I try to avoid soap boxes, especially where laundry is concerned:p ...
Preface: My 13 month old had surgery this AM at 6:15 and I was up half the night, upset and not sleeping, so please forgive the lack of thought processes today.
Jerry,
I am more than happy to try to tackle the entire problem. As I mentioned in the earlier pages of this thread I can only speak to my own team. For me, this thread started out mostly as my opinion, and I was gathering information from lots of other people as I couldn't relate to the rest of the country's dilemma.
I DO UNDERSTAND the whole "we don't have enough people to make up relays" thing. I DO! That is not what I was arguing. I was simply saying that it is not fair to the established club teams to compete against seemingly random entire state and LMSC's.
I have given reasons why a club team is a club team and a SUPERTEAM isn't (see the 10 posted earlier), however I left out one very important thing- it's also a pride thing. Kerry has built this awesome program that I am very proud to be a part of. I'm sorry the rest of the country doesn't have that, maybe they don't want it, I don't know- but the point is we are proud of our club and our accomplishments. Think about colleges and universities, for example, they are proud of their affiliation (if they have one- my college team was cut) and proud to compete under that particular name. The name has meaning. In Kerry's case Walnut Creek Masters has tremendous meaning to us. And also, for all of the people, earlier in this thread, who mentioned that they are forming SUPERTEAMS to swim relays, that illustrates my point of how important the idea of a team is!
I am not against SUPERTEAMS. If that's what people have to do to swim relays, fine. I am against club teams swimming against entire LMSC's, regions, and states.
Also, another thought. WCM is going to get lunched at Nationals. I am quite certain that we will not be in the Top 5 in any category if the SUPERTEAMS are there. This new idea actually encourages the creation of SUPERTEAMS! This new structure is worse than small, medium, and large. If they do keep this format at future Nationals, I am going to get really vocal at the Pacific meetings and suggest that we compete as Pacific Masters at Nationals. With 25% of the USMS population, we'll win every Nationals from here to forever and all of the relay records will say "Pacific Masters". Won't that be fun?
I think I'll go back to one of my original suppostions that we should do away with team categories altogether! Some on this thread have said it's all about the individual competing against themselves, right. What do we need team competitions for?
I try to avoid soap boxes, especially where laundry is concerned:p ...
Preface: My 13 month old had surgery this AM at 6:15 and I was up half the night, upset and not sleeping, so please forgive the lack of thought processes today.
Jerry,
I am more than happy to try to tackle the entire problem. As I mentioned in the earlier pages of this thread I can only speak to my own team. For me, this thread started out mostly as my opinion, and I was gathering information from lots of other people as I couldn't relate to the rest of the country's dilemma.
I DO UNDERSTAND the whole "we don't have enough people to make up relays" thing. I DO! That is not what I was arguing. I was simply saying that it is not fair to the established club teams to compete against seemingly random entire state and LMSC's.
I have given reasons why a club team is a club team and a SUPERTEAM isn't (see the 10 posted earlier), however I left out one very important thing- it's also a pride thing. Kerry has built this awesome program that I am very proud to be a part of. I'm sorry the rest of the country doesn't have that, maybe they don't want it, I don't know- but the point is we are proud of our club and our accomplishments. Think about colleges and universities, for example, they are proud of their affiliation (if they have one- my college team was cut) and proud to compete under that particular name. The name has meaning. In Kerry's case Walnut Creek Masters has tremendous meaning to us. And also, for all of the people, earlier in this thread, who mentioned that they are forming SUPERTEAMS to swim relays, that illustrates my point of how important the idea of a team is!
I am not against SUPERTEAMS. If that's what people have to do to swim relays, fine. I am against club teams swimming against entire LMSC's, regions, and states.
Also, another thought. WCM is going to get lunched at Nationals. I am quite certain that we will not be in the Top 5 in any category if the SUPERTEAMS are there. This new idea actually encourages the creation of SUPERTEAMS! This new structure is worse than small, medium, and large. If they do keep this format at future Nationals, I am going to get really vocal at the Pacific meetings and suggest that we compete as Pacific Masters at Nationals. With 25% of the USMS population, we'll win every Nationals from here to forever and all of the relay records will say "Pacific Masters". Won't that be fun?
I think I'll go back to one of my original suppostions that we should do away with team categories altogether! Some on this thread have said it's all about the individual competing against themselves, right. What do we need team competitions for?
