Super teams

Karen, The confusion starts with teams and clubs. Within USMS we define a club to be "an organization or group of permanent character that is a member of USMS,registered through an LMSC and that actively promotes and/or participates in Masters swimming." These are all the groups that register with your LMSC and are recognized by USMS. In your case, Walnut Creek Masters is the club. In my case, Swim Kentucky Masters is the club. USMS also allows teams to exist within clubs. These are defined as "a group of swimmers representing the same club in a competition." Teams can exist within a club, but doesn't exist external to the club. In my case, I swim with Crescent Hill Masters. In meets within the Kentucky LSMC we compete against the other teams within our club. However, as far as USMS is concerned, in competition we are still Swim Kentucky Masters. It might be possible to group clubs based on if they consist of multiple teams of not. However, currently, when a club registers with USMS, that information is not captured. However, I don't think that would be hard to change. I do think the issue of how club are organized will be a challenge. Is there a difference between a club that has 3 teams located in three different cities and a club that has no separate teams, but has practice locations in three different cities? Are both a super team or only the first? Then one has to wonder if we did adopt something like this, would we have superteams reorganize themselves to get out of the superteam category, but still operate as they currently do. All it would require would be changing how the club competes within the state. This is similar to the problem we have had in the past of clubs asking slower swimmers to be unattached so they coculd lower their numbers and compete in the small team division at nationals.

Karen, The confusion starts with teams and clubs. Within USMS we define a club to be "an organization or group of permanent character that is a member of USMS,registered through an LMSC and that actively promotes and/or participates in Masters swimming." These are all the groups that register with your LMSC and are recognized by USMS. In your case, Walnut Creek Masters is the club. In my case, Swim Kentucky Masters is the club. USMS also allows teams to exist within clubs. These are defined as "a group of swimmers representing the same club in a competition." Teams can exist within a club, but doesn't exist external to the club. In my case, I swim with Crescent Hill Masters. In meets within the Kentucky LSMC we compete against the other teams within our club. However, as far as USMS is concerned, in competition we are still Swim Kentucky Masters. It might be possible to group clubs based on if they consist of multiple teams of not. However, currently, when a club registers with USMS, that information is not captured. However, I don't think that would be hard to change. I do think the issue of how club are organized will be a challenge. Is there a difference between a club that has 3 teams located in three different cities and a club that has no separate teams, but has practice locations in three different cities? Are both a super team or only the first? Then one has to wonder if we did adopt something like this, would we have superteams reorganize themselves to get out of the superteam category, but still operate as they currently do. All it would require would be changing how the club competes within the state. This is similar to the problem we have had in the past of clubs asking slower swimmers to be unattached so they coculd lower their numbers and compete in the small team division at nationals.