All-Star Usasf Age Grid To Be Released Soon!

[Hi! It's me!]

Ah not all minis. My poor child got caught in both the possibility of May 31, which would have kept her as a mini another year or changing it to 9 which again would have kept her mini eligible for a record 6th year. Dear Lord if both had passed she could have been a mini for two more years! She has been talking all season about how she doesn't have to be a mini anymore so that is at least one mini who is happy.

 

[quitthedrama]

Shimmy times a million. This REALLY bothered me. I feel this was a bit of a slap in the face to voters. This would have benefited the younger squads emmensily. And for growing programs would have been a very positive change. Very annoyed by this decision.

Agreed, and what bothers me most about it is that it was voted on to pass, and I think many gyms mentally prepared for the change and teams thought they could stay together next year and really make huge improvements. I don't necessarily disagree with keeping the age grid the same, I just think the process of voting and then having the vote overturned several months later is unfair. I get that USASF is trying to please everyone, but then they should have had a survey process rather than a voting process.

 

[Level5Mom]

Fair enough . 9 year olds don't want to be cheering on minis just like 15 year olds don't want to be cheering on juniors!

 

[bobbi]

Fair enough . 9 year olds don't want to be cheering on minis just like 15 year olds don't want to be cheering on juniors!

The beauty is , they would necessarily have to. But at least the option would have been made avaliable.

 

[CharlotteASMom]

Has anyone pulled the voting numbers and compared them to the actual results? I'm working and can't but I hoped one of our ambitious ones on here would.

Also, who was invited and allowed to be a part of these 3 hour long conference calls? Was it just USASF representatives and committee members or could anyone be on the calls?

 

[NJ Coach]

Has anyone pulled the voting numbers and compared them to the actual results? I'm working and can't but I hoped one of our ambitious ones on here would.

The voting results, and an explanation on why they passed or not are included in the grid, if you keep scrolling down. I was wondering why it was a 15 page document lol.

 

[CharlotteASMom]

The voting results, and an explanation on why they passed or not are included in the grid, if you keep scrolling down. I was wondering why it was a 15 page document lol.

Thanks! I didn't scroll that far down!

So the issues that had definitive votes for but were not passed are...

• Limit Crossovers to 2 teams
• Large 21-30
• The age changes
• The EIN issue
• Setting a calendar Year
• Athletes competing for multiple gyms in a year

How ironic.

 

[newcheerdad]

I'm not sure what the process was to take the voting results and turn them into a workable format. But as I said in a previous thread, I saw several instances where a measure passed and was then essentially watered down or thrown out.

http://usasf.net.ismmedia.com/ISM2//News/USASF_CheerAgeGrid_NACCCslate_11-12.pdf

Now, that doesn't mean the USASF was wrong to do so. But it gives the impression that the will of the voters could - and would - be changed by a small committee.

I have several examples of this:

-Crossovers. The membership voted, by a 57-38 percentage, to allow athletes to be on no more than 2 teams. But the USASF decided to circumvent that rule and change it so that an athlete could be on no more than 3 teams. That makes the rule pretty toothless, because I cannot think of a single cheerleader I've ever met that's been on more than 3 teams. And it makes me wonder what the purpose of the rule is, since in practicality it won't be used very often.

-Crossover percentage. The membership also voted, by a 51-46 pecentage, to limit the percentage of athletes that could be crossovers. The one thing I'll say is that I do not buy the argument that crossover percentage is a difficult thing to police. To suggest that a gym or an event producer can't do the math is a fairly disingenuous argument. The better argument would've been the fact that it would have punished smaller programs disproportionately. Now, I personally don't like the idea of a percentage-based system and am glad it wasn't implemented, but again, this is what the membership voted on.

-Changing the max participants for the large division. This passed by a 60-39 margin, with 52 percent also saying that the cap on the large division should be 30. Clearly, the rules that were put in place (keeping level 5 teams at 36 members, capping others at 32) was a compromise that seems, at first blush, slanted towards larger gyms that max out their higher-level teams. Again, I didn't see the need to restrict the large division in the first place, but this is what the membership voted for.

-Changing the age grid. This passed by 54-44 margin, which is fairly significant. Yet the USASF decided that this wasn't a big enough margin to justify changing the grid. The big issue I had with that is the justification - that it would restrict many athletes from moving up a level for the upcoming season. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to read that question and know that would be the result. The membership voted for it anyway, and basically the USASF is suggesting that its membership didn't understand the ramifications of what they voted for. I am not a fan of changing the age grid in this manner (I'd like to see smaller splits between ages personally) but this was a clear case of the will of the majority being circumvented.

-Eliminate Youth 5. The majority (51-46) voted to eliminate youth 5. The USASF said that wasn't a overwhelming response, and basically decided to keep the division. The membership also voted, by quite a wide margin (75-21), to say that if youth 5 wasn't eliminated that it should be restricted. What ended up happening is that not only was youth 5 not eliminated, it wasn't restricted, and an entirely new division was created. The seems to benefit gyms that have an existing youth 5 program that were concerned about the ramifications of losing it. I didn't see the pressing need to eliminate or restrict youth 5, but again, this is what the membership voted on.

Maybe this is a lesson for this body - that next time, rather than just allow all the proposals to be voted on, there should be a committee that reviews them to make sure that they make sense, understands what the ramifications are, and come up with working proposals that are then voted on by the entire membership. (Similar to how rules changes are managed in other sports, where a committee votes on the proposal and if it passes there it gets moved up to the membership for approval.) And maybe a higher threshold (60 percent instead of 50 percent) is required for passage.

As I've said before, I think the USASF was more than likely correct in the changes they made, but my concern is more about the process than anything else.

 

[CharlotteASMom]

Great post!

If I were a small gym owner I would be infuriated because outside of crossovers, the rules that were over-ruled were ones that benefit large multiple location gyms that extensively use crossovers and have kids come in mid-year from another gym. What am I missing?

 

[Just-a-Mom]

Thanks! I didn't scroll that far down!

So the issues that had definitive votes for but were not passed are...

• Limit Crossovers to 2 teams
• Large 21-30
• The age changes
• The EIN issue
• Setting a calendar Year
• Athletes competing for multiple gyms in a year

How ironic.

I'm also at work so I'm having to sneak a quick peak again. But, and correct me if I'm wrong, I thought they were only posting age grids/divisions for now, as this is the info everyone was saying they needed right away because tryouts are coming up. And then they were supposed to do the rest by the end of the month (eg. EIN issue, calendar year, multiple gyms, etc.) Is that not the case?

 

[NJ Coach]

I'm also at work so I'm having to sneak a quick peak again. But, and correct me if I'm wrong, I thought they were only posting age grids/divisions for now, as this is the info everyone was saying they needed right away because tryouts are coming up. And then they were supposed to do the rest by the end of the month (eg. EIN issue, calendar year, multiple gyms, etc.) Is that not the case?

The rest are the actual level rules. What was included in the age grid, is what is always on the grid (ie team size, splits, crossovers ect)

 

[CharlotteASMom]

EIN issue said...


This proposal will be reviewed further by business and legal experts to ensure
that no unintentional outcomes occur as a result of mandating that EINs
define a program.

One program and calendar year said...


This issue will be addressed by the Membership Committee of the USASF as
they look at ways to implement formal athlete membership. When the
system is in place to enroll athletes, then this will be addressed on the Age
Grid.

 

[GoldGal]

To chime in on the age changes proposal... That proposal was written by an event producer in the DFW area who thought it would just make more sense to have even age ranges and would make it easier for event producers to keep track of. After thinking more about how it would affect the entire industry, he basically rescinded the proposal at the NACCC meeting in Atlanta. This was all on the webcast. At the meeting, it was unanimous that when looking at it from a parent perspective (our customer!), that it would not be positive to have sophomores on junior, seventh graders on youth, etc. Everyone was so in favor of keeping the current age groupings, that there was hardly any discussion on the issue. After all of that, I was shocked that it passed in the first place. Not sure if this played into their decision to overturn the vote or not, but thought it might shed some light on the proposal.

 

[newcheerdad]

To chime in on the age changes proposal... That proposal was written by an event producer in the DFW area who thought it would just make more sense to have even age ranges and would make it easier for event producers to keep track of. After thinking more about how it would affect the entire industry, he basically rescinded the proposal at the NACCC meeting in Atlanta. This was all on the webcast. At the meeting, it was unanimous that when looking at it from a parent perspective (our customer!), that it would not be positive to have sophomores on junior, seventh graders on youth, etc. Everyone was so in favor of keeping the current age groupings, that there was hardly any discussion on the issue. After all of that, I was shocked that it passed in the first place. Not sure if this played into their decision to overturn the vote or not, but thought it might shed some light on the proposal.

Which I understand. I actually didn't think it was a good idea myself.

But the majority of the membership voted for the proposal, and I would expect that those who voted for it did so knowing full well what the ramifications of it would be. Maybe that wasn't the case, which is why I suggested in my previous post that maybe a committee needs to flesh these proposals out into something workable to be voted on, with all of the pros/cons clearly spelled out. And then maybe you need a 60% threshold to pass "major" changes, like to the age grid.

 

[yojaehs]

Let me start by saying that all these changes don't bother me, changes always happen and we always adjust to them...HOWEVER... if someone PAYS MONEY to have the right to vote and that vote is ahead and I don't care if its by .009% that vote should win. If "I" am intelligent or unintelligent enough to join and PAY because I want to make a difference (which is why I think many join) then I don't think ANYONE should have the right to say "well I know more and don't want to change even if the vote says it should". That is where I have a problem. If EP's or Mega gym owners or small gym representatives are gonna have things done for them then DON'T ASK FOR MONEY FROM ME just so I can vote and not matter. OR say IN ADVANCE that the vote is just to get an "idea" of what people are thinking but that in the end it really doesn't matter. Ok off my soapbox, at least until the "rules" come out LOL