All-Star Can We Avoid Sandbagging Through The Athlete Tracking System?

As long as that is the standard to win, gyms will do it. It's ridiculous. But, since it's not against the rules, they'll make the excuse that "that is what it takes to win." Having a mini 1 team of true, first year kiddos is nearly impossible. I don't think you could compete to be honest. It's hard enough when you have experienced, talented kids!

We lost to a team over and over again that has a Y1 with senior 4 kids on it. SENIOR 4. Every kid in the gym (beyond the true level 1s that are hidden) is on 3 teams. Every time I hear someone talk about how great they are I want to spit, for real.

CoachTamara said:

As long as that is the standard to win, gyms will do it. It's ridiculous. But, since it's not against the rules, they'll make the excuse that "that is what it takes to win." Having a mini 1 team of true, first year kiddos is nearly impossible. I don't think you could compete to be honest. It's hard enough when you have experienced, talented kids!

We lost to a team over and over again that has a Y1 with senior 4 kids on it. SENIOR 4. Every kid in the gym (beyond the true level 1s that are hidden) is on 3 teams. Every time I hear someone talk about how great they are I want to spit, for real.

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Ugh... Ran into that this year with J1.... My little team of 12 newbies got their butts whooped by a large j1 who had so many crossovers that they had to warm up their m1, j1, s1, j3, and s4 at the same time.... I mean s4 on a j1? Enjoy those national championships, ill keep my integrity


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Let's do a thought experiment. Looking down the road in 10 years do you think the same level of perfection will win level 3 that wins it now or will level 3 kids be stronger at level 3 to actually win?

If the answer is we think level 3 will be harder to win in 10 years because level 3 will be stronger then people aren't sandbagging, they are ahead of the curve.

King said:

Let's do a thought experiment. Looking down the road in 10 years do you think the same level of perfection will win level 3 that wins it now or will level 3 kids be stronger at level 3 to actually win?

If the answer is we think level 3 will be harder to win in 10 years because level 3 will be stronger then people aren't sandbagging, they are ahead of the curve.

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I don't think it will be harder to win, especially if the rules didn't change at all (HA!). The skills, and the perfection of skills should look like they do now. I do agree though, eventually all teams will be sandbagging. You will need PERFECT tucks and perfect everything else to just hang in the division. I think this is where small gyms will struggle and go out of business and large gyms will continue to grow (much like it is now).

My concern is for beginners... It's difficult to teach a brand new cheerleader just walking in the door to be good enough to compete on level 1. I think prep will be the standard to start in all star, and move into "travel" teams that compete in the regular divisions. Prep is one of the best things to happen to the sport to ease newbies in (IMO), but it's also hard to tell a kid "you simply are not good enough to compete on a regular team because you have an ugly backwalkover and can't jump..."

King said:

Let's do a thought experiment. Looking down the road in 10 years do you think the same level of perfection will win level 3 that wins it now or will level 3 kids be stronger at level 3 to actually win?

If the answer is we think level 3 will be harder to win in 10 years because level 3 will be stronger then people aren't sandbagging, they are ahead of the curve.

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You raise a good point, as usual! I can see that side of things, but that brings me back to level 1. At least in Senior 3 you are always going to have kids on the team who have some skills and experience under their belt, and if you don't then there's the option to go level 1 or 2... But, there's nowhere else for a new team of level 1 kids to drop to when they're being schooled by sandbaggers.


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CoachTamara said:

I don't think it will be harder to win, especially if the rules didn't change at all (HA!). The skills, and the perfection of skills should look like they do now. I do agree though, eventually all teams will be sandbagging. You will need PERFECT tucks and perfect everything else to just hang in the division. I think this is where small gyms will struggle and go out of business and large gyms will continue to grow (much like it is now).

My concern is for beginners... It's difficult to teach a brand new cheerleader just walking in the door to be good enough to compete on level 1. I think prep will be the standard to start in all star, and move into "travel" teams that compete in the regular divisions. Prep is one of the best things to happen to the sport to ease newbies in (IMO), but it's also hard to tell a kid "you simply are not good enough to compete on a regular team because you have an ugly backwalkover and can't jump..."

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You kinda contradicted yourself in your post. You said (and we are agreeing on if the rules didn't change) that it wont be harder to win but you will need perfect everything.

In my opinion what we consider sand bagging nowadays will be considered perfection before progression in a few years. If a level 3 team in senior now went back just 5 years and competed EVERYONE would say they were sandbagging a level 4 team and it is unfair. Why? Because everyone has this level of expectation now that you do not need complete mastery of a level to move on or even to compete it.

Try a new level of thinking... what if you only put on people onto your level 3 or level 2 team who had squad perfect skills. You started the year with everything you could throw and hit and then you are just competing perfecting. Your kids could spend the entire year working on skills for a team they would move up to (so less stress) and not getting the skills to just hit the routine this year.

As for the level 1 I think our perceptions are screwed up. The first year a kid competes in a sport such as cheer doesnt mean they have to be competitive. It can be a learning year. So people will have A and B teams for level 1.

Num1Stunta said:

You raise a good point, as usual! I can see that side of things, but that brings me back to level 1. At least in Senior 3 you are always going to have kids on the team who have some skills and experience under their belt, and if you don't then there's the option to go level 1 or 2... But, there's nowhere else for a new team of level 1 kids to drop to when they're being schooled by sandbaggers.


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Why does a first year kid have to win? Why can't they be on a team to learn to be a good level 1 next year?

King said:

You kinda contradicted yourself in your post. You said (and we are agreeing on if the rules didn't change) that it wont be harder to win but you will need perfect everything.

In my opinion what we consider sand bagging nowadays will be considered perfection before progression in a few years. If a level 3 team in senior now went back just 5 years and competed EVERYONE would say they were sandbagging a level 4 team and it is unfair. Why? Because everyone has this level of expectation now that you do not need complete mastery of a level to move on or even to compete it.

Try a new level of thinking... what if you only put on people onto your level 3 or level 2 team who had squad perfect skills. You started the year with everything you could throw and hit and then you are just competing perfecting. Your kids could spend the entire year working on skills for a team they would move up to (so less stress) and not getting the skills to just hit the routine this year.

As for the level 1 I think our perceptions are screwed up. The first year a kid competes in a sport such as cheer doesnt mean they have to be competitive. It can be a learning year. So people will have A and B teams for level 1.

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I did contradict myself. I suck, and blame this long day.
I think in my mind I'm thinking it won't be harder to win, because teams are already there. If you don't win now, you won't win later. If you win now, you will probably be competitive later. So yes, it will be harder to win, but I don't think winning teams will look much different than they do now.

Gymnastics is great in the sense that you need the skill to compete it... You can't have some skills and not others. In gymnastics, it makes sense that you are always competing a level down. In cheer, parents are outraged if Suzie is throwing a backhandspring when she really has a janky tuck. The team element makes it very difficult because not only are you trying to make a competitive team, but you have to fill needed spots.

I love small gyms (duh, I AM a small gym) but I am not afraid to say the following: this is going to be the demise of a small gym. If parents are at Rays and told "you compete a level down" then it's fine because it's Rays. At a small gym, it becomes "well they don't have the things my child needs to succeed." When a large gym bumps down, it's totally ok because eventually they might make the higher, stronger team next year. When this happens at a small gym, they don't stick around long enough to find out.

Added, I don't think you need to win your first year. But, from a business standpoint, I need to have teams for those kids to start somewhere and kids that cannot be competitive (not even necessarily win but at least have a shot) will not have a super fun season. Losing is not fun, and losing over and over again is miserable. Losing to teams that have level 4 kids on level 1 is difficult to explain to parents, and many of them have a bad taste in their mouth when they realize that's how cheer is. In gymnastics, you cannot go back a level just for fun and to hang out with friends, so why should you in cheer? No crossovers, ever, would be a good start to eliminating some of these problems.

CoachTamara said:

I did contradict myself. I suck, and blame this long day.
I think in my mind I'm thinking it won't be harder to win, because teams are already there. If you don't win now, you won't win later. If you win now, you will probably be competitive later. So yes, it will be harder to win, but I don't think winning teams will look much different than they do now.

Gymnastics is great in the sense that you need the skill to compete it... You can't have some skills and not others. In gymnastics, it makes sense that you are always competing a level down. In cheer, parents are outraged if Suzie is throwing a backhandspring when she really has a janky tuck. The team element makes it very difficult because not only are you trying to make a competitive team, but you have to fill needed spots.

I love small gyms (duh, I AM a small gym) but I am not afraid to say the following: this is going to be the demise of a small gym. If parents are at Rays and told "you compete a level down" then it's fine because it's Rays. At a small gym, it becomes "well they don't have the things my child needs to succeed." When a large gym bumps down, it's totally ok because eventually they might make the higher, stronger team next year. When this happens at a small gym, they don't stick around long enough to find out.

Added, I don't think you need to win your first year. But, from a business standpoint, I need to have teams for those kids to start somewhere and kids that cannot be competitive (not even necessarily win but at least have a shot) will not have a super fun season. Losing is not fun, and losing over and over again is miserable. Losing to teams that have level 4 kids on level 1 is difficult to explain to parents, and many of them have a bad taste in their mouth when they realize that's how cheer is. In gymnastics, you cannot go back a level just for fun and to hang out with friends, so why should you in cheer? No crossovers, ever, would be a good start to eliminating some of these problems.

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I think a large part of that has to do with expectations nowadays. I think in 10 years the general knowledge of parents / the community will increase so that this path is acceptable.

From my experience most people are upset with their placement at tryouts... until they compete and start doing well in their division. Though Rays is able to place people to more a standard of execution than if you have the skill don't think there arent upset athletes and parents. Some DO leave, but a lot of them come back when they get over the fact maybe they should just try it.

I have also, at the end of a season, never seen a team 'upset' they didnt go higher when the whole year was not as much a struggle for them and they could just focus on performing.

This bothers me to no end!!!!! But I can kinda see two different types:

1. A bomb level 1 (for example) team that wants very solid level 2 skills before they move up. I still don't completely agree with this because kids need to understand that it's ok not to be at the top all the time. But, I do think this is where our sport is headed.

2. The team the grinds my gears. I know a team like this personally, with coaches I know and love but couldn't disagree more on their coaching style. These girls started together as tiny 1, 7 years ago. Most of these girls have stayed together and are now youth 1. They win everywhere they go. They are disappointed when they don't win grand champions. Yes, 10 year olds are striving for that. Now you can't tell me those girls STILL only have level 1 skills when they've been together since they were toddlers. This is the type of team that us regular youth 1 coaches hate to go up against because we are going up against a level 3 team in realty. Yes, they're "amazing", but seriously?!


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So let's say athlete tracking takes off and works magically and keeps every person in check the way it should. Do you think it's a reality to say once you compete a level you cannot compete down? Or is no crossovers enough to take care of this? Which is the better option?
There are a lot of issues with never going backwards, especially if the gym you are at has a limited number of levels/teams. We have kids that never lost a skill but because of age had to move down because we didn't have a team for them. I understand. There are kids with mental blocks, and kids that lose skills. I understand that too, but I'm thinking the initial idea doesn't bother me as much as I would have thought, especially as a very small gym. If you know that's what it takes, then you become smarter with your teams. Maybe your team of 20 becomes a team of 12 and 8 and you max out. Personally, I would rather have that then trying to make excuses for kids to be on levels they don't belong.

It's definitely annoying but I'm not convinced there's much that can be done about it aside from imposing some kind of restriction on crossovers (maybe only allow one level up/down for each athlete?) I do understand the logic behind (and fully support) perfection before progression, but that does imply that at some point you are going to move your 7 year strong level 1 team up a level or two!

What bothers me as an international cheerleader is when coaches with more years experience than their athletes have been alive, compete with their senior 2 and 3 student teams to secure a first place. I cheer with (and from this year will coach) cheerleaders who come into the sport for the first time aged 18+ and spend all season building up to solid level 2/3. It's thoroughly frustrating to see their disappointment after absolutely breaking their backs all season to achieve perfection, just to have a team half full of level 5 coaches hand it to them. It's a similar problem in a way.

I mean. When I was on Coed 4 I lost the first nationals of the year to a certain program whose team could not come up to the podium, there were only seven people able to accept the banner because all the rest were in level 5 warm ups.

To me, that's absolutely disgusting and ridiculous. I think now with The Summit, each team could have a rule like they do for worlds, you're allowed a certain number of crossovers/alternates. With those, you can choose to stack your team as much as possible, or you can't. Either way, I think it would limit the number of crossovers gym can use.

They could institute a system similar to what USSSA does for softball and baseball.
I played tourney adult men's softball for years and what they did was they registered athletes by division based on rosters Levels A-D (Think 1-4) so if an athlete was registered as a Level A they couldn't play with a Level D team without penalty. On the flip side if you were competing as a level D team and just started blowing teams out of the water you could get bumped up to C so you were more competitive and not just beating the brakes off of everyone. You could also get moved down if needed. Your level registration followed you season after season so you couldn't sandbag by pulling a bunch of A ballers down to win a level D tourney. You could pull a couple of players down from C to D, one level, as long as it wasn't more than 2 and you got prior approval by the director.