Georgia Tech Assistant Coach, Chris DeSantis, talks to Garrett McCaffrey about some changes that were proposed at the College Swim Coaches Association of America conference last week.
by Garrett McCaffrey 12
June 01st, 2012
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POST!! CHRIS PUT UP A VERY INTERESTING POST!!
Sorry for the caps, but calling individual blog posts “blogs” just really grinds my gears.
One thing that I feel needs to be addressed is also the cut off of 18 swimmers..My swimmers first year at NCAA’s,the team had several swimmers who could have also gone but the coach had to decide who to take because of the cut off at 18 swimmers.Swimmers love to be able to go to the top schools with the best teams, but when the teams are large, this situation arises.Isn’t there a way that these swimmers could be included?At Conference meets they are allowed as exhibition swimmers aren’t they?Or do I have the facts wrong?
Must have this cap in place in order to keep the playing field level. Also, the NCAA will not pay for exhibition swimmers to attend the meet, whereas athletic departments pay for kids to attend the conference meet.
The limit of 18 participants has been around for years – it predates the current qualifying system of “A” and “B” cuts. It actually started back in the pre-consolation final days when they were using only 6 lanes. And like everything else what started as a way to allow for more teams to be included has evolved into an economic issue.
Conferences have the ability to set their own travel limits and participation limits for their conference championships. Most allow exhibition swims in the prelims, but, not in the evening.
The NCAA rulebook (NCAA rule 3-5-1) specifically states “exhibition performances are not allowed in the national championship meets”, so either that rule would have to be changed or… Read more »
Swimfan50- I agree. Watering down the championships is a terrible idea. Just look at what Olympic trials have turned into- 2000 swimmers??? Ridiculous.
I sense sarcasm in your response! I actually do think having 2000 folks at trials isn’t a good thing. It is all about the money – everyone knows that. I don’t know what the magic number is but having 10 lanes with 20+ heats of most every event is going to make for some long prelim sessions. We are one of the families going to trials….will drop about $2000 in hotel rooms plus travel, food, etc. Sometimes I wonder if that is a good thing given how hard a dollar is to come by these days!
No, I was being totally serious. I do NOT think it is good to have 2000 swimmers at trials. Way way too big. I think ideally there would be less than 1000 total to keep it very very elite.
That isn’t uncertainty at all bc you know what line it will go to. In this day and age of instant results you would know what time you would need. The uncertainty comes into play when u have no idea what line it will go to- line 17 or line 26??. It would be a little uncertain for the NCAA as far as knowing how many exact swimmers will get in each year, but a pretty small range.
I think with this system you can still have A cuts to guarantee but when is the last time you had more than 22 swimmers w an A cut? The men’s 200 free a couple years ago comes to mind when… Read more »
My opionion is this new proposal is an over-reaction to this past year. I doubt any Athletic Director’s are going to be excited to pay for their swimmers to go to the meet as relay only. The old method seemed perfectly fair to me, everyone knew the rules and had the same opportunity to earn an invitation either as an individual or relay. The new proposal seems okay too, the top teams will still not have to fully rest their stud swimmer who can swim a top 30 time in season and blast it at NCAAs so really don’t see where things are going to change much frankly. We are just going to add a lot of swimmers with little… Read more »
How many ADs are going to pay for relay swimmers to go and not swim any individual events? Answer- zero. Instead of a numerical cap, why not go to a flat number in each event. e.g. top 22 individuals and top 12 relays get invites. Anyone in swims all B cuts and schools can enter relays w b cuts and swim invited swimmers. Sounds reasonable to me. Do I need to be in charge? 🙂
Calbearfan – I think what people don’t like about that is the uncertainty. They want to know exactly how fast they need to go to make the meet, or at least have some sort of “guaranteed” standard in play.
It’s great to see you both back together….