swim team coverage

[GB-Hack]

Around here, every coach knows who everyone else has got, so they shuffle according to that rather than anything they see in the paper. That being said, I've seen dual-meets where coaches will let the other team's stud go unopposed in his or her two individual events, stack other events and try to come out ahead. We have one school here who won districts four years in a row solely because they could put three swimmers in close to every final and go 1-2 in the diving competition. Once they got to states, I don't think any of the team's members made a final.

 

[crusoes]

Why would anyone hate cross country? The damn thing is over, with boys and girls competing, in an hour. Track, that's another story.

I'm coming to the conclusion that all sports parents suck. Just some a lot more than others.

 

[KP]

The one good thing about swimming results is you can pretty much compare times from big schools and small schools.

So you can run a top 5 or 10 weekly list of the top times in each event. Just be sure that all times are in yards or meters. Like someone said earlier, convert the meter times to yards.

If you could get the coaches to give you the times when they call in. Around here some coaches won't do that because they're worried about opposing teams buying copies of the paper (or getting it online) and stacking their lineups accordingly.
It's kind of like a football coach asking you not to put the leading rusher's stats in the paper because other teams will know whom they have to stop.
They want to be covered like a major sport, but don't like it when you insist on getting the same kind of information you need when covering a major sport.
Does anyone know if a team ever lost a meet because its opponents shuffled their lineup based on times published in the paper? The next time I hear about it happening will be the first.

I had a football coach pull this shirt this week for the upcoming Thanksgiving preview. If I give you my stats I'll be at a competitive disadvantage because they'll know them and I won't know their's. I then explained, well if everyone plays along everyone we'll have everyone's stats in that paper and nobody gets screwed. What I wanted to say was, if you think Coach WhoHappensToHaveA25GameWinningStreak is waiting for the Podunk Press to come out to see which guys to key in on then I'm guessing his name is going to be Coach EntersPlayoffsWithA26GmWinStreak.

Belichickization - every single piece of information is a classified secret.

As for swimming, that's why they invented agate pages. And along the lines of Meat, bring a gas mask for the fumes.

 

[EStreetJoe]

The one good thing about swimming results is you can pretty much compare times from big schools and small schools.

So you can run a top 5 or 10 weekly list of the top times in each event. Just be sure that all times are in yards or meters. Like someone said earlier, convert the meter times to yards.

If you could get the coaches to give you the times when they call in. Around here some coaches won't do that because they're worried about opposing teams buying copies of the paper (or getting it online) and stacking their lineups accordingly.
It's kind of like a football coach asking you not to put the leading rusher's stats in the paper because other teams will know whom they have to stop.
They want to be covered like a major sport, but don't like it when you insist on getting the same kind of information you need when covering a major sport.
Does anyone know if a team ever lost a meet because its opponents shuffled their lineup based on times published in the paper? The next time I hear about it happening will be the first.

We used to run the top three times in each event from meets. Then all of a sudden a few years ago, coaches stopped doing that, only wanting to give the winning time in an event. Several coaches said that by running the top three times other schools are getting a scouting report on them by seeing how fast they're swimming and can adjust their lineups accordingly.
I haven't heard of a meet being decided because a coach adjusted his lineup to stack it in some events.
Next thing you know you'll have wrestling coaches refusing to give you results because it will allow the opposition to know how to stack their lineups - or who to bump up (or down) a weight class for a meet. Thankfully this hasn't happened (yet).

 

[EStreetJoe]

If you need a conversion chart to help you get all the times unified (all meters or all yards), here's one:
http://swimming.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.csi.org%2Fconversions.htm