Should Sections be Reapportioned?

[trazom]

Originally Posted by KD5MDK

I've never heard of the Gulf Coast Section. Do you by any chance possibly mean Southwest Section?

Oops. Yes, I meant Southwest. I used Gulf Coast because my shorthand confused Southwest and Southeast otherwise....

Correcting original

[epeemike81]

Here's a simple one: create a tri-state section.

so, the new sections would be:
North Atlantic (2482 members): New England, Northeast, Hudson-Berkshire, Western NY, Green Mountain

Tri-State Section (3652 members): Metropolitan, New Jersey, West-Rock NY, Connecticut, Long Island

Mid Atlantic Section (1764 members): Philadelphia, Western PA, Maryland, Capitol, Harrisburg, Central PA, South Jersey, Northeast PA

counts via the spreadsheet linked to above.

-m

[KD5MDK]

Is Metropolitan/North Atlantic/Mid Atlantic the broken sections? I think that fixing the Rocky Mountain and Southeast Section problems out to come first, and that what solution is selected may affect changes to other sections.

[seak]

and then maybe move VA to mid -atlantic, Pennsylvania is slightly closer then Florida: though I know some VA fencers who purposly choose to be in Southeast rather then having to qualify through mid atlantic

[trazom]

Didn't VA Div decide as a division at some point to be in Southeast instead of Mid Atlantic?

[stealingophelia]

Originally Posted by SurfingFoil

In reviewing sectional results, I noticed huge discrepancies in size across the country. It seems as the North Atlantic and Mid Atlantic Section have become HUGE! For example in U19 ME these results were posted on the internet: NorthA - 75 competitors, MidA - 58 competitors, Metro - 7 competitors, RockyM - 31 competitors, Pacific NW - 14 competitors, Great Lakes - 7 competitors. The difference in the other events (Div 1A and weapons) are similar.
I know a main argument would be that the large sections have better tournaments but they also have fencers that will not qualify when they are superior to thier counterparts who do from smaller sections. It is a qualifier not a NAC.
Sections only sponsor two events all year. Are they really even needed?

where did you find the u19 me sectional results? i have yet to see them posted anywhere

[seak]

Don't know, I am not at all familiar with Va division politics, and most of the Va division members I talk to are northern Va and not southern. I was just mainly thinking about how to move around numbers and the fact that most of Virginia is closer to the northern mid - atlantic section states then the southern most states in the southeast section.

As it currently stands though adding VA to mid-atlantic would make mid - atlantic even more unweildy in terms of numbers then it already is

[stealingophelia]

Originally Posted by SurfingFoil

In the Metro division 3 of the 7 fencers qualified. .

3 of 8 actually, great turnout ahah

[mrbiggs]

Originally Posted by epeemike81

Tri-State Section (3652 members): Metropolitan, New Jersey, West-Rock NY, Connecticut, Long Island

This section would be wayyyyy too strong. Three of the strongest divisions in the country in one section would skew qualifiers.

Not to mention that qualifiers in metro new york and west rock are slightly diluted by fencers that train in these strong sections, but who live in connecticut or long island, which wouldn't help any more. Not a huge factor, but a factor nonetheless.

[bigdawg2121]

VA has been talking about moving to Mid-Atlantic since before I was HS if not longer, still hasn't happened but I guess there is a first Sunday in every month as they say....there are definitely some decent arguments to rearrange things, although really it appears that adding Metro to another section, or creating a new section with Metro in it is the only change related to evening out numbers. Other than maybe that I think that something should be done about the unreasonably massive size of the RMS and SES. As far as the tournaments themselves go I figure qualifiers will work themselves out, wanting to stay in a certain area so as to qualify more easily just seems silly to me.

[SurfingFoil]

Originally Posted by stealingophelia

where did you find the u19 me sectional results? i have yet to see them posted anywhere

Askfred.net - typed in sectionals for search engine

[stealingophelia]

Originally Posted by SurfingFoil

Askfred.net - typed in sectionals for search engine

wanna link me? it says they arent up, are you talking about last year or something? or the pre reg list

[Feltan]

Originally Posted by DHCJr

...You want to even out the Sections by population...

Donald,

I think that is the crux of the problem. There is an assumption that this is a good thing, and I think not.

The Rocky Mountain section, of which I am a member, may have an appropriately proportional number of fencers, but given the distances involved -- people just don't show up for sectional tournaments unless they are geographically close by (for the most part).

I would much prefer a smaller section that was vibrant. The solution to member number disparity can be resolved in the quotas for qualification much easier than propogating a myth of equal distribution (and vastly unequal participation levels).

Regards,
Feltan

[sleepyweasle]

Originally Posted by mrbiggs

...Not to mention that qualifiers in metro new york and west rock are slightly diluted by fencers that train in these strong sections, but who live in connecticut or long island, which wouldn't help any more. Not a huge factor, but a factor nonetheless.

Metro qualifiers would be slightly diluted? At least in sabre the last Metro sectional qualifiers sucked! For example - the men's Div1 sabre qualifer had 7 entrants and was an E1. All you had to do was be breathing to qualify. The div1 WS had 10 entrants - also an E1 - not bad odds on qualifying there either. (and by E rated - not only were there few fencers - there was only 1 C, a couple of Ds and the rest Es & Us in both events)

We're about to leave for NAS div 1 qualifiers - both sabre events are B rated.

If anything - adding Metro to NJ/LI/CT/West-roc would dilute our qualifiers.

[sleepyweasle]

and strangely enough - the one C fencer in the men's event is from Long Island...

[hello?]

In New ENgland, 23 people competed in the div 2/3 qualifyer for WE, for example. Five qualified for Div 2. If you had fenced in San Francisco, 5 competed, four qualified (the 25% does not seem to hold for the smaller tournaments)....I am sure a similar thing happened in the Section for div 1-A qualifiers. Since this affects the cost-effectiveness of going to Atlanta (cost divided by number of events and number of empty days between the events you can fence), it does seem unfair to me. It also seems that the div 2 (for example) event at Nationals, rather than being stronger (because it's "nationals") will be weaker than a regular NAC since New ENgland fencers (for example) who might conceivably beat the weaker-path fencers from other divisons/sections will not be allowed to compete. The argument that a larger division will have a larger number of automatics does not make up the difference either. Four out of five qualified in California. Five out of twenty-three here -- with ONE auto-qualifier. Yesterday, there was also only one auto-qualifier at sectionals (out of, I think, 35 women epeeists). It seems to me that the ONLY reason why this is happening is to make it easier for the USFA organizers to "deal with" Nationals. Again, the average fencer's interests lag behind other concerns.

[bigdawg2121]

Summer nationals are already watered down. So are JOs. That's just a general fact of life that you deal with b/c of the nature of the tournaments. Basically they have the big names (i.e. people can say they've competed a US National Championship event ) and everyone wants to go. If you look at the usual NACs there's a relatively small number of fencers that regularly attend the tournaments b/c the only real reason to go to NACs if you want points or you're doing well enough at a different level that the experience gained from the trip is worth the cost. The number of people going just b/c it would be a fun thing to do is small. Allowing more people from the slightly stronger sections wouldn't really fix this b/c for the most part the people that would make the competition significantly stronger are already competing at NAC levels anyway and the other kids are generally not going to get past the 64 if they get far. So your question of strength of event seems moot. As for fairness what if in that 5 person competition there were 3 kids that were all in the top 16 of cadets or junior points and didn't have their Bs yet. Would it really be fair to say that only one of them could go b/c they only had 5 people show up? Not really. The 25% rule kind of goes out the window with small numbers b/c we err on the side "fencer's interests" until 25% of the field is greater than the minimum number of qualifiers. At the end of the day Nationals is a huge beastly animal of a tournament. Regardless of how they try to manipulate the numbers more people show up every year. They try to maintain a balance and the current method may not be perfect but it's reasonably fair and a lot more consderate of the average fencer than it could be.

[oiuyt]

Originally Posted by hello?

Comparison of D2/3 qualification in WE between New England and San Francisco.

I'm not sure your math is correct. I haven't bothered to go look up the actual NE Div results, but going from the numbers that you presented above -- 23 entrants, 1 auto -- there should have been 7 people qualified, not 5 (25% of 23 rounds up to 6, plus the auto).

-B

[hello?]

You are right, Brad: Five people qualified plus the one auto = six. Still a far way off from four out of five entrants qualifying...As to that five person qualifying event in the West Coast, if I remember right it wasn't three junior kids from the national team who simply hadn't managed to get their B's yet, it was four U's and one D....I happen to attend NACs for the experience and the "fun of it" and know a ton of people -- kids and adults -- from the New England area who do the same. If only people hoping to get on the national team attended, we could run all national events in two days or less!

[KD5MDK]

From the "4 out of 5" qualifier, one of them must have been an autoqual (perhaps by qualifing in a higher event), and the other 3 are the minimum guarenteed to all qualifying events. Is there something so unreasonable in that?