What Is Wrong With Swimming??

Originally posted by Matt S Question about your touch-pad "workout" meet. Why couldn't you sanction it as an official (if screwey)meet? Cost. We wanted minimum overhead and a sanction fee affects the bottom line. After paying rent for the pool spacetime there wasn't much of a bottom line to work with. Officials. That is always a limiting factor around here as the kid's calendar is full enough that officials are often not available. You have to lock them in well in advance. Hassle. Sanctioning increases lead-time requirements, requires that official results are produced etc. We wanted this to be a format that we could launch with minimum possible lead time and effort - ie a one-person show that would not burn up lots of administrative or volunteer resources. Fun events. We wanted to be able to add unsanctionable events. Focus. This meet isn't about the official times, its about the fun of close team competition. We did not perceive officials were a necessary ingredient to that - think "pick-up basketball game".

OK, now that we are all done with our once every four years feast of media attention and glory, I'd like to pick at this bone some more. I think there are many encouraging trends in swimming, and we'd probably profit by mulling them over. Unfortunately, I am not ready to focus on the big picture yet. In the meantime, I'd like to toss out an idea. One of my major beefs with swimming as a spectator sport is that it would make a Coronation March look unscripted by comparison. Don't let the tight races in the last Olympics fool you; predicting the final results from the heat sheets, with a little wiggle room for "surprises," is not that difficult. (And indeed, is the fact the U.S. has won more swimming medals that any other country a surprise to anyone who can correctly tell you what "IM" stands for?) Yes, yes, we all want to see the better team win. But let me ask you, which basketball tournament is more watchable? The NCAA Championships or the NBA Playoffs? Clearly, there is far more drama, interest, and just plain fun in the college game, and the reason for that is precisely BEACAUSE it is not so predictable. The better team frequently loses. We need to shake things up. Let me propose that for dual or tri-meets we ought to consider picking some extra events at random. For example, in college dual meets you usually swim 50 - 1000 freestyle, 200 stroke races, a 200 IM, and 4x100 relays. How about tossing the 50 and 100 stroke races, the 400 IM, and a 200 or 800 relay into a hat, and draw out two at random at the start of the meet? You could really push the idea to its semi-logical conclusion. I've always thought the medley relay was the most interesting event because you had to combine swimmers with disparate skills. How about putting 12-16 slips of paper with different stroke/distances into a hat, and drawing out 4 at random? That then becomes a grab bag relay. Score these random events just the same as the regular ones so that way the curmudgeons can't simply ignore them as a "side-show." All of a sudden the swim coach has got to start thinking a bit like a baseball manager and decide how to juggle his better swimmers because he may have to plug one of them in to one of the random events, or not, and take his chances he'll simply drown the other team regardless of their winning the random events. Or gamble that they will be caught just a flat footed as he is. Or maybe as a college coach think about training some second shelf swimmers to go competent stroke 50s or 100s because he may need them to do that more than at one or two championship meets in a season. Or...you get the picture. Suddenly he has to think like a manager and not a spread sheet. And the chances for second guessing, oh goodness what a fabulous chance to get people amped over a swim meet! Just my crazy idea. Matt

I'm not an attorney but it seems to me you hurt the case of calling it a practice each time you refer to it as a meet. Any familiar enough with our insurance policy care to comment. I think doing things differently is great but I'd hate to go to a meet and have something happen only to find we aren't covered. Statements calling it a meet. ================================================= H2O Girl Scout Cookie Pickup Dual Mock Meet - Sat May 8 ================================================= This is the 2nd installment of our new pickup dual Meet format. Advance entries will only be taken by email. First come, first served. Entries will be limited to a maximum of 30 to keep the Meet of short duration. "PICKUP" - This means the teams will be assigned after all entries are in with an eye toward having roughly equal teams - we'll try to equalize sex, age and ability distributions across the two teams - a bit like kids choose up teams on the playground, only the Meet Director will do the choosing. We will NOT necessarily offer all events in this Meet. Instead, we ask you to list the 5 different events you'd MOST like to see offered in the Meet. HOW MANY events we actually run in the Meet. The list of events will be announced on Meet day. BUT, at our last Meet everyone had an opportunity to swim their first-choice event Midnight Monday prior to the Meet - We need to have a minimum of 20 advance entries by then to make this event viable. If we get that, then we'll continue to accept advance entries till noon of the day before the Meet, up to the entry limit of 30. You can cancel, with no obligation, until Thurs prior to the Meet. We'll collect entry fees on the day of the meet. Please do not enter unless you actually plan to show up and participate. We'll consider your email entry as a commitment and uncancelled no-shows will be expected to pay anyway. No deck entries allowed. H2O has it's normally scheduled Sat morning practice from 7-8:30am. All Meet participants are welcome and encouraged to participate in the H2O practice prior to the Meet Here you even compare your practice with the meet ------------------------------------------ MEET DAY SCHEDULE ------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------ MEET FROMAT ------------------------------------------ Statement calling it a practice. this is a USMS "practice" rather than a "Meet".

what about some crazy scoring that would 'level' the field so large teams and small teams would have 'equal' opportunity of winning the meet. Here's what I mean, score as usual, but then divide the total score by the number of swimmers on a team, resulting in an AVERAGE score per swimmer. The team with the highest average score would win. (Team A with 50 swimmers scores 450 points would average 9 points per swimmer, team B with 30 swimmers scores 300 would average 10 points per swimmer--team B wins) This could be extended to individuals as well... Divide the individuals total score by the number of events and you would get the average score per swim. What about allowing heat winners to contribute 1 point to the total score or DQ's causing a 5 pt debit to his/her total score as well as to the teams total score. That could make things get really interesting.

Winning based on an average point per event would encourage people to swim only the events they are good at otherwise they would hurt the team.

How about a contest to see who can come closest to their seed times? All of a sudden the chronic sandbaggers would suddenly have a much better idea of how fast they would swim in a given race...

And encouraging people to swim only their best events would help reduce the number of heats per event and make coaches think twice about who to put in what event. I went to an age group meet not too long ago where the team who won, won by the sheer number of swimmers they had, more swimmers getting low scores equals a high total score. They didn't necessarily have better swimmers, just more of them.

Originally posted by Howard I'm not an attorney but it seems to me you hurt the case of calling it a practice each time you refer to it as a meet. Any familiar enough with our insurance policy care to comment. I think doing things differently is great but I'd hate to go to a meet and have something happen only to find we aren't covered. Keep in mind that it is not unheard of for a team to have a practice meet. The kids' swim team at the YMCA where I swim does this each fall, partly to give new swimmers a chance to get the feel of what it's like to be at a meet before going to one that counts. They divide their team into three groups, which are matched for age, sex, and swimming ability, and then have them compete in an unofficial meet. So I don't think that calling it a "meet" would disqualify it as being "practice".

Peter, great idea How about a contest to see who can come closest to their seed times? In SPMA we have had the Turkey shoot meet for over 20 years, at Pierce College in Woodland Hills Kalifornia. It is held just before Thanksgiving. The person in each event (50 meters free, *** etc.) closest to their seed time wins a certificate to the local supermarket for a Turkey or other food. People sometimes get their exact time, although a tenth of a second will win sometimes. This is a great meet, always have fun. I enter meets as soon as the forms come out, sometimes months before. That may be one of the reasons I have never won a Turkey! I was sick last year, otherwise I have never missed this meet in 20 years! Here is the link to our Turkey Shoot meet: www.spma.net/meetforms.htm We have had people from all over the world show up, you are all invited. You can even deck enter. Mark your calendars, November 21st.

Are there any insurance issues since it isn't a USMS sanctioned meet?