Patrick:  You write - "The overwhelming feeling of the committee is that this regatta needs to continue to evolve into a true championship (with the same priority placed on events as in other National regattas)." I am not sure what you meant by "National" but FSRA is certainly not a national event, so I looked up 12 comparable district and national type events that were reported on row2k for 2006 and here is what I found. All of these 12 regattas were championship events.  New Jersey Scholastic, Catholic League Philadelphia, New York State, Philadelphia City, Baltimore High School, New England/Mid Atlantic District, New York State Scholastic, Midwest Scholastic, Stotesbury, Midwest Juniors, US Southwest Regional and Massachusetts Public High School.  Ten of these regattas included either Freshmen or Novice Fours as an event.  Some even had Second Novice Fours.  Four of these regattas had no Third Eights events but there were eight regattas that included lightweight eights.  There is much more interesting and enlightening information available, but I believe that this makes the point.  We do not need to try to copy other regattas based on false assumptions and bad information.  Nor do we need to try to fit ourselves into the scheme of some other organization that does not match our profile.  We need to do what is good for Florida and fits our profile. This survey was the result of a hasty review so there might be some errors, but you can check it for yourself. 

You also write: "it was decided that neither the Freshman 4 or 3rd 4 were truly Championship Level events." How then do 3rd eights rise to the level of championship events, or junior varsity, or second eights, or anything else that is not a varsity championship event?  It appears that you have a strong agenda for eights and you wish to make a case that will support your conclusion - period.

Brice:  You write in two places: (1) grouped together by gender to prevent cheating; and (2) we grouped all the Frosh and 3rd eights together, which in turn again helps prevent cheating.  It is certainly discouraging to read that you hold the Florida coaches in such low regard.  I am deeply offended by your accusations and in spite of some disagreements in the past, I do not believe our coaches would violate the rules as you have suggested.  Based on this paranoia you have thus created a race schedule that does great harm to the boys' crews who wish to double from sculling events into light fours and heavy fours as is permitted by the rules but you have favored the girls who now have plenty of time to scull, rest and then sweep.  Since when have we been so solicitous of the equipment needs of the sculling programs that we can not have alternating gender races in the sculling events?  It appears that this has not been well thought out and it ought to be run by all the coaches now. not after the regatta.  I thought the committee was only going to come up with a plan for the coaches to consider.

May I remind you that FSRA is supposed to be looking out for all the interests of all the programs.  It would speak more highly for our organization if its decisions had the appearance of fairness, and if the arguments in support of the decisions had the ring of fairness and careful thought for the interests of all.

Peter de Manio