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 will admit that we are extremely lucky to live where we do, in that swimming is a very popular sport around here (mostly during the summer though). Kerry is an A1 coach, and our assistants are great too. Because we do all work out at one facility it easily forges that day to day camraderie, etc.
Yes, you ARE lucky! You live in a great part of the country, have many great facilities, and most important, you do have a great coach. Kerry probably doesn't know this, but he has indirectly helped my distance freestyle a great deal! A swimmer who shall not be named has shared some of his workouts with me, and they have made a ton of difference!
It seems to me at this point that the most forward direction would be to define a club team. If it's not a club team then it's a regional team. Whether there is SML I really don't care, but I do think that the club and regional need to be separated.
Agreed, but the terminology needs tweaking. Swim Kentucky is a club too. It may seem like semantics to some, but by calling your team a club team, and mine something else, it implies that yours is the real deal and mine is not. Not sure this is as important to others as it is to me. And not sure we will ever all agree on the terminology. Maybe "local" vs. "regional"?
One more thought I had last night while trying to fall asleep: Why are the Regional teams "against" two separate divisions at Nationals? Why do they care? If anything, taking out WCM and TOC, and whatever other club team places in the TT at Nationals, would leave room for two more Regional teams to be in the Top Ten. And conversely, having a club team division would get at least 5 more club teams into a Top 10.
We are NOT against separate divisions! That's what I've been trying to say. What I didn't want to see happen was having to go up against, say, PNA when Nationals are in Federal Way, and we only had 7 swimmers there and they had 150. If we go with separate divisions, and then S-M-L within them, then I'm happy enough. Then we are competing against other small regional teams, and we have a fair shot.
I think there's actually a fair amount of agreement here on what we want to do. Just not as much agreement on definitions and implementation.
I will admit that we are extremely lucky to live where we do, in that swimming is a very popular sport around here (mostly during the summer though). Kerry is an A1 coach, and our assistants are great too. Because we do all work out at one facility it easily forges that day to day camraderie, etc.
Yes, you ARE lucky! You live in a great part of the country, have many great facilities, and most important, you do have a great coach. Kerry probably doesn't know this, but he has indirectly helped my distance freestyle a great deal! A swimmer who shall not be named has shared some of his workouts with me, and they have made a ton of difference!
It seems to me at this point that the most forward direction would be to define a club team. If it's not a club team then it's a regional team. Whether there is SML I really don't care, but I do think that the club and regional need to be separated.
Agreed, but the terminology needs tweaking. Swim Kentucky is a club too. It may seem like semantics to some, but by calling your team a club team, and mine something else, it implies that yours is the real deal and mine is not. Not sure this is as important to others as it is to me. And not sure we will ever all agree on the terminology. Maybe "local" vs. "regional"?
One more thought I had last night while trying to fall asleep: Why are the Regional teams "against" two separate divisions at Nationals? Why do they care? If anything, taking out WCM and TOC, and whatever other club team places in the TT at Nationals, would leave room for two more Regional teams to be in the Top Ten. And conversely, having a club team division would get at least 5 more club teams into a Top 10.
We are NOT against separate divisions! That's what I've been trying to say. What I didn't want to see happen was having to go up against, say, PNA when Nationals are in Federal Way, and we only had 7 swimmers there and they had 150. If we go with separate divisions, and then S-M-L within them, then I'm happy enough. Then we are competing against other small regional teams, and we have a fair shot.
I think there's actually a fair amount of agreement here on what we want to do. Just not as much agreement on definitions and implementation.