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
Your calculation for M&F Points seems to be adding points per swimmer instead of points.:shakeshead:
I agree. The data in column C should be the combined points for each team, not a sum of columns G and J, which it appears to be.
Or if Column C is designed to be a measure of a team's efficiency, it should result in a figure lying between the numbers in Columns G and J, rather than the sum, at least for teams with entrants in both. By my calculations, it results in a number which is neither the mean nor the average of G & J due to the skewing resulting from disparate numbers of men and women earning points.
Comparing Oregon to PNA, for example, we see that 68 Oregon men earned 1265 points and 48 women earned 829.50 points. So 116 swimmers earned 2,094.50 points for a global point-per-swimmer number of 18.056. The men were slightly more efficient, with 18.60 points per swimmer, with the women contributing 17.28 PPS.
199 PNA men earned a paltry 1532.50 points, while 142 PNA women turned in a stellar 1722. 341 PNA swimmers got a total of 3,254.50 points, for a team PPS of 9.544. PNA men PPS was 7.70; women PPS was 12.127.
And so we see that Oregon handily outperformed our soggy neighbors to the north; and that the PNA men owe their distaff teammates a beer or 7 for dragging them along to victory.
I am reminded of a quote generally attributed to Mark Twain: There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.
But I also really enjoyed the chance to meet to meet and swim relays at Nationals with some of the folks I have been swimming against at local meets but had not had the opportunity to meet.
I'm with Bill on this. I could really care less that PNA won the team title. That was pretty much a forgone conclusion based on the number of swimmers we had. I did, however, enjoy the opporunity to swim on relays I wouldn't have been able to if I were just competing with my training group. In fact several of these guys I've been attendings meets with for several years now. Even though we don't train together we enjoy getting together at the meets. We'd been emailing for a couple months beforehand trying to come up with our "ideal relays" for Nationals.
edit: I don't agree with Bill's assessment that Oregon "handily outperformed" PNA, though! :)
Taking my tongue from back out of the cheek in which I had it firmly placed for my prior post, tracking numbers like points scored per swimmer actually has a potential chilling effect on participation. If the efficiency number meant anything, teams would discourage swimmers who had no chance to score points from entering.
But 18.056 to 9.544 sounded pretty "handily" to me, Kirk, even if the numbers are totally meaningless. :thhbbb:
swimming is a pretty individual sport. i'm surprised folks are this passionate about team scores to begin with.
for those with excel, take a look at this interesting view of results... i do this every year. its points per swimmer (combined, male and female).
edit: file has been updated
yikes, ok let me take a look at that tomorrow at work and see where my formulas are jacked up. I just checked out my own team's entry on that thing and it is WAY wrong. I'll repost. Sorry guys!!!:blush: (where's the "run and hide in embarrassment" smiley)
edit: 845am est 6/8/07 - file has been updated - my bad!
Despite all that, I will concede that Oregon had a fantastic showing! I think it's pretty impressive you guys were anywhere close to PNA in the final points total.
Their caravan of oxen-pulled covered wagons was pretty impressive, eh, Kirk? :lmao::rofl:
Their caravan of oxen-pulled covered wagons was pretty impressive, eh, Kirk?
Oh, this is so totally baiting, no doubt in retaliation just because a few of us kind-hearted, well-intentioned folks pointed out a couple of eensy-weensy, oh-so tiny flaws in your spreadsheet thingie . . . Where's Mod Matysek when we need him?:)
And we're dang proud o'them ox-carts out here in Ory-gone, thank you very much.
Honestly, I think if it has to be unfair for someone, it being unfair for less populated places is probably the most fair, as it affects the fewest people that way (by definition). Besides, I don't think it is as easy as rural/urban: plenty of LMSCs in less dense areas have more swimmers than Metro, for instance. But I am beyond biased: I don't think you should be allowed to be an LMSC team at all.
