Swimming “Online”
Spare Time Aquatics Sharks
Welcome new STAS swimmer parents! The purpose of this document is to guide you through the initially bewildering “online” aspect of being a USA swimming parent. This consists of two major areas to know about. One is USA Swimming (the national governing body for the sport) and the other is the Sierra Nevada Local Swimming Committee (LSC). There are fifty-nine LSC’s in the country, corresponding to geographic and demographic factors.
USA Swimming has its own website www.usaswimming.org and Sierra Nevada has its own administrative website www.sn-swimming.org. In addition to those, Sierra Nevada (and a few other LSC’s) use a company called “SwimConnection” to host the functional aspects of swimming for us. These include online swim meet entry and tracking of results and swimmer history.
Your tasks as a parent are summarized very briefly below as numbered steps. A much more detailed explanation of the entire process follows, for those interested.
1) Register your swimmer with USA Swimming using www.swim-smarter.com. You will receive the USS ID #. Swim-smarter.com help page can be found here swim-smarter instructions. The club code for our team is SN-STAS.
2) Get an account on the www.swimconnection.com website. This will allow you to track you swimmers meet times online.
3) Get an account on the www.OME.SwimConnection.com website and add your swimmer to your account there (via the USS ID #). OME help page can be found here OME swimconnection instructions.
4) Get an account on the www.sparetimeaquatics.com website from the team administrator. Once your registration has been processed by your site you will receive a login email.
5) Get the USS card for your swimmer(s). USA Swimming will send the card to your house.
6) Enter your swimmer into meets (via the OME website) as instructed by the coach.
The swimmer “exists” in all of this via the fourteen character US Swimming Registration number which consists of portions of first and last name, birthday, and sometimes other random characters needed to keep the userID unique nationwide. The intent of the format is that it be relatively easy to memorize. Note that the swimmer ID is not the userID for the website. Normally, parents will create an account userID and password and then create and link swimmer(s) to that account (via the USS number). There are links on the SwimConnection website Account screen to “renew” annual USS registration for existing swimmers or to “register” a swimmer who is new. Your account screen is accessed by clicking on your userID after you are logged in.
Either of these tasks is typically done between September 1 and December 31 for the following swimming year. The swimming year runs from September to August, traditionally from the start of “short course” season to the end of “long course” season, while the finances remain on a calendar year. Thus they let you sign up in September 2016 for all of 2017 and the 2017 signup “includes” the last four months of 2016. The annual (“Year Round”) cost per swimmer (which goes to USS) is approximately $76 but will increase $2 each year beginning in 2015.
Note: Research the meets before you enter your swimmer; entry fees are not refundable. Check with the coach or other qualified team parent about which meets to enter and how if you are not sure. You can view the “meet sheet” online for information prior to entering. You can enter events and then scratch them at the meet, but again, there are no refunds.
Last but not least, we also have a team website www.sparetimeaquatics.com that the parents need an account for. This site is dedicated to making sure all needed information pertinent to the team in particular is available. We also maintain an email distribution list there for items such as practice schedule changes, upcoming events, fundraisers, etc, etc. You can ask for an account via the “Contact Me” area on the website or directly from the website admins (Head Coach, Head Age-Group Coach). Note that several screens refer to “billing” on this website, but all billing is conducted via the club, not this website.
