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I realize my viewpoint may appear biased since I'm a parent from a large crew (Lake Brantley) that won all points last year, but here it is anyway.
The current points system allows a large club to gain an advantage towards the all points trophy and therefore promotes recruiting of more young people into crew sports. Hopefully, this is viewed by all parties as good for the individuals recruited into the healthy lifestyle imposed by this rigorous sport and good for the promotion of the sport of crew throughout the state. This positive aspect of promoting recruiting should not be taken lightly. At some time in the future, if enough young people are in crew, we may someday gain the recognition that will allow crew to become a state recognized and sponsored sport.
The smaller clubs that win the premier events of Varsity 8, Varsity 4, etc. have the medals and bragging rights of winning those events. This is their reward and acknowledgement of their accomplishment in and of itself. Possibly, some of these smaller clubs will recruit harder for next season in order to enter more events and thereby have a better chance of winning the all points trophy. How is this system bad for crew as a whole? Yes, the current system allows a large club an advantage but only if the club can compete well in many events. If a large club does poorly in many events it most likely will not have sufficient points to win overall.
Yes, the system does promote recruiting for crew and brings more young people to crew. I see this as a positive and not a negative. I don't believe we should artificially weight the points system in such a way that it makes it possible for a four boat crew to win states. In that case, why recruit when a distinct advantage may be had by cutting rowers to the best four boats and spending all coaching and equipment resources on those four boats? I think this weighted system will send the wrong message and will not be good for crew as a sport.
At any rate, our points system should follow the national points system. I don't think we can go wrong if we follow the nationally recognized system and after all, Nationals will be held here in 2004. Anything else should be viewed as artificial weighting to give one "disadvantaged" group an advantage over another. Neither our society nor our young people need to experience that anymore than has already been imposed on them.
Thanks for listening.
Steve Burgess
Lake Brantley Crew
----- Original Message -----From: JFRANCIS2807@...Sent: Thursday, August 07, 2003 10:44 PMSubject: [FSRA] PointsPer a few requests I've attached a revised version of the point proposal. I forgot to include the sculling events but intentionally left out Lightweights in hopes that the fastest boats would be entered in the premier events. I realize that eliminating the lightweight category did not pass last year, so in that case light 8s & 4s would be equivalent to 2nd 8s & 4s. My reasoning behind a revised system is to try to give smaller programs who are competitive in the premier events the opportunity to make a showing at States.
Jamie Francis
Edgewater
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