why are sc nationals early?

I agree with you - it will conflict with the Colorado ski season. Indianapolis has another major event in May. That event tends to bid up the price of hotel rooms. And there are more people who will go to Indianapolis for the 500 than go there for a swim meet. There was also only ONE bid for the 2005 SCY yards meet. I hope it wont happen in future years, but I would like to thank Mel Goldstein who has come through to help with the national championships. Without him, you would not be having a great facility to compete in. Championship Committee could always use more help in identifying places to hold the National Championships, and then convincing the facility management that they would really like to hold a major meet there. But look at it this way, you have six months to get ready ;) . Happy training. michael

What about considering Ft Lauderdale again or southern California for a May meet. Don't they want us anymore? Is there a way we can be more attractive to the good pools? Do we need to spend more, provide more volunteers, etc. I'd be glad to help with identifying other locations for nationals.

Has the decision regarding the 2005 SCY Nationals been made?

BJK, That is a very classy response. Plenty of USMS swimmers complain about aspects of Nationals that they do not care for, and those are useful data points for the people who organize the meets. Very few of the people complaining take the next step of offering to help out. I appreciate and respect your response to Michael's post. Please follow through. We need more folks like you. Matt

Bert, I have tried as past Southwest Zone Chairman to get a regional championship meet in San Diego. I continue to support them if they would host a regio0nal meet. They do not have the people to put one on. There are two problems with many of the places you mention. First: There has to be a dedicated group of full time volunteers to run a national swim meet. Thousands of man hours are spent arranging hotels, transportation, officials, timers etc. Your are absolutely correct about Indy, Federal Way, they have great organizations behind the organizers. USMS needs to get the word out to other pools that are able to host a Nationals. Mission Viejo under Coach Mark has really invigorated masters swimming in his area. The 2005 Long Course nationals will be at Mission Viejo, and I am sure it will be one of the best. Hopefully when Irvine gets their pools built they will be able to host a short course yards nationals in this decade. Second, the pool rental has to be low enough to at least have the host committee to break even. At one time the host committees were able to make a nice profit to help their clubs grow. Of course if the profit devided by the man hours would work out to less than a dollar an hour! Ever wonder why SPMA doesn't run meets at USC or the Rosebowl? Because the cost of pool rental is so high that is is nearly impossible to break even. Lucy Johnson spent a lot of time trying to get a swim meet at the Long Beach Olympic trials portable pools. Unfortunately any meet would have had to be on a Monday through Friday time frame:mad: cinc310, I doubt that any of your swims or anyone else will be affected by the "OLD Mission Viejo Pool". The main influence on fast times are pool depth, laneline design, and gutter system. Mission Viejo is deep, has modern gutters and the lane lines are good enough for World records to be set. Yes, there are slightly better pools, perhaps the Olympic pool in Sydney being the best. Now I personally do have a problem with some of the older pools like Santa Clara with less than 5 feet of starting depth. Give me a swim meet in a diving pool every time.:D Several people have aluded to the real issue in this forum, a lot of talk, we need people to help. Bert has been on the SPMA committee before, and continues to help. But I am sure that cinc310 can help in Arizona, and others.

Well what wrong with Indy. Mission Viejo is a 30 year pool while the Indianapolis pool was built in the late 1990's. I'm not putting down Mission Viejo but there are more modern pools around. So, what wrong with having the indy pool or some midwest pool that is a little more contempoary.

Even Long Beach to get the olympic trails had to use a portable pool since their pool is also past 30 years old. Why does the person in CO think that Southern Cal and FL have modern pools. They have a few that were built in the 1990's but many of them were built circa 1966 to 1985. So, their no better pools than many places in the US.

I'm with you, Waye. I was pointing out that those would be great sites, but a huge organizing group (with deep pockets) needs to be in place first. SCAQ couldn't pull it off anyway despite how large they are coupled with their "unique" insurance situation and I doubt SDSM has the resources (and second pool) to run a Nationals meet at UCSD. MVN's LCM bid is a huge step forward for SPMA.

I only suggest Florida and California because they have outdoor pools - just like Arizona. After a long winter swimming indoors an outdoor pool in May for nationals is the best - also low altitude is always appreciated. I grew up swimming at meets in the midwest --- indoor pools!!

Slow down people. There are plenty of great pools everywhere, however that is not the issue. The meets don't run themselves. A team or organization needs to bid for a meet and that is what Indy has done successfully (as well as under duress, at least once!) There have been the same group of consistent hosts (Indy, Santa Clara, Federal Way), along with some great new ones, but our efforts should be directed at finding new hosts/pools to help. If not, we could actually face a year when each area's Zone meet serves as "Nationals" as there will be no single National Championship to attend. I'd love for UC San Diego (SDSM), USC (SCAQ), a Florida site, Auburn, a Texas site, among others bid for SCY.