According to Langston Wertz, Jr. of the Charlotte Observer, the North Carolina High School Athletic Association state championships in swimming have been thrown into havoc on Thursday, after the governing body for the state’s high school sports threw out ‘dozens of times’ that qualified swimmers for regional meets.
Swimmers in two conferences learned after their meets that a non-certified referee officiated several meets this season, and the conference decided that this would invalidate those times. The conferences are SoMeck 8 and Southwestern 4A, with teams listed below:
Southwestern 4A
- Butler High
- East Mecklenburg
- Garinger
- Independence
- Myers Park
- Porter Ridge
- Rocky River
SoMeck 8
- Audrey Kell
- Berry
- Harding
- Olympic
- Providence
- South Mecklenburg
- West Mecklenburg
Charlotte Catholic is in the SoMeck 8, but according to the article in the observer, their swimmers were unaffected as they used a different referee. Charlotte Catholic’s girls team is a 12-time defending State Champion, most recently in 3A (the second-biggest schools), and is home to many of the most recognizable names in North Carolina High School swimming, including swimmers like Elsa Welshofer, Maria Sheridan, Lauren Rhodes, and Nora McCullagh, among others.
Still, even without Charlotte Catholic affected, most of the teams involved are perennial scorers at the state championship meets, and thus the news will be a huge shakeup. In North Carolina, swimmers must meet a pre-determined qualifying time, and then the top 24 swimmers from those Regional meets advance to the State Championship meet (in 3A and 4A, the biggest schools, it’s 8 qualifiers per event from each of 3 regions; in 1A and 2A it’s 12 qualifiers per event from each of 2 regions).
The county has added two extra meets this coming weekend to allow affected swimmers the opportunity to re-earn their regional qualifying times.
Though in North Carolina, as made clear by this ruling, officials must be certified, not every state requires officials to be certified to work high school meets, though generally speaking only certified officials are invited to work major championship meets.
How may top swimmers who qualified would have been disqualified by an official’s DQ of some sort? Not many. In any given meet, there are very few DQs by the officials, if any at all. And there are several officials at these meets to pick up infractions. So what is the NCHSAA worried about? That the times were not really achieved? Thats thin. If any swimmers are “unjustly” benefitting, it happened to just a tiny fraction of swimmers. And guess what? Any potential infractions may have been missed by a “certified” official anyway. That happens as well.
So what is the harm done by keeping the already achieved times? Someone who should not have qualified, did qualify? So that person… Read more »
The Charlotte Observer is joke of a newspaper and cannot dig up any facts besides the obvious. This is an issue of faulty RECORD KEEPING on the part of the NCHSAA. There are 505 certified swimming officials listed as registered according to NCHSAA records. Over 160 of these persons that are “certified” have incomplete or missing documentation as to the completion/status of their certifications.
Why can’t the NCHSAA own up and realize they are operating a flawed system instead of finding a scapegoat to take the fall??? The incomprehensible part is that their hasty decision came at the expense of a bunch of kids! It makes me want to puke.
All good points.
If high school athletic associations made a complete mockery of the sport of basketball over and over again with their decisions like they do with swimming, then yes, I would feel that some other body should take over. The health of the sport at the high school level is negatively affected by state high school athletic associations. They do not have the adequate knowledge or interest to run the sport effectively. That is also why basketball and swimming are two different animals at that level.
It really depends on the state as to how badly mismanaged swimming is. I don’t hear many complaints about Illinois except that the State Meet is held in a small natatorium.
This is the first big kerfuffle in NC high school swimming in a long time. They sometimes make decisions that don’t please everyone, but they usually don’t hurt the sport.
Why are you quick to blame the association for this issue? You wouldn’t expect to get into Juniors with a time from a non-sanctioned meet, and that sanction is dependent on a certified referee. The association does not “assign” referees to meets in NC. Typically the head coach of the host team is acting meet director and schedules… Read more »
Just another example of why high school swimming needs to either go away entirely, or completely come under the umbrella of a national governing body like USA Swimming or a national high school body. The good ol’ boy network that runs most of these state high school organizations care about only one thing: football. Any decisions they make for swimming are uninformed and hardly ever made with the athletes best interest at their center.
Low Gap: Amen, brother!
There already is technically a governing body for all high school sports (NFHS). It sets the basic rules for each sport, but gives state associations plenty of leeway. It does NOT make sense to put high school swimming under the purview of USAS. You wouldn’t put high school basketball under AAU or USA-B would you?
Wrong decision! Put those kids in the meet then let it be decided in the pool if they belong and/or should advance to state. So the MR is not “certified”. Is he “qualified” to run a meet? The State Association in NC does not have the kids best interest in mind. Remember, for every action there are consequences which will affect others.
I’d have to hear what the circumstances were to form my opinion, whether it was a matter of an official just not renewing his certification, or what. If it was a totally untrained official, it would be one thing, but if it was just an official who forgot to send in his $50 check for that season to renew, I’d scratch my head a little more.
As I’ve lived in eastern NC for 10 out of the last 17 years, its hard enough to find qualified officials in this state. Luckily we’ve had a couple of dedicated officials who love the sport. Its about the swimmers. Let them swim. One protest really, what USA vs HS? Talk about a hit to the sport. Its about the swimmers. Greg Burgess, 92,96 US Olympian, Maj USMC, WCHS Coach, NC.
I would think that sense the swimmers, swam the race in good faith, they should be allowed to swim in the regional meet.
Punish the swimmers because the governing body didn’t do their job of making sure all officials had their documents turned in on time.
WELL SAID