Meg,
I was talking to my husband about this. He totally understands your point of view, as do I, because he grew up in CT (speaking of small states)!
As far as the competition goes: we too are lucky if we get 50 swimmers to attend Nationals. It's expensive, far, have children, jobs, etc... everyone has these things going on, no matter where we live. I think it's awesome that you can come together as a team for meets, but we're (WCM) a team ALL THE TIME.
You all have educated me, thank you, and I really do see what you are saying and understand it :) Again, and I'm being redundant I know, but if USMS is going to have team competitions there should be a club team division and a SUPERTEAM division. And if I'm going to say that, I should probably bring up the whole "residency" thing. Although I don't want to because that's a can of worms I don't have an answer for! By residency I mean that perhaps there should be a rule that you belong to the team within 100 square miles of where you live (or whatever number is agreed upon- it might be different in different areas) etc. WAIT,WAIT don't hit me! I think it's not necessarily a good idea for several reasons: how do you enforce this? is it fair? it would probably require restructuring, blah blah blah
I do believe that addressing this issue is a huge undertaking, but I also think that it is important and some changes need to be made.
Rob,
All 12 members in North Dakota would not be in the same size team division as WCM unless we had a similar number, which has been the case at many LC Nationals. We too haven't been able to put together relays at several LC Nationals, but oh well, that's just the way it was. We weren't upset about it. To answer your question, no.
Meg,
I was talking to my husband about this. He totally understands your point of view, as do I, because he grew up in CT (speaking of small states)!
As far as the competition goes: we too are lucky if we get 50 swimmers to attend Nationals. It's expensive, far, have children, jobs, etc... everyone has these things going on, no matter where we live. I think it's awesome that you can come together as a team for meets, but we're (WCM) a team ALL THE TIME.
You all have educated me, thank you, and I really do see what you are saying and understand it :) Again, and I'm being redundant I know, but if USMS is going to have team competitions there should be a club team division and a SUPERTEAM division. And if I'm going to say that, I should probably bring up the whole "residency" thing. Although I don't want to because that's a can of worms I don't have an answer for! By residency I mean that perhaps there should be a rule that you belong to the team within 100 square miles of where you live (or whatever number is agreed upon- it might be different in different areas) etc. WAIT,WAIT don't hit me! I think it's not necessarily a good idea for several reasons: how do you enforce this? is it fair? it would probably require restructuring, blah blah blah
I do believe that addressing this issue is a huge undertaking, but I also think that it is important and some changes need to be made.
Rob,
All 12 members in North Dakota would not be in the same size team division as WCM unless we had a similar number, which has been the case at many LC Nationals. We too haven't been able to put together relays at several LC Nationals, but oh well, that's just the way it was. We weren't upset about it. To answer your question, no.
