I've said it before adn I'll say it again; New home needed for state meet

For the 10 days since the girls state swim meet, I have tossed and turned with how to sweetly put the frustration with the manner in which the meet was conducted and the fact that the IHSA needs to do both itself, its host schools and its athletes a favor by moving to a better site.

I have tried many different ways to say this poetically on my keyboard.

But I cannot. So here it is: once again the state meet, the pinnacle of achievement for athletes, coaches and fans, turned into a near-farce as the meet operation got in the way time and again.

And by the time the 100-yard butterfly final was set to start on Saturday, the meet literally ground to an unneeded halt.

This was a race to anticipate, especially for swim fans from the western suburbs. Defending champion Olivia Scott from Rosary was second-fastest in Friday's prelims. St. Charles East senior Caitlin Dauw was ready for her final high school swim and was seeded third.

The top seed was Waubonsie Valley junior Elena Carvell, making her first individual swim in finals. The fourth seed was Rosary's Mackenzie Powers, and the race marked the point at which the Beads needed to make their push to win the state title.

Maybe all that drama got the better of the equipment at New Trier. Four times, officials tried to start the race. But the starter's wireless microphone wouldn't cooperate. Time and again, the starter attempted to announce the start of the race and push the button that triggers the starting tone -- but was unable to get the mechanism to work.

The delays dragged, and the swimmers eventually sat on their starting blocks.

After what seemed a near-eternity, the race commenced. Scott surged. Dauw kept pace. After 75 yards, the two were dead-even. Scott gained a slight edge in the final leg and won her second consecutive title while Dauw recorded her highest-ever finish. Carvell finished fifth.

"Let's not look at Olivia," Rosary coach Bill Schalz said. "She's the defending state champion and she's the No. 2 seed. The pressure's on Elena (Carvell) from Waubonsie. I was watching because I've known her for years. She swims in the off-season with my club team.

"It was hard on her. (Carvell) was a second slower. You don't get a second slower because you had a bad night of sleep. It's the compounding facts and that's the frustration."

St. Charles East coach Joe Cabel was succinct in his assessment of the troubles with the 100 butterfly.

"You shouldn't get down off the block four times before you race, that's for sure." Cabel said.

The 2007 boys state meet, also held at New Trier, was similarly plagued with problems -- a situation that forced St. Charles North coach Rob Rooney to practically beg officials to correct times because the timing system wasn't registering finishes in the order even the naked eye could see.

"All I keep saying is that it's not that complicated," Cabel said. "We came here for a meet in October and the P.A. was doing the same thing."

The problem may not be the fault of the people at New Trier or Evanston -- and I'm not pointing fingers at either school, where I have seen plenty of sweat expended on making the meet run as well as possible over many years since my first state final experience in 1992.

There needs to be a better solution.

This column proposed a move to the Illinois-Chicago pool following the boys state meet and makes that call again. With temporary seating over a portion of the pool, the atmosphere could actually be enhanced. There is a parking garage nearby. There is a warmdown pool. There is a diving well.

Certainly there is tradition at New Trier and Evanston. But 25 years at a new facility would add page upon page of newfound tradition.

After years of talk about new facilities to be built that would solve this situation -- the fact is that the facilities in Illinois are what they are -- and by and large, they are substandard.

But it is also time to move to the one facility most capable of handling such a meet in the best way possible.

And that pool is not in Evanston and it is not in Winnetka. It is in Chicago, and the move needs to be made as soon as possible.