- Feb 5, 2011
- 3,431
- 5,767
Obviously I have not been a part of every tryout in the world. I will say in my experience, judging many different schools, in many cities, ranging from extremely competitive to not at all, where I have no connections to anyone, every single tryout I have been brought in to judge has been rigged. I was hired by an outside party. I walked in the day of, met the other judges and coaches, and was told how to score, who to score well, and who to score low. Before the group would come in, we were told number 33 blah blah blah, score her really hard. I didn't know the kid or her name, I knew she was number 33 and my employer just told me what to do. Sometimes I even saw the scores I handed over get entered into a computer and then tossed to the wayside, where the coach went in and changed the order. That's not fair, but it's not my place to tell them what I think in that moment. I just hate the false illusion that so many tryouts have, and the fact that the kids and schools are paying money for it. I believe if you want to be the best, you take the best regardless of personal conncections. I believe the coach knows what is best more than a random stranger that just walked in and saw Mary have the worst tumbling day of her life. Even if Mary is a new girl, as I coach I've at least seen her have 3 previous great tumbling days at clinics. I also know that Mary who bombed her tryout is an amazing backspot and the team chosen by random judges only has 1 backspot on it. The whole system of strangers judging strangers for 5 minutes and they'll supposedly pick the most qualified is skewed and old fashioned to me. I know I seem to be in the minority of that mindset.As for the 90% of those outside judge tryouts being rigged, I am not sure how that would happen. The school contracts with an outside company to hire 3 random judges and the candidates where numbers during tryouts, so I don't know how they could be rigged. Even with this unbiased process there are still grievances that are filed by the parents of the girls that don't make the squad. I am thankful that our school hires outside judges because they are scoring the candidates on skills alone and not whether Susie's mom is best friends with the coach's cousin's sorority sister.