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
Paul,
It failed by about 4 or 5 votes - it needed 2/3 "yes" votes to pass due to the off year timing. We hope with some clarification and minor tweaks, we can get it (or something similar in intention) to pass next year in Atlanta. It will require a 50% "yes" plus 1 vote for passage. Perhaps you can be the 1 additional vote?
Jim..I think I'm a bit of an enigma to many in USMS.....I love this sport but won't hesitate to challenge what I think needs to be challenged....I love 90% of what we are...but am completely frustrated by how a hard change is!
I attended convention and came away thinking that there were a lot of very motivated/hard working people but that the lack of a clear "mission statement" meant that things like this team size/make up intitative would fail most of the time.
Right now I'm trying my best to help as much as possible at the local level...work always makes time a challenge but I'm starting to think that the old saying "all politics are local" may make some sense with regard to our sport.
Plus...I'm afraid of fire/torches! :D
Paul,
It failed by about 4 or 5 votes - it needed 2/3 "yes" votes to pass due to the off year timing. We hope with some clarification and minor tweaks, we can get it (or something similar in intention) to pass next year in Atlanta. It will require a 50% "yes" plus 1 vote for passage. Perhaps you can be the 1 additional vote?
Jim..I think I'm a bit of an enigma to many in USMS.....I love this sport but won't hesitate to challenge what I think needs to be challenged....I love 90% of what we are...but am completely frustrated by how a hard change is!
I attended convention and came away thinking that there were a lot of very motivated/hard working people but that the lack of a clear "mission statement" meant that things like this team size/make up intitative would fail most of the time.
Right now I'm trying my best to help as much as possible at the local level...work always makes time a challenge but I'm starting to think that the old saying "all politics are local" may make some sense with regard to our sport.
Plus...I'm afraid of fire/torches! :D
