Super teams

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?

Hi Fritz, Instead of retyping it again, I'll just refer you back to my "10 reasons" post, and especially numbers 2, 4, and 5, I think they were. I also pointed out that there are inherent differences in swimming: 1) females don't swim against males (mixed relays excepted) 2) 19 year olds don't swim against 85 year olds 3) club teams are different than SUPERTEAMS (for reasons above and shouldn't be made to compete against them- no matter how good or bad either is) Fritz, Why should Walnut Creek be made to compete against the state of North Carolina? Apples and oranges.

This whole thread is starting to sound like there's a faction that wants to create a category so that they can win a prize, as opposed to the teams who actually have the talent to win the prize. I'll take the NC top 50 against anyone, although WCM sure is a great and strong team.

Originally posted by Karen Duggan If there are just the two divisions and 1-10, that's only 20 categories total. I'd rather take my chances against DAM (even with their huge membership) than the whole state of Illinois. It seems like that solves the problem for WCM, but does nothing for the smaller teams (for whom WCM is for all intents and purposes a "superteam"). By "problem" I'm referring to winning a team championship (I think).

Originally posted by Fritz I've been thinking about this a little more trying to see if I'm just missing it. 3) club teams are different than SUPERTEAMS (for reasons above and shouldn't be made to compete against them- no matter how good or bad either is) There's nothing here that shows anything about advantage or fairness. Different? OK but club teams are different as well. Karen, it's your fairness argument that I can't get. If you want to argue that there are different types of teams and we shouldn't mix then fine. I can sort of understand that. Just be prepared to define, in measurable terms, how teams are defined. QUOTE] Fritz, You ARE missing it. I said "different" (4th word from the left). I never said advantage. I only say "fair" not because we're not going to win or not win, it's about swimming apples with apples. That's why I used the gender and age examples. Women vs. women. Same age with same age, alike teams with alike teams! 'Geek, I wasn't sure if this was aimed at me or not: Do you think that I want a separate category so my team will win a prize? If you think that, you're wrong. That's not the point. Club teams are DIFFERENT than SUPERTEAMS and should be scored differently. I believe I mentioned I'd rather take my lumps against DAM than IM because DAM and WCM are similar. Ugh.

Mark, On the surface it would appear easy to separate the club teams from the SUPERTEAMS. Some are easy: All teams in CA (except SCAQ) are club teams. Illinois, Rocky Mountain, Kentucky, New England, etc. are not like the CA teams. Even people on these SUPERTEAMS ADMIT the difference! I do not know enough about how LMSC's are set up or what information USMS has. Looking at this website there is A LOT of information out there. Suggestions would be: 1) To ask the right questions. What makes a SUPERTEAM a SUPERTEAM? etc. Although that is the crux of it all. 2) Get a group together to sift through all of the information and see what delineations would be do-able? 3) Remember that the numbers of people attending Nationals is not important anymore. Again, this would be the perfect time to have club division vs. SUPERTEAM division, 1-10 combined= 20 places instead of 30 (men, women, combined).

Hmmm, I was just thinking... scary I know... How are NCAA schools put into the three different divisions I, II, and III? Would anything like that (whatever "that" may be) work for Masters? (By the way, they are divided by gender because men and women are DIFFERENT :p )

Someone explain again what the problem is that's being addressed?

What's unfair about 50 swimmers from WCM swimming against 50 swimmers from North Carolina? I don't get this whole fair thing. Sorry.

50 swimmers against 50 swimmers. I really don't see how your 10 reasons answer that question. There are lots of teams that don't meet your 10 reasons. Are they all superteams?