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
Actually, what Pacific tried to do in suggesting this legislation was to create two divisions, like Paul is suggesting (and like NCAA division 1, Divsion 2 and Division 3) for National competitions. Obviously, from the notes in this discussion forum, that concept did not come across clearly.
In looking over the posts on this forum, clearly people are not happy with the existing scoring methods, so let's try something different.
As the proposal was drafted, you would always be on a "club". For competition at Nationals, there would be a subset of clubs, called a "Regional Club", and those would compete in a separate division. If we want to call it an "open division" that is another way to accomplish this concept.
Here's how the two divisions would be determined. Where your USMS registration card lists you as a member of a club, and you always compete with that same club (whether at meets inside your LMSC or at meets out of your LMSC, like Nationals), then you are on a "club team", and at Nationals, you would compete in the club team division.
If you compete for a different entity at the meets that are held inside your LMSC than the club that is listed on your USMS registration card (for example, at your LMSC championship meet you compete under the name of your workout group, but at Nationals, all those workout groups combine and you compete with the team listed on your registration card), then you would be on a Regional team for Nationals and would compete in the regional team division.
Each division would have small medium and large awards, based on the number of actual swimmers representing the club at the meet. So if a club only sent a handfull of swimmers to a Nationals, they would be in the small team group, but if the meet was close to home, and they had a lot of competitors, they would be in a larger category. We can decide what number of awards makes sense once we decide what method to follow.
Nothing in the proposed legislation dealt with club members residing outside the LMSC (because there are often good reasons why someone competes with a specific team -- they used to swim there, or are temporarily in another state). Nothing in the proposed legislation addressed regional relay teams.
The point that the Pacific representatives were trying to make (and they were echoed by other HOD delegates) was that if you want to promote club participation in Nationals, make it a competition where they can succeed. Then the clubs can succeed, too.
Let's get the principals down and then we can all work on the details.
Leianne
Actually, what Pacific tried to do in suggesting this legislation was to create two divisions, like Paul is suggesting (and like NCAA division 1, Divsion 2 and Division 3) for National competitions. Obviously, from the notes in this discussion forum, that concept did not come across clearly.
In looking over the posts on this forum, clearly people are not happy with the existing scoring methods, so let's try something different.
As the proposal was drafted, you would always be on a "club". For competition at Nationals, there would be a subset of clubs, called a "Regional Club", and those would compete in a separate division. If we want to call it an "open division" that is another way to accomplish this concept.
Here's how the two divisions would be determined. Where your USMS registration card lists you as a member of a club, and you always compete with that same club (whether at meets inside your LMSC or at meets out of your LMSC, like Nationals), then you are on a "club team", and at Nationals, you would compete in the club team division.
If you compete for a different entity at the meets that are held inside your LMSC than the club that is listed on your USMS registration card (for example, at your LMSC championship meet you compete under the name of your workout group, but at Nationals, all those workout groups combine and you compete with the team listed on your registration card), then you would be on a Regional team for Nationals and would compete in the regional team division.
Each division would have small medium and large awards, based on the number of actual swimmers representing the club at the meet. So if a club only sent a handfull of swimmers to a Nationals, they would be in the small team group, but if the meet was close to home, and they had a lot of competitors, they would be in a larger category. We can decide what number of awards makes sense once we decide what method to follow.
Nothing in the proposed legislation dealt with club members residing outside the LMSC (because there are often good reasons why someone competes with a specific team -- they used to swim there, or are temporarily in another state). Nothing in the proposed legislation addressed regional relay teams.
The point that the Pacific representatives were trying to make (and they were echoed by other HOD delegates) was that if you want to promote club participation in Nationals, make it a competition where they can succeed. Then the clubs can succeed, too.
Let's get the principals down and then we can all work on the details.
Leianne
