2003 NE SCY Championships

Originally posted by rseltzer ...Last year, this was the largest regional SCY championship meet in the US. Some 40+ NEM workout groups will be competing for the title of 2003 NEM Grand Champion and we expect 700+ athletes, 4,000+ individual splashes and 300+ relays this year. ... Lets see New England Masters 2002: 675 swimmers 3166 splashes Pacific Masters 2002: 823 swimmers competed and the meet recorded 3214 splashes Hmmm, Pacific had 148 more swimmers and 48 more splashes, I guess that is right New England is the largest regional SCY championship meet, after all they are the self proclaimed "center of competive Masters swimming." ;-) And with 25 more swimmers NEM is going to get over 834 more splashs. I am impressed. michael

Phil: This is a great question. I've often wondered why we don't see more relays at other regional championship meets. The Past Until we introduced the "NEM Workout Group" competition concept we pretty much limited relays to the "elite" type that you refer to below. Otherwise most of our swimmers had little motivation to swim relays. The Present Let's forget about the "elite" relays. Looking at the "big picture" they really are not material (at least to my way of thinking). What we've done is created a intra-NEM competition (think of it as PMS LMSC competition) where we have motivated people to swim for their "local workout group: (think swim clubs that are within the PMS LMSC) in order to place as high as possible in the team competition. Result People will swim lots of relay in order to help their local groups win the team competition IF the LMSC leadership makes it a meaningful event. Despite my propaganda to the contrary, New Englanders are not more competitive than other masters--we've just provided a vehicle to revive the all important element of team competition. Fielding 300 relays changes the whole atmosphere of the regional championship meet. It is unlike anything I've experienced on the national level. It is much more like a high school/college meet or March madness basketball game. Relays are truly inclusive--they attract the elite and non-elite alike. They also score double points and just about every relay will score in our meet (especially now that we score 16 deep to ensure maximum participation). Detail Answers Swimmers may not swim Men's 400 free and Mixed 400 free. In the past, we did seed these as separate events so it's possible that a few die hards managed to circumvent this rule. We will now seed the 400 free as one event (mainly in the interest of time) and that will eliminate any transgressions. No limit (except the one noted above) on the number of relays that you can swim. We do not offer more than two relays a day and schedule one at the beginning of the session and the other at the end of the session. It's rare to find "elite" NEM relays at our championship meets (I define elite as drawing participants from NEM regardless of workout group competition). The workout group competition works against such relays (they do not count and the local groups suffer if "elite" swimmers join up with fellow NEMs). Most NEM "elite" relays are fielded at non-championship meets. On the other hand, some NEM workout groups (notably Cambridge Masters ) are able to break national records fielding relays from the 120 swimmers who workout at Harvard. Some of the "smaller" workout groups have banded together to swim as recognized NEM workout group. For example, the Salem Y and Beverly Y compete as the Y of the North Shore (they also compete in Y and USA meets as a combined team); another group of triathletes that work out in 2-3 pools formed a NEM workout group. We have not promulgated any rules that prohibit such "mergers" or that dissuade a coach from combining several pools into one group. Age Group Problems As you can imagine, it's much easier (and more fun) to field meter relays because of sum of the ages rule. I wish we would change the rule for yards to sum of the ages. It's in the best interest of masters. Awards We have very attractive banners that can be hung from local pools for the NEM workout groups that finish in the top ten for SCY and SCM. We have reinstituted an awards banquet to recognize the accomplishments of such teams. (We also give individuals medals and trophies for individual high points). Applicability to PMS I'm dont know why you do not have more relays in your championship meets. You certainly have one of the best LMSC leaderships in USMS (We've stolen quite a few ideas from PMS over the years---emulating DAM effort in the OHS, copying Michael Moore's web page and email news list and trying to build a network of strong coached workouts groups based on what I consider to be the PMS model of strong local clubs). So I'm really puzzled. It could be they people do not see this as something strategic. Here in New England it was critical to our success in growing our Club and LMSC. Obviously, PMS has found other ways to do this given your success in reaching the 10,000 mark--though at our current growth rate our people at MIT predict we'll pass you in membership before the 2012 Olympics.

Michael: "Biggest regional championship meet in 2002" That's based on total splashes including relays. When you add in our relays we were larger than Pacific Masters. Not bad for a little LMSC with 1,600 members. "Estimated 2003 Meet Size" We drew 10% more participants for December's 2002 SCM meet. We are "expecting" a 10% increase in participants and slighlty larger increase in splashes per participant based on 4 day meet versus last year's 3 day meet. That would give us 742 participants. We are currently planning for slightly less then 6 splashes per athlete. That's how we came up with 4,000 splashes "expectation." My expectations for this year could be wrong (wouldn't be the first time) but things look pretty good based on the 2003 renewal rate. BTW, some NEMs think that based on non-NE interest in our meet that we'll get closer to 800. As a meet management person you can appreciate that I'm not rooting for such a turnout this year. Happy New Year and Good luck in the One Hour Swim

Bob, Can you spend some time explaining how the relays work at NEM? I know there are a lot of differences when compared to Pacific. For example, you offer all of the relays in a meet, while Pacific offers less (for example, if the 200 mens free is run, the 400 mens free will not be run.) Can a swimmer be in both the 400 free mens relay and the 400 free mixed relay (that would be impossible at a Pacific meet, since they would not be simultaneously offered)? Is there a limit to the number of relays a person can be in? How are the relays constituted? It seems that there is a relay competition between workout groups. But I also get the impression that some relays are 'elite' relays of the best in NEM. That is also impossible at Pacific. I can not swim a relay with the fast swimmers who workout on the team two miles away. Who organizes these relays? Of course, these 'elite' relays are also evident at Nationals. Again, not an option for Pacific teams. Even with a relatively large team (over 400 members, but most are triathletes, fitness swimmers, or open water swimmers) many of our swimmers can not be in relays because of odd numbers or age group issues. Is there an effort to get these types of swimmers into relays with members from other workout groups?

That's based on total splashes including relays. When you add in our relays we were larger than Pacific Masters. I went back to the SCY meet results, Pacific Masters had 3252 Actual swims of those swims 314 were relays. According to the Rick Osterberg in thread Pacific SCY Championships NEM had 3166 splashes of which 326 relays. Pacific beating NEM by 86 splashes. Now if you are counting bodies hitting the water, therefore counting a relays as four splashes, NEM would narrow the gap by 36 (3 extra swimmers x 12 - the difference in relays). Pacific would beat NEM 50 splashes. Now it could be that NEM will have more splashes that Pacific in the 2003 SCY championships. NEM allows swimmers over the course of the three day meet to swim 12 individual events and 5 relays (or is it now 4 relays). Pacific allows swimmers to swim 7 individual events and 5 relays. A NEM swimmer who wants to get the maximum number of splashes will swim at least 33% more events that the Pacific swimmer. There are slightly more NEM relays per number of swimmers. I would look upon that as the result of the pressure to compete for the "workout group." (A good thing as most have fun.). In Pacific we have workout groups only we call them teams - a limiting factor to relays about relays is that a group of swimmers from small teams cannot join together to form a relay. (IMHO a NEM workout group is really a team - the workout groups have different price structures according to the NEM web site. I guess (and it is only a guess) is that there is no supervision of the workout group coaches by a general coach. -though at our current growth rate our people at MIT predict we'll pass you in membership before the 2012 Olympics. At the end of 2002 NEM had 1739 swimmers a gain of 6.1% over their 2001 ending total of 1639 - a 6.1 % gain. Pacific at the end of 2002 had 10076 members a gain of 4.1% over their ending 2001 total of 9684. Pacific had 8637 more swimmers than NEM. If we projected that out to 2002 at current growth rates at the end of 2012, NEM would have 3114 swimmers and Pacific would have 15058 or almost 12000 more swimmers. What this means for NEM I have challenged our Pacific Masters board to have a net increase of swimmers equal to 1/2 the number of registered NEM swimmers or about 870 swimmers. Catch us if you can. michael

Michael: I took the 3,400 individual splashes from the pre-meet entries and added in the relays and that's how we come to the larger total. I didn't take into account scratches so perhaps you right. Pacific Masters was larger. Oh well. Still the question is Michael why don't you get more people to come to championship meets? I'm not suggesting that NEM would draw the same relative meet participation with 10,000 members (how many 50 meter pools would need to handle 5,000 swimmers?) but I do wonder why more people don't race in your area (and also in other larger LMSC such as Southern Pacific or Potomoc Valley). The growth figures you cite are for the NE-LMSC. That includes Maine Masters a group that has not been growing like NEM. Our NEM growth rate is considerably higher than 6% (I don't have the number for last year). Of course you realize that the comments regarding passing Pacific Masters was "tongue in cheek." Our only stated long term goal is to pass NE-Swimming (currently around 6,000). Nothing like a good contest. I've challenged our NEM Executive Committee to growth NEM at twice the annual growth rate of Pacific Masters. Sound like we need to hit 17% this year. I'll get the official 2002 NEM numbers and we'll give you an update on our progress later this year. Cheers

FYI - The meet info web site for this meet is up, including a new Adobe Acrobat entry form that is fill-in-able, and automatically calculates entry fees: www.swimindex.com/meets/2003/nem-scy/ -Rick

Mary T.'s 200 Fly American Record - 1:52.99 until demolished by Natalie Coughlin at Auburn in Decemeber

The postmark deadline is two weeks away for the 2003 New England SCY Championships to be held March 22nd (1650 and 1000) and Marchy 28-30th (all other events) at Harvard's Blodgett Pool. (Swimming trivia question: Until last year, the Blodgett Pool record board displayed the oldest American record. Who set it and when?) For more meet information and a "fill-in" pdf entry form go to: www.swimindex.com/.../

Correct answer is Madame Butterfly's 200 butterfly swim more than two decades ago. Deadline for special meet hotel rates is this Friday February 27th. The postmark deadline is one week from Friday. For more information about the 2003 NE SCY Championships to be held at Harvard's Blodgett Pool on March 22nd and March 28th-30th go to: www.swimindex.com/.../ Another Blodgett Pool trivia question: What is the name of a swimmer who once parted the waters of Blodgett and who also broke a world record at the Olympics but failed to win the gold in the event?