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
But I also really enjoyed the chance to meet to meet and swim relays at Nationals with some of the folks I have been swimming against at local meets but had not had the opportunity to meet.
I'm with Bill on this. I could really care less that PNA won the team title. That was pretty much a forgone conclusion based on the number of swimmers we had. I did, however, enjoy the opporunity to swim on relays I wouldn't have been able to if I were just competing with my training group. In fact several of these guys I've been attendings meets with for several years now. Even though we don't train together we enjoy getting together at the meets. We'd been emailing for a couple months beforehand trying to come up with our "ideal relays" for Nationals.
edit: I don't agree with Bill's assessment that Oregon "handily outperformed" PNA, though! :)
But I also really enjoyed the chance to meet to meet and swim relays at Nationals with some of the folks I have been swimming against at local meets but had not had the opportunity to meet.
I'm with Bill on this. I could really care less that PNA won the team title. That was pretty much a forgone conclusion based on the number of swimmers we had. I did, however, enjoy the opporunity to swim on relays I wouldn't have been able to if I were just competing with my training group. In fact several of these guys I've been attendings meets with for several years now. Even though we don't train together we enjoy getting together at the meets. We'd been emailing for a couple months beforehand trying to come up with our "ideal relays" for Nationals.
edit: I don't agree with Bill's assessment that Oregon "handily outperformed" PNA, though! :)
