Swim Team:

The Jackson YMCA ORCA Swim Team is a fun swim program for youth ages   5-18 to improve swim strokes and learn to swim competitively.   The philosophy of YMCA swimming is that, “Everybody swims, everybody wins.”  This means that we value participation as much as performance.  The Jackson YMCA Orca’s swim team emphasizes the YMCA core values of caring, honesty, respect and responsibility, but we also place value on team and individual accomplishments.

The team competes against other YMCA’s through dual, invitational, conference and state meets.  YMCA of the USA does require that all participants hold current memberships for at least 30 days prior to their first competition.

Your swimmer should be able to swim 1 length of the pool freestyle while breathing to the side (traditional front crawl) we will do the rest!

What Do I Need to Know?

It’s pretty simple really.  We have practice available 4 nights a week to accommodate your schedule as best as possible.  If this is your swimmer’s first year they really shouldn’t try to be at more than 3 practices per week tops!

Can your swimmer make a length in the pool?  Then we can work with them no problem!  They will need to demonstrate, to a coach, that they can make 1 length of freestyle and then they can stay the remainder of practice to see if it's something they want to do.  See our schedule for practice times. 

How many meets should your swimmer go to?  There is no requirement, we have many meets on the schedule to make sure there are some that fit your schedule but they must be a member of the Y for 1 month prior to their 1st meet.  The only requirements are for the "post season" meets.  Cluster championship meets and beyond.  Your swimmer must have competed in 3 meets during the year to qualify for these.  Also, the state, zone, and national meets require 3 previous meets as well as a cut off time for 9 years and above.  See the "Time Standards" tab.