right up there with the dads seen OILING their 8 and Unders down. Yes, you heard me. Oiling them down with baby oil – And I’m proud to say it was NOT my second favorite team in the league this year. More on this topic later – that can be it’s own post. The theme for the summer this summer is – Let it be BUMPLESS summer (referring to rubber bumps on girls’ swimsuits that are now deemed illegal in FINA swimming.)
“Back to the grind” is right around the corner, and it is probably welcomed by most. Even the kids. They get to see their friends; you would THINK it would cut down on the texting. I think probably not. I think it’s just going to add to the list of “have to text to’s”. Ha! Real swimming starts Monday and the constant carpooling with limited drivers. Oh well. It’s our chosen extracurricular activity……along with pee-wee football. But more on that note later! Adios!
SEO and Swim Coaching – Same Strategy?
I’ve written before about SEO being a “word game” to me and got quite a few questions from friends and followers. SEO or SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION is defined in Wiki-land as the process of improving volume and/or quality of traffic to a website. Now, if you’ve been following this blog, you know that I coach competitive swimming in my “spare” time. Let’s just say coaching doesn’t pay the bills. SEO does 
I’ve decided to try to explain SEO via my coaching techniques. As a swim coach, I have come across all types of swimmers: those who can listen and pick things up immediately, those who have to try it a few times THEN they get what I want, and those who I have to explain and explain and explain it to them before they get it. That’s where the SEO comes in. For this post, we’ll call it swimmer engine optimization – ha!
If I were to say the exact same thing to every swimmer every time (assuming people use the EXACT same keyword for a topic), some kids would get the message and some wouldn’t. If I change up the words or verbiage (keyword application) that I am using – a higher percentage of swimmers would get the message (higher percentage of traffic to website) I am trying to deliver. In theory……..
My words to the swimmers are just like keywords in text to a website – they have to be varied. Kids don’t process words in exactly the same way – just like people don’t use exactly the same search words for a particular topic. For example: for freestyle (American Crawl to you non-swimmers) your hand entry should be immediately outside of the center line of the body. To our senior swimmers, they would get that statement. To my babies, they would just stare at me like zombies if I used that particular string of words. This is NO DIFFERENT than if you were searching for a company to design a website. What words would you use? Website Design? Site design? Website Development? Web Development? Web page design? I could do this for days – but I think you get the picture.
For my beginner swimmers, I describe hand placement in the water as a spoon. “Let’s put our spoon (while showing them an outstretched hand and arm) in the bowl and pull the scoop of ice cream through the bowl.” Now, if I say THAT to the seniors, we’d spend the next few minutes waiting for the laughter to die down so no one would drown.
People use different strategies to search for things on the internet, THUS the need for multiple keywords explaining exactly the same topic to boost traffic to your website. Just like I have to come up with quite a few ways to describe hand placement – which by the way is INCREDIBLY important in fast swimming. No time to waster putting your hand in wrong……..no time to waste in not having the correct keywords on your website.
For those swimmers – yes I’ve provided ice cream and a scoop for the visuals. For you senior swimmers that read this……..NO WAY am I bringing ice cream to practice!!!! Austin High School!
Swimming in the Rain – Again!
This weekend, we had the complete pleasure of visiting the big booming metropolis of Manvel, Texas. Home of the very beautiful Manvel High School (great short course nat) and Twin Lakes…….2 scuba lesson lakes/tanks in the middle of an RV park. Rice University hosts an “open water swim” for USA swimmers and USMS (United States Master Swimmers) at this “Twin Lakes.” It is very well organized, well run, stays on schedule – however …. IT RAINS. At least this year it wasn’t cold.
These kids are real troopers – swimming in the rain and wind, in a lake when the are used to protected swimming pools with lane ropes controlling the waves. I’m so proud of my swimmers (my own kids as well as other FCST swimmers) when they complete this race. They offered an 800yd swim, 1 mile, and 2 mile swims. We competed in the 1 mile this year. My daughter’s first OW swim. I believe you must be 13 in order to attempt the 2 mile, open water swim. Next year for us.
The rain wasn’t bad – just annoying – made taking pictures difficult; however people were parking like ding dongs and getting stuck right and left. When did it become “common-sensy” to park a small, 2-4 door car, full of asleep swimmers in an already muddy field standing in water? Hmmm? What do you think would make someone think “this might not be a good idea?” The 12-14 year old boys standing around, taking bets on who is going to get stuck and watching people park cars – IN THE MUD ?
People are always entertaining…………way to go FCST! And thanks Rice U for a great meet.
