With the Olympic model you suggested, we do have to remember that we were (at that time) as amateurs (and I use that term loosely when you consider the state of college athletics, especially in your marquee sports) we were playing and losing to professionals that were subsidized by their governments. The push was made to make our team look like their team. And domination again took place for some years. This also happened in the Olympics with many other sports other than Basketball. So yes it was a push to win, but more so to level the playing field so that we competing "like" teams against one another.
The whole crossover debate is a case study in ethics vs the law. I am in favor of crossovers in case of emergency, injury, sickness, absence. Because it helps the owner maintain team readiness and allows the athletes to compete. Doing just to stack teams, win in an easier division, sandbag, etc I am against. My stand is ethical and personal. The law allows it with certain limitations. But IMO the industry as a whole will never do away with crossovers because it makes too much money off of them. No EP wants to hear you are pulling out of an event because of injury, etc. By allowing you to crossover, they still make their money. By limiting crossovers they intentionally hurt their pocketbook. So they would prefer gyms to make their own ethical stands and debate the right or wrong of it forever, rather than change the law.
Many years ago I was a part of a program that didn't crossover much. But they got tired of losing to another well known gym (now closed) and having the kids/parents say how bad we sucked. Our thought was at the time we were doing it the right way. The other gym wasn't cheating (according to the law) but were definitely stacking the deck against our gym. This then became a marketing bonanza for the other gym to say how much better they were than our gym. So now we were losing kids behind it. They were seen as the better stronger gym. So it was then my old gym intentionally chose to become crossover heavy. It became a battle of whose crossovers were better. And when they did that, it leveled that playing field. They stopped losing to the other gym. And the marketing campaigns stopped.
The gym I am in now only uses them sparingly, mostly in emergency situations. This year there is one intentional crossover in the entire program. But due to injuries, sickness, violations of attendance policies, etc. we have had to do what we could, rather than pull teams from competitions. All of the directors are committed to this model as our ethical stand, full well knowing that if we cast those away, we could stack teams like crazy, enter new divisions and be seen as the biggest gym in the area. But that would dilute our product and put our athletes at way greater risk of injury/burnout so we refuse to.
I believe in competition. I love to win. Yet there can only be one winner. How I handle not winning says more about me than winning ever will. The lessons I teach everyday in the gym are infinitely more important than the result of a 2:30 performance.
