Curl-Burke Swim Club stepped in after the Aqua Hoya Swim Club folded, securing lanes at Georgetown Prep. (John McDonnell, The Washington Post)
Curl-Burke Swim Club founder Rick Curl said he wasn’t sure whether to call it an acquisition or a take-over, but his club added a coveted location to its already expansive program when it stepped in after the Aqua Hoya Swim Club folded this month.
Curl-Burke secured the services of Aqua Hoya head coach Jon Rogers and landed the pool space that became available at Georgetown Prep in North Bethesda.
Rogers, who previously coached at Curl-Burke, initiated the move in early July when he informed Curl of his plans to shut down the club, Curl said Sunday. Rogers proposed the move and helped facilitate Curl-Burke’s acquisition of the pool time, Curl added.
One of more than 30 USA Swimming-registered clubs in the Potomac Valley Swimming region (DC, Md.,Va.), the Aqua Hoya Swim Club was made up of 74 swimmers and four coaches, making it one of the area’s smaller teams, PVS Executive Director John Ertter said. Many of those swimmers are expected join Curl-Burke, which now operates out of 15 facilities in the region and is home to about 1,800 club swimmers.
“Most of the [former Aqua Hoya] kids are going to find the arrangement conducive to staying with the team as it evolves into a Curl-Burke site,” Curl-Burke Coach Pete Morgan said. “This just gave us a wonderful opportunity. It will certainly be an important site.”
Rogers, whose position as aquatics director at Georgetown Prep was eliminated in the spring, described the decision to shut down the Aqua Hoya club, which was founded 2002, as a “long, complicated story” during a brief phone conversation, but did not elaborate. He will become an age-group coach at the Georgetown Prep site.
“When you’re a club owner, it’s a seven-day-a-week deal,” Curl said. “He was finding it difficult to keep together the administrative part that drives the business … There’s a list a mile long of all of the things you have to do as a club owner.”
Curl-Burke will begin training sessions at Georgetown Prep on Sept. 8 with plans to use the school’s two-year-old, state-of-the-art aquatic center for expanded programs including coaches’ clinics, summer camps and team-wide swim sessions, Curl said. He negotiated a two-year deal with an option for three additional years, Curl said, adding that, “their facilities are as good as many small universities.”
Georgetown Prep Athletic Director Dan Paro said Rogers’s decision to dissolve the Aqua Hoya program made it imperative for the school to find a “good, strong” club to replace it. Rogers’s club was not known for producing super-elite swimmers, but some excelled. This spring, former Aqua Hoya Meredith Budner was named the female athlete of the year for Towson University.
The move allows Curl-Burke to return to its birthplace; the club began operations in 1978 at a far different campus pool before departing for larger facilities 10 years later.
Curl said Rogers will be one of four coaches at the Georgetown Prep site along with Susan O’Brien Williams, who will manage a developmental stroke school program.
“I will be there every week,” Curl said. “I want to let the coaches do their thing, but in some ways, I want to guide them.”
Curl said the club was conducting a stroke evaluation Aug. 30 for the start of training, but did not expect to fill every one of its available athlete slots for several months.
“Because of the timing of the acquisition, I’m not expecting us to be anywhere near peak-capacity,” Curl said. “I think we will gain momentum as people realize what we have to offer.”
Amy,
Aqua Hoyas were founded by Kirby Weldon who I beleive had been a CUBU coach and either left or had his site dropped by Curl and started his own club..
This tells a little about him
http://www.gazette.net/stories/022107/potospo220608_32327.shtm
Its a shame the small independents can’t make it.I hate to see them swallowed up.
It doesn’t seem like AH was “swallowed up” — it seems like AH was saved by CUBU.
It’s time to stop talking about CUBU as “swim team” and start referring to it as a corporate entity, a money generating machine. A “team”, in any sport, trains together, has one set of coaches, a unified practice approach, a common competition calendar. CUBU, w/1800 swimmers at who knows how many sites, fails most criteria to be considered a team, other than they all wear blue Speedo equipment. Each CUBU facility operates under it’s own head coach, each practice group has a practice regimen determined by that specific group coach. The training plan at facility A is different than facility B is different than facility C, etc. Each facility attends swim meets as determined by that facilities staff. The CUBU “team” swims at championship meets as a team for points only. Smaller teams such as MACHINE Aquatics, SNOWBIRD, Potomac Marlins deserve a little more recognition in the media for what they accomplish every year. With 3-4 times the number of swimmers as anyone else, it is little wonder that CUBU is successful.
I think you need some education on swim teams SNOW swim a two different sites and both have a head coach. Machine also has mulipul sites. I think CUBU is always looked upon as a monster, but this is far from the truth. They offer a much better price which including meet fees that works out about $1200 a year less than SNOW. Remember CUBU started off as a small team and just kept growing. They must do someting right……maybe thats why they are successful
You have several good points, CUBU is run more like a franchise operation than a team..As far as them being SO successful, I think that is an overstatement. For a team that has over 1800 swimmers, I am not sure I would classify them as such. They lost their gold medal status and are primarily an age group team, not a national one. Their are very few senior swimmers that come back to train with their coaches during the summer and choose to stay at their school partly because they are geared toward age group swimming and do not know how to train more advanced swimmers (as clubs like NBAC, Mac, Santa Clara who have programs set up for more elite swimmers)..Most of The older swimmers you see attached to cubu in the summer do so only to receive Potomac Valley travel assistance for national level meets.
They always seem to have a disproportionate number of top 16 kids that are 13 and under and much fewer 16 and up’s..when it is more important to be fast..
They have some good age group coaches though and you are right, it is more like a federation then a team
liz, you cant compare a team of 1800 to machine or snow or the marlins..Those teams all have just one head coach (site coach is different then a head coach)and their sites go to the same meets and have the same schedule and same coaching philosophy..that is what sets them apart.
They ALL are very high in fees.
And as I said, they have a lot of swimmers, take in a lot of money and can afford to take over sites.
Personally, I am impresed with mako..a much smaller team that is turning out some very fast high school swimmers
Liz,
SNOW swims at 2 sites. But there is no question that Mike P. is the Head Coach and sets the agenda for the entire team. There is one training plan being implemented at two sites. Machine has 2 head coaches, but they are also implementing the same training philosophy and same training plan at all their facilities. There is a difference between being a “team” using multiple pools and a business that operates at different pools with different training programs. Several CUBU facilities are run as for profit franchises, simply paying a franchise fee to use the CUBU name.
At CUBU, each coach is doing whatever they feel is best for that facility. You can find CUBU competing in 2 or 3 meets some weekends because different coaches want to attend different meets. This isn’t groups of different ability either. CUBU Reston will be in Baltimore and CUBU Burke will be in Richmond and CUBU Maryland will be somewhere else. Of course you can offer a better price when your costs can be broken up among 1800 swimmers.
I am not sure why everyone feels a need to take shots at CUBU.
Yes, they have a lot of good age groupers but they also have had more than 10 Olympians and multiple gold medal winners. And it seems to me that they do have one head coach in Rick Curl.
Bill I agree that Mike P. is tha head coach of SNOW and that is a shame as I think SNOW coulld be a good team if they had the interest of swimmes and not money at heart. And yes CUBU does swim and different meet but sometimes it is just the fact that the team is so big one meet can not accommodate them all. Also CUBU does offer almost all the PVS meets and some out LSC meets to their swimmers unlike SNOW who hardly ever attend a PVS meet. I have very little to say about Machine or Potomac Marlins except they have good programs and seem to produce good swimmers. The fact is unless you move out of PVS swimming no progam offers high level training to seniorcollege swimmers. If you know of any I would love to find one….
I swim for CUBU and love it. I have swum for another PVS team that has been mentioned, and was totally demoralized and told I was overweight fat and not dedicated enough. I now enjoy swimming again and have nothing but positive feed back from my CUBU coach. I am not a super fast swimmer just average, but treated with respect and dignity. So all you parents need to back off and let us kids swim and have fun. Does it matter if CUBU has 1800 or 80 swimmers they are a good team and have had some great swimmers in the past and I am sure will have great ones to come
CUBU has one head coach who has been in Australia for the last 5 years ……. name another sports team where the head coach is thousands of miles away for 5 years….. and SNOW attends all 3 PVS Open meets (Oct/NOV/Jan) as well as both the open LC meets as well as JR, AG and SR champs.. how many more PVS meets do they need to go to?
Bill I think you are wrong with the SNOW meets if fact I know you are wrong. SNOW did not attend the 3 PVS Open meets (Oct/NOV/Jan) and the other are champ meets so how to you get a time to swim at these meets if you never swim at a PVSmeet. Unless you hold your own meets and make even more money off your swimmwers…………
Mr. Jones you are obviously a SNOW supporter and Liz you obviously do not like SNOW. But this blog was about AH. And as a swimmer I am glad that Rick Curl stepped in and took over the club. It gave us the swimmers the chance to stay at the GTP pool and really nothing will be any different. We will put on a CUBU cap instead of a AH.
Liz,
You can attend a PVS championship meet regardless of where your times come from, as long as they come from a US meet. And while you are correct that SNOW didn’t attend the open meets in 2008/9, my mistake, they do participate in PVS meets throughout the year.
luv2swim,
I’m glad that you get to stay at GP and swim, that’s where CURL started 30 years ago, before they were forced out and a new team was started.
And my whole point in starting this discussion wasn’t that one club is better than another, My children swim for yet a different club than any of those mentioned. My point is that the CUBU model really doesn’t fit the concept of a “team”. It is a business entity that is slowly swallowing up all the available pool space in PVS. This one team represents 20% of the swimmers in PVS.
Cant we all just get along?
Ha, seriously we could sit and have a debate baout who thinks what team is best but the bottom line is you have to find what works for you and who you respond to as a coach and what your needs are. Their is not one coach for all swimmers.. Yes their is probably a coach (actually more then one) that has made unfortunate comments about weight and their are also coaches whose swimmers have to pay for stroke instruction because they don’t do it and prefer to pound the yardage out..and yes their are several big teams and coaches out there that have no problem with 11-12 year olds swimming 9-10k on a Sat morning…….Swimming is a small world and we all have stories..
Bottom line is hopefully the program at prep will be a good one in substance(not in name only) and benefit the swimmers. Having choices is good. I dont think anyone wants a monopoly and the swimmer just has to find what works best for them.
One thing we can all agree on is that swimming is becoming prohibitively expensive no mater what team you are on
It’s true, the fact that CUBU has 1800 swimmers makes it more of a corporation than a traditional “team”.
CUBU has made a business of swimming.
There I said it. They make money off their swimmers. And they are not ever going to go away because of it.
Surely CUBU is a much more stable team, financially, then most teams in the area. The have 58 pools so if they lose one who cares. I’d say that if one of their “franchises” started losing a lot of money, CUBU would have to drop them at some point. But obviously they know how to do the business. They just keep picking up different sites for another franchise, and it’s EZ for them because people like the Aquahoyas come to THEM.
In this economy, I’ll take that business savvy.
Can you stop using pictures of Janet Hu and/or Phillip Hu when articles about Curl Burke are written? With 1800 swimmers to choose from, you would think that there is a bit more of a choice?
Unfortunately Jon, we’d don’t have that many options for club swimming photos. If you or others from CUBU have picture of other Curl-Burke swimmers we’d love to have them. Send them our way at info@reachforthewall.com.
Thanks.
Back on topic, Georgetown Prep doesn’t care about swimming and if there isnt anyone willing to run the program, then they will cancel it and just lease space to generate revenue to help pay for the multimillion Hanley Center. Love Jon Rogers, but he took over for Kirby Weldon after he left and didnt have the passion that Kirby had for the program, that simple. If the revenue is the same, Prep doesn’t care and Curl has a better footprint in swimmer rich talent of Montgomery County – which is dominated by RMSC
Part of the trouble with establishing another team in Montgomery County is that RMSC charges only about half what other teams do because it is county subsidized i.e. it is a county team much like AAC so for residents , its a great deal. You get a high level team with high level coaching that is every bit (some would argue more) as successful as cubu…and at a great price. It also makes it more difficult for up start teams to get their foot in the door and grow.
I am glad that finally cavman pointed out that there is a another option for swimmers in Montgomery County – RMSC. Very competitive club with affordable price and it is just as big as CUBU. Believe it is one of the best club for 14 & under age group swimmers in the coutry.
You can’t call RMSC a club. Even more so than CUBU, RMSC is not a ‘club’. They are subsidized by the county residents both in terms of program costs and facilities provided. Also they have sole access to the county’s four indoor pools and as a result can offer practices during the prime hours for age group swimming. Also, RMSC coaches are county employees so how can RMSC be considered a ‘club’ team? I’ve lived and swam in MoCo for over 35 years and RMSC’s strangle hold on county facilities that I helped pay while other programs stuggle to survive in what pools are left over continues to bother me.
Not sure how you can say it is not a club..Being subsidized and affordable and providing good coaching is not the antithesis of being a club..I think you need to look up the definition of “club”..
Further , RMSC seems to have a unified meet schedule for whatever group you are in and from what I understand, provides travel support for its higher level swimmers.Every club ,has its problems and I am sure they do too but considering they have to operate within the constraints of county mandated regulations they do a good job…and as another poster pointed out, they dont seem to have the fragmented franchise mentality that Curl has.
Im with the swim coach on this one, if Bill thinks CUBU is not a team then how can RMSC be one.
I have swam for both said ‘club’ teams like machine, snow and marlins, and ‘corporation’ teams such as curl burke and rmsc. All I can say is IT DOESNT MATTER HOW THE TEAM IS RUN! All that matters is that the kids recieve good coaching, the kids swim well, the kids enjoy the sport, and they are HAPPY. I have been equally satisfied on BOTH types of teams. So who cares? Lets focus on the sport and not the business.
mr. bill jones.
business must be pretty good on your small team if you could afford a new corvette?
i don’t see my coaches driving sports cars?
out of curiousity…are you swmfst or racehrd?
hey bob the swimmer,
I don’t think this is the place for personal pot shots..If you have a problem with a coach why dont you send them an email and sign your name.
Most posters have kept their comments directed toward the pros and cons of the clubs without comments on what car the coach drives or their license plate.
Get a life
After reading everyone opinion It is clear to me we really have no say in swimming costs or club in PVS. I have sympathy with swim coach, as I live in Loudoun County and was so happy when Claude Moore Rec Center was set to be built, only to be totally mortified to find out the only USS swim team to have any evening time in the place was SNOW. I paid for the facility through my taxes but yet still have no place for my children to swim. ( my child is not allowed to swim for SNOW as they have a sibling on a different USS team, and SNOW will not allow this) I still have to drive into Fairfax county. I was hoping that I would have a choice but SNOW has a monopoly in Loudoun county is that fair! It’s no different than CUBU or RMSC just on a smaller scale.
Their are other teams that practice at Claude Moore beside Snow..as a mater of fact, Curl-Burke lists it as one of their sites. Also, I believe another USS team is coming in with later evening hours,maybe SDS but dont quote me on that. You are correct though, the hours other teams have are lousy but to be honest all teams try to get as many hours in a good pool as they can.FISH pretty much has a monopoly at Spring Hill ..Pool time in northern va is challenging at best and teams spend a lot of time and energy to get lane time.
Personally, I love the idea of community subsidized swim teams like RMSC and ACC that have made their good programs and teams affordable to athletes. I have been lobbying for the Loudoun P&R dept to take a step forward and develop their CM swim team (race club) to the next level and grow a good program and team. That would be the best of both worlds..good program ,good coaching about half the price as the big clubs and in our own back yard.
If Arlington and montgomery county can do it I dont see why Loudoun cant too
Interesting. My child swims for cubu. When his summer swim season ended, I asked him how he felt about the past year. He responded “Fabulous. The best team I’ve ever been on.” He feels very much like he’s part of a team in the broader (1800 swimmers) sense. This summer he was coached a lot by a coach from one of our other sites, and trained with, and got to be friends with, swimmers who train primarily at other sites. At meets, he has come to know and become good friends with age group swimmers from the other cubu sites (and while 1800 swimmers can’t all go to all of the same meets, we do see many, many swimmers from our other sites at the same meets). As a parent, volunteering at meets, I’ve come to know and become friends with parents whose children train at the other sites, as well as coaches from our other sites. So, oddly enough, it actually does feel like a team to us – indeed a family – in the broader sense. And the great heritage, which includes Tom Dolan and others, as well as the current great age group swimmers, inspire my child and make him proud to wear the cubu blue and white. Big isn’t always bad. Now, while this is all an interesting conversation, it actually would be irrelevant to us if cubu were simply a conglomeration of independent sites affiliated in name and corporate structure only, and we don’t care whether cubu has gold or cast iron medal status, as long as our child is happy, learning, making friends, and has good coaches/mentors — all of which are the case in spades. But, in fact, our experience has been that cubu is much more than a bunch of loosely affiliated swim sites. I recognize that as much a part of the cubu family as we’ve felt, there are others who haven’t felt this way, and this comment will probably elicit comments from those who haven’t enjoyed our great experience. Finally, the other teams that have been mentioned in this email string are also great, with great coaches and swimmers, and our very rich swim community would be far poorer without them. Back to work!
Don’t get me wrong I would love to have a Parks & Rec. subsidized USS swim team at Claude more, and maybe in a few years we will have one. My point was you don’t have to be a big team to have a monopoly. Lets face it if you live in Loudoun County you have Blue Waves in Ashburn that does not have a great track record with coaches or being very stable, CUBU who have lane time in the mornings but nothing for a child in middle school or above in the afternoon, and SNOW who have all the prime PM pool time. My comment was as Claude Moore is a county facility SNOW as a business should NOT have a monopoly on prime time, we should have a choice. If we go back to the comments made at the beginning of this blog it was about the power and as a quote from Mr. Jones as a corporate entity, a money generating machine. At least RMSC is a county run program and anyone can join unlike SNOW where as I said before, I am child is unable to swim.
Sorry let me correct my last sentence it should read:
At least RMSC is a county run program and anyone can join unlike SNOW where as I said before . My child is unable to swim.
I understand your frustration but as I said one team having the prime times at a pool is not unusual..
FISH at Spring Hill rec center
Potomac Marlins at Cub Run
Curl at Lee District
Snow at Claude Moore
All these are county rec centers like CM and one team has gotten the best times.Its not a monopoly, its just what happened..I know other teams that have tried to get into these pools and have not been able to .Part of the problem with Loudoun is they really only have two pools for teams to rent and the area as a whole has a pool shortage.
BTW..The new blue waves coach is a good coach and maybe now their will be some stability on that team.
Swimfan: I don’t have problems with a program having the prime time hours at a facility. There is only so many prime hours and only so many lanes. It’s called a home pool for a reason but with RMSC it’s EVERY county facility and it’s ANY time slot RMSC wants. No other programs can get water time there period even if it’s during hours that RMSC is not in the water. That’s the classic definition of a monopoly. Other non-AG programs can rent water there and the rental pricing for that water is definately NOT the price that RMSC pays.
Reading all of this makes it pretty clear that a successful swim program requires both some business or managerial acumen, and the ability to teach and motivate young swimmers. You need both. The challenge in a small program is that usually the head person needs to be skilled in both areas, while in a large program you can combine people that bring the different talents. Aqua Hoya was successful as a small program for several years because Kirby Weldon is among the few that I’ve seen who does both jobs very well. He’d be a huge asset to any of the area swim programs.
What’s tough w/Curl’s business model is the monopolistic intent it seems to be foisting on the Beltway. If pool space opens up, they attempt to snatch it. I sense the original motivation was to combat RMSC’s tax-payer subsidized business model, thus leveling the playing field for local championship accolades. They’ve now pushed into non-Potomac Valley real estate, either the sign of a great brand or an enterprise hell-bent on world domination, depending on your vantage point.
Such ‘economies of scale’ teams are the norm in DC now. New or smaller teams have no chance given the dearth of pool space availability and sheer numbers to compete in what’s really a mature competitive swimming market. A solution: create a Southern Maryland LSC, comprised of DC, Montgomery/Prince Georges County, and a Northern Virginia LSC for everything on the West side of the Potomac, with original PV borders honored. If your site is in Prince William or Loudoun–technically Virginia LSC territory—you wouldn’t be allowed to affiliate out of LSC. Curl would then be forced to choose allegiances.
Rick is clearly trying to imitate Chris Davis of SwimAtlanta with the coach-owned facility model. Big difference: Chris initiated this model back in 1977 before Atlanta’s go-go, relatively unregulated real estate market took off. Rick is attempting this in an expensive, built out geography, difficult credit environment, and a long list of rezoning variances. Given his track record, it wouldn’t surprise me if he pulls this off, yet real estate plays are a different animal from the ‘wet side’ most coaches are comfortable with. He’d be better off working a deal with an HOA pool to bubble it, winterize the locker rooms, etc. in exchange for a long-term sweetheart lease.
Not to be left out of the stakeholder mix: several of the Park Authorities in Northern Virginia. Unbeknownst to most tax payers, these are ‘enterprise’ facilities: profit must come from operations, without any subsidies. However, the Board of Supervisors have been known to meddle in facility operations when a facility patron (generally an unprofitable customer) doesn’t get his/her way with pool space, time, water temperature, etc. Thus, teams are charged exorbitant rents on unfriendly terms for lousy practice times. Operationally enterprise v. politically enterprise are two different things. That alone might motivate Rick to reduce the “supplier power’ levied on his or any other program via building his own.
As a taxpayer, I would like the fees of RMSC to be raised to be competitive with those of the other clubs. That money should go back to the county to build more facilities.
I’ve been on majority of the teams listed above. CUBU was the best team experience I had over the years. We traveled and was able to meet other CUBU club swimmers from other sites at all the meets. The atmosphere they had back when I swam was great. I realize they had a big footprint in the swimming world here, but they manage to keep it feeling like a family unit. Other groups mentioned above were also a good experience as well but different. Swimmers happy = happy parents = good team.
It’s a shame that it has come out that Rick Curl has molested past juvenile swimmers. Steer clear of that one, ladies.