Had a great time at SCY Nat's!

Originally posted by matysekj To those that complain that a small team has no chance, I say that the results are entirely in your hands. Build a bigger, stronger team and you will win an award. It's the same way for individual events and relays - swim faster, win an award. You have hit the crux of the matter on the head, the team points are, at the core, a participation award not a performance award. People who live in large urban areas close to the site of the meet and/or with affluent members are given a large advantage. Short of moving from a small town or city to a large urban area the results are definately not in your own hands. It is in no way like the individual events or relays, in which, except for the requirement of four swimmers for relays, there is no participation factor, just swimming performance. Rewarding large team size and fair competition regardless of team size are contradictory goals and no amount of tweaking the current system will reconcile them. The only way to achieve both goals is to have two separate awards, one that rewards large teams and one that offers fair competition, which can only be achieved by fixed team sizes. People who have no problem with relays which are competitions with a team size of four for some reason I don't understand have a problem with team competitions with eight or sixteen or whatever swimmers. I'm not suggesting getting rid of the total points competition, I'm just saying that if you also want a competition based on performance without an advantage being conferred by population densitity, location, and affluence you need to add a separate competition with fixed sized teams where any team of the specified size competes on a level playing field with the other teams, as per the relays.

There are no guarantees only advantages. There is no guarantee that four swimmers will swim 200m relay faster than a single swimmer but the playing field is not level in a one person versus four person relay race. In any individual or relay event there are many factors that can make for an uneven race, but the terms of the competition provide a level playing field. This is not true with variable team sizes. I explicitly stated that I was not advocating removing the total points competition, by all means keep it. Participation is a good thing and should be rewarded. What I am arguing is that if you want to have team competitions with a level playing field you must have fixed sized teams. There simply is no way to have large teams compete with small teams on even terms without introducing factors that discourage inclusion/participation by the less elite. Since you are against fixed team size competitions I assume you are against relays? Why is it ok for a club to field four relay teams but not ok for the club to field two eight person teams that compete on some other defined basis? I never suggested that a club be limited to one team in the fixed sized team competitions. All I am saying is that you can't have one competition that both rewards larger teams and that allows small teams to compete on a level playing field. The two goals are contradictory and can best be met with two competitions.

I must point out that Lindsay is presently embroiled in a similar discussion of much the same points in a Canadian forum. He is obviously a glutton for punishment, therefore his potential for doing massive amounts of yardage plus dedication to technical improvement means the sky is the limit. Watch out Tall Paul...

Peter, point taken!! Although Lindsay is correct with the his reference to fixed sizes in swimmers, my comment refered to the overall team size (all sports). The example being that the US, China, Russia, etc area lays at the top of the overall medal count which could be likened to the current debate about about masters team designations/size. Also, the more relevant comparison would be USS but that argument was avoided. More importantly to my point is there is no perfect system for trying to level the playing field............and some of the suggestions would create an incredible nightmare to administer (come on Shaf!). 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!

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.

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.

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.)

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.

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.)

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.