Have the U.S. Winter Nationals Become an NCAA Winter Championship?

Photo Courtesy: Andy Ringgold / Aringo Photos

By Jason Tillotson, Swimming World College Intern.

As the highly anticipated 2016 USA Swimming Winter National championships approach, it is important to note how much collegiate athletes affect the results of the national-level meets, specifically Winter Nationals.

Contrary to the Winter National championships, most collegiate athletes represent their club teams during the Summer Nationals or US Open. In recent years, more NCAA teams have been using the Winter National championships as a mid-season taper meet, instead of attending one of the many traditional college invitational meets, which usually produce fast swims themselves.

If you look at the psych sheet for this year, you can clearly see the abundance in collegiate athletes in the top 24 scoring positions. For example, 16 of the top 24 athletes in both the men’s and women’s 500 freestyle alone, are NCAA competitors. Situations like this have led to more collegiate athletes claiming USA Swimming Winter National titles, making ‘A’ finals and scoring big points for their schools. While this might not necessarily be a bad thing, it certainly has changed the dynamic of the meet.

One benefit of collegiate stars, like Caeleb Dressel and Brooke Zeiger, participating is the fact that our top high-school swimmers like Sean Grishop (who is actually the top seed in the 400 IM this weekend) and Isabel Ivey get to race the college all-stars and gain experience next to the best in the world. Also, since many top-tier NCAA Division I programs, like Indiana University and and University of Florida are sending their A-squads to the meet, these athletes who likely qualify for their respective NCAA championships in the Spring, will get a chance to test each other early on, as sort of, a preview for the real deal in March.

sean-grieshop-winter-junior-nationals-2014

Photo Courtesy: “Melissa Lundie”

On the other hand, there are some drawbacks to having these collegiate powerhouses dominate the Winter National championships.

One of these setbacks is the confusion between NCAA and USA swimming competition. We don’t really see this in any other sport. For example, the quarterback at Florida State University doesn’t compete in a club competition in the middle of his collegiate season, nor does the goal keeper for Clemson compete for the LA Galaxy right after the fall semester. It just doesn’t happen anywhere else.

While the sport of swimming is an anomaly in many cases, this is not one of them. USA Swimming and the NCAA are two completely separate organizations, meaning a University’s team doesn’t necessarily belong to USA swimming, even though they might be registered “clubs”. For example, when an athlete represents their country at an international competition, the club team or University they swim for, don’t receive any of the points or accolades associated with their performance. Why? Because the athlete is representing their country, not their club or University.

USA Swimming fixed this problem by separating the club team scores from the University team scores, almost creating a second, separate meet. My main question is, why isn’t there a separate winter meet for collegiate swimmers? Let the Winter Nationals stand, just only allow club teams to compete and let the NCAA develop a Winter championship. Let the club teams, largely containing swimmers under the age of 18, compete against someone their own size. It is time for USA Swimming to separate NCAA competition from club competition.

All commentaries are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Swimming World Magazine nor its staff.

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Samh

7 years ago

I wholeheartedly disagree that we need to separate US winter nationals from NCAA competition, for the sake of 18 and unders. For one thing, 18 and unders already have junior nationals. Then for those juniors who truly are elite like Grieshop for example, get to race much better competition. Which also helps prepare them for college racing. There is also the fact that pros also go to this meet. If it were just pros and juniors, the disparity between them would be ridiculous. NCAA bridges that gap.

(Almost) Everyone racing yards at the same time (pros, NCAA, juniors) is a dream come true. Part of the reason I enjoyed the college challenge.

James

7 years ago

Reply to Samh

I agree…it’s a “National” meet that should represent the best the nation has to offer (regardless of their current age, affiliation, status). As mentioned by Samh, you have a Jr. National level competition for high level under-18 swimmers already.