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The NCAA News - News and FeaturesThe NCAA News -- November 22, 1999 Last chance or fair chance?
Swimming committee regulates late meets to eliminate potential for abuse
BY HEATHER YOST
"Last-chance meets give those kids who don't make a qualifying time during the conference championship a second chance to do so when they should be at their peak performance,"said Jim Richardson, head women's swimming coach at the University of Michigan. But last-chance meets have been known to be open to abuse as well. The very name indicates the pressure and rush to qualify, leaving members of the swimming and diving community to trust the honor of student-athletes and coaches in the process. "I have had graduating seniors who gave up their spring break and trained and waited for a week and a half to see if they had qualified for the 800-yard relay," Richardson said. "Then a time came out of nowhere (from a last-chance meet), and they were out. I have no way of knowing if that time was legitimate or not except to trust my peers. All I know is that those seniors left training that day, went to the locker room and hung up their suits for good. You can't help but wonder when you watch that." The NCAA Men's and Women's Swimming and Diving Committee also has wondered and debated about the validity of times registered in the final 10 days of qualifying and the attention paid to the bona fide competition section of the NCAA Men's and Women's Swimming and Diving Rules Book. "My honest belief is that many more of these meets are being done correctly than incorrectly," said Kevin McNamee, chair of the Division I Men's and Women's Swimming and Diving Committee and associate athletics director at George Mason University. "I think in most cases, the correct individuals are participating in the championship, but I also know that we are talking about the most competitive, most difficult part of the season for coaches. "Student-athletes are at their peak of performance for the season, and a coach believes they should be in the meet. We want to avoid cases where any attempts are made to qualify under larceny of the heart." As a precautionary measure, the Association-wide swimming and diving committee voted during September's annual meeting to require registration of all meets staged during the final 10 days of qualifying with the exception of conference championship meets. "I think this has been in the back of our minds since we addressed bona fide competition two years ago," said Clark Yeager, chair of the Division II Men's and Women's Swimming and Diving Committee and athletics director at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania. "I think this is the next step in ending the fears that any of the qualifying times are not legitimate." Meet criteria "Swimming is a sport where 90 percent of competition is the championship," Yeager said. "You've trained all season, and you've performed well in dual meets and invitationals. But making the championship is so critical to how success is defined in swimming. It takes only one questionable qualification time to disrupt success and discredit the qualifying system." Beginning with the upcoming championships, any meet scheduled for the final 10 days of the various championship qualifying dates must be registered with the appropriate NCAA championships staff member at the national office. "Our main concern was to try and eliminate any potential for abuses for qualifying for the championship," McNamee said. "This allows the committee to be more proactive in questioning what kind of conditions in which qualifying times are being made. All of our questions should now be answered before a questionable situation can even take place. It adds to the respect for the championship and the qualifying process." Applications to be accepted as a credible last-chance meet must be submitted to the NCAA by January 15 and must include the site, date, time, meet officials, host, event order, entry procedures and deadline information. All registered and approved meets will then be listed on the College Swimming Coaches Association of America Web site for general accessibility. "Registering meets should eliminate the desperate attempts to qualify," Yeager said. "We know about officials and whether automatic timing devices were used, which we didn't know before. It doesn't mean we have made qualification any more difficult; it just guarantees that these meets are bona fide competition, as we expect." The move toward regulating last-chance meets began earlier this year when the committee re-emphasized the qualities of bona fide competition. "The reason we took a look at bona fide competition was because people really felt it was confusing," said Susan Petersen-Lubow, secretary-rules editor of the committee and athletics director at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy. "We tried to make it as simple as possible so that coaches understood the rule and could then follow it accurately." In previous rules books, the bona fide competition rule required the following:
Two years ago, the committee voted to add, "Meet official(s) must be qualified officials." "We wanted to ensure that quality, knowledgeable officials were on our pool decks and felt it was a necessary bullet to include," Petersen-Lubow said. Those specifications have not changed now with the addition of the registration process, so the effort is just to eliminate the questionable situations that may occur in the final qualification period. Cause and effect Although it can be said that no committee can legislate morality for its membership, it has been pointed out that last-chance meets exist because of the format for selecting championships competitors. The hard cap used for Divisions I and III -- as well as the high standards for being selected to the Division II championships meet and the lack of absolute qualification standards -- have been mentioned as faults of the system. "The information is available and pretty consistent to know what an absolute qualification time might be for our championships," Richardson said. "We can figure out what a 24th-place time would be approximately and so on. If they could loosen the cap and come within 15 to 20 athletes at the championship in a given year, it would at least eliminate the moving bubble." Currently, athletes making an "A" standard time automatically are invited to the meet. Those with "B" standard times are put in rank order and selected for the championship as spots are available. Popping the qualifying bubble would require allowing the championships committees to take as many athletes as made a cut-off time. Alternatively, Mark Schubert, head men's and women's swimming coach at the University of Southern California, suggests allowing championship participants to qualify for the following year's meet with their championship times. "It would obviously put freshmen at a disadvantage," Schubert said. "A lot of the qualification times are so tough to make that last-chance meets and conference championships become so important. (Student-athletes) need the chance to race shaved and at their top performance just to qualify. If we took the emphasis off of the qualifying and accepted times from last year, we would have faster championship meets." For now, though, the committee is emphasizing the regulation of bona fide competition and perhaps even a new moniker for last-chance meets. "We should find a new name because it sounds so desperate," Yeager said. "We have been trying to think of something else to call it but just haven't come up with an appropriate replacement." Suggestions could pop up anywhere. Last-chance meets, on the other hand, no longer can. |
In the final, hectic 10 days of qualification for swimming and diving championships, the situation can be almost frantic. Some student-athletes are in, most are on the bubble, but no one can be counted out. Last-chance meets assure that.