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.
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?
Well, it goes without saying that any proposal of yours is bound to be quite kinky. You've already de-gendered youself in that suggestion, right?
I don't know about nationals, but we allow UNAT relays to swim (unofficially) at our local meets and they function in exactly this "pickup" fashion. The relays don't count for anything. I wonder if this could be done at nationals with no change of rules at all? Just plunk down your money for the relay. The main sticking point I see is, is it possible for a person registered to a team actually swim as part of an UNAT relay?
Jim, what does it take to actually create a Masters team? Does said team actually have to have any workouts together? Maybe you should create RagTagMasters and starting recruiting for teammates from around the country.
All that is required is filling out a form and sending in some money. Here is the one for Virginia, as an example:
www.vaswim.org/.../CLUB MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION 2010.pdf
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?
Well, it goes without saying that any proposal of yours is bound to be quite kinky. You've already de-gendered youself in that suggestion, right?
I don't know about nationals, but we allow UNAT relays to swim (unofficially) at our local meets and they function in exactly this "pickup" fashion. The relays don't count for anything. I wonder if this could be done at nationals with no change of rules at all? Just plunk down your money for the relay. The main sticking point I see is, is it possible for a person registered to a team actually swim as part of an UNAT relay?
Jim, what does it take to actually create a Masters team? Does said team actually have to have any workouts together? Maybe you should create RagTagMasters and starting recruiting for teammates from around the country.
All that is required is filling out a form and sending in some money. Here is the one for Virginia, as an example:
www.vaswim.org/.../CLUB MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION 2010.pdf
