New Organization for Adult Swimmers

Reading the press release reminds me of the old Foghorn Leghorn cartoon. Foghorn is confronted by a bird 1/10th his size. The small bird declares, "You're a chicken, and I'm a chicken hawk! So, are you going to come along quietly, or do I have to muss you up?" The good Dr. is welcome to give his organization a go. If some people see value in it, and ASA and USMS operate in such a way that they do not detract from each other, hey, it's cool with me. (Under the Frank Zappa theory of "Do what you wanna. Do what you will. Just don't mess up your neighbor's thrill.") However, I did find some statements in there that I simply can't overlook. First and most egregious, USMS has moved away from its orginal goal of competition and focused more on fitness swimming?! I am open to any corrections or comments from the "old timers" who were in on this at or near the start of USMS, but my impression is that the orginal goal WAS fitness swimming, with a few meets tossed in to add a little spice. My understanding is that the sharper focus on better competition happened a bit later after enough people who were interested in more serious competition got involved. We can have a discussion about what the future goal of USMS ought to be, and history would not necessarily be relevant. But, this particular piece of revisionist history really chaps my backside. Second, there is the almost laughable contradiction between the multiplicity of new events and single year age groups on the one hand, and then on the other the criticism of competitive competitions at USMS Nationals. I am, of course, assuming that his beef with Nationals is that too many "slow" swimmers are permitted to enter. If that is the case, how will adding events and exploding the number of age groups by a factor of five address this? Is he counting on the fact ASA, and its parallel Nationals meet will be less well attended than USMS Nationals? And finally, he not only wants to keep track of numerous new world records, he is openly shilling the process of "The Race for World Records." So apperantly, he's thrown open the doors to make "world records" as inclusive as possible, but only to ASA members. I could also be a published author, as long as I am willing to pay a vanity publisher to print 500 copies of my book. At what point does this become the sound of one hand clapping? In sum, good luck to all of you who want to joins ASA. Some of the aspects/proposals contained in its charter could be useful, by themselves. BUT PLEASE, get serious about which of your organization's goals you want to pursue first. Matt

Reading the press release reminds me of the old Foghorn Leghorn cartoon. Foghorn is confronted by a bird 1/10th his size. The small bird declares, "You're a chicken, and I'm a chicken hawk! So, are you going to come along quietly, or do I have to muss you up?" The good Dr. is welcome to give his organization a go. If some people see value in it, and ASA and USMS operate in such a way that they do not detract from each other, hey, it's cool with me. (Under the Frank Zappa theory of "Do what you wanna. Do what you will. Just don't mess up your neighbor's thrill.") However, I did find some statements in there that I simply can't overlook. First and most egregious, USMS has moved away from its orginal goal of competition and focused more on fitness swimming?! I am open to any corrections or comments from the "old timers" who were in on this at or near the start of USMS, but my impression is that the orginal goal WAS fitness swimming, with a few meets tossed in to add a little spice. My understanding is that the sharper focus on better competition happened a bit later after enough people who were interested in more serious competition got involved. We can have a discussion about what the future goal of USMS ought to be, and history would not necessarily be relevant. But, this particular piece of revisionist history really chaps my backside. Second, there is the almost laughable contradiction between the multiplicity of new events and single year age groups on the one hand, and then on the other the criticism of competitive competitions at USMS Nationals. I am, of course, assuming that his beef with Nationals is that too many "slow" swimmers are permitted to enter. If that is the case, how will adding events and exploding the number of age groups by a factor of five address this? Is he counting on the fact ASA, and its parallel Nationals meet will be less well attended than USMS Nationals? And finally, he not only wants to keep track of numerous new world records, he is openly shilling the process of "The Race for World Records." So apperantly, he's thrown open the doors to make "world records" as inclusive as possible, but only to ASA members. I could also be a published author, as long as I am willing to pay a vanity publisher to print 500 copies of my book. At what point does this become the sound of one hand clapping? In sum, good luck to all of you who want to joins ASA. Some of the aspects/proposals contained in its charter could be useful, by themselves. BUT PLEASE, get serious about which of your organization's goals you want to pursue first. Matt