Written By: Pam Swander
YES & Here Is Why:
Individual sport athletes (such as swimmers) thrive when you tap into the “team” atmosphere. The importance of team uniformity often is not considered in swimming. Before taking a pass on the team spirit wear and team gear consider the following …
Unity
When swimmers are wearing the team cap, suit, & team shirt they truly feel like a part of the group. This fosters team unity and a sense of belonging, which can keep swimmers motivated to try harder to represent something bigger than themselves. It also creates a sense of solidarity across all the age groups. When parents represent the team by sporting the colors and spiritwear, it fires the swimmers up seeing their team represented outside of the pool. Having a strong parent fan base is essential to a team’s culture, motivating swimmers even further.
Team Pride Every member of the team, from the National swimmer to the beginner swimmer, coaches, and parents each play different but important roles on the team. Everyone involved with the team wearing the appropriate team gear demonstrates your loyalty and dedication to each other. In turn this creates a sense of equality and belonging. Team pride and each person feeling like they matter to the success of the team become important when you are competing as a group.
Yes, it’s important to purchase the team suit, gear, and spiritwear. Go For it and go all in! Your swimmer will sense your dedication, loyalty and feel even more supported by simply wearing your team gear. In turn they will model your behavior. Swimmers wearing the team uniform demonstrates support, loyalty, and dedication to each other. Everyone sporting the team’s spiritwear is important to contributing to the team’s culture & success!
Pam Swander is a veteran coach who has coached at every level of the sport from summer league to college. NCAA Division I coaching roles include Clemson University, Indiana University and University of South Carolina. Coach Swander has helped her teams and athletes achieve at the highest levels of the sport - Olympic Trials finalists, World and American world record holders, NCAA, SEC and Big10 Individual Champs and Big10 Championship team titles. Over her college coaching career, she has garnered international experience by accompanying many of her athletes to international meets and championships, including the 2008 Short Course World Championships in Manchester, England where Kate Zubkova won a silver medal while representing Ukraine and IU. At the club level while serving as South Carolina Swim Club’s Head Coach (2016-2018) the club achieved Bronze Medal recognition in the USA Swimming Club Excellence Program and won 2016 LCM and 2017 SCY State Championships. For six years as North Regional Manager and Senior 1 coach at SwimMAC Carolina she oversaw eight Junior National Championship team titles. She achieved club management recognition while serving on SwimMAC’s leadership team helping MAC earn Gold Medal top honors in the USA Swimming Club Excellence Program. She collaborated with MAC coaches to develop and implement SwimMAC’s high-performance initiative. The program produced Olympian Kathleen Baker, and eighteen, 18-Under Olympic Trials qualifiers who went on to have outstanding college careers. As a result, CEO & Head Coach of SwimMAC Carolina, David Marsh received 2012 Developmental Coach of the Year award from USA Swimming for having the most 18-Under Olympic Trials qualifiers in the Nation. In addition to her elite-level coaching experience, Swander has developed community swim lesson curricula, coached High School, served as both the Director of USA Swimming’s Select camp, and the Vice Chair of Hospitality on the U.S. Olympic Trials Committee, and represented Indiana Swimming as a Delegate at the USA Swimming National Convention. Pam is married to Jeff Swander and their two children, Laura and Kevin, became top swimmers at Auburn University and Indiana University, respectively.