Blacklisted club seeks letters of recommendation

[remistress]

Hi,

Many of you don't know me, but I've been fencing for about 8 years now. I love this sport. I, however, almost totally gave up due to my coach's statement that I'd "never be any good". I could not stay away, and, about 2 yrs. after I *quit*, I showed up to a begginning fencing class with a different coach, and haven't looked back since. Currently I'm the treasurer of said University's fencing club, and due to unfortunate circumstances am also acting president. This club...is my baby.

Being a CSU (Cal State University for those whom don't know), the club is not part of athletics (chalk it up to Title 9, or small participation...either way we don't get any money). Imagine running your club, with no dues (poor poor college students, mind you...), and paying for USFA club membership, directors, and reel rentals all with only the revenue generated through tournaments. Now imagine people made alleged accusations against your club during the course of a tournament (this is an issue because it was held on University property), were completely unwilling to verify you counterarguments, and then banned all tournaments on campus for the rest of the semester.

This causes a problem in several cases. You now have no more revenue, and your reputation can get potentially tarnished with your division if you can find no other place to host your tournament. (Thankfully we indeed found somewhere, but now have to pay rental fees for the facility).

The tournament in question was the NorCal division qualifier at Sonoma State University. If you or anyone you know was at that qualifier, had a positive experience, or has come to other tournaments we've hosted and had a good experience. I would request you email me at

remistress@yahoo.com

I also would like to get in contact with other fencing programs at CSU's...according to the research I've done this University's behavior is a bit over the top. I'm curious to see if, for instance, other CSU's allow fencer's from off campus to come train with their teams.

If you'd like to know the nature of the accusations levied against us, please feel free to PM me or email me as well.

Thanks for your help!

[SenorEquis]

I'm sorry to hear about your troubles with the tournament. I hope that you are able to come to a reasonable conclusion with your university.

I have been with a very successful fencing club at a CSU (Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo) for almost five years, first as a student and fencer, and now as a graduate and coach. We've had our fair share of trouble with the university. We do not hold USFA events on campus, because the university will not allow anyone under the age of 16 to participate in an athletic event on their property. Therefore, we host our USFA events off campus, at a gym of a local church. The church is reasonable with scheduling time there, and we do our best to donate back to them with every event, and have even helped them to improve the facility. In this way, we go around the troublesome politics of the university club sports program for USFA events and paying high fees for rental space.

As far as outsiders coming to our practices, the university is not unreasonable. The no-athletes-under-16 rule still applies for us, and community members must sign a waiver, but we have had non-student fencers practice with us with regularity.

I hope this helps. Let me know if I can offer any more information from our experience.

[oiuyt]

Being a CSU (Cal State University for those whom don't know), the club is not part of athletics (chalk it up to Title 9, or small participation...either way we don't get any money).

What does being a CSU have to do with not receiving varsity status? Fullerton disproves that linkage.

Every school club is different. The administration for each school will come up with their own rules and regualtions, opinions on how to enforce similar regulations, and history of what is/can be done.

I have direct experience with two collegiate clubs (in addition to two NCAA programs). One was allowed to accept anyone as a member and to allow non-member participation (although this club grew while I was associated with it to the point where space considerations required severe limits on this, but they were club-imposed limits, not school-mandated). The other isn't allowed to have ANY participation other than by current students (with a few extra limitations thrown in just for kicks).

One had dues that are at the upper end of what you see in the collegiate fencing world ($100/semester or $175/year), the other at the low end ($10/year). Both have institutional funding. The more expensive club also did extensive fundraising through a wide variety of mechanisms (credit card offers, stadia cleanup, bakesales, sales of all kinds of other items (donated art, homemade novelty soap, candy, etc.), donations, renting out fencers for a variety of purposes (yardwork, etc.), co-hosting a tournament, etc.), yielding an annual budget of ~$25-30,000. Then again, that club pays for quite a bit of equipment, travel to competitions (including airfare to club nationals, etc.), coaching, etc., etc. The other club is basically completely dependent on institutional funding (discussions of fundraising ideas haven't actually resulted in any activities). Competition funding (gas/tolls) is covered at each event by those attending out of private money, rather than collective funds. The school mandates that sports clubs may not pay coaches/instructors. Other uses for funds are somewhat restricted.

Every situation is different. What is allowed at one school is completely different than what is allowed at another. What is accepted as The Way To Do Things at one school is anathema at another (They do WHAT?!?!!! How STUPID are they?!?!?!!!?!!). Regardless of how things are at your school, fighting with the administration is extremely unlikely to make your situation improve. Find ways to work within your rule structure. Get ideas from other schools and see if they fit what you want to accomplish, then figure out whether or not you can do them and whether or not you're permitted to do them. If not move on to the next idea, or see how the current idea can be modified to be a possible solution.

-B

[remistress]

Therefore, we host our USFA events off campus, at a gym of a local church...In this way, we go around the troublesome politics of the university club sports program for USFA events and paying high fees for rental space.

Thanks SenorEquis, yes actually that's what we ended up doing this semester. We're paying another local club to allow us to run the tournament from their venue. We'll have to pay a fee to rent it, but it will be nice to not have to have the proverbial *monkey on our back*. Our campus has pretty much the same policy as yours as far as waivers are concerned. This was actually an issue last tournament, where we were accused of not obtaining waivers from everyone. When I made the suggestion that there was an easy way to check (check the roster of competitors against the number of waivers signed), they were completely unwilling to look into it.

Oiuyt, thanks for your insight. Of course, working within the rule structure is going to serve us best. The problem lies in the fact that we feel we have obeyed the rules to letter (and sometimes above) the letter of the law. I think at the very crux of this issue is the Sport Club coordinator's own admission that he feels uncomfortable with fencing as a sport because, unlike team sports, competing students "Dont wear team jerseys" so it's hard to determine who's competing and who is watching and the fact that "A 50 year old man could come on campus and fence with our students". We weren't entirely sure what he meant by the last comment, but it seems to infer that he feels that there is something wrong with that scenario. As far as varsity status is concerned...I was told that it has been attempted to be put into athletics, and has been rejected. (Athletics' budget was maxed out and they did not have room for another program).

[SenorEquis]

Ah, the joys of dealing with fencing-ignorant bureaucracy. One of the fun things we have had to deal with is the idea that fencing is dangerous and that our equipment should be treated as such. We check out weapons, masks, etc. to our beginning students, most of which are dorm-bound freshmen. Someone in the housing department heard the word "sword" or "weapon", and now dry foils are banned from the dorms. However, baseball bats and golf clubs are ok. When we tried to explain, we were told that the administration just did not feel safe with the students having weapons in the dorms. In other words, they just didn't get it, and weren't open to learning or listening. It was unfortunate, but part of dealing with the world, I suppose.

Good luck with your own troubles!

[oiuyt]

As far as varsity status is concerned...I was told that it has been attempted to be put into athletics, and has been rejected. (Athletics' budget was maxed out and they did not have room for another program).

Ah, but that's a quite different reason than being a CSU. MANY schools will reject such an application for a number of reasons, including budgetary (and that will likely be cited as a reason whether or not it's true).

-B

[seven6ty]

Yeah, as pointed out, CSU, Fullerton has a Div 1 team. I went there and was on the team, although I don't recall them ever having any USFA sanctioned tournaments there of any sort, so I don't know that they would be a great help in the part that you were asking about holding tournaments on campus. Let me know if you have any other questions about them that I might be able to help you with, or if you'd like contact info for the current coaching staff and such.

[remistress]

Erm.... It's not so much tournaments we're concerned about. We really want better fencers (rated ones) to be able to participate during our practices so our fencers get better. We had an agreement with the person in charge to allow this to happen by calling practices, tournaments and by turning in a pool sheet at the end of said tournament to determine a "winner". However, the real consternation came about when he decided to do a surprise audit and accuse us of violating the rules he had set up. Apparently (never communicated to us) he wanted a roster of even potential people who could show up any given day. Keep in mind most people who would be coming to fence us would be from the local junior college (and most aren't even USFA members). It's almost like running a local, people show up if they feel like it...but if it's too much of a hassle they won't come. Just wondering how off-campus participation works at other CSU's.

Thanks for you help/reply

[oiuyt]

Uhm, I can't say I'm terribly surprised this ended up with your losing privileges. You're lucky you were allowed to so blatently violate what were probably long-established rules for any amount of time whatsoever.

Allowing other people into your practices exposes the university to liability risk. Some schools will allow it, others won't. Those that do allow it under different sets of rules. Not allowing any outsiders is probably the most common approach universities take.

-B

[seven6ty]

Ahhh, yes, CSUF has open Thursday night practices. I'm pretty sure they don't have to do something as nutty as turn in each and every person's name who might show up, so yeah, I guess the two schools are just run differently that way... However, it may also be because they have their own fencing room, and so they don't need to make any special arrangements to use the basketball court areas or anything like that, and I'm pretty sure they'd have a special insurance setup, with having a div 1 team and official fencing room and all of that too though.

[remistress]

Oiuyt - right which is why we got permission before ever allowing off-campus people from participating. We also had every individual sign waiver of liability forms (which I had with me when audited). I still stand by my original statement that I think it has a lot to do with the fact that fencing doesn't fit the team sport mold. Perhaps team fencing is the venue to get this to work? By their own admission our University is under the impression that other CSU's don't allow off-campus participants. This is the purpose of my question...to bring them with actual evidence that other clubs do in fact allow this type of action.

[seven6ty]

Welp, CSUF does, there's one for ya!

[remistress]

Yes seven6ty I noticed that, thanks!

[Wafath]

I am having a little bit of trouble following what you got into trouble for, but as near as I can tell:

- You want outsiders (people who are not officially affiliated with the university) at practice because it is good for your students.
- The school did not
- You bent the rules by trying to make every practice a competition.
- The school shut you down because of this.

Is this somewhat close?

We went through this a few years ago with our school. The solution was a) start obeying the rules, b) make outsiders who want to fence with us coaches and c) obey the rules.

When you are dealing with your university as a sports club, accept that you have no leverage over them. They have absolute authority over your club's existence, and their decisions are final. Accept this. Make it your job to get in the good graces of the administration. Understand the rules. Learn the reasons behind the rules. Drink the administration cool-aid.

Once you do that, you will find life isn't so bad, and more wiggle room than you thought. Eventually you can explain to them the differences between an individual sport and a team sport, but also you will learn the joys of being a Team, and acting like one.

By asking for references, you are still fighting it. Stop it. Go, crawl on your knees to the administrator, admit you were wrong, and find out what it takes to make things right again.

W

[seven6ty]

God, why does that remind me of being in a relationship?

[Phrogger]

Wafath speaks the truth. I had a situation a few months ago where my friend and I were kicked out of the local YMCA. We apologised, complied with the rules (got insurance certificate), and I drafted a very apologetic letter to the board of directors *politely* requesting access for fencing. It worked. If you'd like to see what my letter looked like, PM me and I'll send you a copy.

[remistress]

No....we did not bend any rules. It was at the suggestion of the Sports Club Coordinator, He literally said, "The way around this is to call your practices competitions...but in order for these to be competions I'll need" roster of attendees before fencing commences (which I had) and score sheet (which was filled out, but needed scores because fencing had not yet begun), and signed liability forms (which I had). We had his permission to have off-campus visitors, it was only at the audit that he made claims of having the addtional demand of a list off all *potential* fencers and where they would be from before those fencers actually showed up. His other main issue was the fact that we had a faculty member (hey a B-rated epeeist from the east coast is a huge deal to us) fencing with students. This is strictly prohibted by the Sports club manual, However this faculty member received verbal permission from this Sports Club Coordinator to do this because of the tournament status of practices. (Now I know better; I'll get it in writing next time).

As far as what we actually got in trouble for at the tournament, I have no problem posting that. I'm not trying to hide anything. I did not do that initially because I did not want this to be a *whining* post of how we were wronged. I merely wanted to collect information so that when we have our end of semester briefing, I can say look we disagree about what happened at our tournament let's leave that alone, however, look I have collected information about what actual other Csu's policies on off-campus visitors (reasonable expectation) are and here are recommendation letters from people whom feel we run good tournaments (an alternate voice from our own bespeaking the benefit of our program.).

[oiuyt]

No....we did not bend any rules. It was at the suggestion of the Sports Club Coordinator, He literally said, "The way around this is to call your practices competitions.

In other words, "Yes, we were bending the rules, but with the assistance of one of the people tasked with enforcing them."

You REALLY need to reread Wafath's post.

Or you could keep fighting it and digging your club into a deeper hole. It's really your choice.

You've asked for advice. Wafath has given his, based on his experience at Maryland. I've given mine, based on experience at UMass and Temple. You don't like our answers. Doesn't mean they aren't true.

If you need a list of potential participants, you already have one -- those who have previously filled out waiver forms. Add a simple rule -- waiver forms must be submitted prior to coming onto campus -- and, while you've erected a small barrier to entry that needs to be negotiated, you basically have what you want. Until, of course, the next reason pops up for why you can't routinely violate school policy through a specific work-around kludge.

Ever occur to you that the Sports Club administrator might be reacting to pressure from HIS superior(s)? Unofficial agreements with him to ignore violations if you spin them the right way are, naturally, going to be subject to change if/when he gets pressure to enforce more stringently. Or it could just be that he realized that by conspiring with you to break the rules that he was exposing himself to liability and thought better of it.

-B

[DanielSFG]

remistress,

the university in my home town has the same attitude about people who aren't students. it's frustrating how wasteful the policy is. Everyone in the state collectively funds the university, but the university refuses to perform even the simplest services for the community as a whole.

wafath is right about the impossibility of fighting the administrators. It may be best to play by their rules, or just disassociate yourself from them all together.

DanielSFG

[Hobbes]

I have been in your exact same position! My campus was the devil for keeping me and my club from getting outside members. But we fixed it, and I will share my very easy solution with you.

First I went to our clubs and organization leaders (wearing my very best suit) and explained to them that we wanted some things that were not typically allowed in sports clubs. namely we wanted off campus visitors allowed, both novice fencers and veteran fencers who were affiliated with the school.

The veteran fencers were easy, if they are coming to practice and helping everyone out, then they can be considered guests, speakers, etc... Almost every club is allowed to have a speaker, you just need to make sure that everyone on campus can be aided (if people choose not to come to the
practices with these "speakers" then they choos not to be aided).

As for the novice fencers, we really wanted everyone in the area to know about fencing and wanted to bring fresh blood into the sport. But the school would hear nothing of it, so we had to sit down and NEGOTIATE what would be the ground rules. These fencers ended up having to:

pay more,
sign waivers,
could never hold office in the club,
must be sponsored by a student,
could never use our equipment off campus (which sucked for tournaments), had to always sign in and out with the building coordinator.

That was a lot we had to agree to, but we went to local high schools, middle schools, churches, local festivals, and anything else to advertise and brought in a lot of interest, and in the end got a couple new people out of it.

Negotiation is the key. They know they are in charge and you are not. So you need to prove that you accept their authority and are looking to them for a favor. Remind them it is in their best interest to have community involvement on their campus. That looks good for them. I

hope any of this helps.