team scoring

Hello, First off I wanted to credit (or maybe, given all of the discussion, blame) Sean Fitzgerald on Legislation with coming up with the simple distinction of when you are on a regional team: if you do not always compete for the same entity that is listed on your USMS card, then you would be on a regional team" (workout groups compete against each other within their LMSC and band together for competitions outside their LMSC). To me, this had the advantage of being easy to understand and to administer. I also wanted to clarify that there was no intention in the L2 legislation to be critical of the way any club is structured --it is what it is. In some cases, like Kentucky or North Carolina, a regional team is the best way to have enough entrants for relays, which increases participation at Nationals. Seeing the size of some of the LMSCs listed on the USMS website, a regional team is a good way for them to go--based on the USMS website, over a dozen LMSCs had less than 250 registered swimmers in 2004-2005. In presenting the L2 legislation, Pacific also did not want to talk about "Superteams" or "Megateams". We called them "regional" teams only to make the distinction between those clubs that drew from a limited geographic area (the "club teams"), and those clubs that drew from the greater part of an LMSC (the "regional teams"). For example, we did not follow a concept that a "club team" drew from less than 4 zip codes or held workouts in a single pool (all of this would get way too cumbersome to administer). Other choices of words may better express these concepts. There is no feeling that any type of organization is better or worse, it just reflects what is the practice in different areas around the country. As also stated before, the L2 proposal was intended to take account of the different practices around the country, without changing how people register, and only for purposes of team scoring at Nationals (not for relay composition or other purposes). Pacific also considered and rejected putting into the L2 proposal any kind of geographic limits on club membership. As noted before, there are often very good reasons to swim with a club from another LMSC (including the fact that you want to be on relays with that club, or swam with them before you moved to a new area) and it would be burdensome to administer a requirement like that (such as "less than 10% of the club's members reside outside the LMSC"). In Carolyn's proposal, the Zone Reps (gulp, that's me for Oceana!) would determine this--I still think that will be hard to administer, but if everyone buys off on that, that is another way to determine the divisions, and may address the concerns expressed earlier about a club recruiting from all across the country. As another alternative, we could also just take the existing USMS clubs assign them to an "Open" division for the "regional teams" (NEM, PNA, Metro, CMS, IM, NCMS, ORE, etc.) and a "District" division for the "club teams" (DAM, WCM, STAN, etc.). New clubs would need to designate their division when registering. However, I am not sure that this alternative would work, without actually defining what these categories are. I think that this is a topic that obviously creates a lot of interest among members, which is why I would not leave it as a policy issue for any of the USMS Committees, but would have it open to the general membership at convention. I still like the regional/non-regional team divisions with s/m/l awards, based on the number of entered competitors. That way like teams compete against like teams, and it is a simple concept, easily administered. I agree that points per swimmer or splash calculations may provide a measure of the winning caliber of a team, but I agree that they are too complicated, and I am open to seeing another, simple way to set it up. If other people have alternative suggestions, this is obviously a good place to make them, as the topic invites commentary! Clearly we need to make sure that the language that is finally submitted does not rub anyone wrong, but we also should decide what is the best way to encourage more participation at Nationals. Meg-- you are on as a participant in this process! Leianne ^^^

Hello, First off I wanted to credit (or maybe, given all of the discussion, blame) Sean Fitzgerald on Legislation with coming up with the simple distinction of when you are on a regional team: if you do not always compete for the same entity that is listed on your USMS card, then you would be on a regional team" (workout groups compete against each other within their LMSC and band together for competitions outside their LMSC). To me, this had the advantage of being easy to understand and to administer. I also wanted to clarify that there was no intention in the L2 legislation to be critical of the way any club is structured --it is what it is. In some cases, like Kentucky or North Carolina, a regional team is the best way to have enough entrants for relays, which increases participation at Nationals. Seeing the size of some of the LMSCs listed on the USMS website, a regional team is a good way for them to go--based on the USMS website, over a dozen LMSCs had less than 250 registered swimmers in 2004-2005. In presenting the L2 legislation, Pacific also did not want to talk about "Superteams" or "Megateams". We called them "regional" teams only to make the distinction between those clubs that drew from a limited geographic area (the "club teams"), and those clubs that drew from the greater part of an LMSC (the "regional teams"). For example, we did not follow a concept that a "club team" drew from less than 4 zip codes or held workouts in a single pool (all of this would get way too cumbersome to administer). Other choices of words may better express these concepts. There is no feeling that any type of organization is better or worse, it just reflects what is the practice in different areas around the country. As also stated before, the L2 proposal was intended to take account of the different practices around the country, without changing how people register, and only for purposes of team scoring at Nationals (not for relay composition or other purposes). Pacific also considered and rejected putting into the L2 proposal any kind of geographic limits on club membership. As noted before, there are often very good reasons to swim with a club from another LMSC (including the fact that you want to be on relays with that club, or swam with them before you moved to a new area) and it would be burdensome to administer a requirement like that (such as "less than 10% of the club's members reside outside the LMSC"). In Carolyn's proposal, the Zone Reps (gulp, that's me for Oceana!) would determine this--I still think that will be hard to administer, but if everyone buys off on that, that is another way to determine the divisions, and may address the concerns expressed earlier about a club recruiting from all across the country. As another alternative, we could also just take the existing USMS clubs assign them to an "Open" division for the "regional teams" (NEM, PNA, Metro, CMS, IM, NCMS, ORE, etc.) and a "District" division for the "club teams" (DAM, WCM, STAN, etc.). New clubs would need to designate their division when registering. However, I am not sure that this alternative would work, without actually defining what these categories are. I think that this is a topic that obviously creates a lot of interest among members, which is why I would not leave it as a policy issue for any of the USMS Committees, but would have it open to the general membership at convention. I still like the regional/non-regional team divisions with s/m/l awards, based on the number of entered competitors. That way like teams compete against like teams, and it is a simple concept, easily administered. I agree that points per swimmer or splash calculations may provide a measure of the winning caliber of a team, but I agree that they are too complicated, and I am open to seeing another, simple way to set it up. If other people have alternative suggestions, this is obviously a good place to make them, as the topic invites commentary! Clearly we need to make sure that the language that is finally submitted does not rub anyone wrong, but we also should decide what is the best way to encourage more participation at Nationals. Meg-- you are on as a participant in this process! Leianne ^^^