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.
I'm going to agree with Jim on these points.
I don't really care about scoring at Nationals much. I confess I have no idea who won and didn't listen to the announcement at the end of the meet. I do feel slightly put off by the fact that my little local relays got whomped by the regional teams. But I don't have much desire to swim on a big regional relay team with people I don't know. I enjoy relays. But I like swimming them with either people on my small local team or people I know and like (old friends or new, near or far). If I had to hold out for people I actually "train regularly" with, I would never swim relays since I train mostly solo.
As a swimmer on a regional team, I can honestly say I usually already know all swimmers on my relays. There have been 2 times in the last 4 years that I didn't know a swimmer and then it was an opportunity to meet someone new, who I then got to see at local meets. I train mostly with my local club, and sometimes with the local age groupers (think Saturday AM workouts when they are rarely scheduled), and sometimes with another team an hour and 15 away from me, and I do that if I am coaching masters so much that I'm not getting my workouts in. Relays are always fun. Local team relays are great as well, and it's really fun if we can get a zone record or sneak in a top ten time from our local team.
I'm going to agree with Jim on these points.
I don't really care about scoring at Nationals much. I confess I have no idea who won and didn't listen to the announcement at the end of the meet. I do feel slightly put off by the fact that my little local relays got whomped by the regional teams. But I don't have much desire to swim on a big regional relay team with people I don't know. I enjoy relays. But I like swimming them with either people on my small local team or people I know and like (old friends or new, near or far). If I had to hold out for people I actually "train regularly" with, I would never swim relays since I train mostly solo.
As a swimmer on a regional team, I can honestly say I usually already know all swimmers on my relays. There have been 2 times in the last 4 years that I didn't know a swimmer and then it was an opportunity to meet someone new, who I then got to see at local meets. I train mostly with my local club, and sometimes with the local age groupers (think Saturday AM workouts when they are rarely scheduled), and sometimes with another team an hour and 15 away from me, and I do that if I am coaching masters so much that I'm not getting my workouts in. Relays are always fun. Local team relays are great as well, and it's really fun if we can get a zone record or sneak in a top ten time from our local team.
