For decades, Southern California Swimming has been the largest and fastest Local Swimming Committee (LSC) within USA Swimming, the sport’s national governing body. Although not a part of nor affiliated with SCS, this site celebrates its swimmers, professional coaches, administrators and officials.
In 2014, USA Swimming ranked SCS as number one in the country for the number of year-round registered swimmers. We had 22,633 swimmers and 160 clubs. Only seven other LSCs had more than 10,000 swimmers.
What’s an LSC, you ask? From USA Swimming, “USA Swimming’s 2,800-plus clubs and 400,000-plus athletes are broken up regionally into 59 Local Swimming Committees who are responsible for governing swimming in their individual regions. As our arms into the communities, these LSC’s play a major role in the governance of our sport across the nation.”
Swimming in the United States was originally organized under the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) which was the governing body for youth sports beginning in 1888. The original purpose of the AAU was to create common standards in amateur sports.
Eventually, there was dissatisfaction with some of the arbitrary rules of the AAU, such as women banned from running events, and those who ran in races with runners sponsored by shoe companies. Congress passed the Amateur Sports Act of 1978, signed by President Jimmy Carter, which established the United States Olympic Committee and provided for national governing bodies for each Olympic sport. The Act was important for the athletes because it provided important legal protection for individual athletes.
National governing bodies began including USA Swimming, United States Fencing Association, United States Ski Team, USA Track & Field and the U.S. Figure Skating. Each promotes their sport as well as makes rules for selecting their Olympic teams.
This site is not affiliated with USA Swimming or Southern California Swimming. It’s a place to read and share history, stories and memories from those fortunate to have swimming in their lives.
To contribute or suggest story ideas, please contact Elizabeth Wickham at ewickham@me.com and note socalhistory.com in the subject line.
About Elizabeth Wickham:
A writer and swim mom, Elizabeth writes for SwimSwam.com and her blog called bleuwater.
She earned a bachelor of arts degree in editorial journalism from the University of Washington and has a career in journalism, public relations, marketing and advertising. Her stories have appeared in newspapers and magazines including the Los Angeles Times, Orange County Parenting, Palm Springs, Life, American Lifeguard and Ladybug.