The DeKalb County Swim Team (DCST) is a year-round YMCA affiliated age group team.
About DCST
DCST Members are from Dekalb County located in northern Illinois. Our swim team was started in 1980 and has been growing since then. Today we have over 125 swimmers from ages 6 through 18. We are affiliated with Kishwaukee YMCA located in DeKalb, IL.
The team is broken into 10 different age groups to allow our swimmers to have fun while developing their skills.
Our year round swimming is broken into two seasons: summer and winter. The summer season starts in April and continues through the beginning of August. The winter season starts in September and continues through April.
The DCST program mission:
To foster children’s enjoyment of swimming as a life-long activity and sport by promoting individual skill improvement and achievement of personal goals through participation with other children within a framework of fun and friendship.
The DCST program vision:
Inspire individual achievement through self-discipline and self-improvement. Unify team spirit through commitment to excellence and sportsmanship. Commit to competitive excellence through hard work and perseverance, yet still maintaining a level of fun and swim/life balance.
The DCST swim program:
- Purpose is to provide a year-round, consistent, high quality competitive swim program.
- Open to boys and girls from early elementary school to early post-high school, regardless of swimming ability, race, color, ethnic origin, or religion.
- Part of the Kishwaukee YMCA and, as such, is a nonprofit, volunteer administered, professionally coached organization. The Kishwaukee YMCA provides competitive opportunities to the area swimming community through its district, state and national affiliations. DCST also abides by the YMCA’s philosophy of competitive swimming.
- Member of United States Swimming, Inc. (USS), the national governing body of amateur swimming chartered by Congress under the Amateur Sports Act. The mission of USS is to promote competitive swimming and to organize United States’ national swim teams, including the Olympic Swim Team. USS programs are open to everyone and range in ability from beginners to the US Olympic Swim Team. The DCST swim program participates in a wide range of educational, social, safety, and competitive programs offered by USS.
The DCST program offers:
- A balanced program of practice, competition, and social activities for 11 months a year.
- Instruction and training in competitive swimming for boys and girls in a highly structured, closely supervised, regularly scheduled format.
- Participation according to age and ability level in competitions sanctioned by USS, and the YMCA to ensure fair competition in a safe setting. These competitions are open to all competitors within a given age and ability level.
- Just-for-fun social activities including holiday celebrations and end of season festivities.
The values of competitive swimming:
Swimming has no bench sitters. Competitive swimming is a sport in which there are no bench sitters because all programs are by age-group and ability level.
Swimming is healthy. Injuries are few and mild. The sport has been shown time and time again to be the best sport for overall conditioning of the body. Swimming provides cardiovascular fitness, muscular fitness, and increased flexibility.
Swimming provides self-discipline. No one can make a person swim. All swimmers must develop an inner sense of discipline to devote themselves to the sport.
Swimming is a direct reward system. In swimming, the harder you work, the greater your reward. The time clock is an objective judge of the result. There are no judges with subjective scores, no dependence on the efforts of others; only you and the clock evaluate your effort.
Swimming teaches the relationship between team and individual. Neither team nor individual can exist and prosper in swimming without the other. Swimming teaches people to work with others.
Swimming teaches organization. Swimmers have to organize their day to fit in all the life activities they want. They learn to do so, and in so doing, usually become much better students. Swimmers are almost always better students when they are training and competing.
Swimming teaches people how to win, how to lose with grace, and how to develop a personal philosophy that will make them long-term successes in life. Swimmers learn to evaluate their efforts, set goals, and achieve. They gain an athlete’s mind that says, "I can control my life, and the results of it. If it is to be, it’s up to me."
Swimming is about values, and the learning of these values is why your child should be involved in swimming.
