I had a swimming dream last night and it gave me an idea for a meet. The meet would be a college "alumni meet" but with all colleges represented. This could be a standalone meet, but I'm sure it would be easier just to glom it onto an existing meet--such as Short Course Nationals. The basic idea would be that any swimmer could declare a college affiliation and then the meet would be scored like the NCAA swimming championships: top 16 swimmers score and relays count double. Rather than having specific age groups each swimmer's time would be adjusted for age. So, for example, a 60 year old who swims a 1:00 100 free might have an age corrected time of :50 seconds, while a 25 year old swimming a 100 free in :50 seconds would also have an age corrected time of :50 seconds . In the results the age correction is applied to every college competitor and then the top 16 score based on the age corrected times.
To score a relay all four relay swimmers would need to have the same college affiliation and the age correction would need to use the average relay age. I think there should also be an event limit, like at NCAAs. A single swimmer shouldn't be able to score in six individual events.
I think this would be a great way to encourage old college teammates to get together and swim at a masters competition and it would also be an excellent way for swimmers who never swam in college to have the opportunity to represent their alma maters. If this was done at a meet like Nationals at would have no effect on the competition as it exists today.
Any thoughts? Is this a good idea?
while certainly an interesting idea
if you did this at nationals, i think you would find that the lmsc of the hosting nationals would have the nearest large universities win just like a club in that hosting lmsc usually does.
as an example: when was the last time nebraska masters was in the top 20 of nationals? yet they were right at the top when it was at omaha! same goes for north carolina masters. what are the odds that Cal or Stanford would have won when we were at Santa Clara for Nats? USC or UCLA when held at Mission Viejo? or going back UT when held at Austin?
i think all it would really show is that when nats are in town, all the locals show up!
steve
while certainly an interesting idea
if you did this at nationals, i think you would find that the lmsc of the hosting nationals would have the nearest large universities win just like a club in that hosting lmsc usually does.
as an example: when was the last time nebraska masters was in the top 20 of nationals? yet they were right at the top when it was at omaha! same goes for north carolina masters. what are the odds that Cal or Stanford would have won when we were at Santa Clara for Nats? USC or UCLA when held at Mission Viejo? or going back UT when held at Austin?
i think all it would really show is that when nats are in town, all the locals show up!
steve
