And Craig....everyone knows Apples and oranges can't swim....
Sure they can, not they can't, yes they can...here we go again....
Where is the Dark Force when we need help........
Originally posted by Karen Duggan
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.
Fine. You won't define fair for me so I'll just ignore it from now on. Teams differ for an endless list of reasons.
Originally posted by mbmg3282
Fritz,
I think the problem to be addressed is how to score nationals such that independent clubs don't feel the need to become superclubs to be competitive.
I am open to suggestions.
If the feeling was that current legislation helped meet this goal then I'd say leave it alone for a couple years and see what happens before we start thinking it's broken.
What do you should we should look for? I'm being serious.
Fritz made a valid point a page back that perhaps we should wait a few years and see if this new system is broken before changing it.
He also asked if the current rule helped the problem of smaller clubs feeling like they needed to join others and become superclubs to be competitive.
My answer to that is sort of. The rule that was originally proposed last year at convention was to get ride of the small, medium and large system and replace it with a club and superclub division. The issue become bogged down with how to define a club versus superclub and the championship committee decided to divide the issue into two parts. First, change the small, medium and large system to 1-10. Then, come back in another year and try the club versus superclub divisions. Rules are evalutated every two years typically at convention, three nationals will take place before this will likely be voted on. Democracy is not a fast process.
Is this a perfect solution - probably not.
As many of you have pointed out, the top places will be dominated by teams live a short distance from the meet. Anything short of a near and far division will not address that.
Within any division we come up, there will still be small and large teams.
What should we be looking for in a rule that addresses the team awards?
If we can come up with something that encourages superclubs to actively participate in the meet, that is good.
If we can come up with a something that encourages smaller clubs to also participate that is good.
My thought was a club and superclub division still promotes participation among large and small clubs. Yes, there are some small superclubs and some large clubs. But overall, it would allow for more of the smaller teams to have a shot at placing at a national championship than our current system. I beleive that this will stimulate greater participation among these teams.
Mark (Mattson),
I agree with you that the current system is not an improvement on many levels. I guess the positive it has over the small, medium and large system is that the scoring anamolies should not be present. However, as you point out, this is not going to be helpful to the small teams.
Teams that placed in the small team division in the past usually will be able to place in the top 10. True, this is not always the case. I suspect it is more likely to happen when the meets are out west. There we have a greater number of local clubs that live near potential meet sites and will be able to bring swimmers. Consider the difference between Tempe (CA has a number of teams that came to the meet and placed) and Indy (IN is surrounded by superclubs - SKY, IM, MM, etc). Thus, small teams at INDY would still be able to place with the new system.
Overall, I feel the current proposal is only part of a solution. In the meantime, we disenfranchise the smaller teams.
It seems to me that there are two issues being mixed up here, one is fairness, which I think most of us think of in terms of evenness of competition or avoidance of unfair advantage; the other is what is the purpose of team competition?
I don't think anyone has made a convincing argument that a superteam with members from all over a state has an unfair advantage over a club team with an equal number of swimmers. Different does not equal unfair if there is no advantage.
The question of why have team competition at all needs to be answered before one can consider the advantages or disadvantages of different systems.
Originally posted by Rob Copeland
Are you saying we should have separate events for superteams? Will I be swimming the Men’s 45-49 SuperTeam 1650 and not have to compete against the club team milers?
Now we are getting somewhere. I would subdivide it further--early and late bloomers (or if we wanted to be scientific, calculate VO2max!).
