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
so can you give us the "Readers digest" version as to why this failed?Paul, in my opinion this failed for 3 fundamental reasons:
1) currently there are 30 team awards for national, the proposal would bump that to 90
2) The issue being addressed was scoring at nationals, however the proposed solution could have had wide reaching implications into membership and registration for all members, not just those competing at nationals
3) While many stated the current scoring system was broken, few believed that this was the ultimate fix and that that it could make things more broken
And as a matter of disclosure, I spoke out in opposition to the proposal, not because our current system isn’t broken, but because:
1) The proposed language in Part 2 is vague and awkward from a USMS code perspective “a regional club shall consist of those meet entrants who are registered with a USMS club that includes separate entities that compete within its own LMSC.” If I don’t swim at nationals I am not part of the regional club, what does this do to my status in my club? What is a separate entity? A workout group, an individual? From the USMS perspective everyone competing at a sanctioned event represents their USMS registered club or they are unattached (201.3). Meet hosts can implement other creative scoring (workout group, gender, age, etc.) So without changes elsewhere in the rule book the USMS view of separate entities is at the club level.
2) The proposed change only defines 1 category under “Membership of Clubs” which was “regional club” it was mute on what you are if you are not a regional club. The intention was obviously not to only allow regional clubs at nationals but the proposal as written did not define an un-regional club.
3) The proposed change to scoring addressed “Regional Team” and “Club Team”. Neither of these terms were defined in Part 2 or elsewhere. Again the intent was obvious, but the necessary precision of language in code was lacking.
I did argue for changing the scoring, but I argued to change it in national scoring, not in how clubs are chartered.
And Paul makes an excellent that these is a lack of a clear mission within our House of Delegates, for which I am greatly responsible. To this point, the HOD spend an hour in passionate debate about who takes home a banner from national, yet we blew right by what I feel is a bigger issue, that there was only one bidder for each of our 2009 nationals. God bless Indi and Clovis, but if USMS nationals isn’t viewed as an attractive property (positive cash flow to host, community impact, increased local membership, etc) then, in my opinion, we have bigger problems than who gets a banner.
So much for the “Readers Digest” version.
so can you give us the "Readers digest" version as to why this failed?Paul, in my opinion this failed for 3 fundamental reasons:
1) currently there are 30 team awards for national, the proposal would bump that to 90
2) The issue being addressed was scoring at nationals, however the proposed solution could have had wide reaching implications into membership and registration for all members, not just those competing at nationals
3) While many stated the current scoring system was broken, few believed that this was the ultimate fix and that that it could make things more broken
And as a matter of disclosure, I spoke out in opposition to the proposal, not because our current system isn’t broken, but because:
1) The proposed language in Part 2 is vague and awkward from a USMS code perspective “a regional club shall consist of those meet entrants who are registered with a USMS club that includes separate entities that compete within its own LMSC.” If I don’t swim at nationals I am not part of the regional club, what does this do to my status in my club? What is a separate entity? A workout group, an individual? From the USMS perspective everyone competing at a sanctioned event represents their USMS registered club or they are unattached (201.3). Meet hosts can implement other creative scoring (workout group, gender, age, etc.) So without changes elsewhere in the rule book the USMS view of separate entities is at the club level.
2) The proposed change only defines 1 category under “Membership of Clubs” which was “regional club” it was mute on what you are if you are not a regional club. The intention was obviously not to only allow regional clubs at nationals but the proposal as written did not define an un-regional club.
3) The proposed change to scoring addressed “Regional Team” and “Club Team”. Neither of these terms were defined in Part 2 or elsewhere. Again the intent was obvious, but the necessary precision of language in code was lacking.
I did argue for changing the scoring, but I argued to change it in national scoring, not in how clubs are chartered.
And Paul makes an excellent that these is a lack of a clear mission within our House of Delegates, for which I am greatly responsible. To this point, the HOD spend an hour in passionate debate about who takes home a banner from national, yet we blew right by what I feel is a bigger issue, that there was only one bidder for each of our 2009 nationals. God bless Indi and Clovis, but if USMS nationals isn’t viewed as an attractive property (positive cash flow to host, community impact, increased local membership, etc) then, in my opinion, we have bigger problems than who gets a banner.
So much for the “Readers Digest” version.
