bay state games

one official I talked to my first year of swimming bay state games which was in '02 she said there used to be a masters division. I swam the open the past 2 years which is not to bad considering I swam against kids half my age. You can have a masters division even with trials. Have us swim with the kids like we have been doing anyway that way you're not waisting pool space or anyones time. All you would have to do in the end of the qualifiers is filter us out and make the post for finals. I like swimming qualifiers its fun. I know they have timed trials at harvard but if you wanted to qualify before that should be your own choice.

Note that the masters division was never "taken away" -- it was never really there in the first place. For years and years and years, we've had three age categories - junior, scholastic and open. The only real change is that the low-age for the Open category has dropped a couple of years - it's now 17 and over. (I believe it used to be 19 and over at one point.) The big reason for this is that we simply couldn't get older people to show up. We'd run an open event at the finals, and we'd have 3 or 4 people competing. So we had to drop the low-age so that we'd get more people into the age group. If you have comments about the Bay State Games (which is in Massachusetts), please feel free to share them here. I run the finals portion of the competition at Harvard, and have been doing so for many years now. I will certainly pass along any comments to the BSG organizing committee, etc. Note also that we are looking at ways to bring masters swimmers into the Bay State Games. For next year (summer 2003), we are contemplating adding an older age group or two for masters swimmers, and possibly making those events timed-finals only at the Harvard finals week-end. (I.e., no regional try-out, and then you'd only swim once at the finals week-end instead of a morning prelims and an evening finals.) There are, naturally, logistical things we always have to worry about. If we add events, it makes our meet longer, and we may not have enough time given our pool space/time restrictions. Etc., Etc. But it's something we're actively thinking about. -Rick Osterberg Bay State Games Swimming site

I like swimming qualifiers its fun. I know they have timed trials at harvard but if you wanted to qualify before that should be your own choice. Remember that one thing we need to do is keep things fair and consistent across the age group. (In fact, as far as I know, that's effectively a requirement under USA Swimming rules.) The biggest reason we would consider eliminating the tryouts for the older age groups is because we recognize that committing to two different swimming events, a month or so apart, is difficult for those of us with real jobs. We're recognizing also that it's difficult for a lot of high school-age swimmers with summer jobs. -Rick

I've recently talked to the people who organize the swim program for Bay State Games about adding a masters division(s) for our sport. I can report that they are very open to making it more inviting for masters. I also believe that more masters will participate (this year only two NEMs showed up for trials at Gordon College) if we give them some age group options and promote it properly. We obviously won't have five year age group but will more likely model the swim program after other Bay State Game sports that have "masters" and "senior" divisions. Feel free to contact me via email if you have specific suggestions or input. seltzer@metasoft.com