WAG directors:? grouping teams in meets?

[DisMom]

The turn this thread has taken just has me shaking my head.

I apologize as I certainly had a role in hijacking this thread.

However, this is what happens in online forums like this all the time. Whether a gymnastics forum, or travel, or photography...any interest that is out there. It's the nature of the beast.

But that's the point...someone says something and it makes you think of one thing else. And then that makes another person think of something else and so on. It's almost like that kid game "telephone."

 

[MeetDirector]

OK, first on the breaking large teams up question. It is once again all about the numbers and numbers translate into the length of a session. USAG does limit the size of rotation groups depending on the type of session and the level. Uneven numbers are also bad; you want the groups to move at about the same pace.

Now the comment by the coaches about coming into the competition area. This only applies from march-in thru the completion of competition. In my opinion the coach was out of line and doesn't know the rules and was trying to intimidate you. I would recommend every parent take the time to read the USAG Rules and Policies to learn about how a meet is conducted.

 

[gymdog]

The turn this thread has taken just has me shaking my head.

Where should it turn Didn't you post a hijack alert on the first page? I find this comment strange. I think there was a natural progression of the conversation, and an important topic (and yes, the story relayed about the parent doing warm up is a HUGE violation of the meet sanction that should have never been allowed to happen). It's not like this was an emotional or personal thread about someone's difficult circumstances and it was turned to something else...the thread remained about "meet procedures and the frequent difficulties encountered in scheduling such large events." It is a big burden on the coaches and can be difficult to manage the sessions and flights and times which relates to scheduling the meet.

THAT SAID there is no excuse for a parent to dress in warm ups and enter the floor. A meet official can be flagged either at the entrance (check in point for gymnasts) or when passing by or simply flag any coach and ask them to relay a critical message. Another coach will surely offer to help the girls during open stretch and then I am sure they will not proceed with the session with the coaches still in the other session.

As far as the other story about 90 minutes before the meet. It shouldn't be a violation of the sanction then. However etiquette at any gym you go to is that the parents do not walk out of the designated viewing area. This is an important liability issue because of hazards you may not be aware of in your path. So you really should not leave the viewing area at any time. Again please signal the coach from the viewing area or use another means to relay the message only if it is critical and urgent (NOT to ask about your child's performance).

 

[clark222]

THAT SAID there is no excuse for a parent to dress in warm ups and enter the floor. A meet official can be flagged either at the entrance (check in point for gymnasts) or when passing by or simply flag any coach and ask them to relay a critical message. Another coach will surely offer to help the girls during open stretch and then I am sure they will not proceed with the session with the coaches still in the other session.

I was the one that posted this account and I agree that it was completely unacceptable. Had I been close enough to grab her before she did what she did, I would have. I was busy looking around for someone official looking to explain the situation to. The check-in table was a good 5 minute walk away and the only coaches and officials I could find were behind the fence....which I understand is off limits to contact during a meet. I can also say that this was the very first meet for this woman's dd and several of the other parents involved in the incident. Our parents are not given much info about meet rules from our coaches so she did not know the seriousness of what she did. In her eyes, she saw a problem and corrected it. It was all gently explained to her afterwards and prompted the coaches to have a "meet 101" meeting with all new parents after that. I am sure we got in trouble for it as a gym....or at least the coaches did and I suspect we did not get invited back this year (although I do not know that for sure.....I don't ask many questions about this sort of thing). My dd scored unusually low on all events so the girls may have gotten deductions. I do not condone the action at all. But I was curious if this sort of thing happens to others....where the scheduling of the meet puts smaller teams in a situation where there are not enough coaches to cover simultaneous groups of gymnasts from their gym. In order for our gym to have seamlessly dealt with the schedule at this meet, we would have needed three coaches. Is it expected that all teams have this capability?

 

[krisnkids]

I have often wondered how meets are scheduled too. We had a situation last year at a large invitational that created a problem. There were two gym floors so two sessions happening at any given time. There was a session on one floor with our L5s split into two different rotations (the rotations appeared to be split by age), which had our two coaches split so one could go with each group. Well, that session got WAY behind schedule, but they went ahead on schedule with the other floor, where my dd's level was to compete in the next time slot. There were no coaches available as they were still tied up in the other session. They did the call for the "coaches meeting" and I could see that neither of our coaches could even hear the announcement from the other floor. We only have two coaches, total. All of us stood there not sure what to do. The other teams were warming up and our girls just looked confused. They called the final notice for the meeting and still no coaches from our team. The girls were starting to panic as they were missing their warm-up time. I am sure we got in some sort of trouble for it, but one of the parents from our team grabbed a team warm-up jacket, hopped the fence, and walked over to the "coaches meeting" to get someone to see we had a problem. I never got the whole story, but that parent then started the girls on the warm-up (despite having no idea what she was doing.....she said she just asked the girls what they usually do) while someone official looking tracked down one of our coaches on the other floor. That coach could still not leave as they were finishing the last rotation. In the end, we did not get a coach over to our girls until they went to their starting events. The girls and coaches were very rattled and it showed during the competition. I was not sure who to be mad at...... We did not attend that meet this year. For all I know, we were not invited back.

I can say that our girls are used to having both coaches with them when they compete so when they do this splitting thing, it stresses the girls out. I would imagine others from small gyms have this problem.

This to me is a coaches problem for the following reasons:
-The coach should know what time each session is supposed to start. If indeed they start running over, coaches know one another, that head coach should have taken 5 mins to run to the other gym where the girls were sitting there lost and tapped a coach from another gym to keep an eye on their girls.
-The other coaches who had girls warming up around a group of girls who were obviously lost should get a smack on the back of their hands. Would it have hurt their team to say, 'hey girls, come on over here and do your normal warm up with us while you are waiting on your coach'?
-The girls should learn and know their meet warm up routine before even stepping in the gym of a meet. There should be a designated leader for each level that 'starts' everything. This is on their coaches to teach them, just like they need to know if they fall on their beam dismount if they should get back up and try again or salute and be done.
-The meet director/working parents should have seen that and said something.

I am saying all this because I have seen it done. I was never a director, but I have attended and helped host many meets. Our meet director(who is also a judge, just not at our meets) and head coach have both helped other teams of girls when a coach was running late, one time another team's coach got in an accident on the way to the meet and our HC assigned one of our coaches to help that team's girls through two sessions. Its not a matter of rules, its a matter of principle, we all do this so the next generation can have the opportunities that have been made available to everyone to compete. Helping another team's girls should not be a matter of 'she's helping the competition' but because its the right thing to do.

 

[DisMom]

Now the comment by the coaches about coming into the competition area. This only applies from march-in thru the completion of competition. In my opinion the coach was out of line and doesn't know the rules and was trying to intimidate you. I would recommend every parent take the time to read the USAG Rules and Policies to learn about how a meet is conducted.

Thank you for the clarification. I thought that it must be something like that. As I said in my post about this, had the meet already been underway, I certainly would not have walked over to the team...and if I had walked over there, I would not have been surprised about the reprimand. But again, since it was so long before the official start of the meet, I thought the coaches were being over the top in how sternly they spoke with me. That being said, I think they were really trying to hammer home the point that parents just should NOT be on the competition floor AT ALL. It was my dd's first meet not at our home gym, so I was pretty clueless and I think they were trying to communicate the severity of my actions had I gone out there during the actual meet.

Where should it turn Didn't you post a hijack alert on the first page? I find this comment strange. I think there was a natural progression of the conversation, and an important topic (and yes, the story relayed about the parent doing warm up is a HUGE violation of the meet sanction that should have never been allowed to happen). It's not like this was an emotional or personal thread about someone's difficult circumstances and it was turned to something else...the thread remained about "meet procedures and the frequent difficulties encountered in scheduling such large events." It is a big burden on the coaches and can be difficult to manage the sessions and flights and times which relates to scheduling the meet.

Thank you for these comments.


As far as the other story about 90 minutes before the meet. It shouldn't be a violation of the sanction then. However etiquette at any gym you go to is that the parents do not walk out of the designated viewing area. This is an important liability issue because of hazards you may not be aware of in your path. So you really should not leave the viewing area at any time. Again please signal the coach from the viewing area or use another means to relay the message only if it is critical and urgent (NOT to ask about your child's performance).

I absolutely understand this now. As I said above, this was our first meet not at our home gym. I have no problem that the coaches spoke with me about my going out on the floor, but it would have been more appropriate, in my opinion, to have what someone else called a meeting covering "meet etiquette 101" for all of the newer parents. I definitely did not appreciate being treated like a child who was sent to the principal's office. In fact, before going over to the team, I actually asked several of the other parents if they thought it would be ok for me to go talk with the coaches. The other moms all thought is was fine since it was so early. And one of those moms was the parent of a L7 and even she didn't know that it would be an issue.

In any case, lesson learned. Now I know, my daughter knows, and all of the other parents in our gym know. It's all good.

 

[gymdog]

I agree that given the circumstances and how it was not a blatant violation (not like you went on the floor to coach your daughter or talk to the judges or something) they should have just let you know that next time you should talk to them in advance. Unfortunately they probably have dealt with the blatant violations, maybe the same weekend and you got lumped into that even though you are willing to respect boundaries.