Yesterday, we posted about how different conferences have their swimming officials positioned differently, and have different numbers of officials, for their championship meets. As the day wore on, we heard from more-and-more coaches around the country who were unhappy about the disparities.
Read that story here, along with a great Q&A with Brian Gordon of the NCAA about officiating rules.
On Friday morning, though, the staff, refereed and coordinated by Southern California Swimming Executive Director Mary Jo Swalley, has shifted, and there are now officials on the bulkhead.
This situation becomes more crucial in the current environment in college swimming. Once upon a time, NCAA qualifications were done based on swimmers meeting a time standard, but in the early 90’s, the ‘cap’ system was put in place, where one swimmer getting in to NCAA’s now means another swimmer is getting left out. That makes it so much more imperative that all qualifying swims are held to similar standards of scrutiny, and it appears as though the Pac 12 agrees.
We will continue to monitor the situation and provide updates as they become available.
But if NCAA Championships is meant to be an elite, fast meet, it seems crazy that someone ranked 90th in their B event can swim that event over a swimmer ranked 40th in the same event. And how does the current system force more focus onto the regular season?
The meet is capped at a number of swimmers at the meet, not per event. The hypothetical person that is ranked 90th is ranked higher than 40th in another event.
Meeting a time standard seems to be a much more objective, and fair, way to make NCAAs than the current format!
I don’t know that I agree that it’s more ‘objective’ or ‘fair.’ It would be more predictable, I’ll give you that much.
I like the current system because it forces more focus onto the regular season, which in my opinion brings more fans to the sport. But that’s my opinion, and I know a lot of people would disagree with me.
My kids club team was timing at the PAC 10 (12) championships in Long Beach, CA.. A parent who was timing told me that she was shocked when the time pads were unplugged. She asked the coach of our team (former Trojan) about it and he said if was better for the swimmers. At least a set time would not knock others out. Unfortunately, from my experience, there are many unethical people who will do just about anything to advance a particular athlete.
A few months later in Los Angeles, my kid got knocked out of the CIF finals because of an erroneous time entered for a swim officials club swimmer. There were time pads, pickles and stop watches on… Read more »
Wow, very interesting. Is SwimSwam becoming the 60 Minutes of swimming journalism? Keep up the good work!