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.
