Anonymous wrote:I am not a crazy parent (I think NVSL is generally nuts) but I would be annoyed if our team accepted times from makeup swims at practice in lieu of swimming at time trials. Our team does two time trials though, so there's really no excuse. If there's no stroke and turn judge present, the time should not count. Even experienced swimmers sometimes DQ at time trials if they haven't raced in a while, or if they've aged up from 8 to 9 and are still learning proper turns. Going by last summer's times you risk having swimmers who will DQ or kids taking spots away from someone more deserving just based on their past hitsory. No one is entitled to swim in the first A meet just because they have had fast times in the past. Things can change a lot in a school year. Kids who were fast can fade, and kids who weren't top 3 can suddenly emerge. I have seen this happen among year round club swimmers so it's not just a matter of who swam over the winter or not.

If you have other sports or events that conflict, you either miss those or deal with the fact that you can't swim in the first A meet. Every summer should start with a blank slate. Teams who don't do it this way are the crazy ones who care only about winning. That's a terrible culture for a summer league team.

You sound reasonable to me.

Anonymous wrote:The NVSL rule book technically allows teams to submit NT entries for their top two swimmers in each event at Divisionals. It’s hard to imagine a scenario where this option would be used and wouldn’t anger other team parents though.

This is correct. NVSL updated its ruiles last year to state clearly that an NT may be enterd for divisionals:

"Seeding Times: The seed times for Firm Entries and Bid-Ins shall be proven by any swim meet result attained by a swimmer for his/her NVSL team during the current season or, if the event has not been swum, by a current time certified by the Coach and Team Rep, or No Time (NT). Times of disqualified swimmers shall not be used as Divisional seed times. (See Rule 1p for yard/meter conversion.) "

Agree that this is not something that would typically be used, though you could imagine it coming into play in some situations -- i.e. small teams or team where one 8&U is clearly the fasstest swimmer in all strokes, but has to swim breast/fly in meets because the team doesn't have enough legal swimmers. That set of facts is more common than one would think. The rule would let that kid swim free/back at divisionals. (You would typically have a B-meet time to enter in that situation, but it's also possible that the kid isn't available on B-meet nights due to another conflict.)

The NVSL rule book technically allows teams to submit NT entries for their top two swimmers in each event at Divisionals. It’s hard to imagine a scenario where this option would be used and wouldn’t anger other team parents though.

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Anonymous wrote:Our team won't let anyone swim
In an A meet without a time trial, makeup time trial or B meet time.

You must have a really big team with a lot of good swimmers.

Our coach knows the kids well and knows who is fast. With that if a kid misses time trials or the fist B meet, thus doesn't have any current times, they will still be on the roster.

Last year some kids missed time trials and then the B meet a few nights later was cancelled halfway through due to thunder storms. So we had a lot of kids without times.

That's how it is with our team too. No one is left off the first A meet roster just because they missed time trials or the B-meet. Our coaches would use a time from last year or use their common sense. When this issue comes up, it typically is not a borderline situation -- the kid without a time being placed on the A meet roster is clearly one of the three fastest at the stroke.

Now I will say that I am fine with this for the first meet or two, but after that kids need to show up to B meets to get times.

We had a swimmer last year who is a really good swimmer, fasted on the team. The coach always puts this swimmer in the same 2 strokes at A meets because he knows they will get point.

however, this swimmer wanted to swim the other 2 stokes at divisionals and while everyone knows this swimmer could bet them any day this swimmer did not have times for these strokes because they were too good to show up for B meets. Still annoys me that they got to swim these at divisionals.

This is actually agains tNVSL rules

No it isn't. Each team can enter 2 kids in each event. There is no NVSL criteria for how the team can make those selections. For bidding in for extra lanes that other teams don't fill, that is a different story.

Can’t swim divisionals with a NT. If there’s no A meet time coaches/team reps have to vouch for validity of any time they submit for their divisionals selections.

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Anonymous wrote:Time Trials are basically an extra practice. They don't even hand out ribbons. It's not the end of the world if your kid or someone else's kid misses Time Trials. Coaches will get a time for them in practice or at the B meet. Life will go on.

A lot of teams don’t allow practice times to count for seeding. And still lots of conflicts for that first B meet.

AFAIK our first B meet is not until after the first A meet. That’s the way it always is for our team.

Really? Our first B meet is always right after Time Trials. It gives the coaches more times to seed with.

I honestly didn't realize other pools had a B meet before the first A meet!

Yes, some pools, including ours, use that B meet as a second time trial so kids can get times in all 4 strokes before the first A meet(we limit kids to 2 events in our intra-squad time trials.

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Anonymous wrote:Our team won't let anyone swim
In an A meet without a time trial, makeup time trial or B meet time.

You must have a really big team with a lot of good swimmers.

Our coach knows the kids well and knows who is fast. With that if a kid misses time trials or the fist B meet, thus doesn't have any current times, they will still be on the roster.

Last year some kids missed time trials and then the B meet a few nights later was cancelled halfway through due to thunder storms. So we had a lot of kids without times.

That's how it is with our team too. No one is left off the first A meet roster just because they missed time trials or the B-meet. Our coaches would use a time from last year or use their common sense. When this issue comes up, it typically is not a borderline situation -- the kid without a time being placed on the A meet roster is clearly one of the three fastest at the stroke.

Now I will say that I am fine with this for the first meet or two, but after that kids need to show up to B meets to get times.

We had a swimmer last year who is a really good swimmer, fasted on the team. The coach always puts this swimmer in the same 2 strokes at A meets because he knows they will get point.

however, this swimmer wanted to swim the other 2 stokes at divisionals and while everyone knows this swimmer could bet them any day this swimmer did not have times for these strokes because they were too good to show up for B meets. Still annoys me that they got to swim these at divisionals.

This is actually agains tNVSL rules

No it isn't. Each team can enter 2 kids in each event. There is no NVSL criteria for how the team can make those selections. For bidding in for extra lanes that other teams don't fill, that is a different story.

And now I have a week after swim I have to figure out and pay more for too because there is nothing going on in the morning and the pool is very boring the week of All stars because most people don’t make that level and leave on vacation

I am not reading all these pages and it’s not the end of the world but I really am a bit upset about NVSL moving everything up a week. We do Boy Scout camp right after school so we don’t have to miss swim meets and now it runs into meets. We schedule vacation for the first week in August so we can do this before fall sports start. We like the three weeks before meets to swim and prepare for meets. It’s just happening too fast and for planning purposes I would really like to know what the schedule will be like a little earlier next year.

If it’s really that close, this sounds like the perfect case for a swim off in practice … a couple days before the actual meet rather than the week before.

Sounds the the perfect case for a swim off in practice.

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Anonymous wrote:I am not a crazy parent (I think NVSL is generally nuts) but I would be annoyed if our team accepted times from makeup swims at practice in lieu of swimming at time trials. Our team does two time trials though, so there's really no excuse. If there's no stroke and turn judge present, the time should not count. Even experienced swimmers sometimes DQ at time trials if they haven't raced in a while, or if they've aged up from 8 to 9 and are still learning proper turns. Going by last summer's times you risk having swimmers who will DQ or kids taking spots away from someone more deserving just based on their past hitsory. No one is entitled to swim in the first A meet just because they have had fast times in the past. Things can change a lot in a school year. Kids who were fast can fade, and kids who weren't top 3 can suddenly emerge. I have seen this happen among year round club swimmers so it's not just a matter of who swam over the winter or not.

If you have other sports or events that conflict, you either miss those or deal with the fact that you can't swim in the first A meet. Every summer should start with a blank slate. Teams who don't do it this way are the crazy ones who care only about winning. That's a terrible culture for a summer league team.

If you are typing all that and still think you aren’t crazy NVSL parent I don’t know what to tell you. To me the bottom line is if you have say a 12 year old who has to use last year’s times for seeding at the first meet and those times from age 11 are good enough to make the A meet, so be it. If you’re being honest the true objection there is that the kid is fast and you think it’s unfair that slower Larlo had to go to time trials, even though he still couldn’t beat that kid’s time from a year ago. I can see the objection to kids who don’t show up to time trials or the makeup and don’t have a good enough time from last year to make the A meet though.

You couldn’t be more wrong regarding your assumptions about me. I have just been around this sport a long time and have strong feelings about what summer swim should be even if my own kid would benefit from what you describe. A time from 10 months ago means nothing and should not be used to make decisions about who swims in a meet this summer. Plenty of kids start out summer slower than they were at the end of last summer because they haven’t been swimming nearly as often. Let’s say kid A shows up at time trials and almost beats the time that the 11 year old in your scenario (kid B) did last year. Meanwhile you know nothing about how kid B would do right now because they didn’t show up to time trials. Should kid B get the third spot in the lineup over kid A because you just assume they will be faster than last year? What if they’re not? Why shouldn’t kid A have to prove themselves? If they’re so good they can grace everyone with their presence at time trials. No one on a summer team is too good to show up at the events.

Anonymous wrote:I am not a crazy parent (I think NVSL is generally nuts) but I would be annoyed if our team accepted times from makeup swims at practice in lieu of swimming at time trials. Our team does two time trials though, so there's really no excuse. If there's no stroke and turn judge present, the time should not count. Even experienced swimmers sometimes DQ at time trials if they haven't raced in a while, or if they've aged up from 8 to 9 and are still learning proper turns. Going by last summer's times you risk having swimmers who will DQ or kids taking spots away from someone more deserving just based on their past hitsory. No one is entitled to swim in the first A meet just because they have had fast times in the past. Things can change a lot in a school year. Kids who were fast can fade, and kids who weren't top 3 can suddenly emerge. I have seen this happen among year round club swimmers so it's not just a matter of who swam over the winter or not.

If you have other sports or events that conflict, you either miss those or deal with the fact that you can't swim in the first A meet. Every summer should start with a blank slate. Teams who don't do it this way are the crazy ones who care only about winning. That's a terrible culture for a summer league team.

If you are typing all that and still think you aren’t crazy NVSL parent I don’t know what to tell you. To me the bottom line is if you have say a 12 year old who has to use last year’s times for seeding at the first meet and those times from age 11 are good enough to make the A meet, so be it. If you’re being honest the true objection there is that the kid is fast and you think it’s unfair that slower Larlo had to go to time trials, even though he still couldn’t beat that kid’s time from a year ago. I can see the objection to kids who don’t show up to time trials or the makeup and don’t have a good enough time from last year to make the A meet though.

I am not a crazy parent (I think NVSL is generally nuts) but I would be annoyed if our team accepted times from makeup swims at practice in lieu of swimming at time trials. Our team does two time trials though, so there's really no excuse. If there's no stroke and turn judge present, the time should not count. Even experienced swimmers sometimes DQ at time trials if they haven't raced in a while, or if they've aged up from 8 to 9 and are still learning proper turns. Going by last summer's times you risk having swimmers who will DQ or kids taking spots away from someone more deserving just based on their past hitsory. No one is entitled to swim in the first A meet just because they have had fast times in the past. Things can change a lot in a school year. Kids who were fast can fade, and kids who weren't top 3 can suddenly emerge. I have seen this happen among year round club swimmers so it's not just a matter of who swam over the winter or not.

If you have other sports or events that conflict, you either miss those or deal with the fact that you can't swim in the first A meet. Every summer should start with a blank slate. Teams who don't do it this way are the crazy ones who care only about winning. That's a terrible culture for a summer league team.

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Anonymous wrote:Our team won't let anyone swim
In an A meet without a time trial, makeup time trial or B meet time.

Make-up time trial = after practice at our pool.

How? who is the starter? Timers?

Lol, umm I’m guessing a coach and an assistant coach or 2 can handle this. It is rec swim, someone says take your mark and sounds a whistle or something, and another person runs a stopwatch.

Then why would we staff a full meet for time trials at all if this is the case?

Seriously? Becuase you can’t do that individually for a 200 member team. For the handful of kids that have conflicts for time trials and the makeup though, sure. Again, it’s rec swim, it doesn’t need to meet USA Swimming standards.

"Conflicts" just mean getting a swim time wasnt prioritized by that family over other activities. Other people prioritized getting their kids legal times. That kid should have to swim a B meet to get a time like everyone else.

You all deserve every bit of your bat sh!t crazy reputation.

Who?

NVSL parents. We were in MCSL and the parents there even talked about how crazy the NVSL parents are. You are actually being indignant about not using a kid’s time from the previous year, or an informal time, or a club time, to seed them for the 1st meet of the season. That’s crazy.

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Anonymous wrote:Our team won't let anyone swim
In an A meet without a time trial, makeup time trial or B meet time.

Make-up time trial = after practice at our pool.

How? who is the starter? Timers?

This could provide consolation, or anger, but hand timing swim races is notoriously inaccurate. Times are almost always faster than the real times, and the clerk is constantly trying to reconcile times, place order etc. Even in usa swimming with touchpads, you would be surprised at how much hand waving there is when there is no pad time. It can mean the difference between making a cut or not, but the officials usually have only a few seconds to look at a time before going on to the next. In summer swim, kids are making A meets or All stars or whatever off janky times, which is fine because it's all just for fun.

When I’ve been a backup timer at club meets with a touch pad, my times are nearly always within +/- 0.12 of what shows up on the big board. It’s rare that two swimmers from the same summer team are so closely matched that such a small error would make the difference between which one swims in the A meet and which doesn’t. Now on the margins of being an All Star or an alternate that’s a different story. Just swim faster so that’s not a factor. All Stars does use touch pads.

You should time at every meet. I do admin officiating and most timers aren’t that close. Timers think they are doing well because their times agree with their co-timer, but they can both be well off the pad time. They then come to us and say, “I think the pad is malfunctioning”.

Some common reasons why hand timing is usually faster than pad times are human reaction time at the start and anticipation at the finish. Timers often listen for the buzzer rather than look for the light. In both cases, the stopwatch is started after the actual start because of human reaction time (~0.2 sec), but if the buzzer is far away, the sound takes longer to travel and the reaction time is even slower.

You would think that stopping the watch would have the same issue and would cancel out the start, but since you can see the swimmer coming to the wall, and the angle at which you are trying to watch the swimmer without falling into the pool, timers often anticipate the touch and stop the watch before the actual touch. Especially when we are rooting for the swimmer and want them to finish well.

If you are 0.12 sec off on average, you are probably starting the watch within 0.2 sec after the actual start and are much better than most at actually stopping the watch for the final touch, perhaps even stopping it a touch late.

As an ao, I can tell you it can get messy with timers. People forget to push the plunger, start the watch late and don’t raise their hand to replace it, and if there’s a soft touch, we have to guess what happened.