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?
Effectively (from a scoring results/scoring standpoint) it would be an entirely separate meet. Yes, it would be more work to score, but after the age conversion was applied to the results it would be just like scoring another meet.
I never swam for the colleges from which I am an alumnus, and I graduated from 3 different places. Which would I choose?. I have often seen an alumni 5K run during homecoming weekend, but it's for grads of that school only. They are not large gatherings but fun anyway.
I never swam for the colleges from which I am an alumnus, and I graduated from 3 different places. Which would I choose?
Take your pick!
The idea is this would be purely for fun. Teams could certainly recruit free agents to score more points, but there wouldn't be any awards or records up for grabs, so I doubt this would be a major concern. In fact it could make it more fun.
The reality of this concept is that your average swimmer has little chance of scoring except possibly on relays since only the top 16 score in each event. That's a pretty high bar.
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
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.
This is probably true, but I'm not sure it's a negative. It would just encourage even more locals to attend the meet.
You would probably have to break it down by division too. Is a D2 or 3 represented school going to be able to compete with Stanford alumni, for example? Even adjusted by age, I see folks my age that were are faster now than I ever was in college.
My college has an annual alumni swim meet where you compete against current team members and other alumni. It is great to see people that you haven't seen in years. So that is one college down and many more to go.
Problem is, you're preaching to the choir. Of course we would love it, but what about the people who would control it?. There are 5 college swim programs within 20-30 minutes of where I sit. Some D1, others D3, but for alumni that shouldn't matter. However, someone needs to get at least one of those athletic directors excited about such a thing. How would you put a bug in their ears?
