Yet...... another comment on "elitism" in masters swimming. This ongoing battle of two imaginary groups....... the selfish former elite swimmers and the non elite counter parts.
Yes..... The Evil Smith and I have taken great pleasure throughout the last decade trying to secretly split USMS into these two groups. Our efforts to perpetuate this divide and fuel our intolerance for "learners" is now being undermined..... :-)
One Big Happy Family: Marcinkowski’s Masters
reachforthewall.com/.../
"Butcher, Zerkle and others say numbers have soared because Marcinkowski has tried to strip the elitism from masters swimming, often thought to be populated with former competitive stars who have little tolerance for learners."
I think as long as the triathletes and learners are kept in the shallow end, all is ok.
I think as long as swimmers keep to the right on the road so we don't have run the bike up over their rear end, all is ok.
I think as long as swimmers keep to the right on the road so we don't have run the bike up over their rear end, all is ok.
It's not the bike where we get caught, Einstein.
Yet...... another comment on "elitism" in masters swimming.
The point is not whether or not you are elitist, whatever that means, the point is that is the image we give off intentional or not. If the organization wants to grow then we should put some thought into this.
Our own member survey showed that 58% of new swimmers worried that they would be too slow for masters, that number is significantly higher for non-competitive swimmers and triathletes.
www.usms.org/.../coach_club_report.pdf
However, both here and on swiminfo in the past week I have seen talk about growing usms clubs. Rob quoted 11% growth in the past year, yet what no one has mentioned is that we started online registration last year. So the 11% isn't surprising at all, we lowered the hassle in signing up and more people started signing up.
Our own member survey showed that 58% of new swimmers worried that they would be too slow for masters, that number is significantly higher for non-competitive swimmers and triathletes.
That's not surprising. But it doesn't say whether that fear is rightfully earned or not.
That's kind of like the surveys that report a ridiculously high percentage of people in the US who don't believe in the theory of evolution. Besides the fact that the conclusions being reported may not match what was actually being asked, the survey results don't mean that evolution is wrong. It shows that a lot of people are misinformed about the issue.
