Had a great time at SCY Nat's!

RE: Had a great time at SCY Nat's!

Former Member — Wed, 21 Sep 2005 06:24:49 GMT

Chiming in late but i just discovered this discussion forum. Nationals in Ft. Lauderdale were very enjoyable for me. It was my first Master's meet and my first competition in 24 years. What a good way to launch my Master's career. I am once again "Hooked on swimming". Good meet, good people, good motel (GinaLee) and wonderful facility. Look forward to many more competitions and the nationals in Florida next May. blessings to all AguaMan

RE: Had a great time at SCY Nat's!

Former Member — Fri, 10 Jun 2005 16:43:09 GMT

I agree with ShayShay. Sue Moucha is truly an inspiration in every way.

RE: Had a great time at SCY Nat's!

Former Member — Fri, 10 Jun 2005 15:39:10 GMT

I'm "tuning into this very late" but it doesn't look like your question was ever answered about the woman at Nationals who swims with one arm. I believe that the woman is Sue Mocha from Brandon, FL. She is truly an inspiration to all swimmers here in Florida as she has overcome serious physical disabilities but competes in the longest, most grueling swims of all (open water, distance postals up to 10K, 400 IM's, 1650, etc) . She has one of the most positive attitudes of any swimmer I have ever met! I am enclosing a little blurb about her as she won the "Overcoming Adversity Award" for Florida Local Masters in 2003. She is also actively involved with Florida Master's swimming and currently serves as the Sanctions Chairperson. home.earthlink.net/.../inspiration.html Sharon Salzman

RE: Had a great time at SCY Nat's!

Former Member — Fri, 10 Jun 2005 05:01:42 GMT

Originally posted by jean sterling I agree with ShayShay. I watched her entire 1650 as well as some other races ...never know where you're gonna get that inspiration from...a former big name olympian or an anonymous lane 8

RE: Had a great time at SCY Nat's!

Former Member — Mon, 06 Jun 2005 10:56:27 GMT

Tall Paul...the 500 it is. I now have something to start training for after my knee surgery next week. You better get that shoulder fixed so you can start putting in some non-sprinter/distance workouts.....ha-ha.

RE: Had a great time at SCY Nat's!

Former Member — Mon, 06 Jun 2005 09:50:53 GMT

Pablo, My buddy and the stroke & turn official that day, Steve Schofield, would never allow me to go past the 15m mark. It was legit and if I remember correctly, you lost by over a second...ouch!! Then you lost the "double or nothing" rematch the following year in Vegas, so we're not even close to being "even." And by the way knucklehead, you were the one who laid down the bet in the first place!! Now if you want me to change the event and give you another shot at "double or nothing", I'll give you a few more options other than 50 back.....how about 100/200 back, 200 fly, 400/500 free, 1000 free, 1500/1650 free. I was thinking of including the 100 fly, but at 7'4" you have too much of an unfair advantage (can you say level playing field?). So what's it going to be? P.S. Don't make us Santa Barbara Gauchos look bad by not paying up on your bets. My teammates want to have a post-nats party, so it'd be nice if you'd send over a case of your finest from the Rockies.....FINALLY!!

RE: Had a great time at SCY Nat's!

Paul Smith — Mon, 06 Jun 2005 06:36:35 GMT

I've been totally "worked" by fellow Gaucho, so sad! OK..........the 500........if the shoulder surgery goes down. PS: for those of you reading these pathetic posts you're seeing in action one of the best ways to keep yourself training/motivated....as well as getting people to commit to meets!

RE: Had a great time at SCY Nat's!

Paul Smith — Mon, 06 Jun 2005 04:05:32 GMT

Shaf, It was important to bring up, and let me try and be a bit clearer on my position. My concern right now is that the rules we're changed to the current system and that people are looking for ways to "modify" this system to "level the playing field"...........which I'm against. I have no problem what so ever with there being a division of teams; small, medium, large........Club vs. State, etc. etc. In fast I do think that is a better way to go, however let's make sure that its well thought out and as simple as possible. One things for sure, no one will ever be 100% happy with any set up! As for our little wager, you know damn well you kicked past 15m so don't even give me that "owing" you crap! I will however start from scratch and go for a full ase in the 200 free next year in FL!!

RE: Had a great time at SCY Nat's!

Former Member — Sat, 04 Jun 2005 15:58:55 GMT

OK - I'm sorry for bringing up the club scoring issue after the meet....I had no idea that It would garner so much attention (and emotion). I just wanted to find out why the old system was dropped cause it was really fun competing against other small clubs. Our team (VCM) had a blast a few years ago in Indy, Hawaii, and Tempe battling for the small men's team title (2nd & 3rd in Indy & HI). Now it's different and I was just curious why the switch was made.....and I wanted to put my vote in for going back to the old system or something new that would involve all sizes of teams/clubs, especially the smaller individual clubs. I know no system is perfect and not everyone will be happy, but I guess the question has to be asked.....is there a better system? I think it would be awesome if we put our heads together and came up with "the model system" that other athletic associations (i.e., Masters track & field, cycling, triathlon, etc.) looked to as an example for team scoring. Maybe I'm dreaming. Paul and John Smith, great job on you efforts with CMS....your hard work (and talent) has paid off for CMS and USMS. You probably encouraged many swimmers to attend nationals who would have otherwise not come - that's great. By the way Paul, you STILL owe me a case of beer for those two 50 back bets.....double or nothing again??

RE: Had a great time at SCY Nat's!

Former Member — Fri, 03 Jun 2005 11:12:22 GMT

All this talk about what's fair or not fair with small and large teams reminds me of dog shows for kids where everyone wins a prize for best something. Also, "Swedish" competitions for children where "everyone wins." I understand the benefits of giving children (and adults!) the opportunity to participate and feel like they won something. On the other hand, attempting to "level the playing field" too much is a cruel joke to people who all of a sudden find that, for better or worse, much of our society and world operates in a competitive athmosphere. I met my "goals" at Nationals by bettering my times in each of the three events I swam. (This has been my first year of competition since 1968!) But I really came in 1st place by being, without a doubt, the fastest 57 year old bald guy with blue swim suit and initials EGH. (It took a few minutes to make sure that nobody who swam faster had my iniitials!) On the other hand, I'm very aware that Andrew Mc Pherson and Chuck Olsen were the real winners and that they did so because they were better technical swimmers, who were better trained and better conditioned and had made a much deeper commitment to the sport. This is really important to me, and I believe a lot of other people as well. The reason is that by respecting what the real winners have accomplished, I and others can concentrate on what WE have to do to improve, rather than moan that somehow the rules were not fair. I love US Masters Swimming. I returned home knowing that I bettered my best times, who the real winners were and giddy with inspiration to train smarter and harder. I already look forward to the 2006 Nationals!

RE: Had a great time at SCY Nat's!

MegSmath — Fri, 03 Jun 2005 03:13:32 GMT

This may violate the physical laws of the universe, but I find myself agreeing with both the Good Smith and the Evil Smith! I like what Evil/Tall/Paul Smith says about the size of your club as well as the number of swimmers you bring to a meet being entirely in your own hands. And if California wants to combine into one gigantic team, then that's their privilege and entirely within the rules. And Good/John Smith was downright profound with "Really ... people ... it's just Masters Swimming"! This discussion got started because of the perception that all clubs competing in the same division for the top 10 places was not fair to the smaller clubs, and that the old way, top three in small, medium, and large divisions, was more fair. I personally prefer the old way too, but can live with the new top 10 way. What I really wouldn't like to see is a division between so-called superteams and club teams. My club, Swim Kentucky, is sometimes cited as an example of a superteam. We're flattered to be in the company of New England, Colorado, and Illinois Masters! But really folks, unless Nationals is held within driving distance for us, there's not much chance we're going to get a lot of our swimmers there and steamroll everyone else. We like to win as much as anyone else does, but that was not the reason we formed SKY. The reason we did it was for cameraderie. We realized that when the people from Kentucky went to Nationals, we all hung out together, roomed together, went out to dinner together, and cheered for each other, regardless of which club we belonged to. We enjoyed each other's company, and we wanted to be teammates. Combining the local teams into one statewide club was sort of like being tired of just living together, and deciding to get married! It was more about acknowledging that we were already de facto teammates, but our points were being split up among smaller clubs, and we did not get to swim relays together. SKY does give us much more of an opportunity to participate in relays, with participate being the operative word. It's not like the relay I was on with two 48-year-old women, one 55-year-old, and one 74-year-old had a chance of placing! We knew we were seeded last, but we had fun swimming together, and held our heads high! Since we formed SKY, the numbers we've sent to Nationals has ranged from 67 (at Indy) to 1 (at Rutgers). We had 21 in Ft. Lauderdale, more than I expected. Most came because they wanted to go to Florida, or they had family there. Others (like me) often go to Nationals, but that doesn't necessarily mean we're likely to score a lot of points. I haven't scored a point for SKY since its inception (not for lack of trying)! I would be very unhappy to have my club pushed off into a separate division, and stimatized as not being a "real club" just because some of my teammates live 70 miles away. Heck, I commute 36 miles round trip every day, so distances don't mean that much to me. I've heard people say you should have to live within a certain radius to belong to a club. Well, I live in a rural county and work in the next county. There isn't a pool in the county I live in that I can work out in. I actually spend more of my waking hours in the county I work in, and someone's going to tell me I can't belong to the team that practices on the campus where I work? Talk about unfair!

RE: Had a great time at SCY Nat's!

Rob Copeland — Thu, 02 Jun 2005 11:04:30 GMT

I’ll probably regret this post, but in my opinion the Olympics and relays are two examples of UNLEVEL playing fields. When was the last time small team (Sri Lanka, Vietnam, India, Qatar, Macedonia …) won the medal count in swimming over the “super-clubs” (USA, Australia, USSR/Russia, Germany, China)? And when was the last time you saw Mozambique duke it out for gold with the USA in the 800 Free Relay? And while I haven’t looked at the Estonian Swimming discussion forum lately, I’d guess they aren’t grousing about changing the way Olympic medals are awarded because they aren’t distributed evenly. And one more Olympic note, team size is capped, not fixed. And talk about level playing fields; it doesn’t get more level than swimming. Each swimmer has practically identical conditions (starting block height, lane length, wall conditions, timing system, water temperature …). So if Tall Paul beats you in a race, blame genetics, blame your training, blame Paul (because of his genetics and training) but don’t blame the playing field. In Masters, team scoring is supposed to be the icing on the cake, not the whole meal. My most memorable masters moments are NOT of me hoisting a team banner at nationals, they are of my swims and my fellowship with other masters. I admit I had a different view of this in school, where winning the conference championships was a big deal. But, as I was recently reminded “it's just Masters Swimming”. And congratulation to the Smith’s, Jones’s and all the other folks who were fortunate enough to attend USMS SCN, in sunny Florida!

RE: Had a great time at SCY Nat's!

Former Member — Thu, 02 Jun 2005 06:40:44 GMT

On a straight-up points basis, is there anyone who thinks realistically that a small team (VCM: 2005 SCY nats 8 members) can "compete" with a large team (CMS/NEM/IM: 2005 SCY nats > 60 members each)? Unlikely. While we might be able to hold measure via individual points thanks to a couple of our "stars", a team such as ours has a lot more trouble fielding relays than a larger team. It's not necessarily a talent issue; we're talking a basic numbers issue and relays require 4 people. When there were separate team divisions, the playing field wasn't level either. There were separate fields! With the elimination of the arbitrary team divisions, there is only one field - and a very large one at that. "Our" field was taken away! Over the past few years, we (VCM) enjoyed our place in the small division (as high as 3rd, Men's), and used that for our local newspaper reporting and advertising purposes. Now we're embarrased to ("local masters swimmers 41st in 2005 National competition". Nice headline eh? It happened). In an area where swimming is an incredibly minor sport, we are interested in using everything positive at our disposal to gain community awareness (not necessarily recognition). It's not about ego. And it isn't just about increasing our numbers. It is also about gaining respect in our community, and some of the perks that come with it - i.e. pool availability and space - not just for our Masters team but for our age group program as well. The comments by Paul and others are well taken. If we don't like our current place in the single division pecking order, we have the option to try to create something more competitive team-wise. Clearly a formulaic approach to try to "level" the playing field is not a popular idea, and any formula that might be agreed by a representative group of people as being "fair" would likely be too complicated to implement. The only avenue left to us, if our goal is to be competitive as a team, is to increase our membership and/or combine into a larger association (any takers for an SPMA team at Nationals?). Until we do so, we will continue to watch the "team" competition from the outside looking in. With the talk of Masters swimming being so inclusive, at least on an individual level, the team competition at Nationals seems to me to be an area that is inconsistent with that broadly-stated goal. Perhaps it should be scrapped. If group point totals are to be kept, how about an association competition based on LMSC?

RE: Had a great time at SCY Nat's!

Former Member — Thu, 02 Jun 2005 05:16:36 GMT

It seems to me that there is a problem in terminology at work here. It seems to me that there are two distinct concepts that are quite different but are not being distinguished. 1) All competitors should have an equal probability of winning regardless of ability. 2) Competition should be decided by the abilities of the competitors not by the conditions of competition or equipment or whatever. When you say that relay competition is an example of an unlevel playing field because Mozambique never wins you are referring to the first concept. When you talk about swimming being a very level playing field because the conditions of competition are almost identical you are referring to the second concept. Personally I use "level playing field" to refer to the second concept not the first. For me the relay competition is still on a level playing field because the conditions of competition are still pretty much identical. If I were to race against Michael Phelps the competition would be very uneven but still on a level playing field. If you had two baseball teams and you allowed one team to field two extra outfielders I would say that you no longer had a level playing field, although it is possible that the smaller team could have better players and actually win. Perhaps there are some people here that think that teams ought to be able to win regardless of the abilities of their swimmers. That has not been my argument, what I suggested was to add a new competition where a small team could win if it had team members that were faster than the teams fielded by larger teams. It is true that in general larger clubs will have more fast swimmers and are likely to win a lot of these competitions, but at least the small teams will have a level field to play on. The basic argument is that if two teams can combine into one team and thereby gain a significant advantage in a competition then the meaningfulness of that competition is open to question - it isn't being decided by the abilities of the competitors but by the organization and size of the team. There are valid reasons to reward organization and participation so go ahead and keep the total points competition. If nothing else, providing an additional competition on which small teams could compete on the basis of their swimming ability would lessen the number of proposals to average the total points per swimmer, which we all know is a bad idea for reasons that have been stated several times.

RE: Had a great time at SCY Nat's!

Jim Clemmons — Thu, 02 Jun 2005 04:05:15 GMT

If group point totals are to be kept, how about an association competition based on LMSC? Pacific might go for that. Or how about Bay Area Aquatic Masters? Either one could/would be very large. Personally, I really don't care about overall placement team wise although we had 5 guys and ended up 19th in the Men's Div and 37th overall. I doubt we'd have made top ten in small - maybe. As arbitrary as it may be selecting the cut-off numbers, small, medium and large divisions seemed to make more sense but whatever.

RE: Had a great time at SCY Nat's!

Former Member — Wed, 01 Jun 2005 09:17:49 GMT

Leave well enough alone. We don't need to adjust small team scores in some fashion in order to level the playing field in order to compare to large teams. Note: Mission Viejo won USS Nationals (dare date myself and say the word AAU Nationals) many years on talent that was from out of state. It's just a fact of life. Really.......... people......... it's just Masters Swimming. John Smith

RE: Had a great time at SCY Nat's!

Former Member — Wed, 01 Jun 2005 07:33:56 GMT

Not to change the subject!! I am Bleary eyed trying to keep up with it. Maybe to much Chlorine on the brain. I live in a place where most adults never even had the chance to learn to swim!! SO it makes recruiting tough. I am working on it. Thankfully the rest of the state swims so I had some team to call my own. I had a great time at the meet and was glad to see the teams who won. They deserved it! They had the best and most swimmers. Anyway, my question is this, does anyone know if we can still get T shirts from the meet? If so who do I contact? Thanks Cindy

RE: Had a great time at SCY Nat's!

Former Member — Tue, 31 May 2005 14:19:19 GMT

What I read into the replies is that the idea of having two seperate team competitions, one for total points in which participation is encouraged and the larger clubs will almost always dominate, and one for fixed size teams of small enough size that smaller clubs could enter a team and compete on a level field, so that small clubs also have a team competition that they can be competitive in without needing to amalgamate with other clubs, is somehow too radical to be considered. All the replies appear to presume that there can only be one competition that must be based on total points whether it is a simple total or averaged or split into catagories. Rather than continuing to go in circles perhaps someone can simply address why it is undesirable to have two competitions to reflect the two contradictory goals of encouraging participation and allowing small teams to compete on a level field? To address Connie's question of "why not average?", it is because averaging means that any swim that doesn't score points becomes a liability and most people will not accept a schema that discourages participation by club members who are not going to score big points. Again, the two goals are contradictory and ANY scheme to "balance" them within a single competition will compromise one of the goals. To address Paul's question of "Level what playing field?" my proposal is to create a new playing field on which teams from small clubs can compete on an even basis with teams from large clubs, it is really very analogous to relay competition. I am NOT proposing to do away with the total points competition. Small clubs will rarely if ever win the total points competition but at least they will have a field on which they can be competitive. I do not see how my proposal would ever limit swimmers from larger teams or how any sort of cap would ever result. We already have relays which are competitions for teams of four swimmers without any resulting limits or caps. There is no need for formulas to balance anything and the competition is as pure as any.

RE: Had a great time at SCY Nat's!

Former Member — Tue, 31 May 2005 14:11:46 GMT

Originally posted by Paul Smith So with that in mind, my challenge was for people to get out and recruit if they want to have more competitive teams.........our getting 80 people to show up didn't "just happen"! The beauty of the current system (much like USS) is that it would allow swimmers from small isolated clubs to swim with a larger state team or any team that want for that matter......free market! OK Paul, so what's it going to take to get you to swim for North Carolina? Do you have an agent we should contact? Tell us your bottom line and we'll make it happen. Maybe you could bring that other Smith too.

RE: Had a great time at SCY Nat's!

Paul Smith — Tue, 31 May 2005 12:49:36 GMT

Mark, I hear what your saying about "advertising" however I'm not aware that any team ever benefited from that? Team growth falls first to individuals pulling in friends, clinics, etc. etc. In our case, we had about 5-6 VERY vocal "recrutiers" (Evil-GoodSmith) who helped get some folks on board who may not have gone to nationals. Craig...........I'm cheap.........unlike Evil-Goodsmith!! Lindsay; I hate to sound harsh.......but I'm tired of th old PC crap thats worked its way int sports saying things like "level the plying field". Bottom line is population base is the first factor on teaam size, then pool availability, then coaching/programs. Trying to create parity in sports, especially masters swimming where there's no money involved to me is silly.

RE: Had a great time at SCY Nat's!

mattson — Tue, 31 May 2005 10:09:01 GMT

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think there are two reasons for the team banners: 1) Swimmers are a competitive bunch, so trying to beat another team gets people frothing at the mouth. 2) Advertisement. A smallish team can mention that they placed at Nationals, in their recruitment literature. So my preference for the old system (arbitrary large/medium/small categories) is because of (2). You want teams that don't normally bask in the lime-light to have a fighting chance to get a banner. So if we stick with "top 10 teams" (for simplicity), I'm guessing that we don't want the same 10-15 teams to hog the banners. How about, if your team wins a banner this year, you can't win a banner next year. Or some other system that spreads the wealth a little. (Dunno, just thinking out loud.)

RE: Had a great time at SCY Nat's!

Paul Smith — Tue, 31 May 2005 08:58:33 GMT

level what playing field? small teams in any sport at a national championship will always be at disadvantage and I believe understand this (I did before joing CMS, I went to a smaller Div I college, etc.) and wouldn't expect to challenge a larger team in overall points. your system could ulitmately limit swimmers from larger teams from participating because at some point you have to have a "cap" to balance with th smaller clubs. If not, then your going to punish these programs by creating some "formula" to balance something out that should be left as "pure" (unless you want to start moving people from billings MT to larger cities so they have access to bigger clubs?). As for "super teams", which Colorado would fall into....the argument against them or any team that bands together is that someday CA will do the same. If they want to do that and try and adminster it I say good luck and go for it.

RE: Had a great time at SCY Nat's!

mattson — Tue, 31 May 2005 05:36:31 GMT

Originally posted by Paul Smith Mark, I hear what your saying about "advertising" however I'm not aware that any team ever benefited from that? I hear what you are saying, Paul, as I have no direct evidence, just a gut feeling. My local team managed to win the IL state meet last year, interrupting 20+ years of Evanston dominance. That was of enough interest to make an article in the health club newsletter (where we swim), and a few other places. Anything that can be used as an excuse to write a (positive) article about Masters swimming is a good thing. :) When I'm talking about advertising, I'm thinking of the group that is really not aware that Masters swimming exists. Five years ago, I fell into that category. I heard of it, but didn't really look into the possibilities until I noticed my weight gain from volleyball. (Too many jello shots and beer pitchers in my competitive summer league.)

RE: Had a great time at SCY Nat's!

Former Member — Tue, 31 May 2005 05:24:05 GMT

Why not take total points a team won, and divide it by the number of splashes the team had (or number of people), including relays. This could award teams for both, participation AND competetiveness. More participations will get you into relays and score more points, then a team with perhaps only 3 very elite swimmers, but not enough to make up a relay. Perhaps not a perfect way, but one that may equalize competetiveness vs. participation a little bit more then it is now.

RE: Had a great time at SCY Nat's!

Former Member — Mon, 30 May 2005 16:03:07 GMT

Unfortunately I am not familiar with USS competition, if you care to fill me in on the relevant aspects I can see how it affects my argument. The issue which I was trying to address is the desire of smaller clubs to be able to compete on a level playing field. One solution is for the small clubs to join together into "super teams". Some people have a problem with this solution as it raises the question of what a team is, witness the whole debate about super teams. The basic flaw is that teams gain advantage by being bigger, and while participation is a goal taking two teams and combining them doesn't actually advance the goal of participation. To start the smaller teams in a state get together to form a larger team that can compete with the bigger clubs, but that leaves the door open for California to enter a state team, which means the smaller states are no longer competitive, so maybe they form a regional team, so California joins with the other west coast states etc. etc. International competition has a clear definition of what constitutes a team, i.e. each country has a team made up of citizens of that country. Clubs used to be the basis of team competition. Blah blah blah, see the super team thread if you want more on this. :) Relays are a good example of team competition on a level playing field. You have a fixed number of swimmers and while one team may have better swimmers than another the playing field on which those swimmers compete is level. I think they offer a good model for team competition in that small teams can field relay teams that compete on a level playing field, and while a club may place its best swimmers on one relay a club can enter multiple relay teams so there is no pressure to exclude the less elite swimmers from participation as there is with any scheme involving averaging points per swimmer. Yes, statistically the top four swimmers on a 200 person team are probably faster than the top four swimmers on a 20 person team but the two teams of four are competing on a level field. All I am saying is that if you want to offer small teams an opportunity to compete on a level playing field with large and small teams alike, relay teams provide a better model to build on than the total points competitions. It really isn't that radical a proposition and it isn't an attempt to even out the number of medals, it is just a way to provide a level playing field like in the current individual and relay events.