All-Star What Would You Do?

[ashscott41]

I have cheerleading in my RSS feed and recently came across the story of a small gym (I'm not going to name them for now, but it was someone I had never heard of) competing at a small competition (again not naming names, but it was an EP who does award worlds bids, however this was a regional comp held in a high school). The team competed in and won their junior 2 division, beating two other teams. Later in the article it mentions that team members range in age from 6-16, meaning they have girls too old to be in a junior division. Upon reading this, I looked at the gym website, where this team is listed as being senior 2. If there at 6 year olds on the team they're clearly too young (10 is the new minimum age correct?). The EP is known as being less than spectacular and there was no senior 2 division at this event, so they may have allowed them to compete down with juniors just to have some competition, but that's pure speculation and me trying to give them the benefit of the doubt. Either way, something illegal likely transpired.

My question is: what would you do about this? I'm just an outsider who happened upon a newspaper article about them. Should I contact the gym owner and let her know she has possible rostering issues? Do I contact the EP and let them know a team competed illegally and they should change the division winner? Contact USASF because a member gym or member EP may have done something wrong, but I don't have real proof other than a newspaper article? Or would you do nothing because this is a tiny gym competing in rural high schools and not really affecting the grand scheme of things?

 

[SpinNice]

This is a hard one, I wouldn't go on what the newspaper says. Find out the facts from another source. We had a newspaper article done on us and all of the facts were wrong, they interviewed us and wrote things that we definitely didn't say.

 

[InfinitiElite]

Tough question! If they are a USASF sanctioned EP then I think I would contact them. I understand that it's a competition that is being held at a high school and everything. But if they are so lax about the rules at that competition, how do we know that they are not the same way at there bigger ones?

 

[CoachMandiCF]

I agree about not taking what the newspaper said as set in stone. We had some newspapers write up articles about us after the tornado and they called us a dance studio, got the ages of the kids wrong among other major facts. If in fact it is true, then I'd contact the USASF and they can trickle down.

 

[CGAcheer]

Maybe the gym as a whole has kids from 6-16

 

[kickdblcj]

im over this not naming gyms.... if a gym is doing something shady they need to be called out. Period. point. blank. Its not helping our industry any more by keeping things hush hush. js....

 

[acheer]

im over this not naming gyms.... if a gym is doing something shady they need to be called out. Period. point. blank. Its not helping our industry any more by keeping things hush hush. js....

yes but you can't out someone if you don't have the true facts and know for sure that they are using older kids, until you have proof the gyms name should not be mentioned

 

[kickdblcj]

yes but you can't out someone if you don't have the true facts and know for sure that they are using older kids, until you have proof the gyms name should not be mentioned

Im not speaking specifically about this situation, i was speaking in general.

 

[ErinS]

A simple google news search pulls up the article as the first hit.

As far as contacting the gym...I mean you could since the program strikes me as one thats In the beginning stages....not one that's trying to deliberately cheat.

However the picture of the team and the fact that they mention only having 11 girls is kind of like well maybe they're just that clueless

Then again it could Just be poor journalism confusing the ages of the kids in the program vs the age of the team