Chris Loeser remembers counting how many kids swam in the Northern Virginia Swimming League when she served as the league’s treasurer.
“Every year it went up,” said Loeser, now the league’s president. “And now it’s up to 15,000 kids.”
The NVSL, founded in 1956, is one of the oldest swim leagues in the country and the largest summer swim league in the region — and it spawned an explosion of recreational and competitive leagues unique to the Washington area.
After NVSL, Montgomery and Prince George’s counties created their own leagues, said Pete Morgan, head coach of the Curl-Burke Swim Club.
The Montgomery County Swim League, which boasts about 10,000 swimmers from 5 to 18 years old, recently celebrated its 50th anniversary, and the Prince-Mont Swim League will do so this year.
The leagues are “a wonderfully conceived introduction to competitive swimming for youngsters — fun is the common denominator,” Morgan said.
Though coaches emphasize fun, summer leagues often can lead to big things for swimmers who want to become the next Michael Phelps.
The Rockville Montgomery Swim Club and rival Curl-Burke are the area’s two major all-year teams and are ranked first and second, respectively, by USA Swimming. Many summer leaguers end up swimming for the teams, Morgan said.
Dave Kraft, coach of the MCSL’s Mill Creek Towne Marlins in Derwood, swam at Forest Knolls Swim Club in Silver Spring in the mid-1980s.
Kraft has coached the RMSC’s National Developmental Group since 2000, out of which 27 swimmers have gone on to compete in college — including four Mill Creek alumni.
“It wouldn’t have happened without the MCSL,” he said of his career.
Regardless of how fast or dedicated the kids are, though, swimmers and parents say the summer teams become a community.
Keenan Goldsby, who works to promote the Northern Virginia Swim League, swam for Fox Hunt in Springfield as boy — as his teenage sons do now.
“You see a lot of that,” he said, adding that he has heard of grandchildren swimming on the same teams as their grandparents.
“The coolest thing about our team is that the year-round swimmers just keep coming back to [the] summer league [team],” said Missy Hayden, who is in her second year of coaching for the Dale City Frogs in the Prince William Swim League.
“I think it shows you that it’s more than swimming,” Loeser said.
Participation in the teams has grown this summer after last year’s Summer Olympics and Phelps’ record medal haul.
In addition to the tight-knit swimming community that often spans generations, the swim leagues are also unique in the amount of volunteers they depend on for every meet.
Each of the six lanes has three timers, and between five and 10 meet officials and administrators work the meet, from the starter to the stroke and turn judges, pushing the number of volunteers to about 30. And that doesn’t include the parents barbecuing and selling concessions to raise funds for the teams’ equipment, he said.
“It’s pretty amazing that people are wanting to stay involved with it … from swimmer to coach to team [representative] to the upper levels of the organization,” Loeser said.
But in the end, it comes down to one thing.
“It’s all about sportsmanship and getting together — and getting out there and swimming,” said John Venit, president of the Prince-Mont Swim League.
“My daughter lives for summer swim league,” says Ramona Rember, manager for the Tavistock Tsunamis of the Old Dominion Swim League.
Major local swim leagues:
Montgomery County Swim League
Founded 1959
» 15 divisions, 89 teams
Northern Virginia Swimming League
Founded 1956
» 17 divisions, 102 teams
Old Dominion Swim League
Founded 2004
» 26 teams
Prince William Swim League
Founded 1974
» 8 divisions, 24 teams
Prince-Mont Swim League
Founded 1960
» 7 divisions, 39 teams
Reston Swim Team Association
Officially founded in 1973
» 3 divisions, 9 teams
