USA Swimming Introduces Age Group Excellence Program
As part of the changes to club dues, USA Swimming has created a new program to recognize Age Group Excellence among clubs nationwide. The program, set to launch later this year, was designed by the Age Group Development Committee with support from USA Swimming’s Data Science team.
Age Group Excellence evaluates clubs across five equally weighted metrics; each tied to a core goal for age-group swimmers:
- Exposure (includes FLEX): Bring new kids into the sport
- Meet Participation: Get kids to race
- Improvement Rate (Performance): Support their development
- IMX/R Participation: Get them legal in all four strokes (participation only, not score)
- Retention: Get them to come back
The program measures athletes age 14 and under, and clubs are scored on a 1,000-point scale, with up to 200 points available in each of the five categories.
The objectives of getting kids into the sport, encouraging them to compete, supporting their improvement, building their competency in all four strokes, and retaining them as members are all goals grounded in participation data, the tenets of the American Development Model, and the traits the Age Group Development Committee identified as common among successful age-group programs.
How Scoring Works
Each of the five metrics is scored using two methods:
Minimum/Maximum Scaler
- Measures where a club falls between the top and bottom performers, with the minimum value set at 0 points and the maximum point total for that category; every other value is distributed proportionally between them.
- If one club is truly miles ahead, it receives much more credit.
Percentile Score
- Measures how many other clubs a club outperformed, with first place earning the maximum points and scores scaling down evenly from there.
- Rewards the ranking alone – winning by 0.01 seconds or 30 seconds counts exactly the same.
Which Clubs Will Be Recognized
Clubs will be grouped into four size categories, and the top 10% of each category, the 90th percentile among peer-sized clubs, will be recognized:
- Small: Bottom 50th percentile
- Medium: 50th-80th percentile
- Large: 80th-95th percentile
- X-Large: 95th percentile and above
Simulations showed that club size is not correlated with overall score. With that in mind, all recognized clubs, the top 10% from each size category, will be combined into a single pool, and the top 50 scorers overall will receive grant money.
Like the Club Excellence program, Age Group Excellence will be an annual award, scored automatically with no application required. After 2028, the Age Group Development Committee will consider adding a quad recognition, like the Club Excellence Podium Award. More details about the program will be shared in the coming months.
The above press release was produced by USA Swimming.
