Worlds Roster Rules

[BlueCat]

Here is my suggestion for changing the Worlds Roster/Substitution rules:

1. MORE than 75% of your team at Worlds must be the exact same athletes that were on the floor when you received your bid. (This essentially means that you can replace 4 on a "small" team, 5 on an "international" team, and 8 on a "large" team.) Another way to look at - you can substitute 25% of your team MINUS 1. Substitutions can be ANYONE that is eligible, and may be made at ANY time. (As long as at least 75.01% of the teams are "original" team members when you step on the mat.)

2. Once you compete on the floor on a bid-eligible division/team, you may not compete with any OTHER gym at Worlds that season. (Unless released by the original gym owner.) Even if the bid is later declined, this rule is still in effect. (No poaching athletes from teams that don't get bids.) You may still compete for other teams in that same gym, just not a different gym.

3. If a team receives a paid bid, the event producer is NOT responsible for ANY of the expenses of athletes who were not paid participants at the event where the bid was given out. (If you substitute someone in, they must pay their own way unless they competed at that same event.) This keeps event producers from paying for people who didn't even go to their event.

Enforcement: Take a group picture immediately after/before every bid-seeking team competes. Make sure that every athlete is completely visible in the photo. Post ALL group pictures online on USASF website within 1 week of bid-giving event. Any protests can simply be compared to the photos (along with any other documentation.)


Note: This cuts down the total number of substitutions for each team, but freely allows "wild cards" and alternates. It gives some protection to smaller gyms' athletes and limits large gyms' advantages. This also gives plenty of room to make up for most injury situations. It is actually enforceable. (unlike the current rules)

 

[ccoyne]

That sounds really good and the fact that is enforceable is key! Being able to replace 25% of your team sounds kind of high to me though.

 

[Mclovin]

I would be okay with that. I definitely like the 25% rule. I think you're on to something BlueCat...

 

[Mclovin]

That sounds really good and the fact that is enforceable is key! Being able to replace 25% of your team sounds kind of high to me though.

25% is less than what the current rule is now. As it stands, a small team can replace 50% of their team and a large team can replace 30% of their team.

 

[BlueCat]

That sounds really good and the fact that is enforceable is key! Being able to replace 25% of your team sounds kind of high to me though.

(what McLovin said) +

Not to get too technical, but you couldn't change 25%, you could change 1 person less than 25%. (Small - change 4, International - change 5, Large - change 8 ) I just include the percentages so that teams with numbers different numbers of athletes than the max would still have the same proportions.

 

[King]

The picture idea is something I have been saying for a while.

The only idea I don't like currently is the second one of once you are on a team that gets a bid you can't go anywhere else. Not because I don't agree with the purpose, but enforcement and tracking would be very hard on that one.

 

[CheernerdDC]

And how would get these rules into affect? I think a revamping of some rules and procedures is definitely in order.

 

[ACEDAD]

The picture idea is something I have been saying for a while.

The only idea I don't like currently is the second one of once you are on a team that gets a bid you can't go anywhere else. Not because I don't agree with the purpose, but enforcement and tracking would be very hard on that one.

He didn't say "once you get a bid", he said "once you compete on a bid-eligible team."

Huge difference.

 

[King]

I think rosters submitted as well could be posted online (with just the first initial of the first name) that are submitted to the event producer.

Also, post the pics and rosters between day 1 and 2. It's not technically hard to do and prevents people from throwing a fit that something fishy happened the week after the comp.

 

[ACEDAD]

I think rosters submitted as well could be posted online (with just the first initial of the first name) that are submitted to the event producer.

Also, post the pics and rosters between day 1 and 2. It's not technically hard to do and prevents people from throwing a fit that something fishy happened the week after the comp.

I'm all for transparency. I would put these in the members only section of USASF rather than available for just anyone.

 

[King]

He didn't say "once you get a bid", he said "once you compete on a bid-eligible team."

Huge difference.

Even harder to track.

I have this idea, if we ever get a tracking system, that each athlete has a usasf membership and account online at the usasf website. When an athlete wants to join a gym they go onto the website and 'friend request' that gym to be a member of it. The gym then approves the member and that athlete is part of that gym. If the athlete wants to go to another gym and compete they have to defriend their current gym. If all gym competition rosters are subnitted online through the usasf website this will control the flow of names, make it easier for gyms to register, and allow a kid to compete at one gym at a time (the usasf can limit the amount of times a person could request to jojn a gym a season and limit when an athletes allowed to switch at what point in the season).

 

[BlueCat]

The clause (#2) that keeps kids from jumping teams (or being recruited for a worlds team at another gym) is easily the hardest part to enforce of this. My picture idea was that EVERY team competing for a bid gets their picture put online. This won't help the tracking per se, but it will make it somewhat more difficult to jump teams. All the old gym owner would have to do would be to point out the athlete's picture from the competition where they competed for a bid.

This would eliminate the need for "gym membership" issue entirely. Your only "membership" would be defined by the first team you competed for a bid with. Clause #1 would allow people to join teams 10 minutes before they walked onto the mat for Worlds in theory. (Only if they hadn't competed for a bid with another team that season.) This dramatically helps the injury substitution situation for every team.

When the athlete tracking system gets online, it would be easier to handle clause #2. Even then, I would still suggest using group photos from competitions.

 

[Mclovin]

It seems simple to me. Why can't the USASF mandate that you can only be part of ONE gym at a time?? If you were competing with Gym A at NCA, you cannot be rostered on Gym B's Worlds team as an alternate from NCA. If you were competing with Gym A and then decided to quit Gym A and join Gym B, you have to send a request in writing to the USASF to have your membership switched. At that time the USASF would contact Gym A and Gym B and confirm this and the athlete's membership would be switched.

ETA: This is where having Athlete ID's comes into play.

 

[King]

So I am gonna write out my grand master plan the USASF needs me to project manager for ( and I am not kidding about hiring me. I am programmer, systems manager, interface designer during my day job handling millions of products and hundreds of warehouses. Handling 'kids' instead of 'products' isn't any different on a computer side of things ). I have been constructing this since I wrote my RFID idea quite a few months ago. I have had a few associates of mine as well go over with me the programming needs of the system as well as the legal wrinkles. This is all very possible and just a matter of if they want to use it.

A couple of notes before I describe the system itself:

First, the USASF now offers catastrophic insurance to help cover the athletes, gyms, and competitions themselves. This is the glue to string the whole system together. As long as the athlete, gym, and event itself complies with all the guidelines, everyone is registered (what we want), everyones butt is covered. Is someone breaks the rules they can get suspended from the USASF and events.

Second, insurance availability can be verified with a SS#. There is the age check cleaning up all the data coming into the system. Encrypting the information so that it can't be stolen as well is also very easy. This wouldn't be an insecure system.

Third, to host and run the entire system is a giant million square foot warehouse data center in Atlanta. I know quite a few companies that run their stuff there (Google, some banks, wall street firms) so it is a perfect place to host all of this. The IT requirements are well within reach of what we need (PS - The Varsity, USASF, and IASFWORLDS websites should probably be hosted their. When those websites come under load they are TERRIBLY slow. Someone should also contact me about making them faster and what needs to be fixed on those as well)

So, here is the flow of the system:

A parent of an athlete who wants to be an allstar cheerleader goes to the 'new' USASF website. They pay a set amount of money to register their kid, enter all their childs information (and parent contact info), for insurance reasons enter their social security number which verifies their information, and uploads a picture (which has to be updated every year. the system 'removes' all attached pictures two weeks after worlds). Once all this is entered a mom/dad then requests to be a member of a gym. For our example lets use Cheer Athletics. The parent types in the gym into search and kinda like facebook requests to be a member of the gym. That is it from the parent side for the year. All the info is in and everything is good to go!

The gym then logs onto their account. They see all these athletes requesting to be a part of their gym. Why do they have to request to be a part of a gym? This controls who is 'actually' a member of your gym and cleans all the information. It will suck at the beginning of the year when you have to accept all these people but will keep the system clean. Next a gym will build its teams. They will 'create' the team like a person would create a group on facebook (I will use facebook a lot for my examples. Why? because the solutions they have created are some of the best in the industry for user interface. this whole system has to be easy and clean, otherwise NO ONE will use it). When creating the team they will check whether it is coed and the age requirements. Next they will type names (like tagging a photo) to add to the team. If that athlete does not meet the requirements for the team it will not let you add them (there we JUST solved the age problem in cheerleading). As well it will be easy to keep track of all the crossovers and if we ever put a limit on crossovers that will be easy to control when adding people to the team as well. A gym then can easily see all members of their gym, where they are at, and easily shift people around if needed. When it comes time to register that gym for an event (that is part of the USASF) we now can make it a TON easier and no paperwork. The gym owner just looks up the event they want to go to, picks the teams that are going to the event, and sends them to the event producer. BAM, you are registered, no paperwork, and know how much you owe.

Event producers are really gonna dig this. It will free them up from a ton of paperwork. All they have to do is let gyms submit the teams they are bringing and they are all registered. They then have a database completely at their disposal to handle the information however they want. If corrections need to be made to anything all anyone has to do is go to an event producer representative sitting at a computer and make the corrections. The system would not let anyone 'cheat' because the business rules are programmed into it. (yes if you REALLY wanted in any system there are ways to cheat, but the idea is cheating is reduced to a small fraction of what it is believed to be now and we make it very hard for anyone to do). For worlds teams the system would require the picture Jody and I mentioned (I really have been spouting about the picture idea for a few months) to be uploaded to the database on both days of competition. I wont go into detail about the RFID system again, but now that we have this monster clean database we could implement any system of tracking we wanted.

The USASF - here is where they will love it. First, they finally have true power over lots of people in the industry. Since all athletes, events, and gyms are tied together by the insurance if someone truly 'cheats' suspension of cheaters could finally have some teeth. The USASF would also have statistics over all the people in Allstar. Know exactly how many are registered and what all and who are attending what events. AND the system would prevent cheating AND the appearance of cheating (just as important).

Thoughts?

 

[mg8923]

King, it is a great idea, just curious how much do you think it would cost to implement?