Recruiting

Originally posted by Frank Thompson Julie: I am sorry and stand corrected. I must have mixed you and Michael up with someone else. That's a nice jesture to help another team at Nationals. What exactly are you talking about when you say helping another team at nationals???? One - Julie swam unattached at nationals, as she always does. Two - She is the LMSC registrar, it's her job to do the records.

Originally posted by Michael Heather Um, Connie, meet Skip. Skip, meet Connie. Now that you two have been introduced properly, perhaps we can discuss the dangers of misunderstanding in internet communications. I think that has happened here. Although I do not believe that he meant any harm or insult by his remarks, I also am not sure what point he was trying to make, and accept his apology for having put me on the wrong team. I do not believe that it was so egregious that he needs to be singled out. There are lots of mistakes made on these DF threads and I have made some doozies. I sure hope it's a misunderstanding!!! Sorry about being so confrontational. I don't like it much when recruiting, unethical, my team, You and Julie and other people that I personally know are mentioned in the same story without a clear point and some leading inferences, *especially* when it's not based on factual information!

Originally posted by Conniekat8 One - Julie swam unattached at nationals, as she always does. There is no requirement that I swim UNAT. It has always been my personal policy to compete for the group that I work out with. Since I work out on my own now I've been swimming UNAT. As a matter of fact, I will need to affiliate with some club for Worlds next year since they do not allow UNAT swimmers.

Originally posted by jpheather I will need to affiliate with some club for Worlds next year since they do not allow UNAT swimmers. ...and the bidding starts at.... (just kidding, Julie!) :)

Originally posted by umasswim I don't think it is bad if a person swam with a certain team and then moved for them to stay with their old team. Case in Point Karlyn Pipes Nielson swam for SDSM for a very long time but then moved to Hawaii but continues to swim for SDSM because she knows everyone and feels part of their team. However, I know SDSM recruits swimmers as far away as Canada and some have never even been to San Diego. All I can say to that is we(SSLM) tend to have more fun as a team since we know and train with all of our team members everyday. In the end, SDSM can have the records if they want them that bad. I was happy to see our team cheering behind the blocks on every swim because of the team connection. To me, fun and comraderie will always be more important and a reason to swim/coach than records. Dan Peck swimsmarter.com Swim Smarter La Jolla Masters (Go SSLiM) So, I suppose if I liked and respected your team, and wanted to swim attached to your team, you'd tell me NO, because I don't have any plans to move to your town. That looks more cliquish then camaraderie promoting. My own team has a number of satellite swimmers, those who have swam for us at one time or another and have preferred to continue to swim attached to our team. We have them in places as far away as China, some in Pacific Northwest, Idaho and other places. There's also a few people that have approached us over past years and asked if they can swim attached to our team. They said they like our presence at meets, and prefer that to swimming unattached, all by themselves. Pesonally, I like our 'satellite' swimmers, we often host them with locals, I hosted couple of them during the nationals, several other teammates hosted few others. There's nothing in USMS that prevents a swimmer from attaching to whatever team they want to swim for, as long as the transfer is done properly.

A point of clarification; it always seems that folks get upity on this so called recruiting issue....the assumption being that when people swim for another team not in their area its to break records or win chanpionships. I've mentioned the example of John reuniting his 11-12 year old relay teamates fo this past nationals......something that had the opposite efect (on records and championships). Yes at times i'm sure it happens but my view is that its great to pull old "has beens" out of retirement and get them back in the water! 'd love to get Bruce Stahl (my UCSB teamate) back in action and would welcome him with open arms wehter he as in shape or not. Remember.....its easy to assume that some "elitist" conspiracy exists but I think that's very rare. We need growth in this sport and since no one at Usms seems to want to develop and implement an effective marketing campaign we need to rely on our members more tha anything!

Conniekat, I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say. This original post was about "recruiting" in an effort to form super relays. I was not talking about holding people off our team if they wanted to join and I take offense to the insinuation that we are being a clique(sp?). Anyone that wants to join our team can, but I am not actively "recruiting" for faster swimmers. I also never once stated that I thought rules of transfer were being violated. I also said I didn;t really care whether or not people did form super teams in order to break a record. I just stated that I was not going to do it, and that our team had a great time as a team at Nationals because we all trained together and knew each other. I think team comraderie(what you call cliquish) can be a more fun experience than breaking a relay record and that is why I do not recruit. If anyone wants to be on our team from out of town than they are interested in being part of our team and getting to know us not just breaking relay records.

Originally posted by bud This is news to me. Our LMSC registrar has been attached to a team for years. I cruised some of the resources, but all I could come up with is this... Someone who is usually up on the rules told me that certain USMS officers have to swim unattached due to potential conflict of interest or what not. Sounded plausible so I didn't go reading the rules. Turns out that my 'advisor' was not correct on that one.

Originally posted by Frank Thompson I mixed up Michael with Wayne McCauley. Julie pointed out my error and I made the proper response apology. About the doing the records at the meet, I said it was a nice jesture to help another team with the records at Nationals. I meant that statement as a positive statement. Not all LMSC's and Clubs have a policy that the registrars do the meet records at Nationals. So I interpret my statement as positive and not negative. When my LMSC and Club ran the Long Course National meet, I did the records and I was not our Registrar. I am very well aware of who Mark Moore is and I am very well aware of who Wayne McCauley is and they are very well aware of who I am. I was trying to make an example to Mr. Goodsmith about the differences in recruiting a World team all over the country to a team recruiting in the general area of the LMSC. In that last paragraph of my post I referenced the wrong people. I know Michael Heather understands and I appreciate his comments. About Julie doing the records I never said anything about her being unattached as derogatory in doing the meet records. Actually when she pointed out my error I felt embarrassed and tried to throw a compliment. I have known both Michael and Julie for almost 18 years and they both know me so there was no malice regarding this. I never said anything about the San Diego masters or the Canadian swimmer and PNA swimmer that was on there World Record relay, that was horn Head and Kirk Nelson making those references. The whole purpose of the past practices was to show Mr. Goodsmith what went on 1988 and how the swimmers in USMS might not want to repeat the practice. The postive out of that is that the Smith brothers will work with Mark Gill to change system the way it is now to having FINA member countries compete in the meet with the swimmers reresenting there delegations not there clubs. I still plan on addressing Swimmer Bill about his thoughts about what went on in 1988. Thank You for the clarification. Sorry I jumped all over you.

Connie, I'm glad that USMS has you as well as all the committed folks that help run it but the truth is that USMs has not shown any ability to take marketing up to a level beyond flyers, bulletin boards, etc. etc. all things that advertise to our small exisitng base. John nailed it, our membership demographic is a gold mine to sponosors (something Mel has mentioned many times) and we should be aggresively attempting to meet and cobrand with companies such as: Centrum, Mercedes Benz, Carnival Cruises, etc. etc.. Does anyone recall seeing any sponsorship banners surfing this site by the way? Ok, you found them....how about non swimming? OK, how many advertise on TV or magazines and tie into USMS? The problem I saw at my last convention however was that a large part of the markting folks had a real fear of going out and "selling" our product (conact list) to these types of sponsors. Bill, love the new rag but look at your sponoors (look hard to find them)? Great work on the one hand, but man if you came to my fortune 500 company and I saw your demographic but how little representaton you we're giving advertisers I wouldn't be to keen. There are far more experienced PR/Marketing types on this foum than me......what say you folks?