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
Good job of pulling everyone back in to what we need to do, Leianne!
Given the discussions on this forum, maybe we should see if we can define what is a "local" team as opposed to deciding what is a "regional" team. Let's try to see beyond the words that are used in this discussion, because if we get the principles down, then we can decide on what terms to use in presenting a proposal to the Rules Committee.
I agree, and thank you for indulging my preference for local team rather than club team. We do need to define both local and regional teams. That was one of the big holes in the legislative part of L02 that prevented me from voting for it.
Assuming a local and regional team division, then maybe a definition of a local team could be as follows:
"LOCAL CLUB DIVISION. A club will compete at a National Championship meet in the local club division if it meets the following conditions:
(i) its members live in a limited geographic area (with no more than 10% of its members residing outside the LMSC where the club's address is located); and
(ii) it has a single board of directors or other management structure that is responsible for acquiring facilities and paying coaching staff from the club's operating budget."
I think (i) is OK. The problem is (ii). A lot of clubs don't have any paid coaching staff. Maybe it would be better to just say "it has a single management structure that is responsible for acquiring facilities and/or providing coaching."
I do not know how the regional teams with workout groups do their operations, and whether each workout group operates and budgets money separately for their pools and coaches.
I can only speak for Kentucky, but yes, our separate workout groups do gave separate operatons and budgets. I'm with Wildcat Masters at the University of Kentucky, and our team is an auxiliary program of UK Athletics. They provide us with pool time and pay our coaches. We have separate officers too. Some of the other groups have much less formality. They just show up and swim together at the local Y, most likely with no coach on deck. And of course some of our swimmers have no group to swim with at all, like the famous guy in the cabin in western Kentucky. His name is actually Keith Shepherd, and he usually works out with the closest USA team (and he is also a member of USA Swimming too).
Thanks for getting the ball rolling again, Leianne.
Good job of pulling everyone back in to what we need to do, Leianne!
Given the discussions on this forum, maybe we should see if we can define what is a "local" team as opposed to deciding what is a "regional" team. Let's try to see beyond the words that are used in this discussion, because if we get the principles down, then we can decide on what terms to use in presenting a proposal to the Rules Committee.
I agree, and thank you for indulging my preference for local team rather than club team. We do need to define both local and regional teams. That was one of the big holes in the legislative part of L02 that prevented me from voting for it.
Assuming a local and regional team division, then maybe a definition of a local team could be as follows:
"LOCAL CLUB DIVISION. A club will compete at a National Championship meet in the local club division if it meets the following conditions:
(i) its members live in a limited geographic area (with no more than 10% of its members residing outside the LMSC where the club's address is located); and
(ii) it has a single board of directors or other management structure that is responsible for acquiring facilities and paying coaching staff from the club's operating budget."
I think (i) is OK. The problem is (ii). A lot of clubs don't have any paid coaching staff. Maybe it would be better to just say "it has a single management structure that is responsible for acquiring facilities and/or providing coaching."
I do not know how the regional teams with workout groups do their operations, and whether each workout group operates and budgets money separately for their pools and coaches.
I can only speak for Kentucky, but yes, our separate workout groups do gave separate operatons and budgets. I'm with Wildcat Masters at the University of Kentucky, and our team is an auxiliary program of UK Athletics. They provide us with pool time and pay our coaches. We have separate officers too. Some of the other groups have much less formality. They just show up and swim together at the local Y, most likely with no coach on deck. And of course some of our swimmers have no group to swim with at all, like the famous guy in the cabin in western Kentucky. His name is actually Keith Shepherd, and he usually works out with the closest USA team (and he is also a member of USA Swimming too).
Thanks for getting the ball rolling again, Leianne.
