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NAHSSL Brief History
3-1-11
Prior to the
formation of a high school swim league, there were very few (if
any) dual swim meets in the Madison County area. The high schools in the area had
some quality swimmers who swam year round with various year round
swim programs, but no real school/team unity until several weeks
prior to the High School State Swim Meet. If you weren’t a year round
swimmer, you were basically left out of most area high school
swimming programs.
County schools such as Buckhorn and Hazel Green were given a lane
or two at the Natatorium to use for practice. But, without quality coaching,
leadership, direction, or swim meets, these schools lost 50% of
their swimmers within a month. This had been the trend for the
past 15-20 years in North Alabama. It was this exit of swimmers that
I was looking to stop, by starting a program whereas all high
school swim teams, large or small, weak or strong, could
compete.
In August
2008, I visited the Natatorium and the high school swim practice of
Buckhorn & Hazel Green. At the first practice that I
attended, there were some 30 kids spread across 3 lanes. Over the next 2-3 weeks, I
saw this practice get tossed around from 3 lanes to 1 lane, and the
number of swimmers drop from 30 to 15. Why the exit of swimmers? The biggest reason I
received was “there are no swim meets until
mid-November”.
We needed some type of competition during the three months leading
up to the State High School Swim Meet. High School Swim Teams needed
swim meets and newspaper publicity just like all the other
sports. Thus, I wanted
to start a League of High School Swim Teams in North Alabama for
the purpose of dual swim
meets.
After
discussing this idea with Jenny Barrett (Buckhorn HS Swim Coach), I
approached Randolph Swim Coach, Marvin Chou who thought this was a
great idea. As it
turned out Marvin was our North Alabama Representative to the
Alabama High School State Swimming Committee and he quickly became
my consultant as I felt it best to have every idea approved thru
him. Marvin liked my
idea a lot, but at the same time he had no time to see it
thru. My deal with him
was simple: I would do
the leg work and recruit teams, if he would get the idea approved
on the State level and work to reduce the red-tape rules that had
suffocated High School swimming for the past 20 years. He agreed, and thus I was on my
way to starting the North Alabama High School Swim
League.
My first
order of business was 2-fold. I had to recruit member teams,
and I had to find pools for swim meets. I quickly found both to be very
tall mountains.
First, I
approached two swimming pools in North Huntsville that were under
used, and worked thru red-tape to get both to become our first
source for swim meets.
After doing some research, I found that the Huntsville City Schools
could easily host their meets at the Richard Showers Pool on Blue
Springs Road. These
teams (Huntsville, Grissom, and Lee) had to fill out paperwork and be
the host team. Then, I
met with officials at Alabama A&M and after months of
negiotiating, brought together Madison County School officials with
Alabama A&M officials. In essence, Madison County
Schools (Buckhorn, Hazel Green, Madison county, and Sparkman) would
use the A&M pool for daily practice plus swim meets. The first year we had 55
swimmers from the four County schools. (The second year, we had 72
swimmers.)
Now, that we
had two pools for swim meets, we needed swim teams. My first thought was that we had
5 initial members in Randolph, Buckhorn, Hazel Green, Madison
County, and Sparkman.
But we needed about 10 active members. I felt like we could get the big
three (Huntsville, Grissom, and Bob Jones) to join after we had 7-8
smaller teams so the League would have strength in numbers. In late November, at the
North Alabama High School Swim Invitational at the Natatorium on
Drake Ave in Huntsville, I approached every high school
swim coach with an invitation to join the League. I was promising smaller, quicker
swim meets, with dual meet scores. They were accustomed to 5-hour
swim meets, and liked my idea of a schedule with 2-hour swim
meets. Very quickly I
received verbal approvals from high school swim coaches at Lee,
Florence, Gadsden, Westminster, and Catholic. In mid-March of 2009, I had my
first meeting (at my home), attended by representatives from seven
schools plus Huntsville and Grissom. As it turned out, I was leader of
the first North Alabama High School Swim
League.
We were on
our way. First, I sent
out an email to about 20 high school teams in North Alabama. I was looking for verbal
commitments. I had to
receive a promise that IF they were signed up for a swim meet, they
would attend. I had to
have a solid commitment from each team who wanted to join. There would be no entry
fees or other requirements to join. I thought, “My neck was on
the line now, so I had to produce.” After receiving commitments from
14 high schools and securing the 8-9 nights for swim meets from
Richard Showers and A&M, we were on our way and the initial
2009 season was born.
The North Alabama High School Swim League was born with 14 first
year members for the 2009 swim season (Buckhorn, Hazel Green,
Sparkman, Madison County, Randolph, Westminster, Catholic,
Huntsville, Grissom, Lee, Butler, Bob Jones, Florence, and Gadsden
High Schools).
All that was left were details such as type of swim meets, scoring,
number of teams involved in each meet, a swim meet schedule,
etc. I drew up
everything, and then was Meet Director at each swim meet since this
was a new avenue for even the most seasoned swim official. And so the League was
born. We had swim
teams, swim meets, newspaper publicity, dual meet scores, etc. We had swim meets for every
type of team, large or small, weak or strong.
After putting
together a Board of nine parents (from nine different schools), the
League quickly had a great future. The Board took over the League
for the 2010 season, and the League added Scottsboro, Cullman, and
Hartselle High Schools. My hope is that this League will
still be available one day for all those 4 year olds who learned to
swim this year.
Glenn
Carr
NAHSSL
Board
2009 -
2012
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