All-Star From Courtney Pope - "the View From Backstage At The Naccc..."

[idrive]

Safety - the kids are not unsafe, coaches put them in unsafe situations. The fix for this seems to be for AACCA to tighten up their safety training and USASF to tighten up their level 5 certification standards and enforce them. How about a Youth L5 certification if we think it would improve youth skills profession safety?

Sloppiness/progressions- a simple sure-fire way to fix this is DEDUCTIONS. Hit coaches on the scoresheet and they will surely fix this problem or not risk sloppy skills. This is also the cheapest way to enforce standards for many other problems. If this was really a concern for coaches an gym owners then we should restrict Senior L5 standing fulls and doubles since many of them are sloppy and scary and scary as well.

I completely agree with Shardads statement above. If we use DEDUCTIONS as a simple way to help enforce proper progression and safety it will help every division and would be a positive step in lending credibility to this sport. My daughter was on a Y5 several years ago and sustained some injuries that were caused by the coaches putting these children in unsafe situations. So in the case of that particular gym eliminating Y5 may have fixed the symptom but not the problem. My child was hurt more from the small kids trying to do level 5 stunts more than tumbling. I say limit the division especially on stunting and as Shardad said fix the sloppy, potentially harmful tumbling with deductions on all levels not just Y5. As an example it is amazing how many doubles I see that are actually 1 3/4. These kids (all ages) are landing and still twisting which has to put a lot of stress on thier knees and ankles.

Ultimately as a parent it is my responsibility to do the necessary research and make the best decision for my children. We changed from a large gym to a smaller gym (no Y5 squad there) and they actually pulled her back to clean some of her technique then her double began to look much better and SAFER. Oddly enough just two weeks before making a change her old gymnastics coach mentioned how her technique, if not corrected, may lead to an injury in the future. Again I believe that Y5 needs to be restricted, especially in tumbling and let deductions address the unsafe, sloppy tumbling.

 

[Deleted member 15]

Proper teaching is the responsibility of the coaches. Coaches are the ones that interact with the kids day in and day out and are the only ones that can keep our athletes safe. Parents can speak with their money and Event Producers & Judges can speak with the scores and placements, but the coaches are THE key.

 

[coachTSC]

JUST A THOUGHT after reading another thread regarding transparency of scoresheets... before anyone gets too excited, i'm not calling Courtney a liar by any means, but I would love for a Twinkles coach to confirm the "add more doubles" comment made on the NCA scoresheet.... Has Elaine or anyone else said this out loud? just curious, because if this is a not a fact, this whole "conspiracy theory" concept could be squashed pretty quickly

 

[cheermommaRN]

I think the reason you see older kids getting more injuries is because of the lack of progression years ago. When my oldest cheered no one cared about a back walkover or a backbend kickover it was about going from round off to back handspring to round off backhandspring. The kids that started cheering 10 years ago may not have learned good technique so those bad habits have just kept building until you have a kid blow something out.
I am just throwing this out there but could WC's new interest in safety and progression have anything to do with Debbie Love being on their staff? I went to WC's website to see what their hours were (for an upcoming trip to PA) and noticed she was listed as a "Tumble Consultant". If you watched the meeting she is HUGE into progression and learning proper technique to avoid injury later (she used her 2 daughters as examples). This could account for the sudden push by them....But I have no idea because I'm not a member at the gym.
Like I've said before eliminating the division is not the answer, and I sure hope they don't. What would I watch at 8 am in the arena at NCA?!

 

[idrive]

Safety - the kids are not unsafe, coaches put them in unsafe situations. The fix for this seems to be for AACCA to tighten up their safety training and USASF to tighten up their level 5 certification standards and enforce them. How about a Youth L5 certification if we think it would improve youth skills profession safety?

Sloppiness/progressions- a simple sure-fire way to fix this is DEDUCTIONS. Hit coaches on the scoresheet and they will surely fix this problem or not risk sloppy skills. This is also the cheapest way to enforce standards for many other problems. If this was really a concern for coaches an gym owners then we should restrict Senior L5 standing fulls and doubles since many of them are sloppy and scary and scary as well.

I completely agree with Shardads statement above. If we use DEDUCTIONS as a simple way to help enforce proper progression and safety it will help every division and would be a positive step in lending credibility to this sport. My daughter was on a Y5 several years ago and sustained some injuries that were caused by the coaches putting these children in unsafe situations. So in the case of that particular gym eliminating Y5 may have fixed the symptom but not the problem. My child was hurt more from the small kids trying to do level 5 stunts more than tumbling. I say limit the division especially on stunting and as Shardad said fix the sloppy, potentially harmful tumbling with deductions on all levels not just Y5. As an example it is amazing how many doubles I see that are actually 1 3/4. These kids (all ages) are landing and still twisting which has to put a lot of stress on thier knees and ankles.

Ultimately as a parent it is my responsibility to do the necessary research and make the best decision for my children. We changed from a large gym to a smaller gym (no Y5 squad there) and they actually pulled her back to clean some of her technique then her double began to look much better and SAFER. Oddly enough just two weeks before making a change her old gymnastics coach mentioned how her technique, if not corrected, may lead to an injury in the future. Again I believe that Y5 needs to be restricted, especially in tumbling and let deductions address the unsafe, sloppy tumbling.

I meant to say Y5 needs to be restricted in the stunting and let deductions address the unsafe and sloppy tumbling. Sorry, felt I needed to clarify.

 

[cheerfan666]

I think the concern is WHY she lost that one competition. She needed "more double fulls". Don't bring the crossover rule into this, because Courtney is using an advantage that WC is CHOOSING not to use. Nobody is telling them they can't. And on top of that, correct me if I'm wrong here, NCA only allows 5 crossovers per team. WC was competing against 5 athletes that were still youth-aged, and possibly on junior elite or another junior 5 team. They were competing against 5 athletes that competed twice in the same day, and still beat WC both the times those athletes competed. Both in Youth 5 and Junior 5. CEA beating WC at NCA was a substantial win because of exactly what you said. People can't sit there and say "Starlites and Twinks competed against the same CEA team" like they always do because they didn't. They competed against 2 almost completely different teams.

If CEA only 5 crossovers for the Jr 5 team, why did she not bring 5 Youth 5 kids up to bring the team to worlds. I think there were more than 5 crossovers.

 

[omgitssydthekid]

If CEA only 5 crossovers for the Jr 5 team, why did she not bring 5 Youth 5 kids up to bring the team to worlds. I think there were more than 5 crossovers.

Just because they crossed from Youth to Juniors doesn't mean they were also on seniors considering Senior Elite and Co-ed Elite didn't go to NCA. And there obviously wasn't more than 5 crossovers because you do have to register the kids (just in case you forgot).

 

[just_kay_today]

That doesn't sound nice. . .not sure where you're going with it

I think the poster was referring to the whole WC/CEA spitting incident of a couple years back. I took it as a twisted attempt at injecting levity.

 

[SharkDad]

JUST A THOUGHT after reading another thread regarding transparency of scoresheets... before anyone gets too excited, i'm not calling Courtney a liar by any means, but I would love for a Twinkles coach to confirm the "add more doubles" comment made on the NCA scoresheet.... Has Elaine or anyone else said this out loud? just curious, because if this is a not a fact, this whole "conspiracy theory" concept could be squashed pretty quickly

Confirmation before accusation. . .great idea for most issues

 

[King]

Confirmation before accusation. . .great idea for most issues

I find if we wait for information and accuracy nothing gets done around here.

 

[ImBigRed]

There has been no 'safety change' in Youth 5 in the past few years. The real truth is that WC cannot consistantly compete and win in that division.....So they don't want anyone else there. Simple as that.

Thats a pathetic argument.

 

[yojaehs]

It is amazing to me how this whole thread turned around in a hurry!! I think the original post was about how MANY decisions are made not JUST to improve cheer as a whole but those with a specific agenda and thus the fiasco began. My thought is if you don't like it then you don't have to do it, no need to try to bring others down. I feel its the same as EX. my gym doesn't have any boys so cheer should no longer have a coed division. There are MANY options in cheer and if you don't like the company, or the division there are ALWAYS options. Don't try to make them fit you, you fit them. Specifically calling someone out creates nothing but DRAMA but hey, welcome to cheer LOL!

 

[Jcoach1]

The results of the voting has been posted... can be viewed at www.usasf.net