This is somewhat related to another post I just started (Top Ten conerns). I noticed in the top ten list a number of swimmers (generally very fast swimmers) who swam their first nationals (or any other masters meet) in 5 years due to being in a new age group. I state this by looking at the past few years top ten lists and not seeing their names. Is this a good thing for masters swimming? Swimmers whose only affiliation with masters swimming is showing up to one meet every 5 years to break a record. These records should be owned by people that are true masters swimmers.
What is a true masters swimmers?- Perhaps doing a few meets a year might work. When I swam on an age group team as a child, I know in order to qualify for our championship meet, we had to swim at least 3 regular meets. Perhaps a rule like that for Nationals could begin to fix this problem-
If not, many of our national records will be held by "ringers"
Parents
Former Member
I think what Tom is trying to get at, is, there are swimmers who show up once every 5 years to make their mark. For instance this year we (USMS) had an excellent swimmer show up and break a few records, the funny thing was the last time this swimmer showed up for a meet was 1997. Again, set quite a few records.
Now, I understand there is absolutely NO way this can be controlled. "there is no controlling legal authority", Al Gore. We want what is good for USMS, is this good? Some may say yes, because having impressive records show credibility in an organization. Some say no, because it puts a real damper on any dream of owning a record.
I came through my school records like a snow plow my freshman year. (for those of you in the south/southwest/hawaii, a snow plow is a big truck with a big thingy on the front to push frozen rain off the road) :D (I AM ONLY KIDDING). It was a small school with a really small swimming program (no scholarships, no real recruiting). I feel there was some animosity towards me going around, the thinking, why the hell did this big fish come to such a small pond. I swam through my years there, the program really started to pick up, and everything was cool, however, it wouldn't have been so cool, had I done that for 1 year, and then transfer.
I'm just asking, what's right? Continuing support for the organization is what I think is right.
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I think what Tom is trying to get at, is, there are swimmers who show up once every 5 years to make their mark. For instance this year we (USMS) had an excellent swimmer show up and break a few records, the funny thing was the last time this swimmer showed up for a meet was 1997. Again, set quite a few records.
Now, I understand there is absolutely NO way this can be controlled. "there is no controlling legal authority", Al Gore. We want what is good for USMS, is this good? Some may say yes, because having impressive records show credibility in an organization. Some say no, because it puts a real damper on any dream of owning a record.
I came through my school records like a snow plow my freshman year. (for those of you in the south/southwest/hawaii, a snow plow is a big truck with a big thingy on the front to push frozen rain off the road) :D (I AM ONLY KIDDING). It was a small school with a really small swimming program (no scholarships, no real recruiting). I feel there was some animosity towards me going around, the thinking, why the hell did this big fish come to such a small pond. I swam through my years there, the program really started to pick up, and everything was cool, however, it wouldn't have been so cool, had I done that for 1 year, and then transfer.
I'm just asking, what's right? Continuing support for the organization is what I think is right.
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