- Dec 14, 2009
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Judges reserve the right to assess warnings and/or deductions when a team’s choreography, uniform, make up, bows etc. do not meet the standards of ‘appropriate’ as described in the policy.
In a perfect world, judges would hand out deductions to teams that had inappropriate uniforms, like Aces', at every competition. Because then it places blame on the coaches and gym for making the decisions about the uniforms, not the parents and athletes for not speaking up. It would put the gym owners in a really tough spot because either you decide to keep the old uniforms, even though you are knowingly going to get deducted, or you are forced to get new uniforms. In either situation, the gym owners look dumb and incapable to the parents/its customers, their reputation takes a beating, and it is blatantly obvious the gyms failed their customers. Even worse/better, the parents will probably be up in arms that they have to purchase yet ANOTHER uniform for their athlete because the people they pay to be in charge messed up big time and now the parents are being affected. So then the gym is either forced to reimburse parents for an entire uniform or purchase the new uniforms themselves, which would cost them thousands, or they will have customers leave. Either way the gyms are punished. It will be a tough lesson learned but could potentially stop the ridiculousness.
This is the best outcome/set of consequences in my mind. It, in theory, places the blame and burden directly on the gym owners, not on the athletes/parents. I do not support placing blame on the parents for not speaking up because the consequences could be very real. It is entirely the fault of the gym owners for making bad decisions and putting their athletes and parents in this situation.
I 100% hope some judges really step up to the plate this year and start handing out deductions for uniforms.