Please recommend a sport for a middle school student with competitive swimming background. Competition is brutal in high school swimming and chances are pretty low on getting a scholarship down the road. Would you recommend exploring rowing, water polo, diving or something else? My daughter enjoys practice and competitions, makes it to state level, but was warned about possible shoulder issues, its under control now with exercise and PE. She wants to swim for now, but we want to introduce her to some options, may be try a summer camp or summer program in a different/related sport. We will support her plans. Overall she wants to study medicine/epidemiology in the future.
Don’t look at it in terms of athletic scholarships (although that can be a bonus if she is good enough to get one at a college she likes, though playing intercollegiate sports and doing all of the pre-med stuff is a huge time commitment).
Look more into what she likes to do for fun and fitness.
I was a swimmer. The workouts (twice a day!) are brutal. If she is still having fun, let her continue, but she may also want to get into running. Kids who enjoy the solitude of swimming often enjoy long runs. If she also adds cycling, she could do triathlons. “Native” swimmers have an advantage in a triathlon.
But I agree with @ucbalumnus: don’t worry about scholarships at this stage.
Rowing does use many of the same muscles as swimming, so someone with well developed swimming muscles may find that s/he already has much of the strength and fitness needed for rowing. S/he would still have to learn the technique and skill aspects of rowing, but that may be a less difficult transition than starting from needing to do that and build up strength and fitness from typical beginner level. Also, a swimmer probably is not as afraid of the possibility of falling in the water if s/he flips the boat.
My swimmers moved into water polo and loved it, but she’ll need to be ok with a little physicality and the invasion of her personal space. If you’re in CA. there are plenty of great clubs, however the rest of the country doesn’t offer as much opportunity.
My younger swimmer is rocking cross country. The workouts felt easy to her compared to swim. In Cali xc is fall and swim is spring so her upper body muscles got a nice break and now her shins are.
Thank you very much for your posts! We would love her to enjoy one of the sport clubs in college in the future, but no athletic scholarship ambitions here, we know kids who got them, its an absolutely different level of performance and dedication:). So, be active and, of course, have a balanced background for her college application!
@Massmomm She does kids triathlons a couple of times a year, it is just for fun, no training for them, with exception of occasional biking now and then. Running portion is her least favorite, because she is very tall and running is not as much fun for her as swimming, plus it is a lot of effort with her current growth spurt. Rowing is an interesting direction. She is very confident in/on the water, thank you, @ucbalumnus! How early kids usually start in rowing, age wise?
My kid was on the HS swim team for four years. It was NOT for scholarship. She wasn’t even a first string swimmer. But she loved it, and never missed a practice or a swim meet.
If your daughter can be on her HS swim team, and would enjoy doing so…let her stay on the swim team.
We are in GA, and happen to live hear former Olympic rowing facility. Mostly boys are playing water polo here though, but I will do my homework on that. Thank you, @Capecodder2014!
Don’t know offhand, but a quick web search indicates that some rowing clubs have programs for middle and high school students. Check your local rowing clubs.
Many kids take up rowing in college with no prior experience. Especially for females, since for title ix compliance purposes, rowing is the high headcount female sport used to balance against football. If your kid does row in high school, that might help get her into a fancy school as a recruit.
Female rowing is a booming sport in college, since large numbers of female rowers are used to offset male football players for title ix purposes.
Many kids start in college with zero experience. Kids who actually know how to row can get recruited into some fancy selective schools. Even some scholarship dollars available.
Kayaking is also a sport in HI, tho I’m not sure how many other schools and states offer it. Our D also did outrigger canoe paddling–she was the steersman and enjoyed it.
Paddling (kayak or canoe) appears to be less common as an intercollegiate sport that one can play on a college team for. However, it seems to be a lot more common otherwise, probably because (a) a solo paddler can watch for other water traffic better than a solo rower can, (b) a fast kayak or (outrigger) canoe can handle a greater range of water conditions than a fast row boat, and (c) other kinds of paddling are available, like stand up paddle board and prone paddle board. Non-college-based competitions are common.
Paddling also uses many of the same muscles as swimming.
Both my kids (1 boy, 1 girl) were in swimming but grew somewhat tired of it. They both went into water polo and loved it. Of course, we are in CA where there are plenty of water polo clubs but there are clubs all over the nation. They were still on the high school swim team to help stay in shape; just didn’t do club swimming any more.