One Nationals

All I Want Is Cheer said:

True, it is not everyone's favorite venue. There are many other other venue's that I love to visit every year. However, name me one other venue that can handle that event at that time of year??? Dont forget.. you're talking about over 100 international teams that are flying in, some for up to a week. Plus the other 400+ national teams that are flying in. All of which will need transportation and lodging for 3-7 days.

The Dallas Convention Center and Georgia World Congress Center already host two of the largest events of the year, but are no way capable of handling the additional logistics of transportation and the influx of international teams.

(Jeopardy theme song plays along...)

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Anaheim Convention Center
Las Vegas Convention Center

for that matter:
Chicago
New York
Indianapolis
Mexico City
Vancouver

Regarding Dallas or Atlanta: There are many more teams and athletes at NCA and CheerSport than there are at Worlds so I don't follow the logistics issue. Do you need a special bus to carry Europeans? DFW and Hartsfield-Jackson airports both already handle dramatically more flights than the much smaller Orlando Airport.

If Atlanta can host an Olympics, they can probably handle 75 non-US cheerleading teams.

Level5Mom said:

Inspired said:

I guess I always find it funny to see National champs when you have not even competed against someone in your division.

I am all for one National, my husband (the non cheer guy) always makes fun of national champs because of that.

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I have had to explain to (wide-eyed, jaws-on-the-floor) people after they see my daughter in a "National Champion" hoodie and are going crazy over her that it is really not a true National. Quite frankly it's embarrassing. I never have a good answer for these people who ask me why they call it a National. Sure, I could lie....but it's not in my nature to make something bigger than it really is to look good.

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Level5mom, your post is the reason I started this thread. I think most agree on the idea, hopefully the right people can get together and agree upon a solution for the good of the whole sport.

I literally LOL-ed at this! I don't think it would be too difficult to have National requirements - say.. 500 teams enter a competition. A certain % of the states would need to be represented to have it be declared a national. A regional would be a lower percentage variability and etc. I think that having Cheersport Nationals and NCA Nationals, etc is no biggie. They are huge competitions with hundreds and hundreds of teams but when you get to the Hillbilly Podunk Nationals that has only 20 gyms represented and 15 are from the same state it gets kind of ridiculous [/quote]

Can you tell where to find this size competition, so called local/regional, anywhere near me this season and I will so be there! We have been to many that have maybe 10-15 gyms represented and like 2-3 states. Like 35-45 teams competing total. We would just like to have SOME competition this season, 6 competition so far and have only competed against 1 other team all season. It is a waste of my money.

indiglow said:

Can you tell where to find this size competition, so called local/regional, anywhere near me this season and I will so be there! We have been to many that have maybe 10-15 gyms represented and like 2-3 states. Like 35-45 teams competing total. We would just like to have SOME competition this season, 6 competition so far and have only competed against 1 other team all season. It is a waste of my money.

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Exactly. We need to get out of the mindset that everyone needs to be a winner, and that we need 300 divisions so that everyone has a "fair" shot. Some separation is understandable, yes. But even one of the largest TRUE Nationals sends you the line-up ahead of time before posted to the public in case you want to see your competitors ahead of time and change divisions real quick for a better shot at a win :scratch: . (Yes I'm harping on it.....)

Level5Mom said:

We need to get out of the mindset that everyone needs to be a winner, and that we need 300 divisions so that everyone has a "fair" shot.

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:clapping: :clapping: :clapping:

BlueCat said:

All I Want Is Cheer said:

True, it is not everyone's favorite venue. There are many other other venue's that I love to visit every year. However, name me one other venue that can handle that event at that time of year??? Dont forget.. you're talking about over 100 international teams that are flying in, some for up to a week. Plus the other 400+ national teams that are flying in. All of which will need transportation and lodging for 3-7 days.

The Dallas Convention Center and Georgia World Congress Center already host two of the largest events of the year, but are no way capable of handling the additional logistics of transportation and the influx of international teams.

(Jeopardy theme song plays along...)

Click to expand...

Anaheim Convention Center
Las Vegas Convention Center

for that matter:
Chicago

Click to expand...

Chicago has the Merchandise Mart, which could easily handle a huge competition. But Chicago is a Union town, so Union labor needs to be figured into the cost.

a nICE mom said:

Chicago has the Merchandise Mart, which could easily handle a huge competition. But Chicago is a Union town, so Union labor needs to be figured into the cost.

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True, same with New York. However, we wouldn't be paying the "Mouse Ear Tax" like in Orlando.

Ahhhh, there's a Mouse Tax! Bet it's still cheaper than union labor

PS: I mean no offense nor have any issues with unions. The higher costs associated with using union labor drives expenses up a significant degree, is what my point is.

Level5Mom said:

indiglow said:

Can you tell where to find this size competition, so called local/regional, anywhere near me this season and I will so be there! We have been to many that have maybe 10-15 gyms represented and like 2-3 states. Like 35-45 teams competing total. We would just like to have SOME competition this season, 6 competition so far and have only competed against 1 other team all season. It is a waste of my money.

Click to expand...

Exactly. We need to get out of the mindset that everyone needs to be a winner, and that we need 300 divisions so that everyone has a "fair" shot. Some separation is understandable, yes. But even one of the largest TRUE Nationals sends you the line-up ahead of time before posted to the public in case you want to see your competitors ahead of time and change divisions real quick for a better shot at a win :scratch: . (Yes I'm harping on it.....)

Click to expand...

We got the competition schedule for this coming weekend and we changed divisions to HAVE competition....it is not going to be pretty, but at least they will compete against somebody!

If there are less competitions that can call themselves 'Nationals' you WILL see more competition at places that are actually Nationals.

If there is a solid system of one day's and regionals for people to compete then your customers will get their 1st's and 2nd's but when it comes to Nationals a team should get 32nd. Then winning nationals becomes a bigger thing. I would love to see every division at a major event have 30 teams. It would also make 2nd or 3rd a bigger deal as well (or even placing top ten).

One thing I definitely like about Worlds is it is an honor to finish top ten because you probably beat out 60 other teams (I may or may not be talking about small senior and small small).

ohkcheery said:

Level5Mom said:

Inspired said:

I guess I always find it funny to see National champs when you have not even competed against someone in your division.

I am all for one National, my husband (the non cheer guy) always makes fun of national champs because of that.

Click to expand...

I have had to explain to (wide-eyed, jaws-on-the-floor) people after they see my daughter in a "National Champion" hoodie and are going crazy over her that it is really not a true National. Quite frankly it's embarrassing. I never have a good answer for these people who ask me why they call it a National. Sure, I could lie....but it's not in my nature to make something bigger than it really is to look good.

Click to expand...

I literally LOL-ed at this! I don't think it would be too difficult to have National requirements - say.. 500 teams enter a competition. A certain % of the states would need to be represented to have it be declared a national. A regional would be a lower percentage variability and etc. I think that having Cheersport Nationals and NCA Nationals, etc is no biggie. They are huge competitions with hundreds and hundreds of teams but when you get to the Hillbilly Podunk Nationals that has only 20 gyms represented and 15 are from the same state it gets kind of ridiculous

Click to expand...

I agree100%. It really is embarrassing to call yourself a national champ along with 2500 other teams. Coming from a VERY small gym owner... we have 60 team members on 3 teams. Our kids think they are big stuff when they get a National Championship banner from the local competition that they beat one team to get. It's fun to win and I'm excited for us, but to me you need to beat the best to be the best. I'd rather them be "so and so" classic champions so that when we did go to a real deal national championship they'd be more hungry and determined to bring home a TRUE national championship. And what ever happened to qualifying to have to go to nationals like UCA High School Nationals does? I mean if you sucked it up at a qualifier and didn't get a bid, what makes you think you deserve to go to a Nationals? The George Lopez is coming out in me...I could go on forever....

Kingston said:

If there are less competitions that can call themselves 'Nationals' you WILL see more competition at places that are actually Nationals.

If there is a solid system of one day's and regionals for people to compete then your customers will get their 1st's and 2nd's but when it comes to Nationals a team should get 32nd. Then winning nationals becomes a bigger thing. I would love to see every division at a major event have 30 teams. It would also make 2nd or 3rd a bigger deal as well (or even placing top ten).

One thing I definitely like about Worlds is it is an honor to finish top ten because you probably beat out 60 other teams (I may or may not be talking about small senior and small small).

Click to expand...

Same goes with UCA High School nationals... Making it pass prelims / semi's to the final day makes that trip soooo worthwhile. And when you have sit and watch finals from the seats, knowing you didn't make it puts a flame under the kids tails to work harder and get better.

Without trying to hijack this thread, I think we are protecting too many kids from 'failure'. Failure is a great teaching tool and a great motivator. You learn so much when you don't succeed and it makes succeeding that much better. It also makes certain types of successes mean more.

Just watched this speech yesterday from Adam Savage (from Mythbustesr) about failure. Really worth watching if you have a half hour.

http://fora.tv/2009/05/30/MythBuster_Ad ... l_Failures

Kingston said:

Without trying to hijack this thread, I think we are protecting too many kids from 'failure'. Failure is a great teaching tool and a great motivator. You learn so much when you don't succeed and it makes succeeding that much better. It also makes certain types of successes mean more.

Just watched this speech yesterday from Adam Savage (from Mythbustesr) about failure. Really worth watching if you have a half hour.

http://fora.tv/2009/05/30/MythBuster_Ad ... l_Failures

Click to expand...

:clapping: :clapping: :clapping:

At some point the definition of a failure changed to finishing anything other than first.