first of all, congrats to the meet directors and all the volunteers on a job well done. so organized and efficient!! very impressive. the only thing i wish someone could explain to me is why the usms champ. committee changed the team scoring from large, medium and small team to clumping everyone in the same category. seems extremely unfair to have what i call "real teams" competing against state mega teams. there is no possibility for "real teams" to ever come close to competing against them. if you are going to give team awards at the end of the meet, is there any way you can do it fairly? our team is extremely proud to have gotten as many team members as we did to go to natls. (most of them for the first time), but unfortunately they were very disillusioned (as was i) with the idea that we would be competing against state teams. as one of the coaches i didn't have an explanation. even though we were very proud of our 7th place finish in men's division, and our 12th place in combined, we were only one of a few "real teams" in the top ten. would appreciate responses. maybe even someone from the champ.committee could explain how they felt this scoring system would be more fair to the majority of swimmers. then i can pass it along to my teammates.. i don't want them to be so disillusioned that they lose interest in attending any future natls. thanks
Tom,
I understand your frustration. I think our current system is in need of some repare. As I was very involved with this change, let me address your first question. The former team scoring method of small, medium and large was eliminated due its arbitrary nature. In theory, the concept was good, but in practice it was flawed. What made a team of 12 small and a team of 13 medium? At the same time what made a team of 300 large and a team of 80 also large? The main challege that existed with the small, medium and large system was that there were not logical break points for the divisions. Teams with one more or less swimmer ended up in separate divisions.
I think you hit on the right idea dividing between mega team (state teams) and what you call true clubs. In fact, in my original proposal contained this idea. However, many members on the state teams objected. There were several reasons that caused them to object. One, they didn't feel it was fair for a smaller state team to have to compete against a large one (and yes, under our current system, they do). Two, how do you define a state team. We currently don't have a definition of anything other than a club. State teams and true clubs are all clubs by that definition. The later objection is the more difficult one to overcome.
I think we are halfway to a better scoring system. However, until we split the mega clubs from the "true" clubs we have a systems that encourages clubs to join with other clubs to form a mega club. In order to change this, legislation needs to be proposed so this can be discussed at convention. It would be great if your LMCS or some other would get the second part of the debate rolling by proposing a rule change. I personally think it would find support in many areas and equally strong objection in others.
Tom,
I understand your frustration. I think our current system is in need of some repare. As I was very involved with this change, let me address your first question. The former team scoring method of small, medium and large was eliminated due its arbitrary nature. In theory, the concept was good, but in practice it was flawed. What made a team of 12 small and a team of 13 medium? At the same time what made a team of 300 large and a team of 80 also large? The main challege that existed with the small, medium and large system was that there were not logical break points for the divisions. Teams with one more or less swimmer ended up in separate divisions.
I think you hit on the right idea dividing between mega team (state teams) and what you call true clubs. In fact, in my original proposal contained this idea. However, many members on the state teams objected. There were several reasons that caused them to object. One, they didn't feel it was fair for a smaller state team to have to compete against a large one (and yes, under our current system, they do). Two, how do you define a state team. We currently don't have a definition of anything other than a club. State teams and true clubs are all clubs by that definition. The later objection is the more difficult one to overcome.
I think we are halfway to a better scoring system. However, until we split the mega clubs from the "true" clubs we have a systems that encourages clubs to join with other clubs to form a mega club. In order to change this, legislation needs to be proposed so this can be discussed at convention. It would be great if your LMCS or some other would get the second part of the debate rolling by proposing a rule change. I personally think it would find support in many areas and equally strong objection in others.
