Regional Teams: What's the Point?

Here is something else to consider. Last year at LCM Nats in Indy, there was an entire day spent just on relays. That day was Saturday, right in the middle of the meet. I wanted to go to the meet but figured it wouldn't be worth it to sit around for an entire day doing nothing. In our region, Allegheny Mountain Association Masters, it's virtually impossible to get enough people together to travel to a distant meet and swim a relay. I tried my friends at Team Pitt; I tried my teammates at the Sewickley Y. I managed to cajole precisely one person to go to the meet. We ended up transferring our affiliation to the Capital Illinois Bullet-Headed Saxon Mother's Sons team, or something that sounded more or less like this. That's how much affiliation we had with the team--I can no longer ever remember its name! That said, getting to swim as a Bullet Headed Saxon Mother proved to be incredibly fun and a high point of the meet for me and my fellow traveler, Bill White. However, in order to make this transfer, then transfer back, proved to be a major bureaucratic headache of mailing forms hither and yon, etc. Those of you who have the luxury of fielding humongous hordes of swimmers with every possible permutation of relays, consider yourselves lucky. There are many of us, however, who almost never swim relays because we can't get enough people together to come close to fielding one. What if USMS allowed the possibility of "pick up" relays where team orphans like me could create relays with other orphans once we got to the meet? Surely, this would encourage camaraderie and the formation of new friendships? We could stipulate that such relays don't "count" for team scoring, and maybe not even for Top 10 consideration (though this seems harsh.) We could further stipulate that the only people allowed to form such de facto teams would be those who could not otherwise swim any relays at all. If the latter codicils were adopted, it would perhaps prevent great swimmers from going to meets unattached and cherry picking themselves yet another opportunity for greatness with others of their ilk. (I can already see Michael Ross and Chris Stevenson begging me and Leslie to join them in a mixed gender relay.) Anyhow, what do you think of some variation of this? Kinks remain to be worked out (such as when I would be allowed to swim as woman.) But I am confident that now that I have outlined my Broad Vision for Equal Relay Opportunity, the detail people can work on eliminating said kinks. Who could possibly object to a de-kinked version of this Great Idea? My guess, alas, based on passing acquaintance with some of the "professional" i.e., paid masters coaches in the land of milk and honey (California) is that it will never fly. The reason: anything that could possibly diminish their team's apparent greatness, especially a rag-tag band of self-assembled misfits that do not require coaching ministrations to excel, is the last thing they want to see happen.

Here is something else to consider. Last year at LCM Nats in Indy, there was an entire day spent just on relays. That day was Saturday, right in the middle of the meet. I wanted to go to the meet but figured it wouldn't be worth it to sit around for an entire day doing nothing. In our region, Allegheny Mountain Association Masters, it's virtually impossible to get enough people together to travel to a distant meet and swim a relay. I tried my friends at Team Pitt; I tried my teammates at the Sewickley Y. I managed to cajole precisely one person to go to the meet. We ended up transferring our affiliation to the Capital Illinois Bullet-Headed Saxon Mother's Sons team, or something that sounded more or less like this. That's how much affiliation we had with the team--I can no longer ever remember its name! That said, getting to swim as a Bullet Headed Saxon Mother proved to be incredibly fun and a high point of the meet for me and my fellow traveler, Bill White. However, in order to make this transfer, then transfer back, proved to be a major bureaucratic headache of mailing forms hither and yon, etc. Those of you who have the luxury of fielding humongous hordes of swimmers with every possible permutation of relays, consider yourselves lucky. There are many of us, however, who almost never swim relays because we can't get enough people together to come close to fielding one. What if USMS allowed the possibility of "pick up" relays where team orphans like me could create relays with other orphans once we got to the meet? Surely, this would encourage camaraderie and the formation of new friendships? We could stipulate that such relays don't "count" for team scoring, and maybe not even for Top 10 consideration (though this seems harsh.) We could further stipulate that the only people allowed to form such de facto teams would be those who could not otherwise swim any relays at all. If the latter codicils were adopted, it would perhaps prevent great swimmers from going to meets unattached and cherry picking themselves yet another opportunity for greatness with others of their ilk. (I can already see Michael Ross and Chris Stevenson begging me and Leslie to join them in a mixed gender relay.) Anyhow, what do you think of some variation of this? Kinks remain to be worked out (such as when I would be allowed to swim as woman.) But I am confident that now that I have outlined my Broad Vision for Equal Relay Opportunity, the detail people can work on eliminating said kinks. Who could possibly object to a de-kinked version of this Great Idea? My guess, alas, based on passing acquaintance with some of the "professional" i.e., paid masters coaches in the land of milk and honey (California) is that it will never fly. The reason: anything that could possibly diminish their team's apparent greatness, especially a rag-tag band of self-assembled misfits that do not require coaching ministrations to excel, is the last thing they want to see happen.