Hello USNA forum,
I am currently a club swimmer on my club team at home and am planning on doing club swimming once at Navy. For anyone knowledgeable about how things are done, do midshipmen swim on the Navy club team with high school age swimmers or is it separate? Is there practices outside of the required 2 hours of sport every day? How are the coaches, and facilities, etc?
Thank you for any knowledge and help.
Go Navy, Beat Army!
Just to clarify, USNA has NCAA Div I varsity teams, including men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams, a Club Sports program and an intramural program, which fulfill the sport participation requirement. There are also midshipman Brigade Support Activitues (BSA) and ECA organizations.
I don’t think the Club Sports program has a club swim team. Or intramurals.
Club / Intramural Sports Programs
navysports.com
I did not see any swim activities on the ECA list, but it is dated 2022:
ECA List page for Midshipman Interests at USNA.edu. Updated Tue Dec 12 16:24:58 EST 2023.
www.usna.edu
You may have found the Naval Academy Aquatic Club, which is a club swim program for boys and girls through age 18, probably similar to what you are doing now. As a midshipman, you are considered to be an adult on active duty in the military. Though this non-USNA group uses the USNA facilities, I do not believe midshipmen participate.
It’s not part of the Navy Sports program.
I may well be out of date on my info, so please share what reference you are looking at, so we can get your question answered accurately.
You will be extraordinarily busy as a plebe, with far more must-do tasks and responsibilities than you have time available. Once PS is over, and you figure out how to survive the ac year, you will find out about what’s possible, and if swimming is something you enjoy doing, you’ll figure out how to work it in.
Something to tuck away in the back of your mind is there are usually 1-2 midshipman managers who apply to be part of the support group for varsity teams. There might be more for larger teams. You can still be around a sport you love. When I was on USNA staff, one of my collateral duties was Officer Rep for Navy women’s basketball. At home games, the manager ensured towels were out on the chairs, assisted with water bottles, helped out with uniform issues, performed tasks for the coaches, traveled with the team to away games. There is nothing like hanging out in a 24-hour laundry late at night during a multi-day, multi-game tournament on the road, making sure the manager had enough quarters to run loads of uniform and game day sports underwear through the laundry and is not there alone doing it. That midshipman today is a surface warfare captain on her third command at sea. She had played basketball in HS, was not Div I material, but loved the sport.
