Don't fool yourself, the swimming sectional is a time trial

That is not to say nobody cares about swimming. Plenty of people enjoy the aquatic arts, the Heat Index included. It's just that the point of the sectional is to qualify for the state meet. Period.

The kids are after state cuts, not a trophy. At the end of the day, one of the teams will win because points are awarded for first, second, third, etc. It's just irrelevant.

"For sectionals, they should give you one point if you qualify for state and no points if you don't," Waubonsie Valley coach Chad Ganden said two weeks ago at the UEC meet. "Because that's all that really matters."

Naperville North could win its third team title in a row. That doesn't mean Huskies coach Kurt Johns is figuring out how to set his team up for the glory of a three-peat.

"Ultimately, sectional is just a qualifying meet," Johns said. "It doesn't matter how you finish at sectional. It matters how you finish at state."

The curious have to look no further than last year's team results to confirm what Johns is saying. Neuqua Valley placed fourth at the sectional before finishing in a tie with North for third at state.

Neuqua has never won a sectional. And that's OK with coach Chad Allen, who would only go as far as saying that a sectional title "would be nice to have." Not exactly a glowing endorsement of the hardware up for grabs.

"I don't think its on their minds too much," Allen said of the Wildcats desire to win the sectional. "We didn't put together our lineup to win sectional."

While it is understandable that the Wildcats have loftier goals, such as winning the state title, shouldn't the sectional title mean something to somebody?

If the teams involved don't care about the trophy, the Heat Index proposes that it is given away as a door prize or raffled off to one of the fans. Or even bettter, don't have a sectional champion at all.

That would be better than this charade of passing this event off as a team event.