The annual Collegiate Swimming & Diving Coaches Affiliation of America (CSCAA) conferences came about over the weekend in Raleigh, North Carolina. Retired College of Michigan softball coach Carol Hutchins, the winningest head coach in NCAA Division I Softball historical past, was the keynote speaker.
The convention, a possibility for coaches to community, included a breakout session of NCAA Division I coaches in attendance that has thus far created essentially the most buzz out of the weekend.
One of many huge takeaways from these conversations is that there’s widespread settlement that the NCAA Championships received’t be going again to Pacific Time anytime quickly after a number of groups struggled with the lengthy journey and time zone adjustments. Federal Manner, which confronted a number of technical challenges in addition to being on the Northwestern tip of the west coast, was particularly derided.
In addition to technical challenges, Pacific time made for very late classes within the Central and Japanese United States, the place a lot of the high groups are.
A part of the problem comes from Federal Manner being the one championship-caliber indoor venue within the Mountain or Pacific time zones proper now. Whereas way more of the highest collegiate packages are within the Central or Japanese time zones, it appears equitable for them to not need to journey yearly, however the facility availability within the western U.S. don’t help that proper now.
This dialog has reportedly been had on the highest ranges of the NCAA, together with the board.
A lot of the dialog has been round the right way to enhance the viewability and fan curiosity in swimming, which extends the conversations which can be being had on daily basis on social media.
The breakout lasted about 90 minutes.
Key takeaways:
Prime mid-major packages proceed to advocate for championship entry through automated qualifiers. One of many extra fascinating factors they made is that mid-major swimmers might be lively followers and drive rankings – one coach mentioned his staff watched NCAA Championships once they had a swimmer there, however not once they didn’t.
One mid-major assistant coach was vocal about working to get extra eyes on twin meets (which made large strides ahead final season due to Kyle Sockwell’s efforts, amongst others’), particularly for these groups that don’t have actual NCAA Championship hosts for many of their groups.
To their credit score, a lot of the more-vocal mid-major coaches are the coaches who’re investing a ton of private vitality into producing extra publicity for his or her groups and their packages, so they’re ‘strolling the stroll.’ A few of that vitality from the mid-major stage might be a very good addition to the ivory towers of the largest packages, if it may be labored out the proper means.
One Energy 5 affiliate head coach talked about athlete tales being essential as a result of that may acquire numerous publicity and people particular person tales can generate numerous curiosity. That affiliate head coach, satirically, comes from a program that has traditionally not been very media pleasant – although that might not be a tradition that the affiliate head coach has set.
There gave the impression to be widespread settlement that the game “fumbled” on telling the story of Gretchen Walsh and utilizing it as a springboard for progress (ala Caitlin Clark).
The CSCAA goes to speak to ESPN about whether or not they discover extra worth within the particular person successes or the staff successes, in order that the game has some steerage on the place to focus vitality.
Diving continues to ask for extra publicity, plus platform and staff diving occasions. The message again is that ESPN is presently much less fascinated by diving than it’s swimming.
One head coach of a high 10 program introduced up the concept of going to 12 athlete groups for championship meets. With roster limits and increasingly-imbalanced sources amongst packages, this might create extra parity among the many less-endowed groups that aren’t capable of compete with the 22-deep squads at locations like Texas.
