Recruiting

I read your other thread posting. Mark Gill is a LOT more diplomatic than I am for this sort of thing. Paul and I will twist his arm and make him bring it up as a topic. As for the next conventionand the records discussion... Paul Smith said he was not invited to i this year and is not going. Maybe he can talk to Marcia, our local rep. to initiate the subject. John Smith

We're right back to the club teams vs. super teams vs state teams...........! Evil-Goodsmith brings up an interesting point.....why don't we have a "national team" so to speak for a meet like worlds? I think we'd generate a lot more interest if it was the US against Germany, Australia, etc. etc rather than the Greely Guppies vs. Franfurt dogs vs. Sydnet downunders?!

Regarding "national" teams for Worlds: The team would have to be associated with one LMSC. Whatever registrar handles the registrations for this national team might just resign. Or you'll have to come up with some hazard pay. After having gone through registrartions and club changes for the recent Nationals and the headaches that entailed (Tracy and the Marks, Gill and Moore, can vouch for this), I wouldn't want to deal with it on a mega scale for Worlds. You'd be getting people transfering LMSCs, to the national club before, and back to their local LMSC and club after. Mega clubs are not, in my opinion, in the best interests of Masters swimming. The two largest LMSCs thrive because of the variety of clubs that are available for swimmers. We have swimmers from all over the country. Many start here, move away, but stay affiliated with their same club. We have swimmers who work out with one club, but compete for another. It's Masters, it's flexible. I don't think it is correct to be recruiting people away from other clubs, however. It is not in the spirit of Masters swimming.

I'm not sure I understand. It's ok to have "super teams" when we swim at the USMS nationals? Rocky Mountain, Az and Ill. are examples as are several other states. But it's not ok to have a "super team" to swim against the rest of the world? If masters swimmers in Calif were to do what Rocky Mountain has done, no other team would ever have a hope of any a relay record or top place team finish.

Paul, Unfortunately, FINA Masters rules are different from FINA rules with regard to national teams… FINA Masters MGR 3 states “Individual entries shall only be accepted from persons representing clubs. No swimmer or team may be designated as representing a country or Federation.” Darn, I’d love to see some national team relays, even if they had to be run as exhibition races. So for this to work someone would need to form a national club… talk about a super team!

ummm...I think there's one point that should be made about the Holmes Lumberjax club of 1988. According to the story, Rogers Holmes wanted to build a pool in Jacksonville. Apparently, his plan was to create the mega-team, win the World Championship, and use the team's success as a vehicle to convince others that they deserved the pool. I'm not saying it's right or wrong -- but apparently, they have raised a lot of money for the pool and have taught a lot of kids how to swim. To read the story from SWIM Magazine, go to: www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/.../200411-01swim_art.asp ~sb Originally posted by Frank Thompson Mr Goodsmith: Rob does not have a good idea and before he gets on this thread to tell me its perfectly legal by USMS and FINA Rules he would be correct. I am going to tell you about some past practices done around 1988 and will leave names out to protect the guilty or innocent depending on your point of view. Back in 1988 or so there was a team set up for purpose of building a USMS National Team. They would recruit the best swimmers available and today would be considered an elite super team. In fact they recruited from all over the country and accomplished there mission which was win team titles and break National/World Records for both individual and relay swims. The team basically was put together for the 1988 FINA World Swimming Championships in Brisbane Australia but did stay together for some USMS National Champonship Meets which they won. The team was succesful for about 5 or 6 years and started to die off after that. The person in charge of the team is very well respected in Swimming for his contributions and accomplshments and I won't deny that excellence. In fact this person is inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame and has been on the cover of Swim Magazine. As one of the leaders of USMS and a member of the board of directors at the time I never, ever, heard anything from the leadership supporting this and how it contributes to the overall good and objectives of USMS. I know many people that joined this team and they had there own reasons. I had two of my teamates join because of the financial incentives that the team provided. If you joined the team you were responsible to raise 50% of the money to go to Australia. Because these two swimmers did not have the money to afford a trip to Australia they thought it was a good opportunity to swim in a World Championship meet and see that part of the world in there old age. These two swimmers have passed away over 10 years ago. They both happened to be All American in the 70 and 75 age groups. Some people did not have a problem with this because of the age and financial condition of the swimmers. They did not hide the fact they were doing this because they were taking donations from swimmers to fund this activity. I have made friends of swimmers from other countries thru the years at International meets and it didn't matter where they were from be it Australia, Europe, or South America they would always bring this up as a reason to dislike USMS and what it stands for. Names like Superior, Imperialist, Controlling, and Decisive Power are just some of the names that were being tossed at USMS. In fact some of my international friends throught there was a conspiracy by USMS to support these actions. I assured them that this was not the case and the evidence that was provided was the other swimmers that swam for there regular USMS affiliation. Now I read a lot of the posts recently and say Michael Heather's one makes sense to me to get on a team if the current one does not have representation at a National Meet. I know he swam for Mission Viejo and his wife actually did the records for the meet so I don't have a problem with that. Its the INTENT that matters. People in the last few days have provided evidence of INTENT of ethics regarding this issue. It does not take a rhodes scholar to figure the different INTENTS of what clubs and swimmers are doing. Ok I am done. I am ready for the onslaught of striking attacks against this.

Mr Goodsmith: Rob does not have a good idea and before he gets on this thread to tell me its perfectly legal by USMS and FINA Rules he would be correct. I am going to tell you about some past practices done around 1988 and will leave names out to protect the guilty or innocent depending on your point of view. Back in 1988 or so there was a team set up for purpose of building a USMS National Team. They would recruit the best swimmers available and today would be considered an elite super team. In fact they recruited from all over the country and accomplished there mission which was win team titles and break National/World Records for both individual and relay swims. The team basically was put together for the 1988 FINA World Swimming Championships in Brisbane Australia but did stay together for some USMS National Champonship Meets which they won. The team was succesful for about 5 or 6 years and started to die off after that. The person in charge of the team is very well respected in Swimming for his contributions and accomplshments and I won't deny that excellence. In fact this person is inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame and has been on the cover of Swim Magazine. As one of the leaders of USMS and a member of the board of directors at the time I never, ever, heard anything from the leadership supporting this and how it contributes to the overall good and objectives of USMS. I know many people that joined this team and they had there own reasons. I had two of my teamates join because of the financial incentives that the team provided. If you joined the team you were responsible to raise 50% of the money to go to Australia. Because these two swimmers did not have the money to afford a trip to Australia they thought it was a good opportunity to swim in a World Championship meet and see that part of the world in there old age. These two swimmers have passed away over 10 years ago. They both happened to be All American in the 70 and 75 age groups. Some people did not have a problem with this because of the age and financial condition of the swimmers. They did not hide the fact they were doing this because they were taking donations from swimmers to fund this activity. I have made friends of swimmers from other countries thru the years at International meets and it didn't matter where they were from be it Australia, Europe, or South America they would always bring this up as a reason to dislike USMS and what it stands for. Names like Superior, Imperialist, Controlling, and Decisive Power are just some of the names that were being tossed at USMS. In fact some of my international friends throught there was a conspiracy by USMS to support these actions. I assured them that this was not the case and the evidence that was provided was the other swimmers that swam for there regular USMS affiliation. Now I read a lot of the posts recently and say Michael Heather's one makes sense to me to get on a team if the current one does not have representation at a National Meet. I know he swam for Mission Viejo and his wife actually did the records for the meet so I don't have a problem with that. Its the INTENT that matters. People in the last few days have provided evidence of INTENT of ethics regarding this issue. It does not take a rhodes scholar to figure the different INTENTS of what clubs and swimmers are doing. Ok I am done. I am ready for the onslaught of striking attacks against this.

I completely agree that at worlds we should all swim for team USA ... otherwise there are maybe two people from my team going so I will look for another team to swim with so I can do relays...

Rob has a good idea...... form a National Club Team to work within the rules. People who want to swim with a bigger National team format can join it for relay purposes, and people who prefer their local representation can remain with their regular USMS affiliation. Administrative problem though..... switching hundreds of people to a new USMS team affiliation before Worlds. Its a short time frame between Short Course Nationals and Worlds. John Smith

I will echo the observation that the super-team at the Aussi Worlds was highly unpopular there (& probably formed my attitudes against super-teams), even though I was there as a Canadian, all I heard was griping about it (primarily about relays). By the same token, I told the Aussies they were idiots for running their meet fastest to slowest, youngest to oldest, which resulted in the oldest, slowest competitors swimming 400 free at 11pm & later.