Attendees: -- Don Riedlinger Chairman, Victor Abrahamian, SDS; Nate Boyle, AST; Manga Dalizu, FAST; Christian Doud, MACH; John Hirschmann, PVS; Peter Karl, SDS; Bill Marlin, PM; Eric Moore, AST; Mike Pliuskaitis, SNOW; Evan Stiles, AAC; Greg York, YORK Guest: Ira Klein
Call to Order -- This special Competition Committee meeting was called to order by Competition Committee Chairman, Don Riedlinger at 7:35 pm at Army Navy Country Club.
Don Riedlinger introduced a special guest from United States Swimming, Ira Klein who is the Sports Development Coordinator for the Eastern Zone and is also the Director of Field Services, giving him responsibility for overseeing the sports development coordinators in all four zones.
Approval of Minutes -- The minutes of the September 26, 2004 Competition Committee meeting were approved as submitted.
Agenda -- Don Riedlinger explained that this meeting had been called for the specific purpose of discussing the Report from the PVS Competition Scheduling Task Force, which had met on October 25th and circulated its recommendations and a reminder of this meeting via FLASH MAIL on Saturday, October 30th. He expressed the hope that discussion and action at this meeting be limited to that purpose and topic.
Summation of Report -- Peter Karl then reviewed with the Committee the activities of the task force. The task force had given a report at the regular September 26th 2004 meeting of the Competition Committee. He highlighted several of the points made in the task force report that had been circulated previously, including that a questionnaire had been circulated and responses sought. He stated a purpose was to discuss how PVS sets its schedule including whether to put PVS sponsored meets on the calendar. Others noted that C-8 of PVS's Policy and Procedures already provides for this approach - setting which meets and meets will be PVS sponsored and then allowing clubs to bid for club sponsored meets on other weekends.
He also noted this Competition Committee meeting is being scheduled now in order to allow the Board at its next meeting (now rescheduled from November 10th to November 17th) to consider the recommendations in time to allow pool rentals to be made in a timely manner.
Riedlinger then made a motion to move Option #2 from the PVS Competition Scheduling Task Force in order to allow discussion to progress. The Motion was seconded.
The major features of this motion are:
· Move PVS Senior Championships to the December timeframe
· PVS Open and Distance Meets: no change
· PVS 14&Under Champs: no change
· Add a new PVS Championship Meet to serve Senior PVS swimmers not covered by Sectionals in the timeframe of Sectionals
An extended discussion on the motion was then held. Points made during the discussion included:
· Have we considered having the PVS Senior Champ meet April?
· Many responded that most take a break just before then and are starting to focus on LC training.
· Goal should be to place this meet where everybody ready to swim fast - proponent felt this is most likely to be in December..
· It would avoid swimmers not showing up for a spring meet and/or bagging swims if it is a money meet for them.
· Have fast meets in December. Coaches don't care whether it is a club sponsored or PVS sponsored meet
· The current schedule is fine except move the current PVS Championship meet farther back in March.
· The meets being provided by CUBU (Dolan Invitational), Marlin meet and starting this year by MAKO (all of which are prelim/finals) are already serving our needs - why do we need to put another meet in that timeframe.
· PVS does not control the CUBU sponsored meet -- they chose the format since it is their meet since it club sponsored. - their meet does not provide 3 heats in finals for senior swimmers (only 2 heats.). That hurts the 17th to 24th place finishers from prelims - including younger swimmers (particularly males) that we are trying to retain.
· What will our two largest clubs support a PVS Senior Championship Meet (who were not present at this meeting) support - if they choose not to participate - it will be a championship meet in name only.
· How many meets will families support in December. Will they go to 2 or 3 meets in what is a very busy month for most.
· Also be an additional burden on our officials - we already have 5 meets on the PVS calendar in December.
· There are only 3 weekends available for Competition - unless you want to swim on Christmas.
· What happens to swims for younger swimmers in we no longer have Dolan meet with the events for age group swimmers.
· Will PVS families support more than 2 meets on a weekend?
· Want to support PV meets first, but do not want change in schedule.
· If big teams don't support the meet - won't be a true championship meet.
· What pools (for how many weekends) are available and appropriate for high caliber meets.
· VA HS running double meets the first weekend in December this year - limits PVS's ability to put meet on that weekend.
· 3 weekends of HS Championship meets in February has worn out the swimmers, so can't perform well at PVS Championship meet in early March.
· Have month to train for something new after HS - if have the Senior Champs in late March rather than early March.
· Have PVS Senior SC Champs after the Sectional meet.
· Better to have it in December than March.
· Set a criteria/process for setting a calendar. Once criteria are set, setting the calendar will be automatic.
· Should PVS put more or less PVS sponsored meets on the calendar than it has now.
· Provide 3 heats at night in Dolan meet - will this make finals sessions too long?
· Running 3 trial/finals meets this December, do we need more?.
· PVS used to provide meets all over the place, now clubs provide many of the meets.
· Unfortunate the PVS has 34 teams, yet only 8 teams here tonight. Two largest teams are not here. Meeting was well publicized to assure clubs could not claim they were not aware of it.
· Wherever put PVS meet - clubs will put on their own meet or out of town if the meet does not satisfy its needs.
· Not talking about eliminating meets.
· Want all the good kids at the same meet so they can compete against each other.
· Are we trying to get rid of club sponsored meets in December?
· As long as providing meets that satisfy the needs of our athletes to progress is a criteria for evaluating sufficiency of the program.
· PVS challenged by fact its swimmers compete in more than one state and HS's have slightly different calendars. Also have to deal with private school calendar.
· Would really help to move high school swimming season to the fall. Most noted it was not realistic to expect to be able to convince high schools to change their competition season.
· HS not likely to change their schedule - don't get hopes up we influence them to make a change.
· Swimming is one two sports without recognized season throughout the country.
· NISCA won't even recommend what should be the "one season" for HS swimming.
· What best for athletes -- each coach will make their own decision.
· Want to provide an opportunity for our best kids to swim against best kids in other LSC's.
· 5 meets already on calendar in 3 weeks -- already puts major burden on officials - especially since 3 of them are prelim/finals.
· Too many meets wear out the officials, stretch families too far particularly if they have swimmers of different abilities or ages. How far can people be stretched.
· Some LSC's set more rules on what a club may do in order to get a sanction for a club sponsored meet. PVS has tended not to do so - but could reassess.
· March currently does not work, will December work better??
· If PVS run its PVS Senior Champs on a December weekend - expectation is CUBU will have its meet one week earlier or later.
Does meet have best swimmers there - if it does are they swimming either not rested or bagging swims.
· Coaches concerned about having meets on too many weekends - don't get much time for rest.
· PVS is the governing body - should provide leadership regarding the format of meets.
· Cannot legislate when teams will swim. Coaches will pick meets that are best for their swimmers - whether provided by PVS or clubs, within or outside of PVS.
March is bigger problem than December in terms of too many meets on the calendar.
The Question is called. Don Riedlinger reviewed with the body what the motion was - namely to support Option #2 in the Report from the PVS Competition Scheduling Task Force.
The vote was 4 in favor, 3 against, 1 abstaining.
It was observed that 26 clubs that were eligible to participate in discussions and vote on the matter were not present.
It was agreed that the specific result of the motion (including making no change in the Open and Distance Meets) would mean making the following recommendation to the Board of Directors.
· October 14-16, 2005 PVS October Open
· November 11-13, 2005 PVS November Open
· December 8-11, 2005 PVS Senior Championships
· January 7-8, 2006 PVS January Distance Meet
· January 21-22, 2006 PVS January Open Meet
· February 19-20, 2006 PVS February Distance Meet
· March 9-12, 2006 PVS 14/U JO Age Group SC Championship Meet
· March 16-19, 2006 PVS Championship Meet (QT's NFT than Sectionals)
Dates for Open meets would likely need to be subject to review once Redskins schedule is known in early April.
Questions were raised whether would be possible to have negotiations in order to avoid a direct conflict with the traditional CUBU meet was then raised. An additional option suggested was to move the PVS Senior SC Championship to January. It was noted the vote had been taken and discussion on the prior motion was no longer in order.
A motion was then made to have the PVS Senior SC Championship be on the third weekend in January. This would make it January 19-22, 2006. There was then some discussion of moving it to the prior weekend in order to take advantage of the MLK B-day weekend. After limited additional discussion, a vote was taken. The vote was a tie, 4-4. Riedlinger as Chairman then voted to break the tie by voting against it. He noted a consideration in his vote is this was a new alternative that that Competition had not previously been asked to consider.
Some raised the question whether it was appropriate to make a decision regarding the format of the PVS sponsored SC competition schedule based on such limited participation and a close vote. How the Board of Directors should react to recommendation based on limited participation was also raised. It was suggested that in order to avoid such situations, clubs need to support their own LSC by participating in their key decision making meetings.
Next Competition Committee Meeting -- The Competition Committee agreed on a starting time for its winter meeting - it will be on Sunday January 9th at 5:00p at River Falls. This starting time is expected to be after most (if not all) of the four sanctioned meets being held in PVS that day.
Adjournment -- The meeting was formally adjourned at approximately 9:00 pm.
After the meeting was formally adjourned, Greg York gave those in attendance a preview of a recommendation that will be presented and voted upon at the Winter Competition Committee meeting regarding how PVS EZ LC Team would be formed in the future.
A motion making the following recommendation is expected to made at the January Competition Committee meeting.
"PVS's Long course zone team should be selected and managed the same as short course zones. The only exception would be that the top 3 swimmers are selected to go and represent Potomac Valley in each event. (The third fastest swimmer must satisfy the QT established by the Zone for that event.) If the selected swimmers have achieved the qualifying times in other events, they may swim those as well. Finally, the long course zones team will be funded for the same amount as the short course zone team starting in 2006 (The House will be asked in May 2005 to adjust 2005 funding to permit this to happen in 2005.)"
Questions were answered to clarify how the proposal would work. It was estimated that a team formed this way would have 110-120 athletes.