How would you change Club Nationals (USACFC)?

[reawl]

For some background, the USACFC is the United States Association of Collegiate Fencing Clubs. It aspires to provide a high caliber competition for non-NCAA college fencing programs. This year there is talk of changing the format of the championship to accommodate the growing number of participating schools. There are certainly other areas the USACFC can grow, and now that it is going into it's fourth year it is an established event, but is still young and flexible.

How would you change the USACFC as an organization?
How would you change the USACFC Championship as an event?

[MyrddinsPrecint]

oh dear lord. can of worms..................

and i have dinner and then fencing............



a few quick points, i WILL be coming back to this.

1) better directors
2) staying WITH one's team, OR not, but NOT both.

the directors bit is self-explanatory.


the other? last year, smith sabre was about 3 rounds ahead of smith epee, and about 2 rounds ahead of smith foil, and obviously on a different strip. i know that Umass was similarly ordered around.

if we're going to stick with our teams all day, we need to not get pulled apart halfway through the day because of one director on a power trip.

most of the schools in the conference only have one coach. even the schools that have more than one coach aren't necessarily able to split up away from their team.



those were the big problems i remember with the event last year that don't directly relate to the location. ..... more later.

[oiuyt]

Just to directly address MP's points rather than the original question, better refs generally means more money or being somewhere with large quantities of high-quality referees (ie pretty much staying in the Northeast).

UMass (mostly) refused being so split. At one point I believe that a squad started the next round ahead, but I don't believe that UMass ever got as much as a full round ahead with any squad. Granted this was only accomplished by being adamant about said refusal and getting into a lengthy argument. Said rounds were on adjacent strips so the team was not actually forced to significantly split. Other teams that were not so adamant were affected considerably more.

Temple was never asked to split to any extent. This was, presumably, helped by the extremely partial nature of Temple's squads resulting in finishing rounds faster than other (more complete) teams.

For reference, I'm very interested in seeing answers to Will's original questions. As one of the officers that will likely try to implement suggestions from here I'll refrain from offering my opinions and thus framing the discussion.

-B

[Inigo_Montoya]

On the ref issue...
Last year they had a problem not having enough qualified refs (some refs even had problems with directing epee). The case for not having enough qualified refs is not due to not having the experience in the area, but a lack of using the available sources and contacting refs for the tournament. I know several refs that were within a 3 hour drive that were not there (I don't know if they declined or were not asked). The host school needs to make sure that they utilize all of their qualified refs in the area. I don't want to sound too negative because overall I thought the tournament last year was a great experience.

[KD5MDK]

How many referees does the event need to run effectively? 15? 30? 45?

[MyrddinsPrecint]

lets say there are 30 schools. that means that aproximatly 15 different matchups are happening at any given time.......... unless there's mens and women's going on at the same time. but let's ignore that for now. there needs to be epee and foil or sabre going on for each school. so, two refs per the two schools fencing.

if only one sex is fencing at a time, and every ref can ref every weapon, and no refs will take a break ever, assuming 30 schools, you need 30 refs.

but obviously not everyone can do everything, and sometimes people need to use the bathroom.

and 30 is already a large number to manage to find some places.

[telkanuru]

Personally, I hate the format, but I am currently unable to think of a way to improve it.

Having some grounded strips would be nice. Competent reffing would be nice. It could also probly be run better.

[MyrddinsPrecint]

Originally Posted by reawl

How would you change the USACFC as an organization?

i want a website with lots of information. i realize that there have been legitimate issues with getting the stuff together, and ok.... but in the interim, couldn't there maybe be a geocities thing? or a dull boring page of all text and no formatting hosted by one of the schools? something? anything?

information that would be nice: everything currently on the yahoogroup. info about this year's tournament that's currently on clemson's page. links to schools in the conference. the bylaws. a nod in the direction of the yahoogroup.

that's just the stuff that i can think of, and i now have it all-- i made a list of all the schools smith fences (or as many of them as i could find) and links to contact info. i eventually found the yahoogroup after it was linked to from here. i talked to one of my clemson boys before i found out they had info on their website, and i was willed a copy of the bylaws by someone who was VP of smith fencing several years ago.

in NCAA teams, the contact info is exactly the same from year to year--- it's the NCAA coach. occationally these things change.... but they can still be sent to the school and they'll get there.

most club teams are not run by the coaches, they're run by students. and the students in charge change every year. sometimes more than once a year. and with some of the more turbulant clubs, the coaching can change over the course of the year. when i'm trying to get info for meets where it's mostly NCAA teams, i'll forgive the conferences that they're still sending email to people who graduated one or two years ago instead of me..... but it's a problem that almost every school in this particular conference will run into---- why can't we take that into account?

it's difficult, if not impossible, to have the correct information for every single school. but with a well publicized yahoo group, the burden falls upon the schools, and if all of the info is also put on a website, it's even more foolproof.

Originally Posted by reawl

How would you change the USACFC Championship as an event?

for the moment, it's ok. but it's gonna keep getting bigger. and eventually it's not going to be.

the ncaa system of regionals doesn't quite sound like it would work. i mean, granted, i don't really understand that system, but that's part of the reason i don't think it'll work. if i still don't understand it, it's going to be difficult for whoever has to manage the data. and not just anyone will be able to do it. and... yeah.

keeping it better organized will help in the short term. eventually, it will get too big. and we need a solution before we let in more schools than we can handle.



oh, and i was looking at the schedule for where it is and when. the idea is that it will rotate around each region........... except, in the four years i will be in college, it will never be in new england. so, it's not quite so much that i'm annoyed that i'm getting screwed as i kind of wonder why i'm getting screwed. but i don't know who to ask. anyone?

[Inigo_Montoya]

Originally Posted by MyrddinsPrecint

for the moment, it's ok. but it's gonna keep getting bigger. and eventually it's not going to be.

keeping it better organized will help in the short term. eventually, it will get too big. and we need a solution before we let in more schools than we can handle.

I agree it is still manageable with the format now, but this format won't work with larger numbers for a 2 day event. As much as I like fencing every team there, the championships could try the format of having people fence half the teams instead of everyone. You could then have 3 A's, 2B's, and 1C advance to the semi-final pool, then the top 3 advance to the final pool with the top 3 from the other bracket of schools.

For example, lets say you have 30 schools competing. You then divide the teams so you end up with two sides with 15 schools each. You would then fence everyone on your side of the bracket. You would have the top 3 A's, 2B's, and 1C advance to the semi-final pool (from your side of the bracket), then the top 3 from your pool advance to the final pool with the top 3 from the pool on the other bracket of schools. I know this would raise issues of being fair in dividing the teams in half and create potential problems of separating the two sides fairly.

[noodle]

Originally Posted by telkanuru

Personally, I hate the format, but I am currently unable to think of a way to improve it.

Having some grounded strips would be nice. Competent reffing would be nice. It could also probly be run better.

grounded strips would have to come from teams bringing them in, since the organization has nothing. working on the refs and the running of it.

Originally Posted by MyrddinsPrecint

i want a website with lots of information.

i think this is a big problem.
right now, we have a page with travel information up for the teams (link), but imho, the orgniazation needs the webpage back up. i've volunteered to do it in the past but someone else said they were going to take care of it. the centralized information source, in my honest opinion, is the organization's biggest shortcoming at the moment. it needs to be fixed and i'll do it if any of the officers would want me to.

[reawl]

Now that other people have spoken up, I'll add my thoughts. The event is growing, it is quickly becoming more and more unreasonable to fence every team. My suggestion is to have a seeding system similar to the NCAA based off regional results. This has the added bonus of encouraging schools to participate in their region (and construct a collegiate regional circuit where one does not exist).Regional events are the ones that are affordable for the clubs just starting out or rebuilding, this is where we grow fencing.

I would also do away with the individual event. The idea behind the USACFC Championship is that it provides something that wasn't there before, a team championships for non-varsity college programs. If you want an individual event, there's plenty of opportunities through the USFA one can do on his own which wouldn't be at the expense of club time and money. To me it's the college TEAM that made fencing in college great.

The Yahoo! group has the potential to have all forms, all the dates, all the info, it's just not used to it's full potential. The nice part is anyone can do these things, not just a webmaster with a lot of programming experience. The only thing I'd change here would be to have more people use it.

The logo, if it really is the official logo, shows a fencer in poor form and a line all around him that to me says he's fencing wildly. I'm not a graphic artist so I can't offer much help, but I would be very happy to see something that better represented the USACFC.

I don't understand where the money goes and why attracting refs are a problem. If you really are only fencing one gender at a time, that's two strips per school, two refs at a time, one ref's cost per school. The $500 entry fee should be more than enough to pay for a ref for a weekend at least for hotel, wage, gas, and food. Even if you're fencing both genders at once and each team has to pony up for 2 refs, I think $250 would be pretty close. The only other expense should be the awards if schools are bringing scoring equipment (and grounded strips which are harder to transport especially via plane). I think the real problem is local supply of refs. What needs to happen is that in addition to the $500 entry fee, each team needs to be responsible for transporting one qualified ref to the venue. No ref, no competition. It's easy and everyone knows what is expected.

[darius]

I call seconds on the information repository.

For example, I believe we have to join the USACFC by end-of-month to participate, yes? I'm still on the fence as to whether my team has enough depth to participate -- are grad students eligible? That could be the make-or-break point for our crew.

darius

[Inigo_Montoya]

Grad students are eligible. Anyone that is a full time student at your school is eligible.

[annacattiva]

Originally Posted by reawl

Now that other people have spoken up, I'll add my thoughts. The event is growing, it is quickly becoming more and more unreasonable to fence every team. My suggestion is to have a seeding system similar to the NCAA based off regional results. This has the added bonus of encouraging schools to participate in their region (and construct a collegiate regional circuit where one does not exist).Regional events are the ones that are affordable for the clubs just starting out or rebuilding, this is where we grow fencing.

cut cut cut cut

I think the real problem is local supply of refs. What needs to happen is that in addition to the $500 entry fee, each team needs to be responsible for transporting one qualified ref to the venue. No ref, no competition. It's easy and everyone knows what is expected.

How are you going to divide the regions up? I think that here we would run into the same problems as the USFA division system- where some areas are so strong that it's stupidly hard to qualify and some areas are so large in order to have any members at all that it's a huge extra expense to get to the qualifier.

About the refs- are you saying that each team should pay their $500, And pay for a ref's plane ticket And pay the ref? Or just pay for the plane ticket? Or just let the ref come along with them for company?

Anna

[reawl]

Some regions already exist in both USFA and/or NCAA form. The NCAA compensates for a strong region by using a "strength of schedule" computation. Also it wouldn't be a qualifier (at least initially), but just a method to seed so you could do an elimination bracket or something to that effect. The reason for the round robin is that there's no seeding information being used/computed presently.

As for refs, I suggest that each team covers the cost of travel for one ref. The $500 entry fee is still used to pay the ref and provide him with hotel & food. Or alternatively you could lessen the entry fee if the teams also cover hotel. Either way the point is that teams need to bring refs from their regions. That's how all other national events function, refs from all over the nation, not just local refs.

[Inigo_Montoya]

I think each team should be responsible finding a qualified ref to go to the championships and the host will take care of the refs costs.

[Inigo_Montoya]

Originally Posted by reawl

The logo, if it really is the official logo, shows a fencer in poor form and a line all around him that to me says he's fencing wildly. I'm not a graphic artist so I can't offer much help, but I would be very happy to see something that better represented the USACFC.

What do people think about this logo?

[DJ Apostrophe]

I do not agree that getting rid of the individual portion of the tournament would be a Good Idea(tm), time-wise, it doesn't add that much, and even if your team isn't doing that well, if you are personally, it gives you something to keep fighting for, and the individual finals are a great showcase for the best fencing in the event. Last year, the individual finals were filled with good fencing, high drama, and exciting times for the rest of the members of the teams.

In terms of a change in the format, I was talking with Bruce Capin about this at the NAC over the weekend, and he had an interesting proposal, which I liked but felt could be tweaked a bit. But, as it was his idea, I'll leave it for him to post.

-w

edit: decided to post in the proposed format as there seems to be a bit of format drama brewing...

The idea he proposed to me:

Take the teams that are entered into the championships (for principle, lets say we have 21 teams in a gender). Talk with the coaches and seed the teams 1-21.

Make three pools (the same way you would make them for an individual event).

Each team fences each other team in its pool.

Now you seed them 1-21 after the pools and set up a DE table for each squad. i.e. all the WE squads are now ranked based on thier results. Now you fence the table (with all places fenced out).

Pros:
This would save time, teams all still get the same amount of fencing as each other team, and teams would end up with a high precentage of competitive bouts/matches. Would make for some exciting, meaningful bouts in the team portion at the end of the competition.

Cons:
Would require splitting up the teams (obviously the three squads can't travel with each other if they are all fencing different schools at different times in the DE bracket).
Deciding on a scoring system may be a little difficult... i.e. a certain amount of 'points' will have to be assigned to each squad placing... and deciding on what is equitable may be difficult.
Doing individual promotions may be difficult, but I suppose you could just use people's records in the first round (team pool round), and just be fairly liberal about what you promote.

Comments? Suggestions?

one of my comments was that I would like to see team v. team matchups instead of squad v. squad in the DE table, but doing that hurts your ability to crown squad champions like has been done in the past few years, but gives you the togetherness and team aspect that is so great about this competition.

[annacattiva]

So you'd use information from regional competitions to seed teams for elimination brackets. How?

I dislike the idea of having eliminations at the event anyway, on principle. I wouldn't want to spent my year raising money to go to this event with my team (as I did the first year it existed) and then be out of the competition if we ran into a strong team at the beginning.