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
Hi,
I went back through this thread and there seems to be a fair number of people advocating two divisions for competition at Nationals.
The way scoring is done now (just on the raw points scored by each team), I think that what you have is what Paul described as an "Open Division" competition.
The small teams and the medium sized teams are competing against what have variously been called "Regional" or "LMSC" or "Megateams". See the earlier postings in this forum for the results of Nationals under this recently enacted scoring system.
The L2 proposal was based on the number of competitors that attend Nationals, and was not based on the number of registered USMS members in that club.
If we had two divisions, with each division divided into small, medium and large, with those categories based on the number of swimmers in the Nationals (but not mens/womens/combined), then you would have six sets of awards. Then the "small" "regional" teams (like Maryland, Kentucky or Wisconsin) would compete against like-sized competitors, and not against the "Mega" or "Super Regional" teams.
Same with the club team division. Mission Viejo (150 members, per their team website) draws from a similar sized membership as The Olympic Club (112 members, as noted before), but they would only compete in the same "club division" (small, medium or large) if they both sent similar numbers of competitors.
What also comes through to me in reviewing this thread, and this was also stated by Pacific in proposing the L2 legislation, is that Masters Swimmers LIKE their clubs. They like competing with the people they work out with, and it fosters the growth of those clubs.
If this is what USMS is trying to do -- grow the clubs -- then maybe a two division proposal should be tried.
Leianne
^^^
Hi,
I went back through this thread and there seems to be a fair number of people advocating two divisions for competition at Nationals.
The way scoring is done now (just on the raw points scored by each team), I think that what you have is what Paul described as an "Open Division" competition.
The small teams and the medium sized teams are competing against what have variously been called "Regional" or "LMSC" or "Megateams". See the earlier postings in this forum for the results of Nationals under this recently enacted scoring system.
The L2 proposal was based on the number of competitors that attend Nationals, and was not based on the number of registered USMS members in that club.
If we had two divisions, with each division divided into small, medium and large, with those categories based on the number of swimmers in the Nationals (but not mens/womens/combined), then you would have six sets of awards. Then the "small" "regional" teams (like Maryland, Kentucky or Wisconsin) would compete against like-sized competitors, and not against the "Mega" or "Super Regional" teams.
Same with the club team division. Mission Viejo (150 members, per their team website) draws from a similar sized membership as The Olympic Club (112 members, as noted before), but they would only compete in the same "club division" (small, medium or large) if they both sent similar numbers of competitors.
What also comes through to me in reviewing this thread, and this was also stated by Pacific in proposing the L2 legislation, is that Masters Swimmers LIKE their clubs. They like competing with the people they work out with, and it fosters the growth of those clubs.
If this is what USMS is trying to do -- grow the clubs -- then maybe a two division proposal should be tried.
Leianne
^^^
