I thought I would get some suggestions on ways to improve the scoring process for all star cheer.
1. All the scores are made public. EVERY number written down on any judge's sheet should be made available to the public. The comments are given only to the coaches of the teams.
-I think this would be great so long as it goes with number 4. When coaches know the scores of other teams, they compare it. If the coaches know the skills being thrown by everyone, it keeps everyone honest.
NEW:
4. Coaches turn in a skills declaration before their teams compete. The judges have a written list of the skill elements in the routine to use as a reference in deciding difficulty. This would be in the order that they are performed in the routine. (Execution would still be subjective, and a major part of the final score.) Penalties would be given if athletes changed their skills to something easier. (Athlete throws a tuck instead of a double, flyer singles down instead of doubles, etc.) A judge sitting with the deduction judge would watch video to determine compliance with written skills. Coaches would have the ability to make last-minute changes in the case of injury or water-down decisions.
-I think competitions and scoring would start to run slower because of this. I definitely see the positive of this, but that's a lot of pausing and skill counting.
I also would like to add that I'd like execution to either be less subjective or deductions become more severe. I think as an industry we are getting very precise when it comes to difficulty, but the truth is execution is still wide open. We talk about a L5 team doing straight up to stretch double down not being able to outscore a team doing a full up to one leg, hitting three skills with another major release and then doubling out of it in difficulty, but what if that same team with the straight to stretch hits it absolutely perfectly while the other team drops 1 of the 5 and bobbles another 2. That second team can still outscore the first team because of the subjectivity involved. What if execution was similar to what we do for difficulty? For example, if execution is out of 15, if you have 0 deductions you can score in the 12 - 15 range, lowest being 12. But if you have a large deduction like a drop, or a tumble fall, you are now in the 10 - 13 range.