Purdue’s renowned diving program has earned the Boilermakers’ swim team the opportunity to enter their 200 medley relay into the 2015 NCAA Men’s Swimming & Diving Championships, taking advantage of a quirky, but important, change in the qualifying rules in the last few years.
None of Purdue’s relays earned the “Qualification Standard” (aka, “A” standard) that would’ve gotten them an automatic invite to the NCAA Championships. There is a rule that allows a team with four invited individual athletes to enter all relays with a “Provisional Standard” (aka, “B” standard), but Purdue only has three invited swimmers (Marat Amaltdinov, Guillermo Blanco, Lyam Dias).
Here’s where the wrinkle comes in to play. The rule in question:
Each institution that is eligible to participate in a relay through Step 1 and each institution with at least four invited swimmers will be eligible to swim relay events in which they achieved a Provisional Standard, provided the relays were entered properly in the OME system.
Brian Gordon, the NCAA Secretary-Rules Editor for swimming, clarified that though the rule states “swimmers,” a diver can count toward that quota of 4 invites if that diver is one of the invited divers, and not one of the divers that beginning this year are allowed to attend with their school having to pick up the cost.
The Boilermakers this year have four divers who will make the trip to NCAA’s, and all four were invited, though the fact that just one was invited is the key. That gave the Boilermakers their 4th qualified athlete, and allows them to enter all relays in which they have Provisional standards.
This year, that means the 200 medley relay will be their lone entry, with a seed time of 1:26.57 (which is last of the 26 teams on the list of institutions eligible to swim the relay).
Don’t expect Nate Cox or Sean Mokhtari to be putting on a jammer for that relay, however. Purdue is allowed to bring four relay only swimmers (on their own dollar) so they can effectively put whomever they want into that relay at NCAA’s. Based on the regular season, best, the relay would be Stephen Seliskar, Dias, Blanco, and Austin Flager.
Barbotus-yes it is an interesting point. Perhaps we could look to our “Founding Fathers” for guidance. 3/5th’s could be a better negotiated agreement to keep all parties equally upset.
what does his tattoo say? 🙂
Força, Determinação, Dedicação. Portuguese. He’s likely Brazilian with surname Dias.
Just curious… and I know I’m being ridiculously nit-picky. But if a diver counts as half a swimmer when calculating the team roster, would two divers need to qualify in order to swim relays? Noting that the rule does not state “four invited athletes”, but rather “four invited swimmers”.
It obviously doesn’t apply to Purdue with three invited swimmers and 4 invited divers… but if it were 3 and 1, how would that play?
barbotus – an interesting thought, but no, just one diver counts for the application of this rule.
JMAN — the NCAA pays for all travel, lodging and meals for athletes and coaches to its member championships. The reason for Utah would have to lie elsewhere.
Joel Lin – you’re correct for invited swimmers, but relay-only swimmers have their trip paid for by the school and not the NCAA. Utah would have needed to bring at least 1 relay-only swimmer to round out their relay lineups, so there would have been at least some expense to the school.
More likely, though, is that Utah’s diver qualified under the new diving protocol that lets more athletes into the meet. Only divers that qualify under the old rules (the ones who now earn full NCAA reimbursement for their trips) count towards the 4 athletes needed to enter relays.
New diving procedures explained here: http://swimswam.com/new-ncaa-diving-selection-procedures-will-allow-more-divers-to-enter-ncaas-on-schools-dime/
It looks like the diver, Crayne, did qualify under the old system and is invited with full reinbursement. Could be then more on the cost end of it, because Fernandes is not a 200 guy, and Utah would need to bring 2 relay-only swimmers to fill that relay.
Or perhaps the coaching staff was not as savvy about the rules, as Purdue in this case. Or the diver was an unexpected qualifier and the 2 potential relay-only swimmers were already out of training, etc. Could be several reasons.
This is stranger than fiction. Good for the kids on the relay to get an NCAA swim in, but these esoteric rules for diving and divers is really odd. Seems like the NCAA doesn’t know how to count them as half a person, a person or two people.
Riddle me this batman, why didn’t Utah choose to invoke the same rule? Utah ended up with 3 invited swimmers and one invited diver, and therefore could have also used this rule to swim their 800 Free relay, which was just outside the automatic cut.
its possible Utah didn’t want to pay for the extra swimmer(s) to attend
Gunga Din – I don’t know specifically about Utah, but it’s possible their diver got in under the new diving standard and not the old one. Apparently a diver has to qualify under the old protocols and earn reimbursement from the NCAA to count towards the 4 athletes needed to enter relays. Divers who qualify under the new protocol (and have their trip paid for by the school instead of the NCAA) don’t count towards that 4 athlete requirement.
New diving procedures explained here: http://swimswam.com/new-ncaa-diving-selection-procedures-will-allow-more-divers-to-enter-ncaas-on-schools-dime/