Frequently Asked Questions

What age groups are there?

There are 6 age groups: 6 & Under, 7-8, 9-10, 11-12, 13-14 and 15-18. When/if needed, some older swimmers may "swim up" an age group. This does not happen very often and is only used by the coaches for meet-planning purposes.

 

Who are the Coaches?

Head Coach:

Ellen Hays

Assistant Coaches:

Ryan Kozel

Daniele Felton

Taylor Smith

What are medal meets, and how do you qualify to be in them?

To swim in a medal meet, a swimmer must attend at least 3 swim meets during the regular season. There are three different medal meets; Bronze, Silver and Gold. Anyone may attend the bronze meet. There are minimum times required, per stroke, to advance into the silver or gold meets. If the swimmer's time meets the time required, or is faster, they may swim in that meet. You can only attend one medal meet, so if only one of your strokes qualifies, and you choose to swim in that meet, that is the only stroke you may swim.

 

What strokes do we do?

We have four strokes we compete in. They are Butterfly, Backstroke, Breaststroke and Freestyle. We also have Individual Medley (IM), which is a 100 (four laps). To swim IM, the swimmer does a 25(one length) of each of the above strokes, in that order. At the end of each meet, we have relays. We have one Freestyle Relay, and a Medley Relay (similar to the IM). Because we have a large team (Bay Hills rules!), we usually have two groups of relay swimmers, the ones who compete against the other team for points, and the ones who are doing it for fun and experience. There are girls' relays and boys' relays, respectively.

 

What do the terms "50" and "100" and "25" mean?

This is the way we measure distance. Pools are either 25 yards or 25 meters long. Most pools are 25 yards long. Our pool is 25 meters, which means it is slightly longer than other pools. When the coaches tell you to swim a "25" it is one length of the pool. Two lengths are a 50, three are a 75, four are a 100, and so on.