Age Group Committee Meeting
The age group committee met on October 3rd. We talked about a number of issues. Here is a review of the meeting:
The qualifying standards for the new events at the 12&U State Meet were introduced by Drew Walden and the committee finalized them. New events are: 10&U 500 free; 11-12 200 Fly, 200 Back, 200 Breast.
There is a new set of time standards for the 15/16 age group designed to help ease athletes into the senior division. The jump in time standards from 13/14 to senior was very difficult to attain for swimmers who had just turned 15. Although, there are separate standards all athletes age 15-18 will compete together at the meet. If you turn 17 before the meet starts, swimmers must have achieved the 17/18 time standards to be eligible for the meet.
Official time standards will be posted after the LSC meeting on October 23rd. Sectional time standards have remained the same for the 2001-2002 season.
There was not a lot of discussion about the summer state meet. The committee discussed ideas on how to add the new 12&U events and also about combining all 13&O swimmers in the morning to make sessions move faster. They would then be separated out into specific age groups at night for finals.
The Zone C meet will be in Wichita, Kansas in 2002. The committee recommended several changes for future zone c meets including eliminating team travel. The LSC will continue to provide coaches and Team Wisconsin apparel but parents will be responsible for transporting, housing, and feeding the swimmers. The LSC (or team Wisconsin’s head coach) will continue submitting the team entry. The committee passed all of these recommendations.
The committee felt that the liability was getting too great to continue traveling the way we have in the past. It was also pointed out that athlete performance may be enhanced by traveling with their families. A block of rooms has already been reserved for the meet. Information will be handed out as we get closer to the meet.
4)Travel Fund Money
The travel fund money was discussed at length. A number of proposals were made and passed. The first involved the awards at the state meet. In order to create more incentive for teams to bid on the state meets, it was proposed that the LSC pay for all State Meet awards so that clubs can increase their revenue from the meet. This was unanimously passed.
The next proposal involved swimmers who had set state or national records. The committee felt that a special award should be given to individuals who set records of this nature. We will hand out awards for this for swimmers who set records starting in 2001. Please notify Matt Miller if you have any swimmers that fit into either of these categories.
We also made numerous changes for athlete and club reimbursement. Relay only swimmers will be reimbursed at 50% of whatever an individual swimmer receives for a given meet. Starting with this year’s US Open, the LSC will reimburse $300 for individual swimmers and $150 for relay only swimmers. The LSC will also start reimbursing for the spring sectional meet at $100 for individuals and continue reimbursing for the summer meet. In the summer, athletes can only be reimbursed the $100 1 TIME. You can’t receive a reimbursement for sectionals and the zone c meet.
The final change in the travel fund will allow for clubs to be reimbursed like in the past but it will now be based on how many athletes participate in the reimbursed meet. The more athletes that you take to a meet, the more money a club will be reimbursed by the LSC. This will be the case for all meets that are reimbursed including senior nationals and Olympic trials. If you send 1-6 athletes to a meet, a club will be reimbursed at the same rate as one individual swimmer. A team sending 7-12 athletes will be reimbursed for the same amount as two individual athletes and a team sending 13-18 athletes will be reimbursed for the same rate as three individual athletes. This will continue up the scale in multiples of six. Relay only swimmers do not count in athlete counts. They must be swimming an individual event in the meet to be used in entry counts for reimbursement and show final results.
Starting on November 1st, a new rule was passed at the USA Swimming convention. If you are teaching a swimmer how to do a competitive dive in practice, you must be in water that is at least 5 feet deep.
The next meeting will be on December 5th at 10:00AM in the Brookfield City Hall.