---

From: "Crossley, Brice A" <Brice.Crossley-1@...>
To: <FSRA@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: [FSRA] Spring schedule and champ options
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 13:35:32 -0400

 

Regarding 2007 Florida State Champs (4 items to consider plus some options): Does this mean Scholastics or Youths or a combination (which I believe is an idea that has merit)?

1) keep the same events as 2006 with the same qualifying requirements

 

2) keep distance at 1500m - if youths are included, then it should be longer, perhaps a compromise of sorts.

 

3) move to a 2-day (Sat & Sun) format - The one day format required a very tight schedule with no extra time. It also provides no weather contingency. With a 2 day format, we can consider options:  2 days sounds like a good idea and if it is adopted, then I believe youths should be included.

3a) modify progression system: 1) add reps for all youth champs events - gives crews experience for national events; and/or 2) add semis for all events over X number of entries. We can stop relying on refs to provide time to calculate the progression. I would suggest only having semis for championship events. That would be possibly 14 more races and that is a lot of added races in itself.

 

3b) add petites to all events over 9 entries - this would keep most boats involved for both days (keep kids busy and reduce complaints about hanging around for a 2nd day). Or remove petites altogether to shorten the race days?  I feel very strongly that only championship events should have petites if any at all.  If you will refer to my suggestions, you will see that I am encouraging awarding no points below the first six places, so I see no need for them at all. 

 

3c) race day time restrictions: example no race before 8am or after 6pm (Sunday 3pm) No one likes to get ready in the dark and most would like to know what time they can expect to get home.  Again, please refer to my paper and you will see that I am in full agreement. I would even encourage starting later if possible.

 

3d) remove doubling restrictions - with the above options, most boats would have 3 to 4 races over the weekend. If a coach wants to double that number of races for some rowers and thereby reducing their overall performance, that should be the coach's decision.  You are right on!  It is a coach's decision.

 

Summary: The new format would be Saturday: heats and maybe reps and/or semis; Sunday: maybe semis and petites/finals. There are several options depending if members approve petites, reps and / or semis. And this also allows weather options such as dropping petites if we need to reduce the number of events.  This is quite similar to the Cincinnati format except in our case, since we have non-championship events, I would encourage the elimination of all petites.

 

4) change point schedule for Youth All Points - Both the Scholastic and Youth team trophies have almost identical point structures and therefore who wins one most likely will win both. For several years there has been discussions about having a trophy more based on efficiency. The proposal is to base youth points on the number of event entries you beat. Example: an event with 16 boats: 1st place gets 15 points down to zero points for last. Recognizing this is a Youth Champs trophy and concerns for more points for 'varsity' boats, the proposal also calls for doubling points in Youth Champ events - Varsity 4 & 8, Light 4 & 8, all sculling events.

In my paper I just forwarded to you, I believe I have laid out a plan that would encourage broader participation and thus eliminate the complicated proficiency scoring system that I submitted last year.  The simpler one I have now submitted I believe would work very well.  However, I like your thinking on the subject and agree that there is a great need for revision so as to level out the playing field of award giving.

 

Here is the full blown summary of the above:

 

2 day regatta

• 1^st day: heats and reps
• 2^nd day: semi and finals

2 classes

• 14 Champ events: V 4, V8, Lt 4, Lt 8, 4x, 2x, 1x
• 12 Non-Champ: JV 4, JV 8, 3^rd 4, 3^rd 8, Fr 4, Fr 8

2 progressions

• Champ events: heats, reps, semi (if 13+ entries), finals
• Non-Champ: heats, semi (if 16+ entries), finals

End using time to calculate progression

 

Continue Petites for events with 9+ entries?

 

Allow doubling?

 

Change Youth points table

• Champ events: 2 points per boat beat
• Non-Champ: 1 point per boat beat

 

Using 2006 data w/o doubling:

 

Saturday

48 heats (start 7:30am) (21 boats don’t race Saturday – Sunday finals only)

13 reps (finish 6pm)

 

Sunday

8 semis (start 7:30am)

42 finals (finish 3pm) 33 of 262 boats no race 2^nd day

or no petites (finish 1pm) 97 of 262 boats no race 2^nd day