With the continued growth in USMS membership, I would submit that it's time to eliminate the regional teams at Nationals. Case in point: NCMS sent a "team" of 123 swimmers to Atlanta, enough to enter A, B, C, and D relays in many events (e.g. the mens 35+ 200 free relay in which our club team placed 13th behind eight regional teams). It's been argued that the formation of regional teams allows more swimmers to participate in relays, yet local clubs from North Carolina sent as many as thirty or more athletes and could have entered relays on their own as our club (with eight swimmers) did. Swim with the guys you actually train with.
This is a non-starter, IMO. There are still LMSCs that are quite small, rarely have masters meets within their boundaries, and can only field relays if they go as an LMSC "team." And then you have LMSCs with 10,000+ members. One size doesn't fit all.
I don't see why regional clubs should bother anyone -- especially now with the separate scoring categories -- but clearly they continue to do so.
I also don't get the concept of only swimming with the people you practice with. Heck, I met my future wife for the first time on a masters relay (though it wasn't a regional team...she had moved away but still competed for her former team).
Speaking of which: plenty of people move away and keep their old team affiliations, at least for awhile. Should we DQ them because they aren't "swimming with" their current relay mates?
This is a non-starter, IMO. There are still LMSCs that are quite small, rarely have masters meets within their boundaries, and can only field relays if they go as an LMSC "team." And then you have LMSCs with 10,000+ members. One size doesn't fit all.
I don't see why regional clubs should bother anyone -- especially now with the separate scoring categories -- but clearly they continue to do so.
I also don't get the concept of only swimming with the people you practice with. Heck, I met my future wife for the first time on a masters relay (though it wasn't a regional team...she had moved away but still competed for her former team).
Speaking of which: plenty of people move away and keep their old team affiliations, at least for awhile. Should we DQ them because they aren't "swimming with" their current relay mates?
