Paul McClintock admits that he was never able to officially confirm that Westchester County’s famed swim championships were the oldest continuous-running swim meet in the eastern U.S., but given the long history of the event, he wouldn’t doubt it either.
Since 1926, “The Counties”—run by the Westchester County Swimming Association, WCSA,—have been held each summer at Rye Playland, offering hundreds of area youths the chance to participate in a tradition that has spanned generations while becoming an indelible part of Westchester’s sports landscape.
That historic run officially came to an end on June 1, when the WCSA—faced with the loss of its historic venue—voted to dissolve the organization on a Zoom call with its member clubs, spelling the end for Westchester’s signature swimming event.
For McClintock, who served as the WCSA president from 1997 until its dissolution earlier this month, the decision to shutter “The Counties” was a heartbreaking, yet ultimately necessary step in the face of uncertainty regarding the future of countywide meets in Westchester.
“I got a little emotional,” he said. “When I got off that call I had a tear in my eye, and I definitely would have preferred to have someone take it over and keep running it.”
Given the challenges currently facing the WCSA, however, McClintock is not surprised that nobody stepped up to assume command of the organization.
After the coronavirus pandemic forced the cancelation of the 2020 meet—the first time in 94 years that the meet had been suspended—The WCSA was dealt another blow this past winter, as Westchester County unveiled its plans to renovate the pool at Rye Playland. When the pool-area reopens in 2022, however, the changes made will render the site unfit for holding future championship-level swim meets.
“We don’t blame the County at all, and they’ve been very open with us every step of the way through this process and been very helpful,” McClintock said. “But it just so happened that’s what’s best for them and their plans for the Playland Pool doesn’t happen to be what’s best for ‘The Counties.’”
The specter of Playland renovations has loomed over the county meet since 2007, as that meet was initially billed as the “last-ever” iteration of the event due to planned construction at the site. But a series of delays to the project and last-minute reprieves kept “The Counties” running through the 2019 season. That string of good fortune came to an end on Feb. 4, however, as Westchester County accepted a bid on a $20 million renovation project which began this winter and will keep the pool closed for the duration of the summer.
McClintock acknowledges that county officials have been eager to help the annual event find a new home—with some floating the idea of newly renovated, county-owned Sprain Ridge Park as a possible site.
“The County has always said that they wanted to help out with this and help us find another location,” McClintock said. “They re-did Sprain Ridge, and in fact they’ve offered that pool for this year, but there’s a lot of infrastructure stuff that would have to go into it, like adding lane lines and starting blocks.”
Ultimately, he added, the idea of holding the event at any venue other than historic Playland Park was simply a non-starter for those on the WCSA board.
Citing the history of the meet and its connection to the Playland site, McClintock and his fellow board members believed that it was impossible to separate “The Counties” from Rye Playland and that the sense of continuity passed down from generations was one of the event’s main draws.
“Most of the people feel that this venue is as important as the actual swim meet, and that’s been the history of moving this thing along,” McClintock said. ““The kids are swimming summer league meets, dual meets, invitationals and whatever else they’ve got going on, but it was always about parents saying, ‘Let’s take Joey over to Playland, he’ll swim in the third heat of 15 … we’ll pack up his stuff, go out in the park, go on the rides, and have another night at Playland.”
If the idea of the Westchester County Championships is revived at some point moving forward, the WCSA board has intimated that it prefers all records to stay connected to the Playland venue and for any new iteration of “The Counties” to forge its own traditions. But as Westchester prepares for a future without “The Counties,” McClintock is content to look back at some of the bright spots of the event’s past, especially with U.S. Olympian Kate Douglass—who holds seven all-time county records—preparing to make a splash at the Tokyo games.
“When Kate was 12 [in 2014], she swam all four strokes in her age group, won all four, and set four meet records; I remember getting an email from her and her mother telling us how much she loved swimming at ‘The Counties’ and thanking us for everything we did for her,” McClintock recalled. “Especially seeing how she’s developed and where she is now, that’s something that really rang home to me.”
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