Regional Teams: What's the Point?

They conspired together so that her swims would disappear from the datebase, so that she would have to redo her efforts in order to knock someone from ncms down the rankings. It was a plot by a large, cheatin regonial team to damage the pysche of a star usms athlete. Mission accomplished.

It's Fort's ultimate nightmare - a super team in the Dixie Zone. Are there any good swimmers there? :bolt: I'll pimp myself out to other teams or join RagTag swimmers. Oh yeah, I did that at Indy and we had a complete blast. I got to swim with my de-gendered "son" on a relay even. What's the rationale behind allowing swimmers to compete unattached but not allowing unattached relays? Besides the "that's just the way we do things" for scoring purposes rationale?

Mission accomplished. If this is the goal, it's much easier just to take away my nose clip. :afraid:

To put things in perspective, less than 5% of US Masters Swimmers participate at Nationals. In other words, all the consternation regarding Regional vs. Local clubs, relays, and the like is small potatoes for the vast majority of members. It's not really worth it to get worked-up about these things, the focus should be on how to strengthen masters swimming programs and get more people in the water. If some wish to compete that's great, but what is more important is that swimmers of all ages and abilities find a place where they can get fit, meet new friends, and become better athletes. You know what, this post annoys me. For the 1,977 of us there it was a big deal, for some a really big deal. While certainly a small percentage, those of us that compete are probably the biggest supporters of USMS with our money and time. My goal in Atlanta was not to further the mission of USMS explicitly but to swim fast. So, please don't discount the opinions of those who actually took the time, paid the money to promote the sport through competition at our biggest and most visible annual event.

You know what, this post annoys me. For the 1,977 of us there it was a big deal, for some a really big deal. While certainly a small percentage, those of us that compete are probably the biggest supporters of USMS with our money and time. My goal in Atlanta was not to further the mission of USMS explicitly but to swim fast. So, please don't discount the opinions of those who actually took the time, paid the money to promote the sport through competition at our biggest and most visible annual event. It's the unfortunately not unusual rejoinder where X person tells Y person what they should or shouldn't care about. :afraid:

What's the rationale behind allowing swimmers to compete unattached but not allowing unattached relays? Unattached means unattached to a team, so it wouldn't make sense to allow you to swim in a team event such as a relay. If you want to swim on a relay you should join a team.

Unattached means unattached to a team, so it wouldn't make sense to allow you to swim in a team event such as a relay. If you want to swim on a relay you should join a team. That doesn't really explain why unattached swimmers couldn't swim together as a relay team.

That doesn't really explain why unattached swimmers couldn't swim together as a relay team. I think it explains why they can't do it and have it count as a legal, scored swim.

I for one kind of agree with Doug...maybe if we treated people with a little bit more respect on these forums ... Wasn't it Doug who was being rather patronizing and telling us what to care about and what not to care about? Very school teacher-esque type "scolding" ... Besides, even assuming we cared about the regional team issue, how would that preclude us also from caring about growing USMS? You can be interested in both and still have a so-called "heated" discussion if you are wont to.

...the focus should be on how to strengthen masters swimming programs and get more people in the water. If some wish to compete that's great, but what is more important is that swimmers of all ages and abilities find a place where they can get fit, meet new friends, and become better athletes. Is it? More important, that is. The number of USMS members who compete are a minority (I usually hear estimates in the range of 20-30%) but not a small minority. And it is likely that these are USMS' best "customers" in the sense of renewals and supporting the organization through volunteering. I don't really know how much "competitions" vs "participation" come into conflict; it is good to promote both and in most cases it is possible to do so simultaneously. But there may well be areas of conflict in terms of resource allocation or specific policies, and I don't really know where USMS' priorities lie. So I can't agree or disagree with what I think is the implication that participation is more important than competition. I do agree with the whole "being inclusive" thing and I don't like to push competition on people who just aren't interested in it. But I also feel that going to a local or even regional masters meet (or OW race) is one of the best ways to "engage" our members. How does this relate to regional teams? If you are a member of a small swimming training group or local club, few of whom are interested in competition, then regional teams give you a whole host of new people to connect with. And ask questions of, if you are a competition newbie. Sure you form closest connections with people you see several times a week. But if you attend local meets regularly, the other regulars in your LMSC aren't strangers at all, and it is nice to swim on relays with them. So far as I see, the only downside is relay awards, since large regional teams probably do have some advantage. I don't know if the disadvantage is enough to warrant a separate relay division.