USA Swimming cheers can be good. High school cheers can be even better. College cheers will rock a natatorium. But none of these can hold a candle to the ultimate cheers: summer league cheers.
Watch above as swimmers and coaches from the Chesterbrook Swim Team in McLean, Virginia unite with a pre-meet pump up session and go ‘bam bam” on the Tuckahoe Chicken. For anyone unfamiliar, summer league swimming in the DC-Virginia corridor is huge.
Thanks to SwimSwam contributor Matt Rees for filming and sharing this video.
too frequently in swimming we see athletes and coaches harping on the summer league as “fake swimming” and only view USA swimming and NCAA swimming as “the real deal”. first of all, yards suck. we are virtually the only country who competes in yards. apparently we are the laughing stock of europe, according to some british swimmers i met at USMS nationals. Summer league (atleast in virginia and maryland) is 98% meters, which fuels the some of the attitudes towards it. but truth be told, racing, team competition and goal setting is the most real thing we do in this sport.
i think coaches are to blame too, i understand prioritizing your practices and meets, but not allowing your… Read more »
This is so cool. I swam for Chesterbrook….40 years ago. Its good to see that the Summer league is a very big deal compared to the humble meets we used to have. I am especially thrilled to find this video the week before I am to take my own 12-year-old son to compete in the British National Age Groups held in Sheffield.
NVSL is the BEST!
Waynewood 1975-80 then Division 1 team
We just hosted the Atlanta Swim Association Championship last week with 4700 swimmers at Georgia Tech and had a terrific meet. I would venture a guess that every singe member of the US World’s team started their carrers on a summer league team. It to me is the heart and soul of our sport.
Our summer league team practices start in early April, but then they switch to early morning when school is over. Our 4 kids drag their mattresses into our bedroom last day of school and that is the sign that real summer league began. Also, parent horror begins; waking up every day at 6:00am to take them to practice and every Saturday at 4:45 to get them ready for the meet.
Our North Austin Summer League has about 14 teams. Our Round Rock team (home of Dax Hill) has 300 kids.
Each summer league season has 4 stages for me:
1. Up to first meet – cannot wait for meets to start.
2. Until about third meet – this… Read more »
The two big summer leagues, NVSL (northern Virginia) and MCSL (Montgomery county) are huge and really fun. Both have fun meets like all stars and relay carnival that have kids racing each other that starts as little kids and carries on to 18 year olds. It was the first step for many current and high school and college stars and they carry on into high school. NVSL was home to Megan Byrnes, Cassidy Bayer, Andrew seliskar, Janet hu, and even Matt Mclean. And mcsl has Katie ledecky, jack conger, Sarah haase and Eric friedland
MCSL also had Mike Barrowman. MCSL and NVSL is why you see stars from DC/MD/VA. Most recently developing Ledecky, Conger, Friedland, Seliskar, Hu, Haase, Vissering, Bayer, etc. MCSL and NVSL competitiveness is unmatched and has paved the way for developing 100s of thousands of swimmers over the past 60 years from young swimmers to olympians
More importantly, in addition to your point, these top tier swimmers tend to stay involved until their 18th year… This helps to keep younger kids interested too as they see the older kids on their team coming to their neighborhood meets and then competing on a national stage… Also gonna throw in markus rogan, Ed Moses, Kate Ziegler, Sean fletcher in the nvsl
It would be fun to make an “all time team” from the two leagues of the greatest swimmers from either.
Matt McLean was in the CSL, not NVSL. I know because I raced him once in summer league (I lost obviously). It was a great experience.
One starting point for Northern Virginia would be the NVSL record book: http://nvsl.nvblu.com/records.html?sel_lg=3
Lots of names that will be familiar to SwimSwam readers (and lots of records set in the last five years), but one record that’s stood since 1965: boys 8 & U 25 meter free, 15.10, Roger McLeod.
Throwing down an initial medley relay for nvsl men: rogan, Moses, fletcher, plenty of people to thrown in for free
Women: don’t know about back, ashley danger, Cassidy Bayer, Janet hu
Btw not going by times alone, for men at least that relay is Olympic silver medalist in 200 back, world record holder in 100 breast, and national high school record holder in 100 fly