Swim Team Succeeds Despite Busing Struggles

Throughout the 2021-2022 school year, CCSD struggled to provide adequate transportation for both students and athletes. A topic that I investigated in my article “Late Again” in October 2021. Many athletes cannot find another way to practices or meets without school transportation, which naturally causes attendance issues in sports. However, the swim team has been greatly impacted by the lack of busing for its swimmers. Whereas other sports can practice at the school campus; the swim team needs to leave the school to hold daily practices given the fact Sierra Vista’s campus does not have a pool. 

Sierra Vista High School’s swim coach and math teacher Mike Boland shared his thoughts on the struggle some of his swimmers face, “I simply don’t think that the district had enough bus drivers to provide buses to practice every weekday, and tour buses are far too expensive to be utilized on a daily basis for practices. Swimming is simply the only sport in the spring that practices 

off-campus. I would like to think that other sports would have been denied buses to practices if they practiced somewhere off-campus.” Heather Kolb swim coach, freshman studies, and sociology teacher includes her thoughts about the situation, “We are not sure how much this is affecting participation. It could have affected the size of the team and the inconsistent practice/meet attendance, but there are other factors that could be contributing to this as well.“ 

Mr.Boland further explains, “Our attendance at meets has not been affected by the busing situation, but we have lower than average daily attendance for practice. Many kids are practicing inconsistently due to ride availability,” He continues, “It has made it especially difficult to try to teach special strokes (example: breaststroke and butterfly). Kids who miss basic instruction one day need introductory tutorials the next day when others are ready to move forward. We are putting off conditioning to constantly reteach, and we don’t have enough lanes to separate the ones who need reteaching.” 

Coach Kolb further shares, “The change in location for practices from Aquatic Springs to Desert Breeze and change in time from 2-3:30 to 3-4:30 may have also impacted the practices and how many athletes are able to get to practices. The good news is that despite all the challenges, we have an awesome team of dedicated swimmers who overcome the challenges.” 

So far, CCSD offered buses for swim meets. Getting to practice remains a struggle. ”One stat I can give you,” Mr.Boland states, “is that about 1/3 of our swimmers are missing two or more days of practice per week, almost 1/2 of our swimmers if I narrow it down to those who don’t swim ‘club’.That may not be entirely due to transportation issues, but practice attendance has been more sparse and less consistent this year. Other stats are difficult to parse. Our guys compete in 4A while our girls compete in 5A. We have only had two scored meets so far, but our guys are 2-0, and our girls are 0-2, but they took 2nd out of three 5A teams in the most recent meet.”

Despite the challenges of getting to practices, Sierra Vista’s swim looks forward to finishing the season strong and is hoping the transportation issues will be resolved by next year.