It's time for the NCAA to switch to LCM; a Manifesto
Former Member
I believe that the US team has been hurt by the NCAA continuing to stick with the SCY format. I believe that the fact that fewer and fewer college athletes are making the team is partially because college athletes are trained to race SCY (of course there are several other reasons for the shift as well). Here's a summary of why I think sticking with SCY is silly:
1. LCM requires specific training and experience to race optimally. Starts and turns are somewhat deemphasized, pacing and rhythm are made even more important. You often see relatively inexperienced US swimmers crushing walls but then losing time between the flags (Tom Shields springs to mind). I believe this is partially a result of focusing on short course. Most NCAA teams train long course on occasion, but it needs to be the focus.
2. I believe that part of the reluctance to go LCM is that the NCAA feels it may discriminate against programs without their own LCM facility. This shouldn't be a concern any more. At this point every major DI program has an LCM facility (or several LCM facilities). Many (the majority?) of quality DII and DIII programs have LCM facilities. The NCAA should stop worrying about upsetting a minority of members, bite the bullet and say they're going LCM.
3. SCY is the Galapagos of swimming formats: it was developed in a vacuum and exists only in the US. LCM is the world standard. SCY to LCM time conversions are very suspect. The excitement of NCAA championships would be much enhanced if the times were comparable to other times around the world. This would improve the prestige of the conference and the meet and improve the centrality of the NCAA in the world swimming landscape. It would also remove one of the (smaller) concerns that foreign talent may have for training in the US. IMO, the US needs to swim and train with the best at all times to ensure it stays competitive. Moving to LCM will enhance their ability to do so.
All of these points are debatable. I'd be interested to see what other people think.
I underlined a comment made above. How many swimmers have long term careers in swimming?!?! Are we talking about changing the NCAA mindset to accommodate a dozen professional swimmers in spite of thousands of NCAA swimmers who swim for the pure enjoyment of racing for their college for four years?
Exactly. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how many NCAA Div I, II, and III colleges have LCM facilities (my guess is that it is subatantially less than 50%) and then to figure out what the cost would be to provide these facilities and how many male and female swimmers might lose the opportunity to swim in college if the colleges are unable to provide new LCM pools. I'm sure the NCAA has those figures at their finger tips.
Further, it makes no sense to swim a whole college season of practices and dual meets scy, and then swim the NCAA championships LCM, even if it is an olympic year. NCAA swimmers contending for an olympic spot will have access and will be training in LCM pools (if their goal is an olympic trial, they aren't going to go to a college that doesn't have access to LCM).
I didn't notice any problems with underwaters and walls at the OT and it doesn't seem to me like swimming SCY for NCAA championships would be a problem. Yes, it might give some of the NCAA contenders that aren't focused on the olympic trials and aren't swimming LCM a bit of an edge at the NCAAs, but it works the other way at OT, and overall spreads out the potential winners from both events. More contenders and winners is better, i think. It also didn't seem like there were that many NCAA swimmers in the semi-finals and finals at OTs - most seemed either HS or post NCAA age elite pros.
As others have stated, i like the scy or scm format. There are far more swimmers, like me, who didn't contend for either NCAA champiponships or OT and whose "swimming career" will hopefullly span a lifetime - from AG, through college, and masters. It would be shameful to damage these swimmers' opportunities to swim in college (by requiring LCM pools) in order to resolve the relatively minor difficulty that a few elite NCAA swimmers have already figured out. If anything, shift the NCAA season to begin earlier in the fall and end sooner in the spring in olympic years. :2cents:
I underlined a comment made above. How many swimmers have long term careers in swimming?!?! Are we talking about changing the NCAA mindset to accommodate a dozen professional swimmers in spite of thousands of NCAA swimmers who swim for the pure enjoyment of racing for their college for four years?
Exactly. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how many NCAA Div I, II, and III colleges have LCM facilities (my guess is that it is subatantially less than 50%) and then to figure out what the cost would be to provide these facilities and how many male and female swimmers might lose the opportunity to swim in college if the colleges are unable to provide new LCM pools. I'm sure the NCAA has those figures at their finger tips.
Further, it makes no sense to swim a whole college season of practices and dual meets scy, and then swim the NCAA championships LCM, even if it is an olympic year. NCAA swimmers contending for an olympic spot will have access and will be training in LCM pools (if their goal is an olympic trial, they aren't going to go to a college that doesn't have access to LCM).
I didn't notice any problems with underwaters and walls at the OT and it doesn't seem to me like swimming SCY for NCAA championships would be a problem. Yes, it might give some of the NCAA contenders that aren't focused on the olympic trials and aren't swimming LCM a bit of an edge at the NCAAs, but it works the other way at OT, and overall spreads out the potential winners from both events. More contenders and winners is better, i think. It also didn't seem like there were that many NCAA swimmers in the semi-finals and finals at OTs - most seemed either HS or post NCAA age elite pros.
As others have stated, i like the scy or scm format. There are far more swimmers, like me, who didn't contend for either NCAA champiponships or OT and whose "swimming career" will hopefullly span a lifetime - from AG, through college, and masters. It would be shameful to damage these swimmers' opportunities to swim in college (by requiring LCM pools) in order to resolve the relatively minor difficulty that a few elite NCAA swimmers have already figured out. If anything, shift the NCAA season to begin earlier in the fall and end sooner in the spring in olympic years. :2cents:
