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 the way things are now is the simplest solution. The team with the most points wins. There is one calculation. It doesn't get much simpler than that.
If people are against the super-teams having an advantage, then outlaw super-teams. Everyone will need to compete within their "Workout Groups" as they are called in some LMSCs. Or combine everyone into their LMSCs and there are only 52 teams. I'd love to swim relays w/ folks on other teams in my LMSC.
Who does scoring affect? I'd argue only a few hundred people at most. Personally, I don't attend Nationals to score points - I go to hang out with teammates, friends and try to beat my times from last year. I could care less about our team's points.
Since ~5% of USMS swimmers actually attend one or both National Championship Meets in a given year, I think too much time is being spent on this topic. I hear discussions to this topic are lengthy and animated at convention. Perhaps USMS would be better served addressing the needs of the large portion of its membership who do not compete in Nationals (or meets, for that matter), and figure out how to keep those swimmers interested and how to bring in new members.
:dedhorse:
I think the way things are now is the simplest solution. The team with the most points wins. There is one calculation. It doesn't get much simpler than that.
If people are against the super-teams having an advantage, then outlaw super-teams. Everyone will need to compete within their "Workout Groups" as they are called in some LMSCs. Or combine everyone into their LMSCs and there are only 52 teams. I'd love to swim relays w/ folks on other teams in my LMSC.
Who does scoring affect? I'd argue only a few hundred people at most. Personally, I don't attend Nationals to score points - I go to hang out with teammates, friends and try to beat my times from last year. I could care less about our team's points.
Since ~5% of USMS swimmers actually attend one or both National Championship Meets in a given year, I think too much time is being spent on this topic. I hear discussions to this topic are lengthy and animated at convention. Perhaps USMS would be better served addressing the needs of the large portion of its membership who do not compete in Nationals (or meets, for that matter), and figure out how to keep those swimmers interested and how to bring in new members.
:dedhorse:
