All-Star Youth Summit in Tampa 2023

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Aug 9, 2012
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Varsity just posted on their socials about a new "Youth Only" summit in Tampa in 2023... Thoughts??

I currently coach a youth team and we're taking them to Regional Summit. Regional is still a flight for us but not as far or as expensive as a trip to Tampa. I do not think for us, a small gym with crossovers between youth and junior, that TWO separate trips to florida will ever make sense. I genuinely try to think about Varsity's decisions from NOT a money standpoint first to try and see what they are thinking... I got nothing. This just purely seems like a way to get more money.

 
I am confused. Isn’t regional Summit the same thing as this? Are they going to keep having regional summit? Or is this replacing regional summit?
 
So if you are a parent and you have crossover kids, you are now navigating:

1. Youth Summit
2. Regular Summit
3. Worlds

Within a month time span.

That’s 3 Florida trips.

Four if you regularly attend UCA the month before.

Five if your child attends NHSCC.

Wild.
 
I am confused. Isn’t regional Summit the same thing as this? Are they going to keep having regional summit? Or is this replacing regional summit?
I think they’ll keep regional?? Cause regional has Tiny-Senior elite teams. This is the first year regional even exists in person i’m pretty sure!
 
So if you are a parent and you have crossover kids, you are now navigating:

1. Youth Summit
2. Regular Summit
3. Worlds

Within a month time span.

That’s 3 Florida trips.

Four if you regularly attend UCA the month before.

Five if your child attends NHSCC.

Wild.

Yikes!
 
So if you are a parent and you have crossover kids, you are now navigating:

1. Youth Summit
2. Regular Summit
3. Worlds

Within a month time span.

That’s 3 Florida trips.

Four if you regularly attend UCA the month before.

Five if your child attends NHSCC.

Wild.
if this had been a thing several years ago, this would have been me several years in a row - well actually, it would have meant that I would have had to pull my kids from cheer completely in 2013. There is no way I would be able to spend 3 weeks in Florida - money (or lack thereof), work and education would make it impossible. I don't know how parents are going to be able to do it if they aren't local to Florida
 
I think this was their response to those upset that the Youth teams were eliminated from the FL event. At the end of the day, V isn’t going to stop and think wait, what if a family has a child in each event? They are almost damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
 
So if you are a parent and you have crossover kids, you are now navigating:

1. Youth Summit
2. Regular Summit
3. Worlds

Within a month time span.

That’s 3 Florida trips.

Four if you regularly attend UCA the month before.

Five if your child attends NHSCC.

Wild.

For 2021-2022 the USASF age grid pretty much allowed gyms to decide what they wanted to do with the Regionals. Youth grid for levels 1-3 are ages 5-11 and Jr's are ages 6-15 (one year difference at minimum age). For level 4 it's Youth ages 8-11 and Jr. ages 8-15 (same minimum). For level 5 it's Youth ages 9-11 and Jr. ages 9-15 (same minimum). Gyms could have easily eliminated Youth teams to attend one year end event for Summit, and I would imagine many did.

@FierceIsTheName I'm guessing, but I think Regionals was created to 1) take care of the limited bid issue with people complaining it was harder to go to the Summit than World's, and 2) Summit/Mouse burnout....albeit, from responses, I think it backfired.
 
What will be next, a "Mini" Mouse Summit? What started as 1 Summit is now 8 Summits. It's almost as if an apparel company shouldn't be in charge of creating cheerleading's competition schedule.

I'm guessing this Youth Summit is in response to the sudden competition Varsity faces from "All Star Worlds" where gyms are able to take their Youth teams in addition to Junior/Senior teams.


The idea of creating Regional competitions is nice, but don't we already have those? What's the difference between the "Regional Summit" in Myrtle Beach in early April and "Spirit Sports Battle at the Beach" in Myrtle Beach 2 weeks earlier (this used to be one of the big Nationals of choice)? Why do we need both of these? Why do they keep adding new competitions but never eliminating any?

At many competitions, several divisions only have 1 or 2 teams competing. We need fewer competitions, not more, to raise the quality of competition at some of these events. But I don't think anyone cares.

Who can afford to fly to UCA Nationals anymore if they're already going to Florida for Summit and/or Worlds? And now a Youth Summit on top of that? And instead of eliminating UCA Nationals, they're fine with the attendance dwindling and making it much less "national". There were about 50 divisions at UCA this season that had 2 or fewer teams in them.

There are only so many "End of Season" events and airplane trips a family can do in a season. I'm sure it's enough of a headache for parents to get their kids to Summit and Worlds and whatever the Regional Summit is, and now add a Youth Summit as another option. Wow. It's very common for families to have multiple kids in cheer in multiple age groups. Their heads must spin.
 
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Varsity just posted on their socials about a new "Youth Only" summit in Tampa in 2023... Thoughts??

I currently coach a youth team and we're taking them to Regional Summit. Regional is still a flight for us but not as far or as expensive as a trip to Tampa. I do not think for us, a small gym with crossovers between youth and junior, that TWO separate trips to florida will ever make sense. I genuinely try to think about Varsity's decisions from NOT a money standpoint first to try and see what they are thinking... I got nothing. This just purely seems like a way to get more money.


That does seem pretty absurd
 
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