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
Wow, I'm glad to see people discussing this...I want to address a few items from the previous posts:
(1) Number of splashes.
When calculating score by the number of splashes, slower swimmers will still be discouraged from attending Nationals because it will weaken a team's strength, so I cannot support this option (...how ever it may be calculated, i.e., total points divided by number of splashes).
(2) "Arbitrainess is part of life."
This may be true, but while there is CLEAR arbitrariness in the SML team scoring, this factor is minimized (or nearly eliminated) with Mega Team/Cub Team scoring. Why deal with arbitrariness when we don't need to?
I realize there will still be room for debate for a team like the Olympic Club who competes with swimmers from around the country even though they don't train together as long as they are really fast. But, that discussion can be saved for another day. I would still rather compete against the Olympic Club than an ENTIRE STATE. I would be fine considering the Olympic Club a club team. People have mentioned that determining what is considered a Mega Team may be difficult, but I still think it seems rather clear. PLEASE fill me in on what I'm missing.
(3) "Mega teams are bad for competition."
As I stated before, in my ideal world we would all compete with our club team. I completely agree that TRAINING WITH FRIENDS IN PREPARATION FOR NATIONALS is half of the fun of going to Nationals. I truly don't understand the benefit - on a personal level - of training all year with friends and then going to Nationals to compete (on a team or relay) with people you've never even met. Who cares?
I obviously enjoy competing with my club team, and if Team Pacific actually materializes, my team will surely opt out of competing as part of it because we are our own cohesive unit, we are proud of what we can accomplish through our own hard work, and we are truly a family that I LOVE. Joining a larger force in order to score more points does nothing for me. Where's the team pride in that?
Does the USMS Championship Committee and the rest of the LMSC Mega Teams really want to egg on California to create "Team Pacific" or "California Masters"? How boring would that be?
I apologize if my passion spills into this post, but I am still just waiting for someone to present an argument against Mega Team/Club Team scoring. Is there one?
Wow, I'm glad to see people discussing this...I want to address a few items from the previous posts:
(1) Number of splashes.
When calculating score by the number of splashes, slower swimmers will still be discouraged from attending Nationals because it will weaken a team's strength, so I cannot support this option (...how ever it may be calculated, i.e., total points divided by number of splashes).
(2) "Arbitrainess is part of life."
This may be true, but while there is CLEAR arbitrariness in the SML team scoring, this factor is minimized (or nearly eliminated) with Mega Team/Cub Team scoring. Why deal with arbitrariness when we don't need to?
I realize there will still be room for debate for a team like the Olympic Club who competes with swimmers from around the country even though they don't train together as long as they are really fast. But, that discussion can be saved for another day. I would still rather compete against the Olympic Club than an ENTIRE STATE. I would be fine considering the Olympic Club a club team. People have mentioned that determining what is considered a Mega Team may be difficult, but I still think it seems rather clear. PLEASE fill me in on what I'm missing.
(3) "Mega teams are bad for competition."
As I stated before, in my ideal world we would all compete with our club team. I completely agree that TRAINING WITH FRIENDS IN PREPARATION FOR NATIONALS is half of the fun of going to Nationals. I truly don't understand the benefit - on a personal level - of training all year with friends and then going to Nationals to compete (on a team or relay) with people you've never even met. Who cares?
I obviously enjoy competing with my club team, and if Team Pacific actually materializes, my team will surely opt out of competing as part of it because we are our own cohesive unit, we are proud of what we can accomplish through our own hard work, and we are truly a family that I LOVE. Joining a larger force in order to score more points does nothing for me. Where's the team pride in that?
Does the USMS Championship Committee and the rest of the LMSC Mega Teams really want to egg on California to create "Team Pacific" or "California Masters"? How boring would that be?
I apologize if my passion spills into this post, but I am still just waiting for someone to present an argument against Mega Team/Club Team scoring. Is there one?
