School Division for 2004 US Nationals

[Albert]

I just had a flash of brilliance(?) and thought I should write it down before I kill off some brain cells during the upcoming festivities....

In case any of you don't know, UCLA has a pool situation that has got to be the envy of all our clubs. They get free pool time twice a week and insurance since they are school affiliated. In SF, our rates are more than doubling, effectively putting a large crimp or even squashing our program. We obviously are jealous and would like to set something up that is similar.

My idea....

2004 US NATIONALS: School Division.
This would be an extra division that would have only school entries. We can qualify players anyway we like. Probably pretty loose. Something like: currently/have attended, employees, etc.... If loose enough, LA would likely be able to qualify 2 teams.

These are schools that could field a team:
UCLA (1 or 2 teams)
UC Berkeley
MIT
a Texas High School (Tornados)

Possibles:
UCSD
Salt Lake City
University of Washington
U. Colorado
a New York University
UT Austin
UC Davis
More that I don't know about

It would help legitimize the sport in the US. There would be cross club play which would be nice. Imagine whipping out the old school cheers and logos. I'm guessing 4-6 teams. Even if it is only 2 or three, it would be great to have a division.

For those who have problems extrapolating, being creative or understanding the benefits....

"Hey School Athletic Director (AD), we are entering a team for the Nationals and need pool time to practice with our local club. UCLA gets theirs for free and are practicing now."
"AD, we came in second behind UCLA at nationals, but could have beaten them if we had more pool time"
"Man, the other schools have teams, all we need is a little pool time to start a team"
"AD, we can start a school team. we will initially supply the equipment and coach. You supply the pool time."
"We won Nationals, but UCLA has a much better program, we need the pool time to practice...."

Once we slap a school name to it, school pride steps in which will help kick start our school programs across the US. The primary way a school would back a team is pool time and then who knows, maybe equipment & $$$. This would be the first step towards a NCAA championship as we gradually restrict eligibility.

Even if we don't have something official, I'd like to challenge UCLA for the 2004 National School championship.

Comments?

Albert

p.s.
I'd play for MIT or Berkeley. I would think that the core MIT team of: Bill Schoolcraft, Adrian Nye, Tony Chiang, Masa Ishigami, & Albert Wang would be a likely contender. : :bfire:

[JW Lester]

FWIW the 2001 US Nationals had a "Collegiate" championship with no entries.

Perhaps this could work in the future though. In Germany, there is often a class in competitions called "Schuler" for the schoolchildren.

For now though, I think it's great we had 2 USA based U21 teams for the 1st time in 2003.

-JL

[Monica]

Getting colleges to help out isn't all that easy. Alan Lamb and I have been trying for 3 semesters to get one started at University of North Texas. We have run into so many barriers. First is the fact that they won't let us just have "pool time." Many colleges require that you have the sport as at least a club team through the school, or an intermural team, though those are hard to come by. Second is insurance problems and the hazard risk of the game. While it is great that people want to maime eachother on the football field, doing it in a pool with walls that people could get pushed into isn't sitting too well with those in higher power. And third, is that because it has to be a school team to go through a school facility, the school is required to help fund it which isn't happening.
We haven't had much luck around here in other words, though we HAVE been trying. The place the Tornadoes play at only costs $5 per person for the evening. Flat rate. Maybe you should try to stricke some kind of deal like that with your facilities manager?

Moinca.

[Eric]

I think it is a wonderful idea.....

we just need some more high school students and then we can take it up to higher powers.......i know our pool manager would give free pool time to us, and then get some more ppl so we can have daily games and practices

[SmallsheepUSA]

Yes, I tried for 2 years at UNT and got nothing. I came to Baylor University and in 2 weeks, I have held a practice with 13 people and 10 boats. I also have a website.

www.baylorkayakpolo.50megs.com (http://www.baylorkayakpolo.50megs.com)

Soon, the site will have banner ads/pop-ups, but google toolbar kills all the pop-ups efficiently.

So, this just shows that, like with spontaneous human combustion, if you look in enough places, then one of them will light on fire.

[SmallsheepUSA]

In short, yeah, I would love to have a Collegiate National Championship. We just have to work on keeping it open enough to include enough people for teams to come out to nationals.