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
OK, I'm back. Tall Paul, you are always welcome to swim for us....move to SF and join the club first...:):thhbbb: S-M-L divisions keeps everything simple! No team definitions, no coaches playing dirty pool, and giving "all" teams a fair chance at winning a title. Right now, we don't have that scenario in USMS nationals scoring. Right now, if you have 345 swimmers at nationals, you win...big deal. I personally like the number of splashes and percentages of swimmers scoring in the top 10 but, that seems to be an overwhelming task for the host team. Have you noticed that there are not very many teams bidding on nationals (one for 2009)? Why do you think that is? And when they "do" bid, we create a FINA-type attitude. This is masters swimming. We have a mission statement. Are we living up to it? There is not a perfect solution, but, there is a better one than the one we have now. Change is needed or we will lose the participation that was once was up to approx. 2,000 swimmers for nationals.
Bring it....
Scott
OK, I'm back. Tall Paul, you are always welcome to swim for us....move to SF and join the club first...:):thhbbb: S-M-L divisions keeps everything simple! No team definitions, no coaches playing dirty pool, and giving "all" teams a fair chance at winning a title. Right now, we don't have that scenario in USMS nationals scoring. Right now, if you have 345 swimmers at nationals, you win...big deal. I personally like the number of splashes and percentages of swimmers scoring in the top 10 but, that seems to be an overwhelming task for the host team. Have you noticed that there are not very many teams bidding on nationals (one for 2009)? Why do you think that is? And when they "do" bid, we create a FINA-type attitude. This is masters swimming. We have a mission statement. Are we living up to it? There is not a perfect solution, but, there is a better one than the one we have now. Change is needed or we will lose the participation that was once was up to approx. 2,000 swimmers for nationals.
Bring it....
Scott