Those who have been reading SwimSwam long enough know that we’re pretty disenchanted with the way that most swim meets are run, with their format, with the season formats, etc.
While we surely don’t have all the answers, we do have a lot of ideas, and one idea that we really like is the upcoming Southern Premier Meet that is being hosted by Tennessee Aquatics in Knoxville this weekend.
This meet will feature some really big-players in the club swimming scene:
According to meet host Marshall Goldman, the head coach of Tennessee Aquatics, the goal is to capture the atmosphere of a college or high school meet, but do it in a club setting.
“We Recognized that with the growing number of swimmers in the sport and with LSC championships, sectionals and other meets that are bursting at the seems and sessions are running longer and longer in the morning, there had to be a better way to do things,” Goldman says. “But also with so many teams it’s hard to truly find that excitement that a high school state or college meet finds, so we are trying to create that environment.”
Goldman has hit one of the biggest nails on its head. Prelims at big club swim meets are the worst part of swimming. They are long, they are exhaustive, they are a “swimming mill” of pumping swimmers through as quickly as possible.
We setup a meet that follows a college the college format, and in the ten teams invited we have four USA Swimming Excellence Program ‘gold medal teams’, two ‘silver medal teams’ and two ‘bronze medal teams’. Our intent is to in the future have age group as well as senior to create a team feel.”
John Morse, the head coach of the Nashville Aquatic Club, says that “the idea for this meet was to get together a group of teams that crossed L.S.C. and sectional lines to create a championship meet that is highly competitive, and still athlete friendly. The meet will be only three days long, the warm up will be less crowded than usual, and the sessions will be short. This years meet looks to be very fast and deep for the senior athletes. We will need to work on improving the younger age groups for next year.”
The meet has about 500 swimmers entered, which keeps morning heats at roughly 130 swimmers or less per event (and in most cases, much, much less than that). Compare that to the College Station Sectional meet last weekend, where some events have over 200 swimmers entered, from dozens of different teams.
This format might not work for every team. It is probably most ideally-suited for large teams, but as more-and-more teams merge, there will be more-and-more large teams for whom this meet could be a good alternative to some of the other championship meets.
“As a sport, we need to look at some changes to keep some of our best swimmers intrigued, and it’s hard to get the kids emotionally as excited about the meets as you see at these high school and college meets, so it will be an interesting experiment.”
ESSZ Senior Sectionals in Charlotte is currently averaging around 80 per event (much less in distance events obviously). I haven’t had much time to analyze the psych sheet for the ESSZ Age Group Sectionals in Atlanta, but the boy’s 11-14 1000 free has at least 100 entries. Granted this is a ten-lane pool and it is two different events, but it’s still a very large section.
Being an NC LSC member does have its benefits when it comes to traveling to these meets. But I do understand the problems with NC hosting these meets. Really the only elite facilities in NC are TAC in Cary and GAC in Greensboro (Charlotte is reliable but not elite anymore).
But on topic of… Read more »
First, I think his username is directed in my general vicinity. Second, this site has been increasingly partial towards certain programs. Whether that is because they feed you information, or are part of the good ol’ boy network, I don’t know. I do know that it seems less and less like you guys actually seek out and research articles, and instead post what is fed to you by certain favorite individuals/clubs.
Here in “flyover country”, i.e. The Central Zone, sectionals are still the real deal and at least in Region 8, manageable time wise. We’re looking forward to a few Molacek-Andrew showdowns this week. So come on down!
there was a time when the essz meet was one of the fastest meets in usa-s. it was typically in the top 2 or 3 with sections out west. this is no longer the case.
there was a time when the essz meet had 500, 600, even 700 swimmers. even with those numbers, the timelines were reasonable. but, the meet can barely scrape together 400 swimmers.
at least here, the luster of sectionals has gone. i reiterate my original reason for this… usa-s allowed two southern zone sections to merge, thus diluting the event.
its time usa-s, at least in the southern zone, returned the sections to what they were more than a decade ago. otherwise, the essz meet will… Read more »
Having moved recently from a more northern LSC roughly contained by state lines, the amount of travel required here in the SES during the normal season has easily tripled our budgetary commitment to the sport. Our swimmer has qualified for a full individual program at ESSZ this year and we want to support his desire to compete, but the cost of another long weekend in a distant city is so prohibitive, it’s hard to imagine going just weeks after our LSC championships. I fully understand that the population of swimmers is so much more spread out down here that this is the norm, but it’s a hard pill to swallow. We just drove 9 hours each way for our championships,… Read more »
“Vanity…my favorite sin.”
Folks, it’s not about YOUR section or lsc or whatever. It’s about making it work for the swimmers on a particular club or in a particular area. Those boundaries should not be dictated by those in Colorado or by some antiquated system left over by AAU Swimming. Let the free market decide. If a meet works, it works. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. I’m all for new stuff, but at the same time, THIS SHOULDN’T BE A STORY! It’s just a club swim meet. Don’t give it the publicity it has not earned yet.
Low gap – 1) I don’t understand your username, but I’m pretty sure I don’t like it, so I’ve edited it. Please choose a different one in the future.
2) Is SwimSwam not part of the free market? Am I not part of the free market? Is there no room for press in the free market? How does a free market operate without free flow of information? Trying to stifle that free flow of information sounds like anti-free market if I’ve ever heard it.
3) These are 10 of the best teams in the country, which in-and-of-itself makes it worthy of coverage. We are not a publicity machine, we are a news service, and I think the comments indicate that… Read more »
I wasn’t in the meeting when the location for this years sectional was voted on but the MCAC in Charlotte is not a premier facility anymore. Maybe no one wanted it this year because of the challenges listed above. I can’t blame teams for not wanting to make the haul across our zone, I actually expect it now.
Sorry messed up the summer sectional list:
Orlando, FL
-LCM
-YMCA Aquatic Center
-July 10-13
Gresham, OR
-LCM
-Mt. Hood Aquatic Center
-July 15-19
Columbia, MO
-LCM
-Columbia University
-July 16-19
Greensboro, NC
-LCM
-Greensboro Aquatic Center
-July 17-20
Iowa City, IA
-LCM
-University of Iowa
-July 17-20
Oxford, OH
-LCM
-Miami of Ohio University
-July 22-25
Conroe, TX
-LCM
-CISD Natatorium
-July 23-27
Clovis, CA
-LCM
-Clovis North HS
-July 23-28
Buffalo, NY
-LCM
-Erie Community College
-July 24-27