Team Scoring at Nationals

It is obvious that the new team scoring rules for National Championships has not achieved the purposes for which it was designed. At 2009 LC Nationals, many relatively small teams were classified as "regional teams" because their LMSC is so small that they all compete together at Nationals (ie., MOVY with 25 members), and many huge teams were not classified as "regional" teams because there were multiple teams in their LMSC (ie., IndySwimfit with 125 members). If the intent of the new rule was to prevent large teams from overpowering small teams in team scoring, the current rule has produced a ridiculous result. I don't know why USMS abandoned the concept of Large Team/Small Team scoring years ago, but this concept would seem to work much more equitably. Some might argue that it is difficult to draw the line between large and small teams, but I think it becomes pretty obvious if you look at the Team Rosters from this year's meet. If the Championship Committee made this determination prior to each Nationals after the entries closed, which is the way they used to do it, if I remember correctly, we would minimize the potential problems with setting an arbitrary immutable limit for all Nationals.
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  • For example if Illinois Masters brought 200+ swimmers out of their 1500 membership there would be no way ISF could win...They didn't and we did... I wish we could have brought more swimmers. Illinois Masters only had 72 and got second to Michigan with 20 less swimmers. A few years ago, Illinois Masters brought a huge team and beat INDYSwim Fit the meet host. Illinois Masters has approx 1500 members, approx 52 workout groups, approx 70 coaches. I fully support the separate recognition for CLUBS; they deserve it. At least their coach deserves it. More power to the coach if he/she is a good recruiter FYI-The Illinois LMSC (ILMSA) had Academy Bullets, Elgin Blue Waves and a couple unattached swimmers. Another FYI: even without relays INDYSwim Fit would have still won Nationals. Congratulations INDYSwim Fit.
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  • For example if Illinois Masters brought 200+ swimmers out of their 1500 membership there would be no way ISF could win...They didn't and we did... I wish we could have brought more swimmers. Illinois Masters only had 72 and got second to Michigan with 20 less swimmers. A few years ago, Illinois Masters brought a huge team and beat INDYSwim Fit the meet host. Illinois Masters has approx 1500 members, approx 52 workout groups, approx 70 coaches. I fully support the separate recognition for CLUBS; they deserve it. At least their coach deserves it. More power to the coach if he/she is a good recruiter FYI-The Illinois LMSC (ILMSA) had Academy Bullets, Elgin Blue Waves and a couple unattached swimmers. Another FYI: even without relays INDYSwim Fit would have still won Nationals. Congratulations INDYSwim Fit.
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