All-Star Grand Unified Theory Of Cheerology

[King]

So a lot of these rules all hit at some of the same problems, but cannot individually make the necessary changes we all want. For a second if we were to forget the rules process and made these changes as a package deal:

1. Large teams at 30, small at 20
2. Large, Medium, and Small coed (15 and 6 on a large team, 4 on a small team)
3. A universal balanced scoresheet that rewards ALL parts equally with difficulty and execution being factored in (as well as the coed stunt correction to push the boundaries)
4. No more small gym divisions, just the large and small gym award per competition
5. Full athlete registration system that keeps ages correctly AND once you compete for a gym at a USASF sanctioned event you are not allowed to switch programs for the entire season UNLESS released by the previous program
6. A divison between club teams and open teams (you are one or the other) and once kids are in college they can only do open teams.
7. Use the age cutoff by schools (the one we currently have in place) to decide our age cutoffs
8. limit crossovers in 2 ways: an arbitrary percentage of the team (20% is fine.. 6 for large and 4 for small) and a kid is not allowed to do more than 2 routines in a day.
9. This is a big one: design and modify the levels so that as athletes get older the levels themselves get less restrictive (so level 2 at mini cannot throw baskets, but level 2 in senior can do extended 1 leg liberties... this would allow a level 2 lifer [an athlete who's physical abilities will never let them pass level 2] to still have things to look forward to from age 6 to age 18. these adjustments could be made in all the levels)

 

[rvnblue]

I definitely do not like your number 6 because I was 17 when I was a freshman in college and still cheered another two years on a senior team.

 

[rvnblue]

And there are several people that are in the same situation as I.

 

[King]

And there are several people that are in the same situation as I.

not gonna like my answer...

 

[rvnblue]

not gonna like my answer...

I'll be the judge of that

 

[meesh3369]

9. This is a big one: design and modify the levels so that as athletes get older the levels themselves get less restrictive (so level 2 at mini cannot throw baskets, but level 2 in senior can do extended 1 leg liberties... this would allow a level 2 lifer [an athlete who's physical abilities will never let them pass level 2] to still have things to look forward to from age 6 to age 18. these adjustments could be made in all the levels)

<3 Love this part of your master plan <3 I agree w/ all of the plan makes me hopeful in a few years it'll all be reality

 

[powerXbaby]

I started college when I was 16 and could cheer for 3 years after. There are only 2-3 international teams in arizona, and I wouldn't want to cheer at any of them.

 

[CrownedtheGR8est]

Not sure I like #9... Great idea but seems very tedious and hard to do.

 

[DENA]

A lot of people complain about the college kids doing the teams that they supposedly "shouldn't be on". I think it's fair game as long as they meet the requirements and don't break any rules. If other gyms could do it, they would.

 

[King]

start with this, what do other youth sports do when an individual goes to college?

 

[NJ Coach]

There's always going to people negatively impacted by any rule. I think that high school graduates should also graduate from the club divisions. Does this negatively impact the few kids that graduate early? Yes, but I would hazard a guess that vast majority of our graduates do not finish high school early. There have been several conversations on here about college cheer's declining numbers. James Speed said something I hadn't thought about earlier. The date change increased his tryout numbers at Louisville. Leave the club divisions to the kids in high school and younger and the international/open division to college and up.

By the way, this is an argument I never thought I'd be making.

ETA: tryout numbers at Louisville, not GT

 

[CCCBeBad]

AAU and Little League baseball allows NCAA Baseball players to play ball as long as they are "of age" they do not exempt kids because they decide to go to college, one should have NO correlation to another!! The reason age should be the only standard is schools and grade systems are different all over the world and America... so you are going to penalize a kid from one state compared to another just because they start school at an earlier age! I think not!

 

[NJ Coach]

AAU and Little League baseball allows NCAA Baseball players to play ball as long as they are "of age" they do not exempt kids because they decide to go to college, one should have NO correlation to another!! The reason age should be the only standard is schools and grade systems are different all over the world and America... so you are going to penalize a kid from one state compared to another just because they start school at an earlier age! I think not!

My senior year of HS, one of my friends was not allowed to play baseball. He had been left back at some point during his school career, and was overage by HS guidelines.

 

[kristenthegreat]

There's always going to people negatively impacted by any rule. I think that high school graduates should also graduate from the club divisions. Does this negatively impact the few kids that graduate early? Yes, but I would hazard a guess that vast majority of our graduates do not finish high school early. There have been several conversations on here about college cheer's declining numbers. James Speed said something I hadn't thought about earlier. The date change increased his tryout numbers at Louisville. Leave the club divisions to the kids in high school and younger and the international/open division to college and up.

By the way, this is an argument I never thought I'd be making.

ETA: tryout numbers at Louisville, not GT

Yeah, because they were 'forced' to graduate and move onto somewhere that had a strong collegiate/allstar program.

I agree with most of what you said, and highly encourage those who didn't to go back and watch what was said on the webcast. Even if you can't vote, this impacts you and those you care about and CLEARLY, from the way he constantly mentioned phone calls/emails, if you make your voices heard via your coaches, there are those willing to listen. I found it ridiculously informative and sometimes funny (also because I had the pleasure of reading the lovely MsTeal's fbook commentary on the side). And please, MORE SAD CELINE DION SONGS!!

One last thing: I was surprised at how a few gyms mentioned (and larger gyms at that), the desire to weigh more heavily on dance/cheer to bring back the performance aspect as a way to remove cookie-cutter/boring routines. I believe it was mentioned in conjunction with the time-increase rule change? I'm curious to hear people's opinions on that..(Basically, some gym owners made the argument FOR increasing the rule change as a way to add back in fluff; others countered that if they had more time, in accordance with score sheets they WOULDN'T add more time, they'd add in more skills; someone rebutted that to counter THAT problem, dance/motions/choreo should be weighed in more heavily)

 

[Mrs.CheerExtreme]

unless they start making the international 4.2 that was suggested in another thread or a 5.3 or 6 point...blah blah whatever. you're going to lose a lot of these college kids who have aged graduated out. There is a high number of "super seniors" who cheer all-stars because they still can. the colleges are probably losing numbers because people are scared to try-out. L5 is not the only level out there and there are great cheerleaders on the other levels as well. People on the lower levels are scared they won't make it so they don't even try-out. These kids need some where to cheer and if they can't be on an international team because they don't have the skill level, at least they can be be on 2, 4.2, 3 or 4 like they were before.

but...otherwise...I'm a big fan of #9. Just because you can't tumble doesn't mean you can't hold someone above your head.