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R 31 104.5.6 page 35 Pacific Modify
Action: Adopted Defeated Adopted/Amended Tabled Postponed Withdrawn Pulled
Club Scoring
B Categories—Club scoring will be tabulated in three two categories.
(1) Regional ClubsWomen’s—women’s individual events and women’s relay events. For
competition at national championship meets, a “Regional Club” consists of a club made
up of those swimmers who represent a club at nationals, but at competitions within their
LMSC, they compete for an entity or subgroup (such as a workout group) that is different
than the one they compete with at nationals.
(2) Local ClubsMen’s—men’s individual events and men’s relay events. For competition
at national championship meets, a “Local Club” consists of a club that does not qualify as
a Regional Club.
(3) Combined—women’s individual events, women’s relay events, men’s
individual events, men’s relay events and mixed relay events.
(3) The Championship Committee shall publish a list of Regional and Local Clubs no later
than February 15 of each year. A club may contest its designation by filing an appeal
with the chair of the Championship Committee at least 45 days prior to the national
championship meet.
Rationale: Provide a more equitable means of scoring the National Championships by proposing two
scoring divisions and giving awards for combined club scoring only (1st – 10th) in each category.
Other articles that would require changing in order to maintain consistency:
Article 104.5.7C – Awards page 36 Pacific Modify
Team Club awards – The organization conducting the national championship meet shall
provide awards to the first through tenth place clubs winners in the women's, men's and
combined categories for two categories: the Regional Club category and the Local Club
category. Points scored for a club will be the sum of all points scored by members competing
for that club in events for men, women, and relays.
Congratulations, your team scored the most points. Now try and use that to pay your cable bill. Sorry, IMO, this is much ado about nothing.
I agree. Team standings don't mean squat as most "teams" never swim together. What is New England Masters--like 10 small states put together--New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts,...wtf? We still got "Arizona" state (some also happen to be world) records in the 35-39 year bracket from the great Ron Karnaugh even though he never actually swam for any team here.
I do however understand the "joy" of swimming relays together and extending your 6 hour day at nationals to like 10.:oldman:
I have no problem with R31 in general and think it (or an edited version of it) will pass without much problem. The only part that I don't like is specifying the number of awards given.
If we go 10 deep for regional and local clubs with men, women, combined categories, that's a total of 60 banners. I think that's too many for several reasons.
First, that doubles the number of banners a sponsor provides and the number that likely need to be mailed by the meet host if no one from the team receives them at the meet.
These team awards are also announced and presented at the end of the meet (unlike individual medals that you pick up on your own), and going through 60 of them would take well over an hour.
Another issue with the number is a disparity between local and regional clubs. If we go 10 deep for both, it will be MUCH easier to come home with a regional club award than a local club award. I doubt there are much more than 10 regional clubs participating some years. I think 10 is appropriate for local clubs, but the number should be smaller for regional clubs.
Personally, I'm in favor of striking the text related to the number of award and just state the categories of team awards. That would allow us to tweak the numbers as we learn from year to year, or as our membership shifts. With our legislative system, you can only change this area of the rule book every other year (unless deemed an "emergency" by the rules committee), so I'd prefer giving the championship committee flexibility in determining the number of awards.
Another possibility is to get rid of the combined category. Isn't it most likely that the winners of combined team awards have already won team awards in the mens and/or womens categories? I know - combined tells you the overall winner and that gives a team some nice bragging rights, but three awards per team?
How about just 1-3 combined for club/regional, 1-5 for regional men/women, and 1-10 for local men/women? That's 36 total awards. I still wouldn't want those number in the rule book, but am suggesting it as a starting point for next year.
Here's a possible twist, instead of regional why not call it an "open" division which all teams would compete in unless they clearly fall under the "club" definition and ask to be allowed to compete in the separate "club" division. Teams like Walnut Creek who typically fall in the category of "club" but also have very high turnouts for nationals may actually want to compete against regional teams...?
Jim, good points on limiting the number of awards.
I agree with Jim. That's way too many awards. I think top three for men, women and combined should be plenty. Seriously, is "9th place, regional club, women, 2009 short course Nationals" really an achievement that needs to be commemorated with a custom banner?
In general I think dividing into regional vs. club is a good idea, though.
I prefer the "Quality Points" system outlined in R30. It appeared to bridge the gap between giving a local/regional designation and showing support for smaller (developing) clubs by giving them something to brag about.
I don't care. There is absolutely no hope of coming up with a fair and equitible system and in the end does it really matter?
It might...for the 6.5% of USMS swimmers who go to Nationals ;-)
