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
Karen,
I understand that any size division cutoff would be made after the close of entries, but my concern rests on the assumption that people would be able to predict with reasonable certainty where that cutoff is. I could be wrong here, (and any insight about the numbers from 2001-2004 are appreciated) but it seems that if, for example, the cutoff from small to medium teams over the years is between 12-15, and a team wanted to try to win the small team division, then they would bring 12 swimmers.
To be clear, I am NOT advocating discouraging (or preventing, if that's possible) swimmers from attending Nationals in order to remain in a smaller size division. However, I am pointing out that it may very well happen - this is the reality of the situation and from what I've heard, this is a big part of why the S/M/L scoring method was stopped. What I said is that I would be in a "predicament" if that were the case. Of course I want to travel with all my friends to wherever Nationals may be, but there's also a part of me that wants to win (I'm admittedly competitive).
Karen,
I understand that any size division cutoff would be made after the close of entries, but my concern rests on the assumption that people would be able to predict with reasonable certainty where that cutoff is. I could be wrong here, (and any insight about the numbers from 2001-2004 are appreciated) but it seems that if, for example, the cutoff from small to medium teams over the years is between 12-15, and a team wanted to try to win the small team division, then they would bring 12 swimmers.
To be clear, I am NOT advocating discouraging (or preventing, if that's possible) swimmers from attending Nationals in order to remain in a smaller size division. However, I am pointing out that it may very well happen - this is the reality of the situation and from what I've heard, this is a big part of why the S/M/L scoring method was stopped. What I said is that I would be in a "predicament" if that were the case. Of course I want to travel with all my friends to wherever Nationals may be, but there's also a part of me that wants to win (I'm admittedly competitive).
