Organization & Philosophy
Swimmers Seasons Schedule Fees Wheaton Meet
BAT is a parent-run team, governed by a Board of Directors. The board meets monthly and welcomes attendance and input from all team parents. Additionally, various committees are made up of parent volunteers. The involvement of parents of all the team members is crucial to the success of the team.
BAT's Board of Directors believe that the team can provide a vigorous eleven month program of detailed technical work and in-depth training to swimmers at different levels of ability and commitment. The team welcomes both the cellist in the Middle School orchestra who also loves to swim and wants to keep improving her times and the swimmer who would like to swim six days a week and dreams of competing for an NCAA Division 1 school some day.
The team's philosophy focuses on mastery of the four competitive strokes (freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly) and starts and turns as the means to achieve speed and endurance. The team rejects the attitude that speed and endurance training exist for their own sake, separate from individual stroke improvement. For BAT, avoiding injury by improving technique before pressuring the swimmer for speed is essential.
Swimmers
Belmont swimmers can range in age from 5 to 21. Some come to the program from other teams (Y teams, recreation teams, and other U.S. Swimming teams) and some have never swam competitively before. What they have in common is a love of swimming and a desire to improve. BAT swimmers have gone on to swim for local high schools and for such college teams as Clark, Colgate, Duke, Harvard, Holy Cross, Johns Hopkins, Mount Holyoke, Smith, Trinity, U. Mass, Wheaton, and Williams.
Seasons
The U.S. Swimming year runs from September through July. From September through March swimmers practice and compete in 25 yard pools, the "Short Course" season. The "Long Course" (50 meter) season follows after a two week break and runs through July. Most meets are clustered in November-January and May-July and are followed by various championship meets in February-March and July. BAT swimmers generally contract with the team for the full year. There are occasional openings to participate during the Long Course season only. This option is sometimes chosen by swimmers who have participated on another team and want to join a U.S. team in mid-year.
Practice Schedule
Generally, the team practices six days a week:
| Monday-Thursday: | 4:20-6:20 PM |
| Friday: | 5:30-7:30 PM |
| Saturday: | 7:00-9:00 AM |
Practices on holidays and during school vacations generally follow the Saturday schedule.
Swimmers choose their own practice schedules. The youngest swimmers usually swim 2-3 days per week. Swimmers who are eleven or older (or younger swimmers who wish to) may swim up to six days. The older swimmers also spend some time doing dry-land exercises.
Fees
Please review the BAT Registration Posting via the How to Join link here or from the Home Page (PDF posting).
For swimmers who only participate in a single season (Short- or Long-Course only), the fees are proportionally reduced.
Wheaton Meet
Every January (usually during the weekend of Martin Luther King's birthday holiday), we sponsor a swim meet at Wheaton College. Each BAT family is asked to participate in helping to run this meet. It is an important money making and team-building initiative and we have a great time doing it!