National Press for a St Louis Girl!!

This afternoon, the RSS feeder on my iphone showed a new swimming article on ESPN. That is cool in and of itself because swim articles don't come up that often on that one. This time it was even cooler, because it wasn't about Phelps. Apparently, ESPN Rise Magazine is featuring an article on a St. Louis girl! Hallie Stupp swims for MICDS (Mary Institute Country Day School) and Parkway Swim Club. Last year she was second in the 200 IM and 1st in the 100 fly at the Missouri High School state championships as a junior.
She was interviewed for flo last year after prelims and then again after finals. She had a spectacular time drop between those two swims and ended up breaking the state record in the fly. From the ESPN article:

Then a junior at MICDS (St. Louis, Mo.), Stupp took control of the race from the get-go and won by nearly a full second in 54.95. Not only had she chopped more than 1.5 seconds off her prelim time, she had cut more than three-tenths of a second off the state record. "I didn't even know what the state record was," says Stupp, now a senior. "Mentally, I really wanted it, and I wasn't going to give it up to anybody else."

Apparently, Hallie has already committed to Arizona. She seems like a genuinely nice kid with a solid work ethic and a bright future from what I can gather. Isn't that the kind of athlete you hope can get a little national press?

I am starting to get really excited for this year's state meet to come around. Here is last year's fly A final to tide all of us Missouri swim enthusiasts over.

Swimming Videos on Floswimming

A Little Clarification on the USA Swimming Suit List

USA Swimming recently released their approved suit explanation with the following info:

The suits included on this final list were all submitted to and approved by FINA. In addition to the suits included on this list, FINA has indicated that “older suits” are also acceptable for competition. Although the term “older suits” was not specifically defined, it generally refers to suits made from nylon or Lycra that meet the following criteria:

1. Swimsuits for men may not extend above the navel or below the knee and for women may not cover the neck, or extend past the shoulders or below the knee;
2. Material used for swimsuits can be only textile material which is defined as materials consisting of natural and/or synthetic, individual and non-consolidated yarns used to constitute a fabric by weaving, knitting, and/or braiding. Simply put, this would generally refer to suits made only from nylon or Lycra that do not have any rubberized material such as polyurethane or neoprene; and
3. No zippers or other fastening devices are allowed except for a waist tie on a brief or jammer.

Although the “older suits”, as defined above, are acceptable for competition, they will not be allowable for purposes of establishing World Records, as qualifying times for FINA World Championships or Olympic Games, or for world rankings. Only suits listed on the FINA Suit List may be used for these purposes.

Effective immediately, with the exception of our USA Swimming Championship Meets as defined in Article 207 of the USA Swimming Rulebook (U.S. Open, National and Junior National Championships and Trials Class Meets), swimsuits allowable for use in USA Swimming sanctioned or approved competition must either appear on the attached FINA Suit List or meet the definition of an “older suit” as defined above.

For purposes of our USA Swimming Championship Meets, the “older suits” are not allowable and only suits appearing on the attached FINA Suit List are acceptable for use in competition.

To clarify: While they are still legal for typical meets, you now can't wear any of these suits at USA Nationals or set a world record while wearing them at any meet*:














*but don't you dare wear a lycra brief under any of them. :)

A Weak Attempt at Calling Me Out?!

Someone posted this comment to rub Drury's win over my alma mater this week in my face, and while I welcome it as all in fun, I can't help but acknowledge it with a response.
The comment:

Anonymous said...

"can't help but notice your lack of posting on the stomping your former school took this past weekend. Especially considering your post on the initial match up at the beginning of the season."

Ummm... do you mean the post I made when the dual between them wasn't even close the first time around this fall?

Oh yeah. I didn't post anything on that one.

When I saw the comment I was a little confused. I had to look it up on the web to see what meet the commenter was talking about. I didn't even know the dual had taken place. I went to Springfield last Saturday to watch my Bears dominate their conference rival SIU... but I didn't report on that either.

I am not a reporter. I have no obligation to report anything. I am happy to talk meet results when I have something to say, but please don't act like I have a duty to behave within the rules of a journalist. I am certainly not one of those.

I posted on the Show-Me Show down and professed my love for the Bears, but anyone who knows me knows that I am a Drury superfan too. I have sent several athletes there. I currently have one of my former swimmers on their roster and I have another one considering it as a top 3 choice. I've had some great friends who were Panthers and I am quick to acknowledge that there are a lot of years where they could handle most of the teams in Division 1. Does anyone remember their group in '99 beating Indiana?

Rivalries are fun. The rivalries between Missouri State, Drury, Southern Illinois and even Mizzou are more amazing because they are usually close and often involve the trade-off where whoever wins the first match-up of the year sure isn't just handed the second one. Any of those teams, on any given day, can swim inspired and take any other.

I wish I had been at the Drury/MSU dual this week. (Of course, I probably would have been wearing an MSU t-shirt even though I also own three Drury shirts.) It sounds about as exciting as they get. The battle came down to the last relay with a lot of tight finishes along the way. Isn't that what college duals are supposed to be about?

Thanks for the comment, Mr. Anonymous. Maybe we can talk college swimming on deck at a meet someday. Of course, if I don't know who you are, we probably won't.

GoSwim Video Evaluation Service!

Not only did GoSwim.tv recently launch the best swimming iphone app ever a few weeks ago... they also just started promoting their VIDEO EVALUATION SERVICE.

These guys are rockin'. Glenn Mills and crew are really finding ways to use the internet to get swimmers swimming faster. I am so glad they are not wasting their time doing something ridiculous and unproductive like blogging.

I can't wait to send in my own video some day. Of course, the first thing they are gonna tell me is to lose about 30 pounds and shave off the belly hair. But hey, if I am gonna pay for their service, I want brutal honesty. :)

The Marge Simpson of my team

Seriously. This is not just a lycra cap that we stretched out so we could stuff a pull buoy in it. This is the cap this girl practices in every day on my high school team, and that is really just the way she tucks her hair into it. How awesome is that?

She is one of my good ones. Works her butt off. Has a great attitude. She just accessorizes a little differently from everyone else.

The boys are jealous. They are trying to find ways to get this look going for them. I am pretty sure it ain't gonna work out for 'em.

Don't worry... the silicon cap she races in takes care of the drag.

$900 Wetsuit!

Apparently, there wasn't enough money in the pool suit market for this company to bother with it. $550 per suit just wasn't worth the hassle. Check out 2XU's wetsuit at this link:

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid32551295001?bctid=57746524001

“…it's not clear this is a sustainable path.”

I have written before about my disgust with college athletics spending. It is inconceivable that in a world where money in college athletics has increased exponentially, athletic directors can shrug their shoulders and act like they just can’t afford to maintain a swimming program. Anyone who tries to argue that football brings in millions that “support the other sports and academic programs” oughtta have a football shoved down their throat. Very few athletic departments are self-sustaining, and they sure aren‘t pumping money into the education departments of their schools. Just look at Washington. They are self-sustaining. A couple of bad football seasons and they cut Men’s and Women’s swimming to help bail them out.

Piss on them.

Come on… if the NCAA were more about educational opportunities through athletics and less about marketing, Michigan wouldn’t be hiring the CEO of Domino’s Pizza as their next AD.

Modern sports marketing is a disease. I don’t blame title IX for men’s swim teams being cut. Title IX only serves to protect female opportunities from the same fate and is sometimes unfortunately abused and used as a scapegoat. I blame the morons in charge at Universities. It is a current trend in the NCAA to cut down to the bare-minimum number of teams the NCAA allows so that more money can be spent on football and basketball. It is disgusting, but true. I don’t think it is coincidence that my alma mater cut five Olympic sports within a year of buying out the contract of their basketball coach and hiring another one with a bigger contract.

The only hope that we non-revenue sports have is that legislators get involved and force some common sense action within the NCAA to return it to the ideals it was founded upon.

Bob Button at the Texas Swimming Blog recently posted about football roster sizes, and I think that is a good place to start. If the NFL can make it with a roster of 60 or less, why can’t University teams compete that way as well? I once got into an argument with a football coach about it. He said that teams just can’t compete without that many practice players. He then tried to reassure me that the scholarship limits were once even higher and that now that the Division 1 is down to a reasonable 85 full rides it prevented teams from “hoarding” players. Right… there’s some logic. I have known Olympic swimmers on half-tuition scholarship, while Jocko the JV superstar who will never play a minute on the field gets his way paid. 9.9 scholarships for D1 men’s swimming is the max to fill a 24 man conference roster. How many football players are actually on the field during a game? No hoarding going on here!

USA Today seems to have a recent vendetta against major university football programs and their black hole of excess spending. They have posted several articles in the last few months that point out some of the excesses of football and basketball teams and the damage they have done. Here’s some great reading from USA Today and other sources:

“Amid Funding Crisis, College Athletics Soak Up Subsidies, Fees”
“Big Time College Athletics. Are They Worth the Big Time Cost?"
“Missouri Shows How Schools Pay a Price for Football Success.”
“Faculty Group Wants Cal to End Subsidies for Athletic Departments.”
“College Football Coaches See Salaries Rise in Down Economy.”
“Well-Paid Assistants”
“Curbing Athletic Spending”

In my humble opinion, legislators should have a say in NCAA team spending and should have the right to set spending caps to promote fair play. Limit football rosters to 60 scholarships. Eliminate hotel stays the night before home games. Put limits on coaches contracts, assistant coaches contracts, and number of coaches. Limit contract buy-outs. Common sense would dictate that firing a lousy football coach should not cost your school the same amount of money it would cost to fund a men’s swim team for five years!

I feel that the minimum number of sports teams at a school should increase based on the budget of the major sports. The major conferences should have to carry 24 sports instead of 16. They claim that football is paying for all the other sports… I say, prove it! If that were the case, the Big XII could afford to have 12 men’s swim teams, right? If football makes so much money and supports everyone else, we wouldn’t see Olympic sports being cut all over the nation. Any money made apparently goes nowhere outside of football.

We are on a path that is not sustainable in college athletics. Someone needs to slow down this train before it derails.