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 think we need to separate the desire to grow USMS from wanting to grow what we have been calling "Nationals".
I'd like USMS to grow (but not in my lane!). I think the best way for that to happen is more pools (in most places) and good masters programs (organized workouts, etc.). I don't see any good reason why you cannot meet the needs of the "elite" and "fitness" (and even "recreational") swimmers at the local level with good coaching and enough lane/slide space. I swim workouts and take my small kids to the pool, so I want it all, and there are places that have it all.
As for nationals, I'd like us to make up our mind if we'd rather have a "festival" or a "championship" meet. I'd say we are closer to the festival (big, fun, social), which has its advantages for many people. The Nationals format does not seem to do so well at catering to the smaller group of faster swimmers (very long days, crowded warmups, segmented too much by age v. speed). I'm not saying the meet totally fails for these swimmers, but it could be improved. I'd prefer seeding by time over age, as that seems like it would provide better competition for the faster swimmers. At the facilities nationals are held at, it should not matter what lane you are in for an opportunity to swim fast, so I don't see potentially losing a center lane seed as an issue.
I believe that the limiting factor for USMS meets is finding people to put them on. I could easily see USMS deciding to commission a true USMS Championship meet and having no one step forward to put it on, and/or not drawing the elite swimmers it attempts to draw.
Heres an idea: what if we had concurrent Eastern and Western nationals with points scored between the two? The rivalry would help to increase participation, reduce travel expenses/logistics and allow for growth while improving the conditions at each meet.
Frank,
Yes, I am aware of the infamous Masters Nationals at Stanford that went in the dark of night. But honestly, do you think comparing any masters nationals to that nightmare offers value? That meet was THE worst situation possible in terms of entries. If I were at the meet, I would have scratched everything after 5:00 and gone back to the hotel to drink beer and chow down. I mean really......... it's masters swimming....... :-) ....... 11:00 pm ....... p-l-e-a-s-e.
Steve has a good point. The current Masters Nationals really seems more like a "festival" of swimming due to the wide ranges of individual's speed in each age group. Cutting it down to say 3-4 heats per age group per event would certainly help get it over with.
As for seeding by time, it can ONLY help you go faster. Humiliating......... yes, absolutely, but it's good for surfing some 230lb sasquatch Evil Smith's wave on the last length. Get a few people in there in the same heat that are still younger and "green" without blockage in their arteries, and you can surf them for half the race. Yeah.... I'm for it.
John Smith
Mike,
We seem to be in violent agreement on the use of pools!
And for you National NQT advocates (really, I've been extremely restrained about holding my fire; are you trying to goad me?): what is wrong with Nationals the way we do 'em right now? Everyone who wants to swim gets to swim, at least a little bit. We're usually done by 5 or 6ish. The meet hosts have enough people entered and paying entry fees that they can come close to breaking even. We have enough teams wanting to host that we can have two National meets with an occasional World Championship Meet replacing the LCM that year. What's the problem?
The only grousing I hear is from a few people who think the "slower" swimmers are wasting their valuable time. They have a solution, but curiously, it only calls for sacrifice by everyone else since they all figure they will still be fast enough to make the new NQTs.
Be careful going down this road, because some other geek will want to gore your ox the next time around. Are you regularly in the top 10 in one of the older age groups? Look out, the next suggestion by NQT crowd is that we should not have so many old and slow heats in the distance events (because hey, who wants to watch an 80 year old take half an hour to finnish and 800, even if she is going to take third place?) Or, that we should do fast heats first, and let the old and slow heats get those undesirable 4 pm start times, because you know, when you're in your 30s and top ten, your precious time to go have a beer is more valuable than other peoples'.
We're Masters, not the FINA World Cup. Faster does not mean more meaningful or valuable. To reuse a term from an earlier post, we all need to show due regard for other swimmers' use of the pool.
Matt
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!
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".
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.
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??
