All-Star D1 / D2 Debate

[Keep_Believing]

Since your gym already chooses to competes as D1 , the new proposal wouldn't affect you. You just continue to choose to compete as D1 and go to Worlds.

With that said, I am not sure what I think about the proposal.

 

[BlueCat]

Since your gym already chooses to competes as D1 , the new proposal wouldn't affect you. You just continue to choose to compete as D1 and go to Worlds.

With that said, I am not sure what I think about the proposal.

I don’t anticipate the majority of the proposal actually passing, but it is interesting hearing the different opinions about it.

 

[Megreg]

I don’t anticipate the majority of the proposal actually passing, but it is interesting hearing the different opinions about it.

What are your thoughts or knowledge on the age for senior teams changing next season? It was going to be 11 for senior teams this year, but was revoked. How about Worlds Level 5, will the minimum age possibly increase to 13 or 14? I would imagine that could be a huge impact on teams who have flyers this year who are 12 and became eligible for the 2017/2018 season.

 

[BlueCat]

What are your thoughts or knowledge on the age for senior teams changing next season? It was going to be 11 for senior teams this year, but was revoked. How about Worlds Level 5, will the minimum age possibly increase to 13 or 14? I would imagine that could be a huge impact on teams who have flyers this year who are 12 and became eligible for the 2017/2018 season.

I really don't know. We will just follow the guidelines whatever they are.

In general, there are arguments for tighter age guidelines around keeping similar ages together and avoiding earlier burnout. The negatives are that it makes it tougher to create rosters, which somewhat hits smaller facilities more than large ones.

 

[Keep_Believing]

If they ever raise the minimum age for Senior World to 14, wonder if they would also raise the age for IO/IOC teams.

 

[CheerBank]

If they ever raise the minimum age for Senior World to 14, wonder if they would also raise the age for IO/IOC teams.

I wish they had stuck to the original plan. It would be what, 17 now?

 

[luv2cheer92]

I wish they had stuck to the original plan. It would be what, 17 now?

Yea I think that was 3 or 4 years ago and it was increasing by 1 each year. Stopping at 17 to match level 6.
I wish they had continued with that plan too.

 

[ChicagoCheerDad]

This has been extremely contentious on other forums. It has been debated at length. Full disclosure - we are D1 with multiple locations.

Short version -

Gyms of any size are allowed to decide their own classification at start of season D1 or D2. Decision is for the entire program for a single season.Reply


Enrollment cap of 175 for D2 (compared to none on USASF proposal - probably should be even lower)

I actually think this is a step in the wrong direction, D2 should be 80 athletes or less(4 teams of 20). Currently in our area their are 2 or 3 gyms that qualify as D1 by the 125 number and a few that choose to compete D1 though they are D2 because there are so few true D1 gyms the competition is far less than in the D2 division. 6 teams of 20 is not what I would consider a "small gym". Increasing the number of athletes and making it about competitiveness will not help the situation, instead it will create a "minor League" of gyms and providw recruiting edge for the D1 gyms who can say to an athletes family that "D2 gyms are less competitive".

 

[tumbleyoda]

I actually think this is a step in the wrong direction, D2 should be 80 athletes or less(4 teams of 20). Currently in our area their are 2 or 3 gyms that qualify as D1 by the 125 number and a few that choose to compete D1 though they are D2 because there are so few true D1 gyms the competition is far less than in the D2 division. 6 teams of 20 is not what I would consider a "small gym". Increasing the number of athletes and making it about competitiveness will not help the situation, instead it will create a "minor League" of gyms and providw recruiting edge for the D1 gyms who can say to an athletes family that "D2 gyms are less competitive".

Part of the "problem" is that there already is a "minor league" of gyms. Every demographic has it if you just look around at all the gyms, not just the ones that post on social media. It just is only now being actually talked about and debated. Before the past few years everyone was under an illusion that it was fair and equal for all at all times when it was not. Because that is what was marketed to us but that was not our experience in our own markets.

Illinois also has that rule that you can not cheer both school and All Stars. School cheer is very popular and it affects numbers at every gym in Illinois. School coaches have also gotten smart about cheerleaders that go to cheer All Stars after the season and have started going year round adding camps, clinics, mandatory workshops and functions, etc in the down season to prevent losing cheerleaders to All Stars. This is one of the major things that keeps many gyms from being D1 in Illinois.

 

[CGAcheer]

so one of the comments actually gave me an idea, do D1/D2 based off of the number of teams at the gym. That split should probably be around 5 Teams (allstar and prep combined)- you have some control over how you select teams so there is a certain amount of self selection available but it is not a hard set number of athlete.

a less important thing would be to call it D1/Da, then there is less of the inherent gym quality perception by the classification.

I'm a little torn on the Satellite issue- there are obvious advantages to having the NAME, I could list them but if the advantages didn't exist what would be the purpose? @BlueCat could easily open a new gym without the name, but still have all of the backend support and systems and the gym (I'm assuming) would have a slower start, because the Name and brand have value that has been built up over time within the allstar community. However if a location doesn't share athletes and is small in numbers, they would run into many of the same D2 challenges. One thing that I think should fall into the loophole closing is that if a Brand has multiple locations and their total count is still under the threshold they should certainly have the chance to be D2.

Transparency and objectivity in Judging- While I can't say that it has never happened that an EP could have put some pressure to nudge the scoring in a certain direction, I don't think that happens 99.9% of the time. What I do think happens is Subconscious bias. So not an active decision to favor one team over another, but the unconscious expectation that for example Spirit of Texas is going to have amazing jumps so you're subconsciously expecting to see a 4.9 level of jumps and if they do a little bit better than you were expecting they get the 5 if they fall a little short they get a 4.8. Whereas "I've never heard of them allstars" starts from a blank slate which would probably start them at a bottom of a range and having to earn their way up to maybe a 4.7. Where the problem in that lies is that the second team quite possibly had equal or better jumps, the subconscious bias led to the team from the gym known for fantastic jumps ends up with a slight lead. Judges can also just be fans of certain styles or even fans of certain programs, and as much as they try to be unbiased its an opinion based score sheet. Again I'm not saying that anyone is bad or unqualified or shady. It is extremely difficult to overcome these types of biases, you first have to recognize that it even exists and then once you're aware of it you also run the risk of overcompensating for it.

I'm for a code of points type system, but in a creative performance sport it would be nearly impossible to eliminate all the subjective elements. But with widespread transparency and accountability possibly to the extent of the whole scoresheet comments and all along with the videos being publicly available. That would put mistakes out in the open, any corruption out in the open, scoring trends out in the open. In Football, you get to see why both teams scored what they did, you get to see what approaches led to better scoring, and the ref calling the penalties is out there in the open for everyone to see, whether you agree with the call or not you at least know about it

and the more I think about it I really like using the number of teams as the divider @BlueCat @tumbleyoda do you have pros and cons to that concept?

 

[BlueCat]

do you have pros and cons to that concept?

I think nearly everyone would be in favor of improvement and more transparency in judging. I firmly believe that the pace and density of routines has outpaced improvements in the judging system. It is nearly impossible to watch some teams and catch everything. I don't know what the answer is, but judging and score systems need more attention and effort.

I do believe that the majority of the time, the biggest "bias" is in the coaches/fans watching the teams. I am more than guilty of this myself, but you tend to see the great in your own team and the bad in your competitors. You complain about a judge seeing things differently if they are "fans" of a particular program, but no one on the planet is a bigger fan of a program than the coaches of those teams. You also know the routine backwards and forwards. It is impossible to watch one of your own teams, your "favorite" teams, and the teams you "sports-hate" with a clear eye. You believe that when the scores don't match what you saw, it must be the judges that are wrong, when in most (not all) cases, it is your own opinion that is off. Again, I freely admit that this happens to me as well.

Again, if you think that "liking" a program affects a judge's ability to objectively watch a routine, realize that this applies at least as much to coaches as well. Coaches tend to have far more bias than judges. I am not suggesting that judges never make mistakes, simply that MOST of the time there is less bias than is claimed.

Now to improvement suggestions:

I have always been a fan of scripting routine skills ahead of time. The judges still watch to make sure the skills are performed, but they don't have to actually try to count every single item. There should be the opportunity to make last-minute adjustments by the coach, but a team should be lightly penalized for going off-script and heavily penalized if a coach was obviously trying to be deceptive on their script.

I don't think subjectivity goes away or even diminishes, but there are parts of the sport that are theoretically objective. We should be more accurate on those parts.

I have also always been a fan of (semi) public scoring. I think coaches should have access to all scores for all divisions. I think judge comments are OK to be seen by only the teams, but the actual scores should be seen by every coach. I don't necessarily think that every Suzy Cheer Parent needs to see all of this because they will often take things out of context and cause issues with the teams. However, if your team gets beat, you should be able to clearly see why they lost. You shouldn't have to rely on a judge telling you to in their comments, you should see the scores. If there is bias or flat-out mistakes, these will be in the open.

Don't get me wrong, I have been angry about results more than a few times over the years. Generally (not always) seeing the score breakdowns allows me to better see things from the judges' perspective. I am usually less upset after seeing every score.

About your team-count idea - I do like that it would create an incentive to have larger teams. One of the biggest negatives of our current setup (grid, bid-chasing, and score sheet combined) is that it encourages small, skill-maxed rosters. There is nothing wrong with small teams necessarily - there are some amazing small teams out there, but shrinking team sizes generally raise the sport's cost per athlete significantly.

I don't know that I would be in favor of the idea as a whole, but I do like that you would probably see some larger teams because of it.

 

[tumbleyoda]

@CGAcheer

I like the concept of number of teams. The issues I can see coming out of it (based on current and past complaints)

Prep is a starting point and should be considered more like rec than truly competitive. If we are looking at prep as just as competitive as All Star then 5 is a good number. If it is rec - welcome to cheerleading - which is how it was sold to us in the beginning then I am more comfortable with 6 or 7 being the team split number.

Teams at tryouts are way different than those at competition season. Many gyms lose 1-2 teams from tryouts to competitions season due to normal attrition, moving to other teams, getting a better placement they liked at a neighboring gym, etc.
If you had the cutoff at October 1, then it is more reasonable. That should also be the official D1/D2 or whatever we call it declaration day.

As to judging transparency you are spot on as far as bias. That expectation is hard to overcome. This is the issue of the name across the chest comments....just the expectation that they are automatically better. If parents, coaches and athletes tend to feel that way, I don't understand why we don't think some judges will also have that bias? Unfortunately too many have experienced scenarios where that seems to be true. Add to that the crowd noise typically when a SOT, CEA, etc gym performs just before a less known gym. You have utter pandemonium to almost utter silence in 5 minutes. Then on the lesser known gyms comments routine needs more energy. Uhm hello we just performed after TGLC and you think they (the crowd) were going to give us the same response as them? (This seriously happened to us at Worlds one year, as well as CheerSport and One Up) Dont get me wrong, they are often worthy of every cheer that comes their way, but to judge another teams lack of lighter crowd response in direct comparison to theirs is IMO not accurate.

Code of points - always been in favor of it. It at least lets me know that I am without a doubt in a certain range, have the right required elements, and should get a certain difficulty score if those elements are completed safely and correctly. It can also be used as a safety measure by saying a routine must have x amount of these elements and y amount of these skills. if not, that team should not be competing that level. People have argued against it saying it would make routines cookie cutter and boring, but that is what we have now. Routines come out in Oct, everyone scours YouTube, Instagram, Twitter and ASGA page to see who is doing what and more importantly what is scoring well and then they do the same thing.

I am perfectly ok with some subjectivity, especially if we nail difficulty down. I want judges to able to award creativity. I just think right now it is too wide open and leaves too much room for bias, favoritism, or just plain nonsense to occur and be covered.

 

[tumbleyoda]

@BlueCat

In regards to scripting

We do this in power tumbling at the Sub Advanced, Advanced, and Elite levels. We have to turn in a card with the planned routines and the corresponding difficulty prior to the athlete warming up that event. This makes sure we know what they can and can't do at the levels and that we know what their difficulty should be. When the athlete competes the judges check off their script against our cards. If they did the routine as planned and we calculated difficulty correctly that is what they earn on that score. If the athlete inserts a different skill, misses a skill then the difficulty is adjusted accordingly. Then the scores are turned in with the card. This way if I missed the routine for any reason or want to challenge it we have a record. At our States and Nationals everything is also video recorded and can be played back if there is a challenge.

Personally I love this check and balance.

 

[Lablover]

Don’t you think the big name gym bias can go the other way? You expect “big name” gym to have great jumps and when they don’t they are scored more harshly than “no name” gym for doing comparable jumps?

 

[tumbleyoda]

Don’t you think the big name gym bias can go the other way? You expect “big name” gym to have great jumps and when they don’t they are scored more harshly than “no name” gym for doing comparable jumps?

I think it can. Although I have never seen it, I am sure it can. This is why we need a transparent system. They shouldn't be judged more harshly either.