Originally posted by Karen Duggan
Meg,
The following is a friendly tone as the computer doesn't always convey tone well :)
My tone is intended to be friendly too! I think you and I just have an honest difference of opinion. All I was trying to get across is that we are more alike than we are different.
There is that basic fundamental difference between the club team and the SUPERTEAM. It's not good or bad, it just is. I have to agree with Mark Gill that having the club team and SUPERTEAM divisions at Nationals doesn't take away from any group.
I just don't think it's that simple to define a superteam. I think there's a big difference between having one team for the entire Kentucky LMSC and a team like New England Masters. For Kentucky, it's a population equalizer. We only have 500 Masters swimmers in the entire LMSC. New England covers several high-population-density states, and they have their own reasons for banding together to form one club (I don't want to speak for them and make assumptions about why they chose the superteam route). Using the rule of thumb that 10% of a team/club's swimmers actually compete, then would it be fair to put Kentucky's 50 swimmers up against New England's 170 swimmers at Nationals? It just isn't black and white, that's all I'm saying.
Just FYI, there is a much larger club team than WCM, USF (University of San Francisco) who regularly kicks our butt at the Pacific Masters Championships. It's sheer numbers. We never complain because they are just bigger (although if you divided the total points by the swimmers, we'd win :) ). But they all swim at the same pool, same coaches, etc. It's swimming apples with apples, not apples with oranges.
In local meets, the team that puts the most swimmers in the water ALWAYS wins because almost every swimmer scores. When we have the Kentucky Short Course Championships, also known as the Wildcat Masters Invitational, at my home pool, my subteam clobbers all the other subteams on sheer numbers too. That's why the home team doesn't compete for the trophies. It's only at Nationals that numbers alone doesn't get it done. Consider this: in Indianapolis SKY had 32 women and Rocky Mountain Masters had 18 women (and I guess this is apples to apples since we are both superteams!). That put us both in the medium team division. In spite of having nearly twice as many swimmers as RMM, we finished only half a point ahead of them!
I guess I'm just saying I respect your opinion, but I like things the way they are and don't want to change the system. It isn't perfect, but I think the positives outweigh the negatives.
Originally posted by Karen Duggan
Meg,
The following is a friendly tone as the computer doesn't always convey tone well :)
My tone is intended to be friendly too! I think you and I just have an honest difference of opinion. All I was trying to get across is that we are more alike than we are different.
There is that basic fundamental difference between the club team and the SUPERTEAM. It's not good or bad, it just is. I have to agree with Mark Gill that having the club team and SUPERTEAM divisions at Nationals doesn't take away from any group.
I just don't think it's that simple to define a superteam. I think there's a big difference between having one team for the entire Kentucky LMSC and a team like New England Masters. For Kentucky, it's a population equalizer. We only have 500 Masters swimmers in the entire LMSC. New England covers several high-population-density states, and they have their own reasons for banding together to form one club (I don't want to speak for them and make assumptions about why they chose the superteam route). Using the rule of thumb that 10% of a team/club's swimmers actually compete, then would it be fair to put Kentucky's 50 swimmers up against New England's 170 swimmers at Nationals? It just isn't black and white, that's all I'm saying.
Just FYI, there is a much larger club team than WCM, USF (University of San Francisco) who regularly kicks our butt at the Pacific Masters Championships. It's sheer numbers. We never complain because they are just bigger (although if you divided the total points by the swimmers, we'd win :) ). But they all swim at the same pool, same coaches, etc. It's swimming apples with apples, not apples with oranges.
In local meets, the team that puts the most swimmers in the water ALWAYS wins because almost every swimmer scores. When we have the Kentucky Short Course Championships, also known as the Wildcat Masters Invitational, at my home pool, my subteam clobbers all the other subteams on sheer numbers too. That's why the home team doesn't compete for the trophies. It's only at Nationals that numbers alone doesn't get it done. Consider this: in Indianapolis SKY had 32 women and Rocky Mountain Masters had 18 women (and I guess this is apples to apples since we are both superteams!). That put us both in the medium team division. In spite of having nearly twice as many swimmers as RMM, we finished only half a point ahead of them!
I guess I'm just saying I respect your opinion, but I like things the way they are and don't want to change the system. It isn't perfect, but I think the positives outweigh the negatives.
