Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 14, 1991 TAG: 9103150577
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: S-15 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SARAH COX/ SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Which means the Roanoke Valley Aquatic Association will be gearing up for another summer of competitive swimming involving ages 4 to over 60. And although the purpose of the association, and its member pools, is to organize Monday meets throughout the summer, it's mainly for fun and recreation.
Twenty pools in the Roanoke area, Blacksburg, and Daleville belong to the association, and it is through these individual swim clubs that members can join the summer swim program. Each member pool participates in the six Monday night meets and the city-county championship meet the last weekend in July.
The RVAA differs from year-round, seriously competitive United States Swim clubs such as the Gators, the Marlins, and the YMCA's swim club. Those teams go to long-course (Olympic distance) swimming during the summer. Doug Fonder, Gators coach, said that the USS clubs are "for kids that want to go on and be the best that they can be."
Many members of USS clubs started out in the RVAA summer recreational swimming.
"Kids can represent their summer teams in RVAA," said Fonder, "and still travel and go to USS meets."
Although the RVAA is solely a summer swimming association, its members are expected to practice daily, and parents are expected to volunteer at meets. The summer recreation league is not as intense, and doesn't require constant dedication.
"It's a recreational program to foster the sport of swimming for people of all ages," said Ron Lundy, who was president of the RVAA in 1988. "It creates discipline in the child. They feel good about themselves. I've seen children that can barely make it across the pool, and in six weeks they can swim all four strokes and are earning ribbons."
Because a gold, silver and bronze ribbon is awarded at meets for each stroke - freestyle, backstroke, butterfly and breast stroke - within each age category, and for boys and girls - there is a much greater chance of a child carrying home a ribbon.
Lundy said that many children start swimming through this summer recreation program, and go on to win scholarships - some to Stanford, the University of Virginia and the University of North Carolina. "They start at an early age, and it sets a pattern for exercise to promote longevity."
Colleen McNulty, the executive vice president, has a daughter who participated in the RVAA from the time she was 7. She's now 26 and working in swimming.
"We have a number of children that have gone on to college swimming. It's one of the few sports where they can compete against themselves and with a team."
The assocation, she said, is 27 years old this summer, and was started by a group of parents at the Spring Run Swim Club. Last year there were more than 1,400 members. Although the ratio of children to adult members is "probably more than three to one, our adult numbers are growing by leaps and bounds," McNulty said. Adult age categories are 25 to 34, 35 to 44, and 45 and over.
It is a family sport and a family-organized association.
McNulty said parents help get the children organized and perform such tasks as table workers, strokes and turns judges, meet referees and timers.
Nancy Cole's daughter, Carrington, swims for the Princeton Swim Team. She is also the recipient of a grant that was given by an alumnus from Northern Virginia specifically for an intercollegiate swimmer from Virginia. Carrington, who swam with the RVAA for years, was recruited by the Princeton swim coach.
Carrington started swimming with the RVAA when she was 6, and eventually went into year-round competitive swimming. "My feeling is that the discipline it takes to do swimming has carried over into every aspect of her life," Cole said. "She didn't waste time - she didn't have the time to do other things. To me, there's no other sport that takes so much dedication because it takes so much time. You have to give up dancing and gymnastics and so on."
Interested children and adults simply need to sign up with the RVAA through their member pools - and if they don't belong to a member pool, they need to join one - pay dues and the club fee and participate in the swimming once it starts, about Memorial Day.
by CNB