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
I think Karen stated brilliantly the argument for Regional/Club teams divisions. Thank you!! :)
WCM clearly has a lot of team pride and it would be great if other clubs could achieve that too by making it a goal every year to finish in the top 10 at Nationals. Right now only WCM and TOC have such a tradition.
And yes, I see the argument for then allowing S/M/L divisions to recognize even MORE teams, but for the reasons I've previously stated I'm against that, as there's more to lose than gain in that scenario. I think , actually I KNOW, even small teams can challenge for top 10 at Nationals if they encourage enough people to go. Isn't that the point? Let's keep in mind this is a competition - we don't need to be awarding every team a banner if they have even 2 good swimmers.
I think Karen stated brilliantly the argument for Regional/Club teams divisions. Thank you!! :)
WCM clearly has a lot of team pride and it would be great if other clubs could achieve that too by making it a goal every year to finish in the top 10 at Nationals. Right now only WCM and TOC have such a tradition.
And yes, I see the argument for then allowing S/M/L divisions to recognize even MORE teams, but for the reasons I've previously stated I'm against that, as there's more to lose than gain in that scenario. I think , actually I KNOW, even small teams can challenge for top 10 at Nationals if they encourage enough people to go. Isn't that the point? Let's keep in mind this is a competition - we don't need to be awarding every team a banner if they have even 2 good swimmers.
