All-Star #topoftheworlds - Usasf Has Big News On Monday??

[tumbleyoda]

Whether we admit it or not, accept it or not there are at least two to three divisions (or types) of gyms in this country. We many not like to name them(to many calling a gym mega or small has become more of a way to insult or attack them than to positively identify them)and it may offend our sense of fair play, equal chance, what we want cheer to be where everyone has a shot to win, or even David vs Goliath type analogies but they are there. These differences are not always because certain gyms have way better coaching staffs than others or are more passionate than others. Vision, mission, demographics, disposable income, and much more play into the abilities to consistently put together a program that not just get there but can contend at Worlds year after year after year.

IIRC when Small Coed was introduced as a Division some of the same complaints were issued as are being posted n this thread. Small gym or gyms that couldn't get 12 males to compete were told to suck it up buttercup and deal with it, pretty much. That it would be less than a real title. That the amount of boys did not matter if you could read a scoresheet, if you would push them harder. That was when it came out. Now the top of the division is pretty much run by the mega gyms as far as Worlds finals results goes. But I believe it is also in the small coed and small sr that you tend to see the breakthroughs of the smaller/lesser known/division 2 type gyms. Because their internal #'s and local demographics tend to fit nicely into those two divisions. It is easier to field a competitive team in those divisions if you are looking at Worlds.

To me a D1/D2 for Worlds only split is only publicly acknowledging and addressing in our industry what has been privately admitted for years by numerous coaches, parents, judges and EP's. There are major differences between a CEA, CA, WC, F5, Top Gun, Cali and my program for example. We will never, ever have the resources or the abilities to sub out,crossover, replace injured or non performing Worlds team members like they could. That does not make us a bad gym! The demographics of our region don't support it. School cheer being a sport takes away many of the athletes that could be critical to having a strong level 5 program. We could never recruit people around the country to move to our region and join our team as many of the larger programs are able to do. To expect gyms like ours to be able to compete and contend with gyms that are able to do these things on a long term basis are IMO short sighted. And this takes nothing away from those gyms either. They are amazing in their own right and deserve the acclaim they get. We like many smaller, lesser known gyms are just different than they are and don't feel it is an equal and fair comparison on the floor, especially in the Level 5 division.

 

[cheerKT]

I wonder what the cut off would be? Isn't the small gym/large gym cut off usually 75 total athletes in the gym? I'm not sure you're going to find many gyms under 75 athletes with teams at Worlds. I wonder if that number would be raised if this is what they are going for.

 

[cheernerd5678]

I wonder what the cut off would be? Isn't the small gym/large gym cut off usually 75 total athletes in the gym? I'm not sure you're going to find many gyms under 75 athletes with teams at Worlds. I wonder if that number would be raised if this is what they are going for.

I think it would have to be raised.


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[SmileyRyleigh]

What would be cool is if they had the small gym/large gym split and then the top 3 of each division competed against each other for the worlds title. I don't know how that would work BUT somehow in my mind I think it could work? I didn't really think it through that much.. lol but i see where problems could occur.

ETA: Someone else already said this. I'm lazy and not in a "read the whole thread before you speak" mood today

 

[kristenthegreat]

The problem with the whole 'Top 3 Compete' thing is that worlds is already SO long- where would they fit it in? If they have the Stadium debacle again..did you SEE how tired/annoyed some of those re-perform teams looked? Especially the international teams who had to compete 3 or 4 times that weekend already? (And I'm not blaming them- I'd be pretty miffed too. Sorry ESPN- you want videos, you'd best film me at finals).

I mean, I know they're cutting bids down, but still.

 

[luv2cheer92]

I wonder what the cut off would be? Isn't the small gym/large gym cut off usually 75 total athletes in the gym? I'm not sure you're going to find many gyms under 75 athletes with teams at Worlds. I wonder if that number would be raised if this is what they are going for.

I feel like I remember the number 150 getting thrown around when we discussed this last year. That could have just been a suggestion someone made though, I don't really remember. But that may be a good number, or somewhere around that.

 

[mamabear]

This thread has taught me that I am the most impatient person ever!

 

[krystynakrez]

But surely changes like this and the scoring etc are a needed to be discussed so that it becomes "Cheerleading" not "just Cheerleading". Maybe to you its just cheerleading but to others it is their livelihood?

Forgive if I'm way off here, but it sounds like you want as cheer to stay the dishevelled mess that it currently looks like to an outsider. How do you expect it to grow and become a better industry for all athletes if proposals like this aren't discussed/considered?


eta - this isn't an attack on you, just trying to understand your post?

Oh no, we're on the same page here.

I'm asking WHY is it such a disheveled mess to begin with? It's supposed to be a youth activity... why does it have to be such a chaotic experience? Why does everything have to be split into small gym and large gym? Small gyms can win too if they have the routine to do so. It's not impossible.

 

[12stepCheermom]

I wonder what the cut off would be? Isn't the small gym/large gym cut off usually 75 total athletes in the gym? I'm not sure you're going to find many gyms under 75 athletes with teams at Worlds. I wonder if that number would be raised if this is what they are going for.

I think the small gym number was set in the era before the mega gyms really got going. I'm my mind there are almost three types of gyms, small, medium and mega. I would think you'd need to move that number to somewhere in the medium range from what it is now. Like 250 and 2 or less locations. 251 or 3 locations with 220 total...you're D1


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[AndrewSky]

Call me crazy but I think a reason for the "disheveled mess" is people forgot it's primarily a youth activity.

 

[FlexyTumblerMom]

If there was a total athlete limit for this large gym small gym limit , you'd probably see every gym that's relatively close to the small gym maximum start to become A LOT more selective at tryouts - all that "we still would love to have you even if you never cheered before" stuff would start to go away and really could hurt enrollment in the sport in general. I'd say a better way to go about it would be to count the number of level 4 and level 5 athletes overall that a gym has - and there is where you make the determination between large and small. It may be a PITA, but I really could see some benefit to having gyms have to register/declare their individual athletes as a certain level for the competition season (like what is done in gymnastics) - yeah, you could still have crossovers, but it would just be a good check and balance to prevent things like extreme downleveling of athletes to the point that it is an unfair advantage.

 

[mamabear]

If there was a total athlete limit for this large gym small gym limit , you'd probably see every gym that's relatively close to the small gym maximum start to become A LOT more selective at tryouts - all that "we still would love to have you even if you never cheered before" stuff would start to go away and really could hurt enrollment in the sport in general. I'd say a better way to go about it would be to count the number of level 4 and level 5 athletes overall that a gym has - and there is where you make the determination between large and small. It may be a PITA, but I really could see some benefit to having gyms have to register/declare their individual athletes as a certain level for the competition season (like what is done in gymnastics) - yeah, you could still have crossovers, but it would just be a good check and balance to prevent things like extreme downleveling of athletes to the point that it is an unfair advantage.

LOVE this idea!!

 

[TheVipersMom]

If this is the case I would be interested to see what the magic number is.
My guess is we have 160 and if you count half year and show teams 200.
So I agree with the previous poster that if people are trying to stay under the magic number and get close that they would remove kids or not place certain kids on teams. They would try to make more prep teams for those kids so they don't have to count them.


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[Keep_Believing]

Unfortunately, there are ways around everything. For example some small gyms, have multiple locations, but use different tax ID numbers for each location. They make sure no individual location goes over the small gym number.

 

[FlexyTumblerMom]

Unfortunately, there are ways around everything. For example some small gyms, have multiple locations, but use different tax ID numbers for each location. They make sure no individual location goes over the small gym number.

To some extent there wouldn't be anything too wrong w/ this - provided that all the gyms were a certain distance away from each other and there was no crossover of athletes between them. Like a gym w/ a location in San Franciso and another in San Diego, I think for all intents and purposes those really are two seperate gyms as they are both dealing w/ completely different talent pools of kids. I'd say more than ~3 hours driving distance apart, you can call yourself two seperate gyms. And def no crossover of kids between the two - that would be prohibited big time. Haha - this is just me thinking out loud .