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 actually completely understand the purpose of regional teams and am very supportive of their existence, as I believe everyone participating in this discussion is. Let's not get too caught up in the semantics and terminology of it all. I know one person (maybe Meg?) previously said that at the convention a lot of the people belonging to regional teams felt as Paul seems too, that the club teams are snubbing them. I don't really see that, but perhaps that's because I'm on a club team. I don't know.
We all, the club teams, are saying is that we don't want to compete against the regional teams. Drawing from the college swim team analogy (that I used 4 months ago in this thread), it would be similar to colleges competing against each other throughout the season, and then at NCAAs, Cal, Stanford, USC, etc. combine to form Team Pac-10. If this were the case, it's simply not fair to expect even the best colleges, UT, Auburn, etc. to compete against Team Pac-10. The reason Pac-10 formed is really irrelevent at this point.
Karen, regarding your definition of a club team - I see some problems with it, and this is (I believe) where the HOD got stuck:
Yes a club team has registered members under its name (and its name only), and competes together year round, but I believe there are some regional teams that fit this definition too. Right? Someone mentioned that San Diego Masters is a regional team (Michael Moore, I beieve), but do its members compete under SDM all year? I think so???
Regarding the qualification of having one facility, I've already mentioned the problem with this. Most teams, such as mine, use public pools that are unavailable during certain times. Therefore, we have to go across the city to train at another pool on the weekends because the city insists on having lap swim at our "home" pool during weekend mornings. (We have a 6 lane, 25 yard pool so unfortunately it can't accomodate both a swim team and lap swim simultaneously.) So, by your definition, my team would be a regional team, which clearly is not the case.
Perhaps if a team had 2 workouts at different pools at the same time they could be considered a regional team, but I see some potential problems with this too.
And BTW, I was thinking about that quote referred to earlier in regards to regional team, "I know it when I see it." There could always be provision in the language of the definition that allows some leeway to the Championship Committee (or some committee) to make a ruling on unique team formats. I'm not sure how Team TYR is formed, but it's definitely not a traditional team. Perhaps at the end of the proposal it should say, "(definition)...or when deemed by the (blank) Committee." There would be the same ability to contest the determintion, of course. Just thinking out loud...
I actually completely understand the purpose of regional teams and am very supportive of their existence, as I believe everyone participating in this discussion is. Let's not get too caught up in the semantics and terminology of it all. I know one person (maybe Meg?) previously said that at the convention a lot of the people belonging to regional teams felt as Paul seems too, that the club teams are snubbing them. I don't really see that, but perhaps that's because I'm on a club team. I don't know.
We all, the club teams, are saying is that we don't want to compete against the regional teams. Drawing from the college swim team analogy (that I used 4 months ago in this thread), it would be similar to colleges competing against each other throughout the season, and then at NCAAs, Cal, Stanford, USC, etc. combine to form Team Pac-10. If this were the case, it's simply not fair to expect even the best colleges, UT, Auburn, etc. to compete against Team Pac-10. The reason Pac-10 formed is really irrelevent at this point.
Karen, regarding your definition of a club team - I see some problems with it, and this is (I believe) where the HOD got stuck:
Yes a club team has registered members under its name (and its name only), and competes together year round, but I believe there are some regional teams that fit this definition too. Right? Someone mentioned that San Diego Masters is a regional team (Michael Moore, I beieve), but do its members compete under SDM all year? I think so???
Regarding the qualification of having one facility, I've already mentioned the problem with this. Most teams, such as mine, use public pools that are unavailable during certain times. Therefore, we have to go across the city to train at another pool on the weekends because the city insists on having lap swim at our "home" pool during weekend mornings. (We have a 6 lane, 25 yard pool so unfortunately it can't accomodate both a swim team and lap swim simultaneously.) So, by your definition, my team would be a regional team, which clearly is not the case.
Perhaps if a team had 2 workouts at different pools at the same time they could be considered a regional team, but I see some potential problems with this too.
And BTW, I was thinking about that quote referred to earlier in regards to regional team, "I know it when I see it." There could always be provision in the language of the definition that allows some leeway to the Championship Committee (or some committee) to make a ruling on unique team formats. I'm not sure how Team TYR is formed, but it's definitely not a traditional team. Perhaps at the end of the proposal it should say, "(definition)...or when deemed by the (blank) Committee." There would be the same ability to contest the determintion, of course. Just thinking out loud...
