The growth of the swimming community in the Greater Washington area slowed in 2009 (Leah L. Jones, The Washington Post).
As USA Swimming celebrated an 11.2-percent increase in membership in 2009, Potomac Valley Swimming officials swallowed hard. The region’s once hot membership growth, as we reported in September, had slowed.
The 3.6-percent uptick in local membership in ’09 represented the smallest increase of any of the top 10 U.S. swimming regions (Local Swimming Committees), and the smallest boost in local membership in the last five years.
Any growth is better than a decrease, but for a region known for its rabid swimming community and powerhouse club programs, the numbers — see the chart we ran with a news story Sept. 10 — provided a jolt.
| Rank | LSC | 2008 | 2009 | Increase |
| 1 | S. California | 15,668 | 17,630 | 12.5% |
| 2 | Illinois | 16,144 | 17,530 | 8.6% |
| 3 | Pacific | 13,522 | 15,066 | 11.4% |
| 4 | Indiana | 10,198 | 11,598 | 13.7% |
| 5 | PVS | 9,045 | 9,396 | 3.6% |
| 6 | Middle Atlantic | 8,419 | 9,369 | 11.3% |
| 7 | Metropolitan | 8,410 | 9,341 | 10.9% |
| 8 | Florida | 7,467 | 9,055 | 21.3% |
| 9 | New Jersey | 7,764 | 8,265 | 6.4% |
| 10 | Michigan | 6,972 | 7,519 | 7.8% |
This is where we hope you will step in. In our second installment of a weekly question, we’d like you — parents, swimmers and coaches who stumble out of bed for 4:30 a.m. workouts, and other interested parties in the region — to tell us what’s going on.
Why didn’t Greater Washington, like other regions around the country, see a larger boost in membership on the heels of the wildly successful 2008 Summer Games? Was this a one-year blip, or the start of a membership plateau?
Please let us know what you think.
IMO lack of pool space/time is a huge issue and there simply isn’t enough open pool space for coaches to place their programs. It’s really tough for new swimming parents to find what they feel confident is a quality program with a reasonable commute and the teams have a hard enough time keeping the contracts they already have in place. Lack of affordable pool space also forces some coaches to water down their programs by mixing swimmers of varied ability levels into the same lanes thus degrading the quality of what should be personalized instruction. Traffic in our area also has a part in that. When I was a kid, I used to commute from Vienna to Lee District Park every night. I can’t imagine doing that in the evenings now and with the lack of reasonable options, I can see why many families might ust stick with local soccer programs or school sports.
I agree with Jack about lack of pool space. One of my sons recently moved to Bethesda with two kids who had been swimming in the Atlantic area. They found that this year the local teams had already filled up their slots and the kids had to drop swimming as an activity.
Water, water, water. There are only so many swimmers you can put in a lane and still have a positive environment. And there are only so many hours in the day that can be used. Generally it’s only 2 hours in the morning (~5am-7am) or in the afternoon (~3pm-9pm). Weekends are the wild card but most facilities are not available for practice except in the early mornings due to rec swim and/or parties.
And Jack is dead on with the commuting challenge.
I think part of the problem is the economy. Parents decided for children to choose on one activity. Part of the problem is pool time. Gaithersburg was slated to construct a pool that was suppose to already be done (not even ground broken yet). Parents also get a taste of going to a swim meet that last 4-5 hours and that is not your 1 hour soccer game. This causes parents to say forget that I’ve got other things to do. I think finding the coaching staff has been difficult. Ours are aging and I don’t see the new recruits lining up. So another words many areas of swimming are difficult to manuever. Growth with this many variables is not easy.