Become a swim coach as a "non-swimmer"

Swimming
1

Hi Fishes,

what do you say, good or bad idea: My son’s swim club is short on coaches and I am contemplating to take on a group of kids that are 9-14 and beginner/intermediate swimmers.
Thing is, I have never coached, never swam as a kid, never had any swim coaching myself and as a cherry on top have a hard time breaking 2min/100 in a triathlon myself…Not exactly pro-coach material I would say. Of course I could keep the kids entertained for an hour per week, but I don’t want to be the crap coach that messes up everybodies stroke…Have seen that happen to quite a few talented kids in Tennis (which is my main sport), so would like to not become THAT guy :wink:
Thoughts?
Thx
Uli

2

In my day…

The head coach of the senior squad was a fat, angry old dude - who couldn’t walk 500 yards in under 5 minutes, let alone swim it.

Counterintuitively, the worse the kids were at swimming, the better the coaches were there cosches at swimming.

Junior squads were coached by recently retired swimmers.

Swim lessons were taught by current national caliber swimmers working a summer job.

(The above is a bit exaggerated).

But seriously…

I do think the best “swim lessons” instructors for kids are:
Very comfortable in the water.
Very good at interacting with small children.

Lots of beginner swim teams are really just glorified swim lessons!

This is not to say that you can’t do it well.

But maybe an explanation of the “vibe” you might need to convey.

3

The reality is most coaches don’t do their job properly. Or the way the club system is designed, it is impossible for them to do their job properly and that is teach kids to be better swimmers. Better not faster. If you’ve got a coach managing 3 lanes with 20+ kids in a 50m pool it’s very hard to be focused on their technique and helping them with flaws in their stroke. There’s too many swimmers. Additionally all the important stuff happens underwater, which they can’t see.

So most coaches, a lot of whom were elite swimmers, end up being nothing more than whiteboard coaches. i.e here’s the set, go do it. So the fact they were elite swimmers is often immaterial in a lot of cases. Some of my worst coaches have been ex elite swimmers, one an ex olympian had more interest in the teenage girls than teaching swimming. And some of my best coaches have been non-swimmers, they recognise their lack of knowledge of swimming and try and make up for it in other areas as well as trying to learn as much as they can about the various strokes. Whereas elite swimmers know everything…

So my point id the fact you are a non-swimmer is more or less irrelevant. Keep the kids interested with tough, but varied sets, have a bit of fun every now and again and learn the main issues with the various strokes and how to correct them with the relevant drills. i,e you don’t to be a swimmer to spot a crossover or thumb entry or splayed kick or bad body position. The main issues with freestyle are generally pretty obvious. You can also look to doing some basic underwater video analysis with Gopros later on down the track and looking at more important stuff like catch and pull, which can be harder to coach/correct.

4

Go for it, and well done. People should help out more like this.

Don’t worry, the club will decide if you’re too shit for the job. :smiley:

5

There are a lot of things coaches need help with that aren’t swim instruction. Every swim club can use more good people and so can every LSC. Knowing your limitations means you can improve on them. Yes, get involved.

P.S. you aren’t going to like us swims website. It’s frustrating but you will persevere! And no, I’m not a coach.