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
I dunno. At nationals I don't pay much attention, but at New Englands (where scoring is divided between the NEM superteam and other clubs), competing as a team is half the fun. It encourages some folks to swim 16 events and be silly; it encourages everyone because scoring goes 16 deep, so you can contribute without being "fast." We all cheer like crazy and have a wonderful time. Maybe with the right mix, nationals could be like that too.
You're still competing with your team even if there is no scoring.
But I agree that club competition can theoretically build comraderie, encourage more people to swim at meets, and possibly create ongoing fun rivalries. Since this would seem to be a goal for masters swimming, it would be preferable to separate the clubs from the superteams (assuming scoring). But this seems to happen more on a local or zone level than a national level.
I dunno. At nationals I don't pay much attention, but at New Englands (where scoring is divided between the NEM superteam and other clubs), competing as a team is half the fun. It encourages some folks to swim 16 events and be silly; it encourages everyone because scoring goes 16 deep, so you can contribute without being "fast." We all cheer like crazy and have a wonderful time. Maybe with the right mix, nationals could be like that too.
You're still competing with your team even if there is no scoring.
But I agree that club competition can theoretically build comraderie, encourage more people to swim at meets, and possibly create ongoing fun rivalries. Since this would seem to be a goal for masters swimming, it would be preferable to separate the clubs from the superteams (assuming scoring). But this seems to happen more on a local or zone level than a national level.
