A Perfect Partnership
University of Rhode Island junior Casey McQuesten woke at 5 a.m. on Nov. 12, much earlier, he admits, than most college students would on a Sunday. He was soon setting chairs and tables up for a swim meet at his university’s pool.
About 90 minutes after he woke up, nearly 400 swimmers began filing into the Tootell Aquatics Center. They were there for a somewhat novel competition: the Rhody College Club & Masters Swimming meet, a combined College Club Swimming and USMS meet.
The combined meet provided two groups of swimmers—about 225 CCS and 150 USMS members—the opportunity to swim together.
“Being able to have the club swimmers and the Masters swimmers sharing the same venue, it just exposes the core of this sport, which is, this is lifelong, and it can be whatever you want it to be,” New England Masters Swim Club member Mindy Williams said in a video recap of the meet.
“Whether you’re shooting for a :25 or a :45 in your swim, you have teammates supporting you. You have a really cool venue to do it in. It’s just promoting a healthier lifestyle.”
That’s the reaction New England Masters Swim Club member Doug Sayles wanted to inspire when he decided to create the meet.
He remembers attending a CCS meet a few years ago and says he was struck by the lack of officials (CCS meets require only one official) and the difference in times between the fastest and slowest swimmers. Sayles thought providing CCS participants the opportunity to compete in USMS events would provide them access to quality officiating and improved competition.
“That got me thinking about that whole dynamic … about how USMS volunteers can work with College Club swimmers to put on events that serve both their communities but also help the College Club teams,” Sayles says. “As long as we’re doing it collaboratively and not trying to do it for them … those kids can see how to run a good meet and what the value of that sort of integration is.”
He met McQuesten, the president of the University of Rhode Island’s College Club Swimming team, at an open water competition and thought he’d be a good partner for staging a combined competition. Sayles then applied for a grant through USMS’s Event Development Program to help defray the costs of running the meet.
Because swimmers from two organizations participated in the meet, Sayles ran into some trouble getting the meet sanctioned, and dealing with membership rules. The National Office is working on ways to streamline the sanctioning and event registration process to make hosting swimmers from both organizations seamless.
Because of the success, he hopes to stage the meet this fall at the larger Boston University facility and attract a larger percentage of Masters swimmers.
McQuesten believes the meet last November could lead some of his University of Rhode Island teammates to join USMS once they graduate.
“I’d really love to see myself and some of my teammates competing on a Masters club in the next few years,” he says. “Now that they know that it’s possible and they have been exposed to the atmosphere, I think it’s more likely that they would join Masters because they’ve gotten a taste. They know that it’s not just hardcore sets at every single practice because it can be fun. The Masters clubs and swimmers that went to that event really exemplified and showed just how much fun it can be.”
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