IT'S TIME FOR A CHANGE

The IHSAA's 36th annual girls state tournament in swimming and diving begins tomorrow at 20 sectional sites across Indiana. And that makes this as good a time as any to think about how this tournament is structured, and how the powers-that-be might make it an even better tournament in the future (don't hold your breath, though).

The current format calls for each event winner from each sectional to automatically advance to the State Meet. That fills 20 of the 32 available slots at State in each event right off the bat. The next step in the process is for non-winners who meet or exceed the IHSAA state cut (on the final day of the sectionals) to also earn automatic berths to State. If the field still falls short of 32 competitors, the third step in the process is the "call down."

Let's say Jane Doe didn't win her event at the sectional, and missed the state cut by .02 of a second. Jane would be in pretty good position for a call down. But here's where Jane can (and often does) get the short end of the stick, and where I think the IHSAA should make a change.

Each year, there are event winners at what I will call "slow" sectionals. Those event winners often fail to even come close to the state cut for their event, but who automatically make it to State regardless of how slow their times are. At the same time, there are better swimmers at what I will call "fast" sectionals who swim just off the state cut, much faster than many of the "slow" sectional event winners, but who are locked out of State by this unfair policy.

Let's look at the 2009 State Meet field in the 200-yard Medley Relay as an example. Eight of the 32 teams that qualified to compete in Friday night's preliminaries failed to meet or exceed the state cut in that event (1:52.86) at their sectionals. That's a full 25% of the field. Plymouth and Castle got the final two spots in the field, even though their winning sectional times were five-and-a-half seconds slower than the state cut!

What's the harm in that, you might ask? An analysis of the 2009 sectional results finds that 20 teams--Terre Haute South (1:54.64), Brownsburg (1:57.78), Bloomington North (1:58.19), Southmont (1:57.23), Lake Central (1:55.39), Lowell (1:55.57), New Albany (1:56.19), Franklin (1:56.74), Indian Creek (1:56.36), Perry Meridian (1:56.37), Yorktown (1:53.49), Bedford-North Lawrence (1:53.34), Tell City (1:53.94), Jay County (1:56.82), Harrison (1:57.52), West Lafayette (1:58.41), Mt. Vernon (Hancock) (1:56.10), Richmond (1:56.13), New Palestine (1:57.26), and Kokomo (1:58.04) had times that were better or equal to Plymouth and Castle. But those 20 team, more deserving in my opinion, based strictly on their times, didn't get to go.

Swimming is supposed to be about who gets to the wall faster--and the premier meet in the state of Indiana should be based on that, first and foremost. The system should not reward Swimmer A for being the "fastest" competitor in a mediocre field, nor should it penalize Swimmer B for being a fast swimmer in a highly competitive field. How can we fix it?

Here's my proposal for the 2010-11 tournament. The State Meet field in each event remains at 32 competitors. Sectional event winners whose times meet or exceed the IHSAA state cut get automatic bids to State. Non-winners who meet or exceed the IHSAA state cut also continue to get automatic bids to State. But sectional winners whose times do not meet or exceed the IHSAA state cut would get provisional bids to State. Provisional qualifiers would be "on the bubble" and would be bumped from the State Meet field by the remaining, faster non-winning swimmers from the sectional round. If there were no faster swimmers left, the provisional qualifier would go to State.

That arrangement would ensure that the fastest 32 competitors from across Indiana make it to the State Meet.

As I wrote earlier, don't hold your breath!