Super teams

Hi Karen, I appreciate and applaud your efforts on this topic. It would be nice to have a distinction between "combined state" or "regions" vs. Individual Clubs. The larger the individual club, the harder some coach or person has worked to get it that way. That kind of growth deserves recognition that is hard to come by (locally and nationally) when competeing against larger combined states or regions. If seperate catagories can not be agreed upon, it would be nice if USMS could do something to recognize the clubs. Case in point: New England Masters - registered USMS members = 1070, participating in One Hour Swim = 277. Indy SwimFit (club) - registered USMS members =303, participating in One Hour Swim = 200.

Something to think about: Team A (pop. 50,000 area) has 80 swimmers reg. and 50 swim at a local meet. This team is coached or has some type of workout assistance for the swimmer. They take 2 nd place at the local meet. Team B (pop. 2,000,000 +) has 850 swimmers reg. and 60 swim at a local meet, but they are put together as a LMSC team. They workout with other Reg. teams within the LMSC and only come together at local meets,Zones and Nationals. They take 1 st place at a local meet. Team A travels 4 hours to the local meet and Team B travels from 1 - 4 hours to the meet. Team B also has other small teams in their LMSC competing at the same local meet against them. So does a coach and team who does work hard to bring swimmers to the same meet and grow the team should compete against a LMSC team who want to swim relays? They could too go out and bring swimmer to the local team and try to grow the USMS or be self serving and just win a meet due to who they can email to swim on their team for the meet. This is not about changing the way we look at nationals, but how we operate a local club to promote Masters swimming in our areas. Should we continue to allow LMSC or region teams to exist or should we get rid of the club system? By the way USA-Swimming does not have LSC teams for national meets. I enjoy winning a meet if everyone is playing on a level pool and we are working to promote adult fitness ant the sametime.

Originally posted by Fritz ...close surrounding cities or bedroom communities. Does that include Fuquay-Varina?

Lets suppose we somehow do away with LMSC type clubs. OK fine. My home club is Raleigh Area Masters. We have somewhere around 150-180 swimmers who pay money to belong. Most of those people live in Raleigh and close surrounding cities or bedroom communities. We also have paying members that live anywhere from an hour to 3 hours away in state and another couple that live out of state. Are we any different than a "superteam"? Are we a "superteam". Would you change the rules so that our long distance members must join some other club? Part of the reason we have some members that live far away is that the club currently pays the USMS registration fee for our members over 70. Pretty good deal for them. Hope we don't have to stop because they can't workout with us.

USA swimming does have zones which allow the swimmers to compete as Team____(insert your state). So they do have a regional type meet. The swimmer has to have qualifying times(AAA times in their age group) to swim for their state. It is considered an honor for the age groupers, the older kids not so much. Probably because if a swimmer has a national cut, they cannot swim that event at zones.

Of course! Not to many people know about Fuqua.

Wow, you folks are getting more mileage out of this thread then I get out of a golf coarse turf in Spring Time.... Heck, even Ralph can't squeeze anymore miles out of a pair of old socks then you all are getting out of this thread. We are impressed….me too…. Kindest regards, Mr. Moose

I wonder what other sports would look like if teams were allowed to play however many players they wanted/could bring to the event. Baseball team not doing so well? Add a few extra outfielders. Really want to win the superbowl? Add another ten players to your offense to form a second line to protect your quarterback. Etc. etc. etc. Even the Olympics limits swim team size. If you want fair competition you have to have equal numbers. If you want fair competition at Nationals have clubs and regional teams field one or more teams of set, fixed size, I don't know what the appropriate sizes are, for the sake of argument say 4, 10, 20 and 32. Have some number of pennants for each of these team sizes. Voila! Fair competition.

Swimmore(at least how I read/interpretated it), imho, made a point about "for profit" teams, coached motivated teams (where there is a single driving force) and workout groups (where there is no single focus). Each group above has a different agenda/outlook (not to mention resources). How can we, as a Masters organization, give them all something to take back and make stronger - for the 'next season'. Is "Nationals" is the place for that? I am NOT saying that a workout group could EVER be a "for profit" -the pools, people, time, ROI - just aren't there. And that a workout group may not appreciate a 'banner' as much as a 'for profit team' - or in the same way. The sub-thread about 'everybody a winner' - struck a chord with me...I don't see a use in medals as placation devices, but I think there is value in acknowleging participation (not medals) for those that aren't as competitive (i.e. fast - score points) - better for Masters in general. IMHO maybe we have 2 different agendas in conflict....Masters as a means for competition, and Masters as promoting health/fun? (and yes, for some its the same thing). jack

How about promoting masters on a local level rather than on a state or LMSC. The LMSC should be in the business of helping promote local teams within the LMSC and not having a seperate team. Lets work on growing local programs and have them compete no matter how big they are. Fitness and healthy swimming begins in the local pools.