Is there really a division between masters swimmers? i.e. one camp allied to a more low key fitness oriented approach with low membership growth vs. a meet oriented competitive (elite) camp?
This sounds ridiculous to me. I don't think I've ever run into anyone that acknowledged this debate on a pool deck.
What spawns this rift in Masters swimming? Is this an old guard vs. younger member phenonmenon?
Are there different motivations that exist that create this conflict in terms of the future of USMS? Why can't both coexist?
I say we poll some people out there and find out what they support.
John Smith
Former Member
I've heard that this years Nationals in Coral Springs will be lower in attendance. Let's see how this affects the duration of the meet each day.
Matt S....... stop rambling. From now on, you are required to say what you have to say in less than 5 paragraphs..... :-)
John Smith
Not swimming related, but here's another example of the "I got mine, Jack" mentality.
"LONGMONT, Colo. - A man who said he bought a device that let him change traffic lights from red to green received a $50 ticket for suspicion of interfering with a traffic signal.
"Jason Niccum of Longmont said the device, which he bought on eBay for $100, helped him cut his time driving to work. “I guess in the two years I had it, that thing paid for itself,” he told the Daily Times-Call on Wednesday.
"Niccum was cited after city traffic engineers who noticed repeated traffic light disruptions at certain intersections spotted a white Ford pickup passing by whenever the patterns were disrupted."
Full story at: www.msnbc.msn.com/.../
Now we've all fantasized about changing ill-timed or long cycle traffic lights. We don't actually do it because to speed one vehicle on its way causes far greater delay for everyone else caught in the same traffic pattern, so we reserve that for emergency vehicles who really need it. This is intuitively obvious to everyone, except this narcissistic , and it speaks volumes about this so & so that after he's caught, after the disruption he's caused for two years becomes apperant, his attitude is that he feels it was worth it because he got away with it for two years!
Some might ask what has that to do with us? I'll grant you this is peripheral. I would like to point out that I feel Masters is similar to a traffic pattern in that we are all in this together. We all have to contribute towards building the roads, or they won't exist, just as all of us have to contribute towards building USMS. We all use the roads, just as all of us participate in Masters events, and no one will be able to get anywhere without all of us being able get to where we are going. I'm not saying NQTs, lap swimming, or any particular aspect of Masters swimming is sacred, but I am saying that the minute you start thinking "I got mine, Jack" and everyone else can take care of themselves, you will do damage to what we have all built together. BTW, all of us owe a great debt to the pioneers and the leaders of Masters swimming who put in the volunteer hours with little thanks other than their personal satisfaction, who started the meets that are now big deals, but at the time were crappy little local events with a half dozen people showing up that they nutured into what they are today. I could go on, but the point is we can NEVER repay the June Krausers or the Bill Earlys, etc. etc. for what they did that all of us are living off of right now. Where then do some of us get off staking out as if they own it a corner of the sandbox that belongs to everyone?
Matt
Steve,
Dude..... if anyone has mastered the art of dragging and cheating to go fast with minimal effort it's me.
I guarantee you that if you move over next to someone that is half a body length ahead of you, you WILL catch a draft.
As Martha would say....."It's good thing"..... and the bigger the monster in the other lane the better the wave.
Hawaii Five-O dude ! Never waste a good drag.... so move over.
John Smith
Hey Short-Smith......who do you think your kidding? You subscribe to the Kirschner school of "drafting"......go out BIG for your camera shot and hang on....if possible!
When was the last time you we're actually behind in a race and catching a draft??
I am rehashing things I posted 2-3 years ago, but having been to a couple of USMS national meets this century, I observed one less than great thing. Here is an example: in the 100 free, there were a series of heats run by agegroup. There are a few competitive heats, followed by the final heat, where one or two stars blew away the field, then the pattern repeats. It seems like it would be more amenable to better competition for the faster swimmers to be seed by time, at least faster than (or slower than) a certain time standard. I think people tend to go faster in a tight race. The same problem can make you sit through multiple heats with one person significantly slower than the rest.
As for surfing/dragging off people in a meet, it sounds great, but I don't believe it works across modern lane lines. Real posibility of a placebo effect, but you still gotta go fast for it to work.
We seem to have solved the empty lane problem we were having years ago with signin procedures. Facilities with huge warmup facilities help with the crowding at warmup, but that can be a problem at nationals.
Another problem is the geographic effect. People are way more likely to go if its close. When has a meet not been "won" by a local team?
This may be another topic, but I am against ageism to the extent that we have it in USMS. Being 41, I don't relish the idea of being beaten by men older than myself. It does happen though, and that if I go to Nationals and am spared the head to head beating, and chose not to look at the results of other age groups, I can fool myself into thinking that I am better than I really am.
I think we should change all the age groups to 25+, 30+, 35+, ... and report results that way (but you could not seed heats that way, so you have to go by time). So when you manage to beat 2 people your age but get spanked by someone 15 years older than you, it would be obvious. So someone like Dennis Baker might win the 200 fly in 4 or 5 age groups. Reality hurts sometimes.
It seems to me that when talking about expansion you have to keep in mind that different clubs are in different circumstances.
If a club has a lot of swimmers per lane and no way to expand its practice hours then growth will be a bad thing unless it helps justify new facilities.
If a club has a lot of swimmers per lane but could justify and get additional pool time if it had more members than growth could be a good thing. It could lead to more available swim times and more revenues to spend on good coaching or equipment or whatever.
If a club is struggling to achieve or maintain critical mass and to pay for the pool time it is using then growth is a great thing.
There is an element of the common service organization dilemma: do you aim to serve your current members or all the potential members within your mandate?
On the championship versus "festival" question, maybe a national masters swimming festival where competition is secondary to location, getting together, etc. would allow nationals to be smaller and more competition focused for those that desire that.
I bet that if USMS really scrounged it could come up with the money to have someone write a hybrid seeding algorithm that put the most elite swimmers in each age group together while seeding those who prefer to be seeded by time together. It's not rocket science, consider it "personalized customer service".
John.....Matt is incapable of being anything close to a "readers digest" writing kind of guy......you just gotta go with it the same way we put up with Geek throwing grenades out from time to time!
By the way.....I do believe it was a similar ranting from Matt on the whole NQT deal a few years back that the whole "elite" smackdown was spawned. The debate began when a few people who did not meet qualifying times swam the 1000/1650 and I beleive we're close to 10:00 minutes slower than the NQT.
Back then some of us dared to voice our opinion that not only is this is a competition, it is a "national" competition and thus may be something that would hold more value if earned and aspired to vs. "given".......this pushed us into the elite haves vs. have nots attacks.....few have dared venture back down this path.....so good luck....I'm putting a helmet on and staying out of sight as this will surely mean a return to late bloomer challenges!
