Community Swim Teams
Community Swim Teams
Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
“To develop, guide and support diverse community swim teams by partnering with key organizations across the United States.” –USA Swimming Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Team
USA Swimming’s Community Swim Team Partnership Program aims to provide competitive opportunities and services to outreach athletes, their coaches, and their teams. By forming meaningful partnerships with city department and LSCs, this program helps facilitate the creation of multi-level swim programs in diverse areas. USA Swimming looks to identify existing competitive swimming teams or leagues that are not USA Swimming with the purpose of bringing them under USA Swimming membership.
The Community Swim Team Program exposes diverse populations to the sport and gives more kids the opportunity to swim in USA Swimming meets. Parks and recreation teams gain access to USA Swimming’s coach education resources, and the partnership often gains local and state support.
USA Swimming considers various criteria when deciding to partner with community organizations: diverse athlete and coach populations, available facilities in close proximity to target members, community support, strong leadership on the ground, the city’s sustainability plan, and more.
For more information, please contact USA Swimming at communityswimteam@usaswimming.org.
Chicago park district- community swim program 2017-2023
Approximately 2,100 athletes and 100 coaches will be enrolled as USA Swimming members through a new multi-year partnership between USA Swimming, the Chicago Park District and Illinois Swimming to increase multicultural participation and bring additional opportunities to the community. In addition, the Chicago Park District program will become a USA Swimming member club and its athletes will be eligible to compete in USA Swimming-sanctioned events. Coaches will have access to increased resources, such as technical and safety training, educational assets and mentoring activities. As part of this program, USA Swimming provides group in-service coach instruction sessions and other educational and participation opportunities for Chicago Park District coaches and swimmers. This partnership increases the number of training locations from two swimming pools to almost 50, reaching every neighborhood in Chicago with an affordable and nearby swimming pool to train. The Chicago Park District manages 49 outdoor pools, 28 indoor pools and operates 14 Chicago Public School pools that offer community programs.
The collaborative program will positively impact the community by:
- Providing Chicago Park District athletes with USA Swimming athlete membership benefits
- Offering Chicago Park District coaches access to education, safety training and additional resources through USA Swimming coach membership
- Introducing a new multicultural population of children and coaches to USA Swimming
- Giving additional coach mentorship opportunities to diverse swim teams
- Developing lifelong skills that combat child obesity through increased health, recreational and fitness opportunities
- Utilizing a multi-level, progressive swimming program to teach children the process of being a good teammate, aspirational goal-setting and working to achieve measurable results
- Enhancing Chicago Park District programs through additional support and resources to expand participation in competitive swimming
- Showcasing how swimming is a vehicle to make a difference in Chicago to local and state organizations
New York City- Community Swim Program 2014-2017
On November 23, 2014, USA Swimming celebrated their official 
partnership with the New York City Parks & Rec. Department and Metropolitan Swimming, after two years of behind the scenes planning. Each organization is committed to creating a multi-level swimming program to provide enhanced competitive opportunities and services to Outreach athletes, their coaches and teams.
As part of this program, USA Swimming provides yearly group in-service coaching educational sessions and other educational opportunities for NYCPR coaches. USA Swimming helps facilitate new Outreach memberships for these athletes with the help of Metro Swimming.
Over the course of the partnership, more than 600 athletes have become registered USA Swimming members, and over 400 swimmers participated in USA Swimming/Metro Swimming sanctioned meets.
The program’s success has generated much excitement among those involved and has provided a solid model for future community swim team partnerships. The program concluded at the end of August 2017 and NYCP continues to operate as a USA Swimming member team.
Contact Us
Organizations interested in partnering with USA Swimming to develop a community swim program can contact the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion team at communityswimteam@usaswimming.org.