"Dara Torres should be the face of United States Masters Swimming"
Brent Rutemiller, October issue Swimming World Magazine
"Of Course, Torres isn't on this trip alone. Aside from the support of Hoffman, her daughter and her coaches, Torres relies on a team. She has a nanny who tends to Tessa, a strength coach, and physical and massage therapists who work her like a piece of dough."
John Lohn, October Swimming World Magazine
With all due respect to Mr. Rutemillier & Mr. Lohn I would suggest that they spend a little more time around the people who not only compete in the meets of our sport but with the people who are the backbone as volunteers in the day to day running of it....Dara's only contribution has been making a few workouts early in her comeback, attending a couple of meets and signing autographs and collecting checks for clinics.
If you want a "face" of Masters Swimming look to Susan Von der Lippe who beat Dara as the first person over 40 to qualify for Trials....and she did it training with a masters team 3x a week...working par time, no nanny, no trainers....no PR person....that to me this is the core of what we are in my opinion.
How about Rob Copeland who somehow manages to run this entire organization, swim extremely well, post on our forum....all without a massage therapist and pilates instructor....again this is what Masters represents...to me.
Dara has done something remarkable for anyone her age... give her credit..but lets see if at some point she wants to time at one of our meets...or be on one of our committee's to help promote masters...without an appearance fee.
I don't know about the $$$ angle. If you spread 10,000 through all the age groups, is it really worth it? Is that the reason to compete? Maybe for the younger kids out of college ... I get just as jazzed up for a grudge race as for winning a few dollars. I guess I wouldn't turn down a free suit though.
One reason to grow membership is to have more meets and opportunities for meets, whether actual, or postal or virtual.
Swimming seems to have a very entrenched lap swimmer/fitness swimmer non-competing mindset. And health, in and of itself, is a great goal. But I wonder why the enormous anti-competition bias in our sport? I fully understand that fundamentally some people dislike competition, and, if it's that, that's perfectly fine. But this certainly doesn't seem to be the mindset in running or triathlon or cycling. In those sports, anybody and his brother -- no matter how slow -- seems happy and eager to enter a race. Newbies embrace races. Newbies start to keep training logs and prepare for races. But not so much in swimming. Is it because it's so "dull?" Is it because it's too difficult and technique oriented? Or, unlike running where you just walk out the door, is it just too time-consuming to get to practices and meets? I guess I just wish more masters swimmer would try meets. They might find they like them. Or not. But if Dara Torres were THE face, that would not provide the incentive to reverse the relative lack of competitive swimmers. I wholly agree with swoomer on that score. It's not just about elite swimmers.
Paul: Don't stop with college campuses. Very few people seem to know what masters swimming is or that it exists. How about flyers and information in every health club and rec center too?
I don't know about the $$$ angle. If you spread 10,000 through all the age groups, is it really worth it? Is that the reason to compete? Maybe for the younger kids out of college ... I get just as jazzed up for a grudge race as for winning a few dollars. I guess I wouldn't turn down a free suit though.
One reason to grow membership is to have more meets and opportunities for meets, whether actual, or postal or virtual.
Swimming seems to have a very entrenched lap swimmer/fitness swimmer non-competing mindset. And health, in and of itself, is a great goal. But I wonder why the enormous anti-competition bias in our sport? I fully understand that fundamentally some people dislike competition, and, if it's that, that's perfectly fine. But this certainly doesn't seem to be the mindset in running or triathlon or cycling. In those sports, anybody and his brother -- no matter how slow -- seems happy and eager to enter a race. Newbies embrace races. Newbies start to keep training logs and prepare for races. But not so much in swimming. Is it because it's so "dull?" Is it because it's too difficult and technique oriented? Or, unlike running where you just walk out the door, is it just too time-consuming to get to practices and meets? I guess I just wish more masters swimmer would try meets. They might find they like them. Or not. But if Dara Torres were THE face, that would not provide the incentive to reverse the relative lack of competitive swimmers. I wholly agree with swoomer on that score. It's not just about elite swimmers.
Paul: Don't stop with college campuses. Very few people seem to know what masters swimming is or that it exists. How about flyers and information in every health club and rec center too?
