The anti-sandbag law:
"if a swimmer enters an event with a time significantly slower or faster than that swimmer's recorded time in the past two years, the meet director may, after a discussion with the swimmer, change the seeded time to a realistic time" (104.5.5.A(10)).
Concerning my Auburn nationals entry, I confess, when faced with a 7 hour 2 stop flight and 3:45 nonstop at an earlier time, I did what any warm-blooded middle-aged American swimmer with low self-esteem would do--sandbag my entry so I could catch the earlier flight, thus diminishing the possible time spent sitting next to a 400 pound Alabama slammer with sleep apnea wearing nothing but overalls and body odor. Of course, I was caught in my bold fabrication and my time was "fixed."
USMS seems to have an identity problem. Are we hard core with rigid qualifying times? It would seem not as 2 of my not-so-speedy family members were allowed to swim four events last year in Puerto Rico. If we are not hard core, why does anybody care that I sandbag? More to the point, why can one person enter a crappy time and another cannot? Just wondering.:)
You can get some idea of expenses and revenue by looking at the 2011 budget that was proposed at convention:
www.usms.org/.../budget_proposal.pdf
And here is a short document on budget priorities:
www.usms.org/.../budget_priorities.pdf
Personally I think we are stuck with the name "masters" since it is used internationally and we have used it for so long. But I agree that we need to fight the perception that one must be a "master swimmer" in order to participate.
While it can be useful to have a discussion on these forums about USMS mission and direction, I am not sure how representative we are of the general membership.
You can get some idea of expenses and revenue by looking at the 2011 budget that was proposed at convention:
www.usms.org/.../budget_proposal.pdf
And here is a short document on budget priorities:
www.usms.org/.../budget_priorities.pdf
Personally I think we are stuck with the name "masters" since it is used internationally and we have used it for so long. But I agree that we need to fight the perception that one must be a "master swimmer" in order to participate.
While it can be useful to have a discussion on these forums about USMS mission and direction, I am not sure how representative we are of the general membership.
