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
Rob....so only give it out to top 3...I was (for a change) trying to be nice!
I liked the idea of having 60 awards because the number 60 is closer to the actual number of people who are passionate about the issue.
Am I passionate about it?
Nah...
Why not?
It would affect maybe 0.05% of our 43,000 members, and a majority of the 0.05% probably wouldn't notice any difference.
:dedhorse:
personally, i don't really care about the points - i am just there to swim fast against myself and have a great time.
I think this viewpoint is most representative of how a vast majority of USMS members feel.
Score individual events 20 deep
Give out high point awards to the top 3 in each age group and gender
Provide team awards 3/5 deep to small&large, local®ional men&women&combined
Find a corporate partner to sponsor the awards
Run a real awards ceremony, al la the Pan American Masters meet (no offense to Mark Gill’s announcing and dancing skills)
I believe they are all ideas worth implementing. But a quick reality check, the discussion forum is not a policy making forum. If you want to see change, you need to work with your LMSC, the Championship Committee and local House of Delegates members and keep buttonholing swimmers at swim meets.
I dunno. If I looked at it from a personal perspective, I’d still say club scoring doesn't rate high on my list of objectives.
Bill, sometime I would suggest you hang out a bit with the folks like CMS, Walnut Creek, TYR, etc. and get more of the inside scoop on how swimmers within these organizations go about getting ready for Nationals.
I'll give you a personal experiance....right now I have at least 50 emails archived from a group of about 25 old "has beens" that started the same day
that Austin was announced....the badgering, taunting, betting and blackmail taking place to try and get some of these people to show up is not suitable for posting on this forum.
The point is...there is a whole sub culture that is promoting this sport and our events that a lot of folks don't know about...until they see Colorado fly to Florida wit over 100 swimmers and win.....or TYR show up at Worlds and break records in the relays....
Now truth be told...most of these people including myself don't take it all that seriousslly...its more social and fitness based for me than anything...that is until i step onto the blocks and "flip the on switch"....
I dunno.
I missed the convention in Anaheim this year, but had I been there, the only number in my mind would’ve been 43,000+. If I looked at it from a personal perspective, I’d still say club scoring doesn't rate high on my list of objectives.
Maybe I just haven’t thought about it enough. The next Nationals will be my 25th since 1992, and so far, club scoring hasn’t been a significant factor in the quality of my Nationals experience. But I’ll be paying closer attention at the next Nationals and will look forward to the buzz on deck about team scoring.
By the way – not to change the subject, but – I’m wondering what others think of the idea of printing individual high-point scoring lists for all age groups at Nationals.
As long as I get the highpoint and the Evil Smith gets runner up. I'm for it.
John Smith
You can have the highpoint...but you will NEVER have your treasured 50 free record back! I got $20 on it loser!
Hi,
I went back through this thread and there seems to be a fair number of people advocating two divisions for competition at Nationals.
The way scoring is done now (just on the raw points scored by each team), I think that what you have is what Paul described as an "Open Division" competition.
The small teams and the medium sized teams are competing against what have variously been called "Regional" or "LMSC" or "Megateams". See the earlier postings in this forum for the results of Nationals under this recently enacted scoring system.
The L2 proposal was based on the number of competitors that attend Nationals, and was not based on the number of registered USMS members in that club.
If we had two divisions, with each division divided into small, medium and large, with those categories based on the number of swimmers in the Nationals (but not mens/womens/combined), then you would have six sets of awards. Then the "small" "regional" teams (like Maryland, Kentucky or Wisconsin) would compete against like-sized competitors, and not against the "Mega" or "Super Regional" teams.
Same with the club team division. Mission Viejo (150 members, per their team website) draws from a similar sized membership as The Olympic Club (112 members, as noted before), but they would only compete in the same "club division" (small, medium or large) if they both sent similar numbers of competitors.
What also comes through to me in reviewing this thread, and this was also stated by Pacific in proposing the L2 legislation, is that Masters Swimmers LIKE their clubs. They like competing with the people they work out with, and it fosters the growth of those clubs.
If this is what USMS is trying to do -- grow the clubs -- then maybe a two division proposal should be tried.
Leianne
^^^
Leianne C..
You present the case for 2 divisions very clearly. This is a refinement of the proposal presented at convention and a major improvement. Actually, this may have been mentioned during the discussion, but the intial proposal created opposition and changes were not clear - or not listened to.
I recommend that you volunteer to be the spokesperson.
