covering high school swimming

I always remembered the right order with a couple of off-color mnemonic devices.
For the relay, get her on her back(stroke), rub her breast(stroke), unzip your (butter)fly and you're home free(style).
For the IM, you butter(fly) her up to get her on her back(stroke), then play with her breast(stroke) until you're home free(style).

Yes, I came up with this when I was 15.

 

Team set to win conference in its third year is the obvious story that comes to mind. Did the school used to have swimming years back, or is this brand new three years ago? If the school used to have swimming, I'd say hit up the coach/swim club coach/parent who looks knowledgeable/AD to see if they can hook you up with a former school swim star, to talk about what it's like to see this year's team doing well.
Another idea (maybe as a preview feature before the next round) is find out who some of this year's top swimmers are, and see if they have older siblings that were great swimmers but didn't get to show it off because the school didn't have a team in the past. Would especially work well if there's a sibling that coaches or helps out the team in some way.

 

Caffeine.

Lots and lots of caffeine.

Earplugs too. Those swim meets can get pretty loud. And position yourself near a door, because the chlorine in the air can be overwhelming.

 

only went to 2 hs swim meets and just to watch, not cover. the chlorine is tough to take, felt kind of like sandman's sleeping powder in batman. is it that hs pools the ceilings are low and ventilation is poor, can't imagine D1 and national meets it would be like that.

 

With a broad-based feature like this, you don't have to just interview the best swimmers.

What did the swimmers (and possibly, their parents) have to go through to establish the team? Some districts have very stringent regulations, and want the boosters to show there will not only be enough kids now -- usually by some kind of survey -- but also well into the future. Swimming is a very expensive sport and pool time is at a premium, so find out where the $$$ is coming from. A lot of new teams around here aren't fully funded for awhile; they start off pay-to-play with the school kicking in more money each year as the program establishes itself.

Have there been other teams added either at this particular school or in the area?

What were these kids doing before the high school added swimming? Could they compete at the meet independently? How different is this experience? Were they just on clubs? It's very different -- usually more team-focused and oriented toward fun -- to be on the high school team.

 

Pray no one drowns

 

A lot of the suggestions here have been great.

Find out from the coach what the key races are. Many coaches know who knows to place where in what to get a top finish.

Building on that, relays are worth more than individual events. How will this factor?

Is this a small or large school? Is there a swimmer who is swimming a number of events?

Did anything strange happen during the race? I once covered a relay team who won a championship even though their anchor lost his goggles on the first lap.

Who is the 'top dog' so to speak in their conference? I know in our area, it's one or two schools who dominate and will sometimes win for a full decade before something snaps.

Will any team, pool or state records fall?

That's all I got, but for heaven's sake, whoever said dress in layers is right. I spent my first district meet heaving in the bathroom because of the heat. Bring a book too. Nothing like sitting through 20 heats of the 50 or five heats of the 500.

 

I swam in high school. Every season, my eyes would burn every day for the first week of practice. My skin would itch, too, because the chlorinated water dried it out so much.

 

If I end up in hell, I know the devil will greet me with a fax from a 12-team-conference swimming meet and he'll say, "We need agate on this. Top 8 in each event. Boys. And girls."

 

Fixed.

 

First swim meet I ever covered, I was in college and I had just started to wear glasses. The paper I was a stringer for called me to do the city high school swim finals at a local junior college. The pool was indoors.
I walked in the door and my glasses immediately fogged up.
I freaked out. "How am I going to cover this damn thing when I can't even see."
It took a few minutes to get acclimated to the humidity in there, and once my glasses cleared, they didn't fog up again. But that was a new experience.
WHEW!!!

 

This made me laugh. How could I forget? Locals. Aaaagh.