Potomac Valley Voices
Editor: Dick Rankin
Vol. 3 No 2 JANUARY, 1999
General Chairman’s Corner - Dick Rankin| Link to other Issues of PVS Voices |
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General Chairman’s Corner -- Dick Rankin
On behalf of the PVS Board I want to wish every PVS member the best as we head into 1999 and toward our Championship series of meets in February and March. Congratulations to all our swimmers who performed so well at the JO Meet before the holidays. You can see the results from that meet on our PVS web page. That meet keeps getting faster by the year; how fast was it? Just a snapshot will put the meet in perspective; there were 3 Olympic Trial cuts, 48 Senior Championship cuts, 246 Junior Championship cuts, and 96 Top 16 cuts for Age Groups 14 and Under. Also, Middle Atlantic did an analysis of the 5 major holiday meets on the East Coast and JO's was hands-down the fastest.
I heard some concerns again this year about the large number of finals swimmers from outside PVS. As a parent of a swimmer who ONLY swam in prelims, I remain convinced that those non-PVS swimmers are good for our swimmers because it does give them an opportunity to experience first hand the level of competition out there. I did not talk to one coach or swimmer who wasn't excited about the meet and I had several parents tell me their swimmer had never swum faster. I had one non-PVS coach tell me that he brought his swimmers to the meet untapered and unshaved because he knew the speed of the meet would pull his swimmers to best times. I truly believe this is the crown jewel of the PVS season even though our athletes will probably swim faster during the Championship series in February and March. As usual, we presented our Outstanding Athlete Awards and Arvydas Barzdukas Performance Awards at the JO Meet; these names were previously announced and you can see those listed on the web page as well. There are a couple issues that have arisen since our last Voices that I want to clarify and a couple other items of interest so let's get on with it.
We are USA Swimming -- Chuck Weilgus, USA Swimming Executive Dir.
Editors Note: The following paragraph is quoted directly from a USA Swimming Announcement.
United States Swimming has changed its operating name to USA Swimming. The reasons for this change are: (a) the new name is consistent with our name identification in our corporate logo; (b) the new name is consistent with how most other national Olympic governing bodies are recognizing themselves; and (c) the use of USA is consistent in international competition. Our registered corporate name will remain United States Swimming, Inc.; we are, however, filing legal documents that will permit us to be "doing business as" USA Swimming. We have already begun implementing the name change wherever possible and by the end of this calendar year (1998) we should have made the complete transition in all our printed material. Our policy will be to use the full name USA Swimming all the time. We will not use any form of abbreviation.
USA Swimming is the National Governing Body for competitive swimming in the US. Previously a committee of the AAU, it came into being with the passage of the Amateur Sports Act in 1978. As the National Governing Body, USA Swimming is responsible for the conduct and administration of swimming in the US. It formulates the rules, implements the policies and procedures, conducts the national championships, disseminates safety and sports medicine information and selects athletes to represent the US in international competition. It is a non-profit organization made up of volunteers at every level from the National Board of Directors to local swimming clubs. A House of Delegates meets annually in September-October to determine rules and regulations. The elected Board of Directors is charged with the responsibility of making decisions. The USA Swimming professional staff, headed by the Executive Director, and headquarters are located in Colorado Springs at the Olympic Training Center; its services include publications, educational programs, fund raising activities and other swimming related programs. Staff are available to answer any questions or provide additional information about USA Swimming and can be contacted at (719) 578-4578 or through the web site at www.usa-swimming.org.
PVS and Member Club Sponsored Meet -- Dick Rankin
Based on the questions generated from the December meets, there is confusion about Club and PVS sponsored meets. This was discussed in both the May and June 1998 issues of Voices and I will try to clarify the situation here again. Until this past season PVS was one of the only local associations to manage (conduct) all competition. That means that the LSC arranged and paid for the use of pools and allowed clubs to bid for meet management in return for a small fee per swimmer entries. Even though we were able to find a few clubs who were willing to manage the meets; in general there was little incentive for most, particularly the smaller clubs, to get involved because the return did not warrant the effort. After a long look by the PVS Board and several recommendations that addressed the periphery of the issue, we decided (and the House of Delegates approved) to attack the heart of the problem by dividing the PVS schedule into PVS and Club sponsored meets. The former is similar to the "old way of doing business" except that the return to the clubs is greater and the latter are meets run solely by member clubs. For Club sponsored meets PVS will not get involved in securing or paying for pool time and the clubs will pay only a small fee to PVS; all other income is retained by the member club. PVS sponsored meets will be limited primarily to Open meets, Distance meets and the Championship series of meets in the Spring and Summer. All other meets, including JOs and JO qualifier series, Mini meets, and Spring Classic, will eventually be Club sponsored meets. The impact on the swimmers and your pocketbooks should be negligible and both sets of meets are fully sanctioned by PVS. However, you can anticipate that sponsoring clubs will generate new intiatives to generate revenue, such as advertising and sporsorships, and half priced meet sheets for PVS Family Members do not apply. We intend to ensure the quality and the scope of competition for Club sponsored meets, since every proposed meet must pass review by the Competition Committee. As PVS steps back from meet sponsorship, we anticipate the impact on our member clubs will be marked and positive. Over time as the process evolves, we would hope to see every member club participating and reaping the benefits of this policy. In the long run we believe this is in the best interest of the financial well being of our member clubs and that this redistribution of income will directly benefit club programs that support our athlete members.
PVS Family Membership -- Dick Rankin
As a result of several email messages and calls over the past month, there is also some confusion about what constitutes the PVS Family Membership and the changes we have made this year. Again, I refer you to last May and June newsletters where the changes were highlighted (you can still find these issues on the PVS web page). It is clear from your comments that many of you think that PVS Family Membership is a source of income for the LSC; in reality, membership was the way to get paper copies of PVS information (primarily the PVS Aquatics Guide, meet announcements and meet results) into the hands of our family members. In fact, we serviced only about a fourth of the families with PVS athletes and it was a financial drain on our resources because membership fees accounted for only 50% of what it cost to distribute the information. The other real incentive for joining was the half price meet programs. Due to the very positive response to our PVS web page and our goal of balancing our budget, which had been out of balance for several years, the House of Delegates last May approved several changes to our means of communicating with the membership, including Family Membership. The hard copy PVS Aquatics Guide has been eliminated (we will consider bringing it back on a strictly pay-as-you-go basis next year); it appears en toto on the web page and is therefore far more responsive to changes. We have cut the Family Mailings to 6 per year and reduced the price of a PVS Family Membership to $10. The key cost factor is the elimination of meet results from the mailings unless specifically requested for an additional $30 fee. Our numbers are down, particularly for the meet results, as we anticipated but the program is now on an even keel in terms of expenses to income. Regarding half priced meet programs, the Board recognized that this was an incentive to purchase a Family Membership in the past and a disincentive for clubs to sponsor meets. In PVS sponsored meets all income from meet program sales goes to PVS and all costs are borne by PVS so the clubs are not impacted. In June the Board voted to continue the half price meet programs through the end of our current fiscal year, August 31, 1999. The Board's motion did not make a distinction between PVS and Club sponsored meets but the majority of clubs that have sponsored meets this fall have assumed that decision applied only to PVS sponsored meets where the income goes to PVS and the costs are borne by PVS. I believe that is a fair assumption as it was our intent in adopting the Club Meet sponsorship program to help clubs generate more income not more cost. That is the reason that JO Meet and the qualifier meets earlier in December did not offer half price meet programs. For the remainder of this 98-99 season (thru August), half price meet programs will be for sale at the January Open Meet and the Spring and Summer Championship series meets. Based on this year's experience I anticipate the Board will recommend to the House of Delegates that we eliminate in name the PVS Family Membership and replace it with a program of mailings - meet announcements, meet results, and possibly the PVS Aquatics Guide - strictly on a pay-as-you-go annual basis probably with a late summer, early Winter, and mid-Spring mailing. Each item will be sold separately and this, then, should accommodate those PVS families who do not have or want access to our web page, where the identical information is available in a more timely manner and at no cost to the reader.
Scheduling of Junior & Senior Championship Meets -- Dick Rankin
I received a question regarding the scheduling of our PVS Junior and Senior Championship Meets. In the past the Junior meet has always preceded Senior Championships and thus swimmers could qualify at the Junior meet for Senior Championships. This year the meets are reversed. This was a decision recommended by the PVS Competition Committee (made up of coaches from every PVS member club) last May after much discussion and approved by the PVS Board. It was not made with a great deal of satisfaction and we have every intention of returning to our normal schedule in the future but this format makes the best of a bad situation. The shift in our schedule came about because USA Swimming moved the Spring Senior Championship Meet up one week to deconflict with Easter Weekend. This forced a similar shift forward for the regional Junior Championship Meets as well. As a result, if we had maintained our normal schedule, then any swimmer that made a Junior cut at PVS Senior Champs would have had to virtually hop on an airplane from our meet. The coaches felt this was an unsatisfactory situation and considered many options. Several factors entered into the decision to flip flop our meets, including an attempt not to conflict with other swimming events, namely high school championship meets in our area. The Competition Committee decided that the option it chose would be the least disruptive and hold the most promise for providing the best opportunity for all swimmers to perform at their best at either the Senior or Junior Championship Meet. We made this decision realizing fully that for this year a swimmer could not progress from Junior to Senior Champs. Those swimmers, who are close to Senior Champs cuts, will have to focus on achieving their goals at finals of Junior Champs. Of course, once they have achieved those times they would be qualified for future Senior Championships. In reality, this should make Junior Championship finals much more exciting and competitive than in the past when swimmers making a Senior cut in prelims frequently scratched from finals.
PVS Adapted Swimming Program -- Marc Stanley
Editor's Note: Marc Stanley has recently accepted the position of Adapted Swimming Coordinator in PVS. He is currently conducting a survey of PVS member clubs to develop an LSC roster of disabled swimmers.
In most aspects of swimming, as well as other sports, the United States without question sets the standards for the rest of the world to follow. Our country is looked towards for leadership from countries who need or lack direction. Yet, I am sad to report that on the international level for disabled athletes, we are almost completely invisible. USA Swimming in a bold move this past year created a national swimming championship for athletes with disabilities. This championship meet was unique because it successfully brought together athletes from several different governing and sport disability groups. PVS was represented by several swimmers whose clubs received reimbursement just as they would for sending athletes to the Junior or Senior Championship Meets.
This competition while successful, lacked a proper representation of the number of disabled citizens of our great nation. We are members of the LSC that represents our nation's capital and, as such, we are mandated to develop and set the standard for disability athletes in America. I encourage all of you to get involved by bringing your resources. Contact your head coach and volunteer to be your team's contact person for issues involving athletes with a disability. If you need more direction and information, please feel free to contact me at (703) 435-2001 or via email at stanley@teamgold.com.
UMD Awarded World Cup Meets -- Dick Rankin
You can get the details in a USA Swimming press release available on our web page but in a nutshell the University of Maryland new Aquatic Center has been selected to host a World Cup Meet in both 1999 and 2000. The 1st ever World Cup meet in the US took place at Texas A&M last month and attracted 240 swimmers from 35 nations, including Olympic and World champions. 2 World and 7 American records were set. That is the kind of swimming we can expect to see next November when the World Cup comes to UMD. In discussing this selection, Chuck Wielgus, USA Swimming Executive Director, stated the following: "In making site selections for future events - especially our major high profile events - it is extremely important that we not only select a great competition venue, but we must also select venues that serve our image, marketing and promotional objectives…. By taking the event to the Washington, DC area we accomplish 3 major objectives: (1) we help introduce a new major aquatic facility to the national and international swimming communities; (2) by being near Washington, we'll have a destination that will be very attractive to international swimmers and FINA members federations; and (3) we'll be conducting the event in an area that has a great local swimming community…. This is the kind of thinking and planning that we need to do in order to most effectively develop our event properties…"
Related to the above, I have received a formal request from the Curl Burke Swim Club to host the 2000 Eastern Zone Short Course Championship Meet (April) at the new Prince George's Sports Complex. If approved later this month by the PVS Board, we will present this to the Eastern Zone in May for approval. Combined with the recent showing at our JO Meet, it should be obvious that Potomac Valley is not only the home to some of our nation's top swimmers but also will soon be the locale for some of the top swims and top swimming venues in the United States.