Originally posted by Karen Duggan
Mark M.,
Your post illustrates my point:
If you look at the places you provided for the medium teams at Tempe and divided them into club and SUPERTEAM, 1st-3rd would have been the same in the club division, but the SUPERTEAMS would have moved up considerably in their own division.
Lindsay,
When I discussed this at workout today, everybody I talked to said that SUPERTEAMS get to pick and choose their relays from entire states or regions. If that's not an advantage... Mark M. himself said he wouldn't get to swim on the 'A' relay... Several others have said they "band together" to swim relays. Hmm, relays are double the points. Hmm, more relays, more opportunities to score? YES!
This is a very good reason to divide into the club and SUPERTEAM divisions.
Also, an observation/question: So when Nationals is in the West it will be dominated by the club teams (because that is what is mostly out here) and when it's in the East SUPERTEAMS will do well? That should tell somebody something!
Actually, I wonder if the Superteam concept helps more when traveling,than when the meet is in the Superteam's concept. When the meet is in Indy, I go, because it is close, I get to have the fun of swimming on a relay(and in 20 years, I might actually score some points). But this year the meet is in Florida, which is time and expense I am not willing to take to swim. However, for people who swimming is more than a fitness activity(hence have more competitive ability than I), are more apt to go to a distant meet. So I actually think the Superteam from Illinois is going to be faster this year than last. That is, if you look at the % of swimmers going to the % that scores. Probably a lot of the lesser swimmers like myself are not going. It is early, and this probably makes no sense. But anyway, the proximity of the meet, the closer it is, draws out the non-scorers more than the scorers.
I wasn't bucking for "everybody gets an award" because then the awards are meaningless, unless they are participation things. My four year old was very upset to get a participation trophy because everybody got one. He wanted the "age group" trophy and when I explained to him that he actually had to LEARN TO SWIM and enter a race to be considered, he yelled, "I do know how to swim!" But I digress... we talked and now he is proud of his trophy.
But speaking of the "not so fast swimmers" who will probably not score (myself included) I remember FLIGHTS as an age grouper.
In most meets it was an 'A' flight and a 'B' flight and the only separation was times. If you had your 'A' time you were in the 'A' flight... There were point totals for each flight and then the combined team total for both flights. Team awards were based only on the combined total.
That sort of a set up would certainly encourage "slower" (and I use the term loosely) swimmers to race and they would definitely contribute to the team point total.
Flights are easy to set up. For Masters, since there are no time standards like USS, it would be easy to look at each event. For example: 25 men enter the 50-54 100 free. The fastest 12 (or 13) are in the "blue" flight (or whatever designation is chosen) and the rest are in the "white" flight. When you combine the two flights both the fast and not so fast have contributed to, voila, a combined team total.
That might be a different way to approach this whole team thing?
If it is true, as previous posts seem to indicate, that the main determining factor in winning a trophy (or banner in this case) is living near to where Nationals are held, perhaps it does make sense to scrap them altogether.
I still like the idea of using scores like the FINA world cup and championships because it gives you a result that is independent of how other swimmers do (unlike position points) and independent of event (unlike times). Seems more in keeping with the USMS mission and general spirit of masters swimming.
The top 2 or 3 spots are most likely going to be won by teams living near the meet site. However, when we score 10 deep, we will have teams from all across the country place.
The South Central Zone SCY Championships in Houston last year had really nice medals in the shape of the Great State of Texas, and since they only awarded them for 1-3, I was pretty excited about taking home a couple of them. Unfortunately, since I was the only member of my club competing (geography could have been a factor), we didn't win a team award.
From the comments so far, a good system would:not leave swimmers from small clubs unable to swim relays
help boost sense of affiliation with team
- teammates cheer for you
- way for slower swimmers to contribute to team points
With respect to club versus regional teams the question arises do members of clubs need affiliation more than members of regional teams or vica versa?
What is the basic principle behind small team/large team divisions? How does it differ from fast swimmer/slow swimmer distinctions?
Are there mechanisms for allowing small club swimmers to participate in relays short of regional teams? E.g. exhibition status (no points) relays. Is there any justification for this route?
Shouldn't the solution to "it gets old being beaten all the time" be to get faster?
It seems to me that the basic flaw is the FINA requirement that relay team members be part of the same club where club is loosely defined. USMS could simply ignore that rule, with the only consequence being that some relays would not qualify as FINA records.
-------- other unorganized thoughts: -------------
Some people have brought up double points, what is the justification for these?
Unless the number of awards is increased dividing the awards between club teams and regional teams means that some teams that would have won an award in a non-split system might not win an award in the split system. How is this justified?
Individuals drive to win versus team building
- stacking?
- relay teams
- points to members of relays instead of teams
- in the spirit of personal best, what is wrong with four unaffiliated swimmers joining together to see how fast they can go in a relay? e.g. four fastest swimmers in 40-44 age group do a relay. Allow as exhibition swim?
why not award points for participation?
- one point for each swimmer
- one point for each NQT swim
- one point for each relay swim
basic tension between participation and performance
FINA rules require affiliation
Actually, the real solution to all this would be to adopt something like the FINA point system adopted to age groups. All swims would contribute to the team score and the emphasis would be on improving the team score instead of adjusting the rules to get your team to rank higher.
Originally posted by Karen Duggan
That sort of a set up would certainly encourage "slower" (and I use the term loosely) swimmers to race and they would definitely contribute to the team point total.
This is wacky. Why should slow swimmers get points? What motivation is it for the fast guys (Jerry Clark, Fritz Lehman) if some slow, out of shape dude can show up and score as highly? All the motivation I need is watching the last couple of heats. If I contribute to my team's overall score, I want it to be because I was fast enough to earn those points not because I was slow enough that pity points were awarded to me.
USMS is ADULT swimming which implies that hopefully people are over the days of needing participation only points/trophies, as given when we were six.
