Swim Meet Officials– Good or Evil? (Written 11/04)

This issue of Swim School focuses on the role of officials at a swim meet and the point of disqualifications. At a US meet (like the Erin Block meet), all of the officials you see on deck are trained according to the rules of USA swimming by personnel from Illinois Swimming. Their function is to ensure that all swimmers are given the opportunity to compete in a fair and consistent meet. If a swimmer breaks the USA swimming rules and thus gets an advantage over another swimmer and is not disqualified, the meet is certainly not fair. So those situations are obvious.

Why though is a young or novice swimmer disqualified for breaking a rule if it gives them no advantage over the other swimmers? This is where consistency comes in. Officials cannot apply the rules to veteran swimmers and ignore the rules for new swimmers. Nor can we ask volunteer officials to make a determination of what swimmer should be considered a veteran and which a novice.

The philosophy of USA Swimming and Illinois Swimming is that it is much better for any swimmer to be disqualified at a regular season meet, learn the reason and try to correct it, than to have it ignored until that swimmer reaches a championship meet. You may go to meets where the Head Referee instructs the other officials to "be easy on the 10 and unders." This seems nice (although it goes against USA swimming training), until that same 10 and under goes to their third or fourth meet, makes the same error, and is disqualified. It is better to have the error caught early and hopefully corrected.

Officials make every effort to notify the swimmer who is disqualified, but there are times and situations where that just doesn't happen, so the coaches are often the ones notified. The official on deck will raise their hand to indicate that a swimmer has been disqualified. The referee must sign off on that DQ, and an official slip is filed with the meet paperwork and available for the coach to see. Even though the swimmer was timed for the event, the time will not count as an official time.

What can parents do?

Be supportive of your swimmer and the officials. Help your swimmer understand that being disqualified is not a bad thing; instead it is a way to catch mistakes and improve on their strokes. Be assured no official likes to disqualify swimmers; their intention is to act in the best interest of every swimmer.

If you ever disagree with a disqualification, do not approach the official who made it. Talk to your swimmer's coach about it at the end of a session. Frequently they saw the same thing the official did and can explain it to you. If the coach feels the disqualification is in error, the coach, and only the coach, can file a protest with the meet referee.

Be sure that your swimmer attends practice right after a meet, as that is a time when coaches will often go over DQs from the meet and stress the common reasons for DQs.

Learn about officiating by completing the Illinois Swimming training. Our team is currently recruiting parents to serve as officials and will hold a training session soon. Contact our officiating veterans Susan Vimr (ssteenbe@uiuc.edu) or Suzanne Trupin (suzanne.trupin@womenshealthpractice.com) for more information or visit http://www.ilswim.org/officials/FAQaboutbecominganofficial.htm.