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.
I apologize for my initial posting if anyone interpretted my remarks as a criticism of any particular "Club" or "Regional" team. That was not my intent. More power to any organization that can recruit enough members to win the Team Championship in either category.
My comment was strictly about fairness in scoring. I realize that the intent of the most recent attempt to solve this problem was to differentiate between "regional" teams and "Clubs". I have no quarrel with the application of the existing rule. Nevertheless, I think that the issue underlying every attempt to alter the "team Scoring" rules relating to Nationals is the injustice of small teams having to compete with meg-teams, whether they are "regional" or not.
I take no issue with the fact that Indy SwimFit is a "Club" team. Mel did a fabulous job of recruiting an amazing number of competitors for a city the size of Indy which fielded multiple other clubs as well. CONGRATULATIONS, Mel! (I believe that INDY SwimFir would have won the Team award no matter how it was classified.)
My commemts relate solely to the fact that the intent of the Rules, I think, is to prevent large teams from always overshadowing smaller teams. While there may never be a perfect rule, I believe that classifying teams strictly by number of participants is infinitely more fair than the current system.
And, yes, I am sometimes the only member of my Club at Nationals, as I was in Fresno this Spring, so team scoring is seldom an issue for my team to begin with. BUT FAIRNESS IS ALWAYS AN ISSUE...
Let's don't use this discussion as an excuse to pit any one Club against another.
I apologize for my initial posting if anyone interpretted my remarks as a criticism of any particular "Club" or "Regional" team. That was not my intent. More power to any organization that can recruit enough members to win the Team Championship in either category.
My comment was strictly about fairness in scoring. I realize that the intent of the most recent attempt to solve this problem was to differentiate between "regional" teams and "Clubs". I have no quarrel with the application of the existing rule. Nevertheless, I think that the issue underlying every attempt to alter the "team Scoring" rules relating to Nationals is the injustice of small teams having to compete with meg-teams, whether they are "regional" or not.
I take no issue with the fact that Indy SwimFit is a "Club" team. Mel did a fabulous job of recruiting an amazing number of competitors for a city the size of Indy which fielded multiple other clubs as well. CONGRATULATIONS, Mel! (I believe that INDY SwimFir would have won the Team award no matter how it was classified.)
My commemts relate solely to the fact that the intent of the Rules, I think, is to prevent large teams from always overshadowing smaller teams. While there may never be a perfect rule, I believe that classifying teams strictly by number of participants is infinitely more fair than the current system.
And, yes, I am sometimes the only member of my Club at Nationals, as I was in Fresno this Spring, so team scoring is seldom an issue for my team to begin with. BUT FAIRNESS IS ALWAYS AN ISSUE...
Let's don't use this discussion as an excuse to pit any one Club against another.
