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 agree with Fort on the friendly rivalry breeds good competition point. There can be (I won't say is, since it may not be the same for all) an added extra spark of competitive juices when two (or 10) teams are duking it out for bragging rights--rival teams of similar size or geographic location. On the smaller club level, there is no way to feel that added extra something if you are one of 12 swimmers on a team competing against 100+ swimmers of umbrella teams. Even taking first in all your events will not put your team in the top 10.
My club has roughly 60 registered swimmers in any given year. Some are triathletes that just workout with the team and others just like the team practice and never compete. Roughly 10-20 of us compete on a regular basis, and maybe 8-15 make NQTs. Even if all of the qualifiers and interested parties showed up at Nationals, we couldn't keep up with the mega teams. This year, two of us made the trip to Seattle. We finished 97th. A team championship was never in the cards. Instead, we were focused on personal best times and maybe a medal or two.
There is a distinct home team/home state advantage to team scoring at nats. With litte or no travel costs and a state umbrella team, everyone can enter the meet. Put together a bunch of relays, and it is a point fest. To me, this does not breed comraderie (well, maybe for the mega team). It just makes the little team feel less important.
There's fair, and then there's fair. Yes, it's fair to let Meet Manager add up all the points and declare a winner. But, is it fair to all the competing teams? Drawing a line to distinguish teams of different size may not be entirely fair, but it is more fair than ranking a team of 20 (or 10, or 5, or 1) against a team of 100+. If a system can't be implemented that is as fair to the smaller clubs as it is to the larger ones, then maybe Peter is right. Don't award team prizes at national meets. Just let the Meet Manager software do the talking and let the swimmers interpret the results, without officially sanctioning a winner.
I agree with Fort on the friendly rivalry breeds good competition point. There can be (I won't say is, since it may not be the same for all) an added extra spark of competitive juices when two (or 10) teams are duking it out for bragging rights--rival teams of similar size or geographic location. On the smaller club level, there is no way to feel that added extra something if you are one of 12 swimmers on a team competing against 100+ swimmers of umbrella teams. Even taking first in all your events will not put your team in the top 10.
My club has roughly 60 registered swimmers in any given year. Some are triathletes that just workout with the team and others just like the team practice and never compete. Roughly 10-20 of us compete on a regular basis, and maybe 8-15 make NQTs. Even if all of the qualifiers and interested parties showed up at Nationals, we couldn't keep up with the mega teams. This year, two of us made the trip to Seattle. We finished 97th. A team championship was never in the cards. Instead, we were focused on personal best times and maybe a medal or two.
There is a distinct home team/home state advantage to team scoring at nats. With litte or no travel costs and a state umbrella team, everyone can enter the meet. Put together a bunch of relays, and it is a point fest. To me, this does not breed comraderie (well, maybe for the mega team). It just makes the little team feel less important.
There's fair, and then there's fair. Yes, it's fair to let Meet Manager add up all the points and declare a winner. But, is it fair to all the competing teams? Drawing a line to distinguish teams of different size may not be entirely fair, but it is more fair than ranking a team of 20 (or 10, or 5, or 1) against a team of 100+. If a system can't be implemented that is as fair to the smaller clubs as it is to the larger ones, then maybe Peter is right. Don't award team prizes at national meets. Just let the Meet Manager software do the talking and let the swimmers interpret the results, without officially sanctioning a winner.
