I know I'm out of the loop, and have no dog in the fight anymore since my daughter stopped cheering.
But this is a pretty big deal, and good on Varsity and JAM Brands for collaborating on this.
I've actually been a proponent in the past of the concept of making Worlds an open competition. If you're not going to make it selective, then let anyone show up provided they've attended at least three worlds-bid comps in the past year.
But if you're going to make it selective, make it...
This is the snippet from the BOD minutes. I assume it's accurate unless someone has evidence that it's not:
To me, that is a tacit acknowledgement that there are too many teams at Worlds, and more to the point, too many teams at Worlds that aren't competitive. I can easily extrapolate that...
Here's my take on this - maybe the dream shouldn't be Worlds. Maybe it should some elite competition for D2, where the levels cap out at restricted 5. And then maybe you put a restriction - and this is where @BlueCat and other big gym cats will hate me - where a program can only have one team...
As I said, I don't think it's a good idea, either. It doesn't solve the problem I noted above. It certainly isn't going to help that non-competitive small senior 5 team be any more competitive, because what the team probably needs to be doing is competing in a Division 2 restricted 5 year-end...
There are re a lot of things to hate about the BCS - most notably its reliance of human pollsters to determine two-thirds of its rankings. (which made it susceptible to manipulation and groupthink)
But there was never anything wrong with the concept of having an objective set of criteria...
I'd argue that in every major league sports, every team has a reasonable chance to win. I know, the Kansas City Royals aren't winning the World Series anytime soon, but they are a major league team with major league facilities that - in theory - can compete with other major league teams. But...
The criteria doesn't have to be particularly subjective. Base it on past performance at major competitions. If you're one of the top-75 gyms at Worlds, NCA, Cheersport, etc. - then you're eligible to be in Division 1.
If not, then you're not, and your goal should be to dominate Division 2...
This is the point.
I've listened to this discussion for a while now, and haven't really weighed in because I wasn't sure how to put my thoughts together. But basically, the issue at hand here isn't small gym vs. big gym - it's elite gym vs. everyone else.
The argument I made right from the...
Bottom line - the real problem that this proposal is trying to address is the one I've been railing on forever, which is the increasing stratification of cheer into the haves and have-nots. And it has nothing to do with the size of the gym, it just has to do with the fact that there's probably...
I think there should be a Division 1 and Division 2, but Division 2 shouldn't go to Worlds. They can have their own end-of-the-year, Summit-like comp, but can only compete up to restricted 5.
In my perfect world, Division 1 would be something earned, where only the top "x" gyms can compete...
I hope that's the case.
For the record, I am going to choose to remain basically anonymous. There's probably a handful of people on this board that know which gym my daughter used to cheer for. Fewer than that would know my real name.
The reason I am protective of my identity is three-fold...
If you really want to improve the consistency of scoring and quality of judging, I am utterly convinced you need to have a common rubric at minimum.
While you'd ideally have a universal scoresheet, a common rubric doesn't mean you have to have one, mind you. You can weight difficulty or...
I haven't looked through this yet, but I'd be interested to see if there's more convergence towards a common scoring rubric rather than nibbling around the edges with things like time limit and boundary violations.
I still think you can have multiple flavors of scoresheets with a common rubric. If one EP wants to weight certain elements differently, then that's how they can "differentiate" themselves from someone else.
Mind you, I still think cheer needs a universal scoring system for a variety of...