Mark Seguin: Hello everybody, Mark Sigwin, Minnesota Swim and Vibe. I am here with a little coaches chat on a Thursday evening. With us today, we have John Bradley of Minnetonka Swim Club and Mr. Tom Walsh of Rochester Swim Club. to talk about an interesting topic that came from a post JB had on Facebook to the coaches exchange is really why are swim meets so hard to run these days? Why are they so complicated? And is that really taking from what used to be a fun experience? To kind of something that's a little bit stressful and complicated, making our overall experience not that great. Does that sound about right, gentlemen? Tom Walsh: Definitely. JB: Absolutely. Mark Seguin: All right, let's go an anti off belt order. Tom, what makes swimming so hard in your opinion? Number one reason. Tom Walsh: I think the number one reason is the manpower that it takes to operate these things and the expectations that not only our swimmers, our coaches, our parents all have to go and do these things and what we've kind of maybe taken for granted over the past few years and how it's changed from expectations versus the reality of actually operations. Mark Seguin: Okay, speak a little bit more about that too, with the expectations. so what what is all the the person power needed to run these meets? That what has changed there and what has caused it to change? Tom Walsh: well, I think a lot of things have changed in the I would say post COVID era. Mark Seguin: Okay. Tom Walsh: and the reason I say that is I think pre-COVID things were f far are far enough removed at this point in time that it's really since we've come back. I mean, think about how simple meets were when we were in that COVID era. It was, hey, there's 24 people in here, come and race, and it was all about racing. Mark Seguin: Yeah. Tom Walsh: And It has shifted. I mean, I I think the the things that really have changed are you have Matt from USA swimming and how much more safety protocols go into running a meet and control and access points. That's part of it. But then just the physical manpower that it takes to actually run a meet. I mean, each session of the age group state meet takes us about 30 to 35 volunteers. So, you know, Mark Seguin: Mm. Tom Walsh: over seven over seven sessions plus miles adds up really fast. you know, from Colorado Meet Marshals, Timers, Hospitality Workers, Awards Workers, concessions running, and general people on deck to help out and and do the the other tasks that are necessary. Just became it's become a lot. and I think we've tried to reduce our state meets to size. And timelines and stuff like that, but still takes a lot of bodies to actually make these things run. And then I think it runs into your other issue, which is people don't really want to volunteer anymore. Their time is very valuable to them. And it makes it even harder, it makes it even harder to get people to buy into helping and doing those things beyond just a sense of community and wanting to be there to help. And it it takes a village to do it and get all these things covered. Mark Seguin: JB, what's your experience with this? What's your thoughts? Agree, disagree, other issues? JB: You know, I I agree with Tom on pretty much all of it. I you know, when I s when I learned how to swim and I I had went to my first swimmates, it was it was a summer club situation. And, you know, we didn't we didn't have electronic timing. I mean, we were literally just using stopwatches. My dad was the starter, he used a a twenty two literally a twenty two cap gun that would use Mark Seguin: Yeah. JB: blanks. I mean the whole the whole nine yards, right? And you know, you wanted to be there because as a little kid that you get to hang out with your buddies, you'd get to go to this environment that was crazy. You know, it was a little little freaky, but you'd go to get to go to these different pools that you never swam at. And it was a lot of fun. And I don't remember my parents saying, Here's twenty bucks, go get yourself some food. I mean, we had the orange slices, you know, maybe if I lucked out, my mom would pack a tab. You know, that's how bad far back we're going. That's a diet code kind Mark Seguin: Yeah. No. JB: of thing. And And we'd go and participate, as my mom also used to call it, the mimosa and lemonade circuit, because that's exactly what it was. That the parents liked being around each other. They were having fun and they do their thing. And you usually be in and out in about three hours, right? You know, and and Mark Seguin: Okay. JB: that was the whole deal. And we would run those meets, rain or shine. You know, it would the only time we'd back off is if there was there was lightning, some kind of dangerous situation. Now we've turned this into something that's quite a bit different. And I think a lot of people did a lot of soul searching during COVID about how they wanted to spend their time when this was all over. And I think we're still seeing a lot of that stuff happening right now. And when we say to our parents, okay, here's the deal. We're going to this meet. Maybe we're gonna drive an hour and a half, two hours, maybe we're not. sometimes we have to, sometimes we don't. You're gonna get there. It's gonna be, you know, super early in the morning. You're gonna walk it probably before dawn when you get there, if we're talking winter meets, you walk in and you're paying, you know, probably anywhere from forty to sixty dollars a day for your kid to be there. You you're packed into a hot, gross environment. If you're hosting the meet, you're expected to work, even though you're paying for all these entries and stuff. You know, how much money did you pay to get there? If it's two day meet, are you staying over? You know, what does that cost? All of this stuff isn't fun. This is all this is all how do we make this happen stuff. And somewhere along the way, we have lost track of this just being a fun event. Whether it's the coaches who aren't thinking in terms of, you know, how do we hook these kids, the parents who think it has to be this way, the officials who need to have, you know, ten people on deck. All of this stuff is crazy. And it doesn't have to be like this. But we've conditioned ourselves to believe that if we do it at the senior level, it all has to match at the age group level. And I think that's hurting us in the long run to get kids involved, get on the squads, get to the meets, and most importantly, get out of there at a reasonable hour so they can have a reasonable weekend. Families can be families. That's Mark Seguin: Yeah. JB: what I think. Mark Seguin: Yeah, that's interesting how as you lay it out, there's so much more that goes into it. You would think that with the more the technology is advanced, the more we've had practice of doing this, we'd actually get better at it. What do you think has caused us to take a step back and go from what was simple to to making it complex now? Is it the expectations that are driving this? do we think more complicated is just better? Is it what we see at the elite level? Therefore we think we need to replicate that to make it feel like a more elite competition? What are some of the things that are are like driving this? Because clearly it doesn't seem to make sense to me. If you said, hey, I got a great idea for this sport, let's make people spend more time, be more miserable, spend more money, and get less out of it, I'd be like, I don't think that's a great business idea. So what do you guys think, Tom? First with you, what took us there? What led us there? Tom Walsh: I think it's really simple. I think Mark Seguin: Okay. Tom Walsh: it's absolute resistance to change. and it it's not adapting to a modern day thing. You know, I I think back to like fifteen years ago when we were going to the state meets. Well, they were time finals at time at points. Now we've got to do prelim finals for our eleven and twelve year olds and our thirteen, fourteen year olds. And it's it's so much Unnecessary add or filler to the meets that's not really beneficial to the kids. I mean, here's what I think we do really well with swim meets. We theme them so they're fun. We try and have a good music, like with a DJ and it and an announcer, Mark Seguin: Yeah, good energy. Tom Walsh: and try and have a good environment because that seems to make everything better, right? Is when people are in a good mood and it's not stressed. I think back to our 10 and under meet that we just hosted, the 10 and understate meet. People or coaches are like, they should all be together. They should all be together. Yeah, but the stands in Rochester had 700 people in the stands for a hundred and forty kid session. There's there is a limitation to what you can do in that sense. And the and like you create a good environment when you have spectators that are there, interested, invested in the kids, and that's important. But Mark Seguin: Well, I also think you could only maintain a certain level of energy for so long, right? You can't have Tom Walsh: Correct. Mark Seguin: an eight hour super hype session. It just doesn't work that way. Tom Walsh: Correct. I mean, I think about like what we have to do with these warm-up sessions to get everybody in and then get all Mark Seguin: Ridiculous. Tom Walsh: these kids through the swimmers. And I think the other thing, kind of going back to the logistics part that JB was talking about, is like it's it's so late in the game that you don't you don't know any different at the time you're thirteen or fourteen, because that's the way it's been the whole time. Unless you're brand new to the sport, it's like, nope, this is the way it always is. And I think there's so much that There's so many little quality of life things that we could do to save time to make things better. And but going to your comment, yeah, I think I think people see the junior nationals and the senior national meets and they're like, no, that's what everything should be all the way down. And I mean, let's be honest, swimming is silly with the way they officiate. Our eight nunders are officiated the same way our as our Olympians are, and they're not the same thing. No other sport is like that. In baseball, it's not, you know. It it starts out with T ball and then it goes to the to coach pitch and stuff like that. Basketball, the hoop isn't ten feet in the air for a for a an eight and under. And I think that that does play in a factor is we don't have this really basic process down we always do from the top down, and it just Mark Seguin: Yeah. Tom Walsh: doesn't work. It's starting to break, and you're seeing this. I mean, why would anyone really want to be at a meet for You know, say you're swimming a couple of races, you're swimming for ten minutes maybe over the course of the weekend. Why do you want to be there for an hour and a half warm up and then a four hour session to get your minute and thirty second swimming? It doesn't make Mark Seguin: Yeah, Tom Walsh: sense. Mark Seguin: I get that. JV, chime in. How'd we get here? JB: Well, i you know, i I I I think a big part of this has to do with the concept of fairness and the idea that we need to make everything as fair as absolutely possible. And I don't think anyone has any bad intentions here. I don't think that's the case at all. What I think has happened is we we we're always in this search for the perfect environment where everything is fair and everything is equal. And One of the things I love about John Barnes is an idea he has about running meets where we don't use watches. We just pick place. And it's all about racing. And honestly, that's when swim meets are the most fun is the racing. A close second is probably like playing cards with your buddies and stuff. But man, nothing gets people fired up at a swim meet like a really close race. And it doesn't matter if it's the best kids. The average kids, the kids who are just learning, it doesn't matter. When people are racing, people are invested and involved. And I think there's a lot of interesting stuff we could do to bring that out, bring that out of more people. But in order to do that, we have to change some of those attitudes. And again, again, the first thing that would happen is we'd have to change a little bit of how we feel about fairness. You know, I think it would surprise a lot of people to know that swimming used to go three digits deep. It wasn't just to the hundredth. It was to the thousandth. And if you look back and like the seventy-two Ol Olympics at the running clock, that's what it was, you know, for even more precision. This is not a new problem. This is something that, you know, we're trying to navigate. But what I think has happened is again, with all these societal changes, the way we perceive what youth sports are, the ca all of it, that's led us here. And I think the time is now to push back on that a little bit and say, Well, what if we did this a little bit differently? You know, what if we had what if every club team had a junior team? And that junior team was just kids who, hey, you know, I like swimming a couple of days a week. I do my thing. And you just do a fun meet and you make it all dual meets all the way around. Little fast dual meets that are done in an hour and twenty minutes. Everybody swims two or three races. And and you know what else? Bring back relays. Get the kids swimming relays, especially the littles, because that's Mark Seguin: yeah. JB: what this is all about. You know, we've we've got to get these opportunities for kids to feel that competitive thing and have fun in it and and want that at meets. I think a lot of it takes care of itself when we can do that. But you know, if we had just some little leagues, if we had some some outdoor meets where we were go out to the twenty five yard pool at St. Louis Park if you can. we don't have to do everything long course in the summer. There we have plenty Mark Seguin: Adult. JB: of yard pools. We we could do this easily. But again, I think it's just this is kind of where we're at and and you know and I I'm sure we will talk about resources later because who's gonna run some of this stuff? And that's the other thing. You know, does everything have to be a million dollars for it to for you to participate in it. So that was kind of all over the place, but that's what I'm thinking. Mark Seguin: Yeah, that's interesting. No, no, and I think we're kind of all in the same thing is we we made it more complex. We made it harder to do because we think every little piece of this sport has to be like the elite level almost. So when he talked about to the thousandth of a second, that was only available at the Uber Elite level because it was super expensive, right? Now JB: Exactly. Exactly. Yep. Mark Seguin: that technology is available across the board, we say, aha, we must apply that to everything. It doesn't fit everything. Right? A lot JB: Well it Mark Seguin: of age group swimming, note cards, and little s handwritten stickers on ribbons do just fine. Right? JB: Well one of the one of the dumbest things that we do for eight and under swimming is we use touch pads. Why? That Mark Seguin: Why? Yeah. JB: is that's a piece of gear that I mean if it's set up, great. But if you're running a bunch of littles, why even use touch pads? Half the time they don't fire. You'd be better off with a button and a watch, you know, and just run it that way. But Mark Seguin: Yep. Yep. Yeah. JB: again, what are we trying to do? What what's the what's the whole point? Mark Seguin: Well, and this here here's gonna be the pushback that you'll hear on that is coaches and parents, those two specifically who say, Well, my kids' times won't be in the swims database then. Right? And and my response is until they're 12 or 13, who gives a shit? Right? No offense. but I don't, I don't. that's what that's the change you're gonna have to get people through. and it's gonna be the coaches first, and then the coaches are gonna have to educate the parents and say, it's okay that little Johnny at age nine doesn't have a time in the swims their best time in the swims database. It's not gonna ruin their chance to swim D1. Cause they're nine. They might actually like drama better. You just don't know yet. so that's kind of JB: Well, you know Mark Seguin: that's a really hard conversation. Can you imagine trying to pivot on that? The resistance that would be against that? JB: Think about it like this. All so let's say you took all the tenant unders out of the Swims database. One Mark Seguin: Yeah. JB: of the things that I've been noticing lately is there's a whole cottage industry that's looks like it's sprung up ranking kids against each Mark Seguin: I know. JB: other by their graduation year. And Mark Seguin: Yeah. JB: I've seen it as young as 11 years old. And there is no certainty in this at all. There is no certainty that when you are phenomenal as a little kid, that you're going to be phenomenal when you're older. A lot of those kids end up being pretty good, but there is so much green between here and there. I I mean, and we've all seen it. We've seen that kid when they're thirteen where you're like, you know, the kid's got a junior cut, they're they're just loving it, they're loving everything. And then three years later, they're on a B relay in a high school meet and people are saying, Yeah, remember when they were so good, yeah, what happened? Nobody really knows or wants to talk about it. And there are thousands of kids that happens to every year. It's it's about losing those kids. It's about other kids who are, you know, end up being six five, six six when they're twenty years old and they haven't swum since they were eleven because they didn't feel like they were getting any recognition or nobody was talking to because everybody's focusing on somebody. Everybody has to be treated in a special way, but we've got to be smart about what special means. And that's the trick. Mark Seguin: Yeah. I mean I think our measures of success have to be age appropriate. 'cause I don't think time is a true measure until you're post puberty, right? JB: And and you know, does it make sense to apply something like the phone rule? You know, you're seeing there are three three basic classifications for phones in schools: elementary, middle school, Tom Walsh: No texto. JB: high school. If you've got kids who are in elementary school, odds are they're not using that phone. I don't think any districts are really allowing those kids to have phones. Middle school, you're starting to see a lot of schools put restrictions on the phones. Sometimes you've got to turn them in at the beginning, whatever it is. High school. I don't think any high school has put the kibosh on it yet completely because I think that there's a lot of and then I don't know if it's correct or incorrect. I couldn't give you a real opinion on it, but I I don't think that that's the issue right now. It seems like it's the younger kids. So does it have to be that way for the grades? You know, for the for the for the kids Mark Seguin: Yep. JB: who are in elementary school? Why why? You know, what's the point? Mark Seguin: Yeah. No, it makes sense. It makes sense. Tom Walsh: I wrote a I wrote a few anecdotal things around as you guys were talking Mark Seguin: Yeah. Tom Walsh: there. I I I just kind of keeping this on the swim meets and and and really why Mark Seguin: Sure. Tom Walsh: is it so hard? There's too many events for little kids, especially the eleven and twelves. I mean, you've got three stroke races for flyback and breast. You have both IMs, you have the fifty to the mile. There's just too many races. And it also adds to length and it As much as I'd like to say that adds to well-roundedness, we need to go to meets where it's the 200 backstroke, the 100 breaststroke, the 50 butterfly, and those are the three events, and those are the three events you're swimming. I Mark Seguin: Yeah. Tom Walsh: really think that would help teach kids to be better instead of mom and dad picking events or coaches picking events because the coaches do that too. I'm guilty of it. yeah, I want you to keep swimming this, right? Mark Seguin: yeah. Tom Walsh: But I you said something earlier. I Like, you know when like you're a little kid, they're like, you know, get in trouble. Like this is going on your permanent record Mark Seguin: Ha ha. Tom Walsh: and then you become an adult and you're like, Wait, what happened my permanent record? That's Mark Seguin: Do you know how big mine would be? my god. It'd be its own library. Tom Walsh: That's 12 and under swimming as a as as a whole is it Mark Seguin: Yeah. Tom Walsh: none of it goes on your permanent record because and even when you're 15, like Mark Seguin: No one gives a shit. Tom Walsh: that that it doesn't matter. Like if you're going to go and swim division one and you're trying to be recruited, it matters at that point in time. But really, Mark Seguin: Yeah. Tom Walsh: it still matters what you're doing in your senior, junior and senior year. And especially with the commitment as early as it is now. It But the there is no permanent record. Like no one's gonna remember what place Billy got, except for probably Billy at his 12 and under state meet. Maybe his mom and dad. But I think the other thing that is, and we we did this this weekend, is it goes back to the awards and the the recognition piece of it. Well, he yeah, that 11 year old didn't feel any good because he has all the state cuts, but he's like a 16th to, you know, 24th place state kid. Well, that's a big accomplishment in our sport, but but we don't recognize that at all. Mark Seguin: It's huge. That's top five percent in the state. No. Tom Walsh: If you were if you were that p position at any state meet previous to the last two, you didn't get a ribbon. You didn't get there was no accolades. you scored a point for your team. Yippee. That's nothing. Mark Seguin: I cannot think of a single club meet where I was ever on a podium, regardless of what it was, right? Tom Walsh: Yeah. Mark Seguin: All the way up to regional level meets. There's just never this podium thing. I think that's part of the problem too. Tom Walsh: Yeah. And well like and I I think that recognition should come from a lot of different avenues, right? Like it should we should be awarding our Twelve and Unders. We people Mark Seguin: Absolutely. Tom Walsh: got rid of awards in in the mid 2010s because Mark Seguin: Yep. Tom Walsh: we got rid of our ABC open format for US Minnesota swimming. And so everyone's like, well, I'll just cut awards. Well, because there's not a bunch of kids in that age group. So I mean. Going back to JB's comment comment about the best racing, two most exciting things in in swimming, swim-offs and time trials, right? Mark Seguin: Time trials, yep. Yep. Tom Walsh: Like, not even the sport. Like it is those people. Mark Seguin: You're like, how the hell do you drop a second and a half and a hundred in an hour? JB: Yeah. Tom Walsh: Correct. Well, you I do have an answer for that, Mark, Mark Seguin: Yeah. Tom Walsh: because the kid learned how to swim it and swim it better from the time that he did it. But our Mark Seguin: Yeah. Hopefully. Tom Walsh: our swimming are so infrequent. Why Mark Seguin: Yeah. Tom Walsh: why do kids get better and consistently better throughout a high school season? Because they're racing the same races every week and they can learn and tweak and adjust. Like we don't have that situation. We're like delay gratification, delay gratification, delay gratification. It's okay to swim slow all season. Okay, big championship meet. Nope. Now the only thing that matters is your place and your time. Ready go. Like, and it it doesn't make any sense. Like Mark Seguin: Well, and even at the bigger level, I think, kind of and I'll call this more of the elite level, all you're doing all season long is swimming suited meats, right? It's like five Tom Walsh: Yeah. Mark Seguin: or six suited meats. You don't have those ones where you're like, hey, I'm gonna whip out my four hundred IM and my two hundred breasts and let's see how it goes. Right? I'm embarrassed to say I had elite swimmers that had never swam the eight hundred of the mile. Right? And I'm like, why? They're like, I don't like it. I'm like, okay. You gotta swim those things, right? You learn on those and then sometimes it's great when you need a best time to swim that thing you haven't swam in three years. JB: So something that I was just thinking about, we used to do this in Wisconsin. I I think that this might help with some of these meets. You know, as as coaches for club, we're always looking for, you know, okay, who's got the mile? Where's this meet? Where's that meet? Where can I swim a full boat? Whatever. And in in Wisco, we would do we'd have a signed weekend. So the first weekend of every month, it was always you had if you were running a meet, you had to offer the four hundred IM. The second weekend, if you were running a meet, you had to run the mile. Third weekend, if you're running a meet, you had to run the five hundred. Fourth weekend, you had to do the thousand to the eight hundred. And every month it was the same. So you would know that on those particular days or on those particular weekends, I could get in a mile. I could get in this, I could get in that, and you could plan it out. Because we're always trying to cram all of these things in on a two-day meet, we get stuck. Or we try to cram it in on Friday of a three-day meet. And if we would just say we don't have to offer everything. But you're not going to be in the dark about what we are going to offer. It would help coaches immeasurably. I mean, you Mark Seguin: Yeah. JB: could you could plan your weekends out a lot easier. Mark Seguin: So it's interesting. I'm hearing a lot of different things, and I'll come back to where we started. We need to simplify the experience. And there's a variety of different ways it sounds like we can do that. whether it be in format, whether it be I'm trying to think of the word, how we officiate it, right? The amount of technology that we apply to it. Technology at a younger age group actually is more work than less. yeah, you won't get your times in the swim database, but that's okay. And you could if you really wanted to. You could pay some sh four schmuck to do data entry if you had to. but yeah, there's a lot of different ways I think that you guys have kind of hit on that. We could really simplify this. Now, I'll I'll pivot on this to Block Party, which I know you're both big proponents of. how does that fit in this? This is kind of block party to me is like the ulti ultimate simplification. Tom Walsh: I love block party and I'll tell you this. I've had more success with kids getting better at swimming with block party in the last year than everything else. I I I actually think kind of swim eats have w we are a chicken or the egg scenario with the times and the money. Well they're expected to go fast because they're paying a lot of money and they're paying a lot of money, so they're expected to go fast and and it it has kind of really watered down what meets are. And and I think what like where we have our block party meets and we run a circuit or a series of block party meets in Rochester, because it is we can do them here in our own pool and we don't have to travel to do it. But we have a s where we provide all of the 50s for our younger kids, but then we add in a few of the other events for our older kids on a rotation Mark Seguin: Sure. Tom Walsh: so that they get the opportunity. But it's the only time that the kids don't feel pressure because it's 10 bucks or 20 bucks Mark Seguin: Yeah. Tom Walsh: or whatever, and not $80 in a hotel room or whatever. And I don't think that every parent thinks that way. And I I I'll I'll preface this: like, I don't think that that's the thought from everyone, but it's definitely the thought from enough people that we should be concerned about it. And if and and if your if that pressure and the time becomes so valuable at every meet instead of the process. We've lost what our sport is about. Excuse me, what our sport is about. Mark Seguin: Absolutely. Yeah. Tom Walsh: Like we are supposed to be educating and teaching kids how to get through hard things and learn and learn through challenges and get better on the other side of it, not just because of ease and or adversity, but because it's these core principles. What do you want the kid to do? Well, I need to learn from a mistake so I can get better the next time, right? Like that's a pretty simple process. It doesn't matter what sport you're in. But that is what we want to teach. But when that doesn't seem to be reasonable because of the cost and the expectations that are put on all of these meets, man, we are really walking a fine line of what's even responsible at that point. Mark Seguin: Yeah. And I think we as a sport serve it up to I don't blame the parents for the most part. We serve it up to them. Like this is what the sport's gonna be. Here's the money we need. Here's the time we expect out of you. And by the way, here's Meet Mobile so you can follow it along in great detail and compare your kid next to everybody else all the time. Right? Like we tee it up so perfectly for parents to say this is what the sport's all about. and we don't do the other half and be like, you know. How many Facebook posts the parents throw out there and go, hey, Timmy had the worst meet of his life, added in 36 events, but JB: Yeah. Mark Seguin: he showed great resilience and he's gonna grow up better for it. You don't get that. You get podium picks, right? JB: Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, it Tom Walsh: Guilty. JB: it's Mark Seguin: Yeah. JB: it's like we it's like we we we've treated swimming like dog racing almost, you know, and like you you think about it, what are the best parts of going to the dog track? You know, well the first thing was y you know, you get to watch the racing. So and and then there's money on the line, that not that anybody's ever gambling on swimming, but you know, it it amps it up. So you're you're watching this and it's like, Man, there they go and everybody's getting crazy and whatever. And I think the dogs like racing each other and chasing the rabbit, whatever. Mark Seguin: Yeah. JB: So it Mark Seguin: Who doesn't? JB: But what we did is instead we said, Hey, let's focus on the statistics and let's really dial into this experience of just being there standing around and watching this happen. and for the kids, yeah, you're gonna race every Mark Seguin: There is no rabbit. JB: no, no, there's not. And you know, we we need to be f maybe the lesson to learn is we need to be focusing on the experience and we need to get more kids involved. We need to get more kids who who are just getting in and trying it out. And as coaches, we need to find a way to make it appealing. And you know, it's not for everybody. No sport is. Everybody's gonna have their hang up at one thing or the other. We don't need to capture every kid. But man, if we could just get another ten senior kids on some of the teams that maybe only have ten senior kids on their team, Mark Seguin: Okay. JB: we'd really be doing something. And we'd have those kids. For a longer period of time, which means that the investment that they would make into the club would be more sustained, which means there'd be more resources available to get the things that you need to make the experience even better. Whether that's more kickboards or something crazy, you know, it's some kind of crazy training tool, whatever it is, we're reducing that dependence on going to meets or running meets that cost $100 to $150. And we're w it's more organic. It's all contained in the membership. It's contained in the actual club experience, which I think is maybe the best way to be a little more concise, but let's focus on the club experience and how do we make that better? You know? It's especially with regards to me. Mark Seguin: I think that's a valid point. And you can get more kids in, which is increasing the amount of revenue you're bringing in, and reduce the amount of resource it takes to run meets, that's winning on both sides, right? That's more in, less out. That's just common JB: Yep. Mark Seguin: sense stuff. Let me throw the real challenging question out there. who? Who? Or how? How do you make the change? How do you get the pivot? How do you break the cycle of what we're currently in? Who's responsible? Tom Walsh: I I think that it has to come from the coaches that understand this and aren't willing to keep doing this the way we are. I don't think it's gonna come from an officiating standpoint. I just feel like every year there's Mark Seguin: Shouldn't. I don't think it should. Yeah. Tom Walsh: well, but I feel like every year there's new rules and it makes it more difficult, I guess if you will, to do what we're doing. And We're seeing it. We're seeing it in our retention numbers across like I think about like all those asks by like Jay Chambers and stuff like that on the idea exchange. It's like, how do you retain coaches? How do you retain athletes? Yeah, like they they realize the problem is change or die. And and we're seeing this. We're seeing the drop Mark Seguin: Yeah. Tom Walsh: off in kids that are doing it. Over the last four years, we have a trend. There's more relay-only swimmers every year. Mark Seguin: huh. No. Tom Walsh: That's not a good thing in terms of getting kids involved in the meet. That is a, man, we have to survive and we have to get Billy and Johnny and Susie and you know Sydney to come and swim at the meet, even though they're not qualified for the meet. And Mark Seguin: Yep. Tom Walsh: and the reason you're seeing that is because there's not any sort of long term thought of, how do we do this and how do we make this better in the future? So the answer is I think you have to come from the coaches' standpoint. I I still believe that when Minnesota Swimming hired a sports development director, I think that that is the route. You have to have one person that's going to be in charge and lead and design and make it their own. It cannot be a committee. Every time we do everything by a committee, everything that we've done over committees over the last 10 years, the the antage is what do you get when your committee draws a horse? You get a camel? That's Mark Seguin: Yeah. Tom Walsh: exactly what we're getting with our things because. It's not a visionary thing where it's one person that is maybe using other people as a resource and then that changes every two years. It's a new age group chair, it's a new senior chair, and it's new people in these positions. Tech planning is non-existent in terms of what they were doing 15 years ago, where it was, we're gonna design these meets and we're gonna look out four years and things like that. We are, we don't know what our summer championships are gonna be. next year and we're less than twelve months away. That Mark Seguin: From a little bit of an outsider perspective, it feels like we're working really hard to just keep the lights on. Tom Walsh: Correct. And I I actually agree with that. JB: Yeah, actually. Tom Walsh: And because there is no it's not that there's no long-term plan, but because there is no one vision coming from a it doesn't need to be an individual, but a a core ideology of, hey, these are the things that we're gonna do. I don't think you'll ever see the change because it's too many people. Well, I want Johnny to do this, I want prelims finals, I don't want prelims finals. And it it's not what's best for Our sport in the long run to develop these athletes. And and and maybe not even develop the athletes. It's meaning that to make sure that the kids are having a great experience and the parents are having a great experience and the coaches and the officials are also having a great experience. Because I'm going to tell you this walking off the pool deck at six o'clock, I'm having a way better experience than I am walking off the pool deck at 9 p.m. And and and so is every mom and dad, and so is every kid. When a kid doesn't have to take an eleven or twelve year old doesn't have to take a nap in between every session of a state meet to survive the meet, we're not talking about good experiences. Mark Seguin: That sounds good. JB, your thoughts on who leads the charge to make the change if we can. JB: Well, the first thing is is I'm I'm really gonna listen to what Tom has to say and what he just said because Tom has an eight-year-old daughter who's swimming. And how how old is your youngest? Five. And a five year old who's also swimming. And you know, I watch those little ones, you know, I it's one of the fun things for me has been watching Tom's kids get a little older and watching him be a dad and be a good coach and all that. I mean, that's the the coolest coolest part of all this, but he's right in the middle of it. And he's seeing it. We have a lot of coaches who are a little bit older, whose kids are now 18, 20, 22 years old, and things are different now than they were when your kids were eight, nine, ten years old. The way we approach Mark Seguin: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. JB: the sport, the way they process information, the way yeah, all of it. It's all different. And there's nothing wrong with trying something different. One of the things I don't understand, I've never understood this for age group swimming, why not just have a time standard that's the same for four years? Just leave it. And everybody's like, well, we gotta gotta drive performance with time standards. Well, do we for twelve and other kids? I mean, yeah, Mark Seguin: No. JB: I wanna see our kids be good, but you know, i i if your kids are gonna be Mark Seguin: I would give them a bonus where like if they can hit two free throws and they're close to the cut time, they get to go. Like, that's me, right? JB: Sure. Do something by your or you if you know what, if you can hit three of five bottle flips, yeah, you get to go. You know, we're we're doing it. Whatever. Mark Seguin: Yeah. Exactly. JB: But again, Tom Walsh: All right. JB: you know Tom Walsh: I would like to see the bottle flip competition actually make its way in. That was where I was Mark Seguin: Like why not? Tom Walsh: going with that. And and I think that's JB: Well well hold Tom Walsh: equivalent to every kid. Mark Seguin: Yeah. JB: Hold on a second because that I'm gonna divert here. We can cut this out and re put it someplace else. But the Mark Seguin: we will. Trust me, we could go side tangent here. JB: Tom, remember when we were talking with Burvey and Welton about our our great swim meet like gaming day? And the idea was gonna be it was like six things that all swimmers know how to do. So one would be bottle flipping, one was like one was card Mark Seguin: Kickboard toss. JB: playing. yeah, each one was something that you would do at a swim meet. Mark Seguin: Yeah. JB: And we're like, we'll go from this to this. Mark Seguin: The goggle flip. JB: And I that would be a heck of a fun meet. I mean, to do some fun stuff Mark Seguin: my god. JB: like that. But you'd have it you'd have to have the right kids there who don't view every meet opportunity as, you know, live and die. Cause it's not. It's Mark Seguin: Well kids will only do that if the coaches and the parents do. They will not come up with that on their own. At at a base unit for a kit, they just wanna have fun and friends. That's it. We're the ones that ruin that. John Barnes taught me that one. JB: Yeah. Well and and and and the other thing that we should be looking at with with how do we make meats more fun is okay, why is it that high school swimming has become a thing where for a lot of kids it keeps them in it? It it's it's Mark Seguin: Mm-hmm. JB: the the season where they reset and they go for it. You know, they it it's it's not the same thing. There's some variety to it. And I think that we can learn from that. You know, I I'm not, you know, I I do coach high school. I think people know that. I I think it's I think it's really important. I think it's a lot of fun. Is it detrimental to kids who are doing two hundreds of stroke if that's your big thing? I don't know. Maybe it is, maybe it's not. It depends on the Mark Seguin: No. It's not. JB: kid, and it depends on who they are. But, you know, again, if we're framing this as What is the user experience like? What is the customer experience like? There's a reason when parents get done with their first high school meet, they walk out and they look like they've just been baptized. my God, I can go home and I can eat a real dinner and we're not, you know, we don't have to go to Burger King or something, get something at the last minute. You actually get Mark Seguin: Yeah. JB: out of there at a reasonable time. And there isn't a lot of wasted time. You know, there's there's always something interesting. It there's something to that. And Mark Seguin: Hmm? JB: we need to going back to that block party idea, you can do that with block party. That's why it's popular. That's why people like it. Because you don't have to worry about some of the constraints that you would have in a regular meet. I screwed this up. I want to change all these warm ups. they're in the meat information. I gotta resanction the meet. Block party you don't. You just make the change. You know, I mean you you call up the other coach you're dueling with or if it's your staff and you just say, Hey, can we do this? Sure, done. Whatever. That There's something to that. And again, do I think that those kinds of meets should be run at the elite level? No. I mean, but if you want to have some fun with your college kids or you wanna see what they can do after a great workout and say, hey, we're all gonna go an eight hundred now. We're gonna we're gonna throw it in the database. So you'll go get your shoot on. I know we just did twelve thousand, but hey, you know, what's another eight hundred gonna do? You can do Mark Seguin: Yep. Nothing. JB: that. Right. You can do that. You can get you can do all kinds of weird stuff. One of the things I've wanted to do, and I haven't done it yet, but we're gonna do it this year. I wanna run we have a 12-yard diving well that's wired up for touch pads. I wanna put those in and I want to get official 12 yard times on all my kids. Why? Mark Seguin: Make sure they're wearing helmets. JB: Yeah, yeah. I mean, but it it will be interesting to see how fast can you go? What Mark Seguin: Yeah. JB: if you ran a meet where you ran a tether on kids? They dive off and when it got to 15 meters, shut itself off. You'd get some incredible fifteen meter information off of your kids. And it would be standardized across the board. Then you could work on that and be more explosive. You know, I mean, again, by tying some of the things that we want to see as coaches in with some of the things the kids want to see and make it fun, why not? Mark Seguin: Mm-hmm. JB: Do it. That's block party. Mark Seguin: Absolutely. And one of the things I know it's not logistically easy to do, but you think of like handicap sprints where you start people at different times to make the race even. Like that's some of the best racing there is in my book. Right? Like anybody can be a winner. Tom Walsh: My drag racing series. Mark Seguin: Yeah. Like anybody can be a winner. Roll it out there. so that kind of stuff. And I agree. I think it comes back on the coaches. Like a lot of those parents aren't involved in it long enough. And their primary focus should be their kid. Their kids' safety, their kids' happiness, all that stuff. the athletes are the athletes, they're there to experience. So it does come down to coaches. Do you think we have what it takes? I I worry, and I see this in high school, that there's programs that have and a lot of programs that have not. and the ones that have don't seem to be feeling the same pains that the ones that have not are. so there seems to be a little less urgency there to change things. Do you think that can be an issue, or do you think we can overcome that? Right? Like that's. I hate to be real like that, but it it's the truth. Yeah. JB: I wanna hear what Tom has to say before I say anything. Tom Walsh: I I think that unless we make a concerted effort to change in going into 2028 to 2032 with some long term sustainability of making things better, I think you're only gonna dwindle. I've seen it since I started coaching in 2010. There used to be 68 teams in the state of Minnesota. We are down in the low fifties, might even be in the forties at this point. That's club teams. And though those teams and organizations don't exist anymore. And I think you're seeing that squeeze just slowly happen. What do you need to have a team? You need to have a coach that cares about some kids, and you need to have some kids that care about swimming. That's it. And water time. But Mark Seguin: Water. Yeah. But any water time will do. Tom Walsh: but we We're we're slowly and rapidly losing at the same time both ends of those. Coaches walking away for a more sustainable life, kids finding other things. Not and JB said earlier, not every kid wants to swim. And that's okay. But I want every Mark Seguin: Yeah, it's not for everybody. Tom Walsh: kid that does wanna swim to not feel like it's too much of a burden to swim and they're missing out on too many other things. They should be able to come and swim. Mark Seguin: Yep. Tom Walsh: I don't know. Do we need to change our programming? Do we need to change our core philosophy on and things? I I I I think about Minnesota Swimming Mission and its, you know, sportsmanship, integrity, excellence, and fun. And I don't know how much fun we're having when it's the same thing every year. And it gets later and later when we find things out, and it's getting more and more difficult to do it, going back to the running these meets. And you can only do so much creative thinking. and assembly of different meats and stuff like that. But if the general organization of Minnesota Swimming isn't going to buy into that, you can only tread water for so long before you're going to go under because you can't sustain it if no one else is going to do it with you. Mark Seguin: I I agree, I agree. J B. You bit your tongue nicely. JB: So Yeah, well no, I I agree with everything Tom said. you know, I I you know, I'm I'm old. I'm fifty-six years old now. I've been doing this full time basically since nineteen ninety one. You know, excuse me, nineteen ninety two. And it it's a lot of things have changed. when I first started coaching, obviously we weren't getting paid the same amount of money. I was working hourly and trying to make it a full time gig. You know, we had a lot of people, a lot of coaches, young coaches who were eating ramen and, you know, that's just how we did it, and working our asses off and teaching privates and just doing everything you could to make money so you could stay on deck and keep learning. And, you know, I was taught by an absolutely incredible coach named Dave Dollar and another coach named Drew Walden, who are both incredibly kind and help me a ton. And I have been fortunate to learn. From every coach that I've worked with, Fred Russell at Elmbrook, Brent Bach at Elmbrook. You know, I knew Brent when before Brent was coaching all the national record holders, you know, he was he he was the age group coach at Elmbrook forever. And he was a darn good age group coach, you know. But we all had the benefit of being mentored. And I think there's so much information out there now. It's almost like a it's a critical mass and it it's Paralysis by analysis. You know, there's 500 different things you can do, but I think a lot of people don't know how to pick something and just kind of stick with it. So it's chaotic. It's it's not really a a curated experience because you know I can look at 12 different swim influencers and find exactly the video I want to illustrate something I'm doing. I don't even necessarily need to talk about what they're doing and the drilling. I'm I'm looking for something different. But I've been mentored and and and people took the Mark Seguin: Mm-hmm. JB: time to teach me. And I've also been lucky because a lot of the teams I've been at have had incredible swimmers. So who were coached by those incredible coaches and I could make, you know, observations about, wow, I really like the way this is going, or, you know what, if I'm ever in that position, I think I'd try it a different way, you know, and even even on things just talking to kids, you know. One of the things one of the real formative events for me, I've told Barnes this story. I had a good swimmer. We were in Indianapolis for the summer Niskamete. she had swum a a a poor 200 im. I was a little salty about that and let her know how I feel. And she turned around and swam Mark Seguin: No. JB: a great, I think it was a hundred free. And she came back and I was still pissy about that I am, and I was like, Well, you know, you could have done that dub and She left and she was obviously upset. And Barnes looked at me and said, you realize that the reason she swam that well was because she was trying to make it better for you. And that's the point where you need to say, Hey, wait a wait a rebound. He goes, Not everyone's gonna be a great swim. And Mark Seguin: Wisdom of Barnes. JB: but that was exactly what I needed to hear at that point of my being a coach, and somebody cared enough about me to say Dude, you're playing this one wrong. And you know, don't gotta listen to me, but he's coached some pretty good kids and I'm gonna listen to John. And the other thing is is I think that he has incredibly strong relationship. Mark Seguin: I know I miss the rainbows and unicorns and shit like that, but I think every coach should care as much about the sports health as they do their team's health. I don't think we get a lot of that. Tom Walsh: No, I I I mean you're seeing it around the deck and like it's I think it's easy when things are going well. When they're not going well and when things start to fade or things start to get hard or their recession hits or maybe a new team starts or whatever it is, I think that that really shows that true character. And when when things are status quo, it's easy to just be like, well, this is just the way we always end. But I'm I I I still think that there is a JB: Okay. Tom Walsh: better way. And I think it's going to take some. I still think it's gonna take some. some effort in Elbow Greece to make some significant changes and they've got to come top down. And it's got to, I think it does somewhat have to start with our championship meet structure and things like that. Mark Seguin: Yeah. Tom Walsh: But it's got to start with how are we better and how are we better as a community. You know, one of the things that I talked to Jessica Golby, the Red Dragons coach, I mean she had a girl qualify for junior nationals at the 11 to JB: Yeah. Yeah. That girl's good. Mark Seguin: Yeah. Tom Walsh: 14 meetings. Awesome. Great swing for the Una Nelson, yeah, great swim. And she's like, I wish we could get more people at the Halbert, but it's so hard to get people up here and it's so hard. And she's a small team, so running meets becomes a challenge. Mark Seguin: It is, and it is, said Tom Walsh: We're a big team and running meets are a challenge. We run a lot of meets and we run meets because it's a better for our kids to be able to actually swim. And Rochester's a great pool and things like that. But I I I I I feel Jess's pain where she's like, we need people to help us to do this. And you know, it the LSC could come together on that. I think that would be I think that's really important. And that's the start in the right direction. And not every meet has to be at the U of And Mark Seguin: No. Tom Walsh: not every meet has to be at the rec center. And we can swim outdoors. I know John made a Barnes made a post. He's like, I feel like summer swimming should be outdoors, you know, and and Mark Seguin: Be amazing. Tom Walsh: we need to get back to that. And it's not It's not necessarily about the time, it's about the racing and I think Mark Seguin: Yeah. And I don't think it's about even fifty meter outdoor pools. There's plenty of twenty-five yard outdoor pools you can have meats at too, and they'd be just fine. Tom Walsh: Yeah. Just go race, have fun. Mark Seguin: And I mean if you ever caught a whiff of and of country club swimming out in the West Suburbs, it's awesome. Right? It's all small pools, it's all shallow, it's all short, and it's fun. JB: Gonna tell you guys if you the way you do it is take a look at the Madison All City League. And when I first started coaching, I was like, this is the worst, this keeps people from town. You know, I and I was stupid. I that was me not understanding what was important to kids and families, and thinking that the most important thing was getting some triple A time or whatever. None of that crap matters. Madison All City League is comprised of, I think, fourteen independent swim clubs. They have over three thousand kids in the meet. They have kids who have made Olympic trials cuts. One of the best swimmers in the Midwest is Jane Garlock girl, who's Tom Walsh: Yeah. JB: really tall. I think she's six two, can sprint like crazy, forty eight second hundred freestyler. she swam in the all city meet last weekend and she went fifty point in the hundred free. Outdoors in a short course yards pool. And that's a heck of a swim. You know, set the record, the whole deal. They want to swim. They they want to do that. And then they also do a diving meet where they whole have like, I think, three or four hundred divers. And all of the events are short. They're explosive. Mark Seguin: Whoa. JB: I think the longest race is a hundred IM or a hundred free. And They had that nag kid, that Caleb Goodrovic, who set the national record for the 1100 1200, he swam in the meat. They're all swimming in that meat. And it it means something Mark Seguin: Yeah. JB: to them. If what that does is that meat sets up every kid who swims in it, from a six year old all the way to an 18 year old, they learn how to sprint. That's the first thing they learn how to do. And they get aggressive. And then the second thing they learn is they represent their team. So you've got the two biggest things that Mark Seguin: Mm-hmm. JB: as a collegiate coach, as a high school coach, as a senior coach, I want my kids doing. I want them sprinting and I want them to understand that we are a team. Why aren't we capitalizing on that? Why can't we create a situation? And you know what? Mark Seguin: Yeah. JB: We could redo our state needs so that. They would be more of that kind of a team focus. We can do that. Not every we don't have to make those meets a a qualifier for nationals and a qualifier for zones and a team experience and a time trial venue. Just make it something that's basic. And those other opportunities exist for people. Mark Seguin: Yeah. JB: We don't have to try to make one thing everything. Mark Seguin: Yep. I agree. Tom Walsh: Well, I I think the other thing, not I don't know if this is how all city works, JB, but like going back to your qualifying things, w we're so exclusive in our sport about who can do what and when they can do it and where they can do it. And we're we're talking like a four month season, right? That like Mark Seguin: Yeah. Tom Walsh: nobody swims lawn course in the state of Minnesota until June, and then we're like, yeah, it's long course season, April and May. And then you can't you have a stake cut. Swim your six races at the state meet. So you don't have to go to three other meets to get to that meet. You don't have to go to the summer invite at at at Bloomington or wherever. Then you don't have to go to MRCs to get your six events. Then you can go to the state meet. Just if you have a cut, let them swim the meet. They can't be like, and just be done with it. Mark Seguin: Yeah. And it was different when there was a dozen outdoor fifty meter pools that were viable, right? There's not anymore. There's three, I think. So JB: Well, I think we've we've all talked about the like the aquatenial, Tom Walsh: Yeah. I think there's room in the whole state. JB: the the wasn't the Saint Paul Classic another big one. I mean, I remember Mark Seguin: the old Star Meet used to be prelims finals. JB: I hear about these meets. I remember hearing about those meets in the nineties when we were in Wisconsin where I first learned how to coach. And you know, it'd be like, we should go to that that one's amazing, you know, and and then we came we actually hit the aquatenial one year and it was fun. God, it was a lot of fun, you know, but Mark Seguin: The medals were legit, they were little ship steering wheel anchors. It's a big deal. I'll br I'll bring you one. JB: That sounds nice. That that that that sounds nice. So Tom Walsh: But you didn't make a podium, Mark. Mark Seguin: It wasn't podium, you just go pick up at the end. They're no podium. JB: But you know what again, but again to the point, not only were you like, yeah, the awards are great, but you knew exactly what they looked like. It meant something. And wouldn't it be cool Mark Seguin: yeah. JB: if we had a bunch of teams buy into something like this and each team had a different medal? Mark Seguin: Yeah. JB: And the idea was that you did your six meets and you got a different medal, and then you give them all to your mom and she shadow boxes it or something or You keep them in a shoebox and you show your brother that you've got all the medals because he sucks and, you know, just letting him know who's in charge. Whatever your motivation is for having them, I think a lot of kids would like to have something like that. It's pretty it's a cool game. Tom Walsh: What if all the metals fit together like a gauntlet? JB: No, Mark Seguin: Yeah, like the infinity gauntlet. JB: like the kid like the Kiss solo albums posters. Tom Walsh: There we go. Mark Seguin: I I am going Thanos on this mother. JB: Y Yes, yes, yes. So Tom Walsh: I I got my metal. Mark Seguin: All I need is the Hopkins Raspberry Ripple and it's complete. JB: Then I can one one metal to roll them all. Tom Walsh: Yeah. Mark Seguin: Then the universe is mine! But I like stu I mean Yeah. JB: But you know what? Seriously, if you had the opportunity, if you told a kid, okay, you have five of these and when you put all together, Mark Seguin: Yeah! JB: they're gonna say like, I don't know, bullshit or something like that. And you can make Mark Seguin: Yeah. JB: that. Yeah, or whatever. It could be hysteria it could say Minnesota swimming. You know, Mark Seguin: Going to say no cap. Yeah. JB: that would be really cool. Something like that would be cool. Mark Seguin: It could. Some of the best meats I ha if you won your heat you'd get a little box of chips ahoy cookies. Those were my favorites. Or the two liter of Dr. Pepper, which is great for any swimmer. yeah. JB: That's the that's the the big cheese meet that they run at Schrader in January. Yeah, well at Schrader what at Schrader what they do with this big cheese meet Mark Seguin: Or the Cincinnati Pepsi Marlins. They got it going on there. JB: is everybody gets a box of cheese it's and they run a long course meet in the beginning of February. Great meat. And everybody sucks because nobody's been training long course, but it reminds everybody this is out there, you know, and some kids go pretty fast. Some suck, Mark Seguin: Yeah. JB: but it's fun. Mark Seguin: So I think kind of get back a little bit on top before we wrap up. I think personally, I think, and Tom said we need to, it needs to come from the top. I think we need to redefine what the top is, right? Like I don't know if the current format works and we have the people and power in the right roles to drive that vision efficiently enough, right? And it's no disrespect to anyone in those roles at all. I just think it's kind of a it's a overcomplicated bureaucratic system that is not conducive to making rapid change. Which our sport needs. JB: You know it well Go ahead, Tom. Tom Walsh: Well JB: No, go ahead. Tom Walsh: Well Go ahead, Jimmy. I think that the reason I say unless there is a governance piece of it that is going to say this is how we're going to do it and we stop doing it by committee constantly every two years, Mark Seguin: Yeah. Tom Walsh: I just don't envision it changing. And there's not a way to put enough, there's not enough way to put enough pressure or stress to change it. And and and I think that that's that's maybe the heart of the frustrating part. Do I think I have all the answers? No, but I do have ninety-nine of them. Like in in yeah. Yeah. Well, like, Mark Seguin: It's good. I have three. So maybe I have one that you don't have. I don't know. Tom Walsh: and I think it's it's not from a a a parent aspect of this, but as a coach aspect of of of kids and seeing it from all the levels in the past fifteen years. Here's what I'm saying. I'm not seeing all of these kids that have been doing prelims finals for the last 15 years being super elite swimmers. I'm seeing kids that have a lot of buddies on their team, they stick through it. That's what I'm seeing. And if we're not getting core groups of kids together to swim, we're doing something wrong. And that's that's gotta be the precedent. And it can't be burning out every mom and dad to do this. along the way and they find something else to do instead because it's so hard or it's so demanding or things like that. So Mark Seguin: Yep. JB: Yeah. No. Mark Seguin: I totally agree. JB last last last thoughts as we wrap up. What's your your wish as we can make for a next step here? JB: Well, I I kind of piggybacking on what Tom said. I I actually think there's an opportunity to do this because I and and this is a terrible thing to say, but I do think that it's it's fairly accurate. I think a lot of the attention that we give kids in Minnesota, and it it's like this in every LSC, we tend to favor the best kids. And we tend to really get territorial about how we're going to handle those kids and the opportunities they ha they have within the LSC, with how we fund them, whatever. Where I think the opportunity is, is I don't think as much scrutiny is paid to the lower level kids. And I think because of that, we could do some pretty effective change. I I think there's a certain threshold of kid where a lot of coaches have to say, well, they don't make my training group or they they're not good enough to do that. And if we could identify that group of kids and create some opportunities where they could get together and race and don't exclude anybody from your team. If you've got a kid who's got senior cuts and they want to hang out with their buddies at at the meet and they want to anchor the relay, figure out a way to make it fun and challenging. You know, like to your point, Mark, say, we'll do that, but we've got a rule that if you've got a junior cut in this meet, Anytime you start in a a relay, you gotta anchor and you gotta start five second, you have a five second penalty, you know, a a la pit lane penalty, and you gotta go, you know. Well, and and you know, one of the things that I one of the things I appreciate about Mace Mark Seguin: Yeah. And here put on this weight belt, sir. You'll be fine. Half a drag sock. JB: is at a Dinah, he will do stuff like that all the time where he's constantly screwing around with his relay lineups to see who responds under pressure. Who can who maybe has something more in them. And you learn a lot about kids like that. I think that by coming up with some weirdo opportunities like that, who wouldn't like that? Because you know if that kid catches somebody and they get it gets close, they're either gonna be the hero or the goat. And the kid who got caught, you can reinforce that kid and say, Dude, you almost held him off. You almost held him. You know, you that's that's what it's gonna be like at the state meet. That's what it's gonna be like at sections, whatever it is. So that's what I'm thinking. Mark Seguin: It it would be interesting and we maybe we have this and I'm just unaware and uneducated. A satisfaction metric for kids in the sport in club where we could get a lot of data on how happy they are about things. Do we capture that anywhere? No. JB: I think that high schools do because I think it's mandatory within a lot of their programs that they do. we do on our club, Mark Seguin: Yeah, yeah. JB: we do surveys because we're part of the school, you know, we're we're part of the school district. So that's different. But I think Mark Seguin: Yep. I would just be curious to see what that's like if we had a standard one people could use to what is your likeliness of staying into it? Do you feel like you get the value from what you put into it? What are things that you'd like to see? And that would really kind of help because we can look at participation and retention, but that's too late. Right? And I don't think we have a a robust exit interview process for for kids that quit, right? We don't Tom Walsh: Nope. Mark Seguin: track down some eight-year-old and sit them down and go, All right. Tell me why. Tom Walsh: so and so didn't start up or didn't sign up this year. Mark Seguin: Yeah. Tom Walsh: Or hey, I got an email that says Billy's taking a break. Why is he taking a break? I don't know, 'cause the water was cold, right? Like and Mark Seguin: Yeah. Who knows? Tom Walsh: it it could be a million other reasons. I'm just saying that's Mark Seguin: Yep. Tom Walsh: one of Mark Seguin: But I would love to have that data and that would help kind of guide from the top of where we need to focus our energy, JB: Hundred percent. Mark Seguin: in my opinion. If you got good participation of it. That doesn't seem like a hard thing to do to me. JB: No, in fact, you could make it that could be something that the LSC could do. They could actually send out just a standard four question survey. Saw you didn't sign up this year, be the last email we send you. We won't bother ya. But we'd like to get your opinion about what your kid liked, what they didn't like, and and we'll move on. Thank you so much for your time. Yeah. Mark Seguin: Yep. Throw in their age, number of years they participated, male or female, keep it, you know, depersonalized and collect the data. That that's not hard. JB: So but you just gotta do the work. Yeah, it takes work. Tom Walsh: Takes work. JB: So you got it. We're good. Mark Seguin: I'll do the work. Come on, sign me up, coach. Put me in. gentlemen, thank you so much. Let's have another conversation in a month or so. once we kind of get through the August, and maybe we'll get Barnesy on here too. or any other coach that wants to come and share their opinion. Everyone's always welcome. Minnesota Summit Vibe wants to be that kind of place where we have all the tools for people to use. You just gotta step up and want to use them and have these conversations. And I thank you both for doing JB: You got a boss. Mark Seguin: that today. JB. Tom Walsh: thank you, Mark. Mark Seguin: Alright, drive carefully, JB, unless you're JB: Thanks guys. We'll see you later. Mark Seguin: home. Alright, see ya Tom. Thank you. Alright, Tom Walsh: Take care, guys.