At first glance the title of this story might shift you into thinking; ‘I know my competition…they are a bigger team but we have a superior dryland programme’, or ‘a better technique system’, or ‘we have longer pool time so we beat out competitors with higher metres every session’.

You’d be thinking in the wrong direction. Your competition is not the Salt Spring Seahorses or the Hamburg Dolphins…but video games.

When I first came across youngsters playing a video game I was left shaking my head. A young man called Jake had only just joined our team. His Mom was exceptionally helpful and was keen to get involved so she contributed to the competition by officiating. Jake had not entered to race because he had just joined but also was just in the cusp of the lower age range. So Jake sat with the team and I thought ‘great I’m babysitting too’.

Jake was given a hand-held Nintendo devise, new at the time in the ‘nineties, and he began playing. I thought about what I’d get him to do, once he stopped. Maybe give him a stopwatch, or get some heat-sheet papers and get some pens or highlighters. I didn’t need to worry, Jake didn’t stop. He played nonstop, all day, didn’t look up.

It made me think. I knew I was competing for attention in the lives of children, always on the lookout for the naturally gifted athletic types, Coaches are always looking for kids who are natural athletes, but a game that held an eight year old’s attention for an entire day, was serious competition.

Games that are on-line are exceptionally realistic and so clever even professors will play historical simulation games that perfectly mimic Roman times (for example). They are so interesting that it is hard to stop. Late nights aren’t just a problem for swim coaches but also for schools. 9am is the new 6am.

In The Art of War, Sun Tzu famously said: if you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself and not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

Athletic swimmers are also gymnasts, taekwondo black belts, hockey players and high school teams’ all-stars, plus any other sport they want. Not any more; they are also experts in Fortnite, Minecraft, Counter-Strike2 & GO, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II/Warzone, 2.0, ROBLOX, League of Legends, The Sims 4, Valorant, Grand Theft Auto V, and Rocket League.

If your programme is to be interesting and exciting, I think a good strategy is to have multiple levels like video games. In case you didn’t know, your challenge is to beat your competition. How you do that is up to you.

A starting point might be to determine your assets; are there any social interaction opportunities, team events that are fun, flipper kick races, or competitive events that don’t last alllllll daaaaaaay looooong.

Once you’ve got the team rolling, it is fun and exciting, it has social events and is active, then you might be more interesting than Fortnight. But probably not. Don’t let me encourage or discourage you. The proof will be in the eating…

Okay, I can help a bit. First step; get your records board set up in a prominent place. Use it and expand on it. Make a second record board as your training record board; things like 100m kick.

Probably more important than a good record board is the biggest asset of the team: is your personality. You have to be interesting, intelligent, empathetic and a swimming expert. Your coaching staff have to be too. Personal touch is your advantage. Computers don’t have that in their arsenal but they have exceptional task/reward structure. You must think hard about all of your team’s advantages.

Your club can have an advantage in the area of socially active things to do. Girls in particular enjoy things like swim camps, competitions and swimming tours. Those events have loads of social time.

Boys like to play. Activities like inflatables day for relays, flipper water-polo, underwater hockey, or any activity in training, fun enough for the boys.

If you think your swim team is only about swimming you are naïve. It is a group of people who have regular social interactions, activities and fun days. And they also train and race.

Your team is not only about hard work. There are lots of swimmers who are motivated only to race but they are not the majority.

To keep swimmers interested, and more importantly how to draw swimmers into your team, today’s challenge is new and it is your competition.