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. . . . 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. As one of the prime movers to get the system changed, I disagree with your premise. The new system is working exactly like it was intended to work. It allows the regional teams to compete with each other and it allows those local teams to compete with each other. I see the MOVY took fifth place in the regional team division, I think you should have received a banner for your well deserved effort. In the last incarnation of how we computed team awards, MOVY would have taken 11th and received that thanks of the meet director but no banner. You can go to many of the prior discussion forums about team scoring to get a history of what was liked and disliked about the scoring system that was in use at that time. Having been on championship committee for a bunch of years, I have seen the committee and the host come up with demarkation lines for large, medium and small (would you like to tell me the difference between a team of 10 and team of 11. What happens when one swimmer does not show up. And of course as Paul brought up, there is the infamous case of the coach who wanted to have one of his swimmer swim unattached so that team could be in a smaller category). While nothing is perfect and there is no doubt that there will be a call to tweak the scoring again, I think the current system will work for a few more years, if only because no one want to get to the HOD to try to argue for a different one :-) ) One last thing, the rule is to separate "Regional Teams," those teams that when they compete at local meets or LMSC Championships, compete as workout groups or sub groups from other teams. The nexus is how does the team compete in local/regional meets. Thus Mel can have his Indy Swim Fit as a local team, as it competes as its own team in local and regional meets and Arizona is a regional team as it compete as smaller groups in local meets. -michael

It is obvious that the new team scoring rules for National Championships has not achieved the purposes for which it was designed. . . . 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. As one of the prime movers to get the system changed, I disagree with your premise. The new system is working exactly like it was intended to work. It allows the regional teams to compete with each other and it allows those local teams to compete with each other. I see the MOVY took fifth place in the regional team division, I think you should have received a banner for your well deserved effort. In the last incarnation of how we computed team awards, MOVY would have taken 11th and received that thanks of the meet director but no banner. You can go to many of the prior discussion forums about team scoring to get a history of what was liked and disliked about the scoring system that was in use at that time. Having been on championship committee for a bunch of years, I have seen the committee and the host come up with demarkation lines for large, medium and small (would you like to tell me the difference between a team of 10 and team of 11. What happens when one swimmer does not show up. And of course as Paul brought up, there is the infamous case of the coach who wanted to have one of his swimmer swim unattached so that team could be in a smaller category). While nothing is perfect and there is no doubt that there will be a call to tweak the scoring again, I think the current system will work for a few more years, if only because no one want to get to the HOD to try to argue for a different one :-) ) One last thing, the rule is to separate "Regional Teams," those teams that when they compete at local meets or LMSC Championships, compete as workout groups or sub groups from other teams. The nexus is how does the team compete in local/regional meets. Thus Mel can have his Indy Swim Fit as a local team, as it competes as its own team in local and regional meets and Arizona is a regional team as it compete as smaller groups in local meets. -michael