Amateur Coaches

[RITFencing]

Originally Posted by SFfencer

Johnny,
you sir are an ass.

If you were to write your posts using proper grammar & spelling, I'm sure more people would read your posts, and respond.

I took the time to read your posts,
are you complaining that the ref. called 12 simultaneous touches?
that can happen....

Sure there are bad refs, those that are bad don't get hired again.
People always complain, but suing the USFA is taking it too far....

Agreed on every count...

As far as welts, scrapes, bruises, etc... it's a fight. We have metal swords up there. Very few people actually try to cause pain, but many fencers, especially at a lower level, are a bit heavy handed in the interest of getting the touch in. If I have a choice between being nice and winning my bout, I will win the bout every time.

As far as the ref carding for straightening the weapon on the strip... that's the rules. Don't get angry when they are followed.

Really, it sounds like you have a lot of beef with the sport itself... if the basic nature of fencing is this hard for you to swallow, may I invite you to take up another sport?

[p1nkp4nther]

Originally Posted by RITFencing

Johnny,

What kind of drugs are you doing and where can I get some?

What he said.

(OR johnny, you're just a really funny guy and we don't get the joke )

[johnny blade]

When adult supervision in a sport event that has children in it fails to protect them in a reasonable mannor, by its own rules ( brutality t-63,t-87,t-120) and laws of the state. ch38 IRC. Its the teacher/coach/ parent's duty to bring the The Matter to the bout committee, Who did not send anyone till after the pools were over, a hour later.
The Referee was asked by all the fencers, coachs, parents to warn or penalize the action breaking the rules. A complaint was sent to the usfa and no responce was given.

The Children were 12 to 16 years old and the ones who won the event.
So they were able to change and win. The wounds were on off target areas, legs and some were on target areas back and arms. all of which were very
apparent to the eye.

A head referee said that 12 simultaneous actions are not possible thats a bad referee, not calling right of way. He stated that a true simultaneous attack is possible 1 out of 20 time maybe.


If any of you were at a event where you are the coach of children 16 and under and the referee called 12 simultaneous attacks and let one or more of the fencers hit the other fencers in your eyes with deliberate brutality and did nothing. you are - forget it

Well I will be at the ifc sabre event in ILL please come up to me and tell me face to face.

and if you were that referee come and please step up
lets see if you can take what you think kids should take
I would love to fence you.
anyone come please duel with me we don't need referees
as you think hard hitting is ok so be it come see me.
its on the 12 I will be there.

[johnny blade]

Do you guys hear yourselfs ("if someone hit me hard i would do the same ") you see thats what the kids did they got hit hard and hit hard back and the game became a slug fest. are any of you adults. Referees are also to keep the bout a game. Being nice or winning IS that what you want! a referee word to lighten it up would have done the job how about one of the smart referee saying something about that.
oh they are not coachs no they are not they are referees to keep it safe and fair how about that. I guess expecting you to understand that is not in the
cards to bad. I give up on you. thats why we are suing.
Oh and english is my second langwich I am not so good at it.
but how is your second langwich. or if i am not a born american I can't expect you to hear me. How cute this is world wide web not just American and Canada chat. so i am going to be at ifc on the 30th too i want so bad to fence you jerks and see how fast you wine to the referee.


and to the adults who did send me notes agreeing with me i understand why you did not post them the dummies are all on this place and that girl has 10000s of post she must have no life and i hope no kids
well see ya soon

[p1nkp4nther]

Dear johnny blade;

Your last two posts are at least slightly more readable, that helps for us to understand your point. You need to face the fact that you are using an online medium of communication here. If you post unreadable things, you're not communicating!

It is also difficult to debate with someone that is just on a "rant".

English is also my second language and I am not an American. Just adding fullstops and proper spacing in your posts is common sense and has nothing to do with first or second language.

Now unless you post something relevant to the thread and it is coherent, I wont reply to you again.

Hope you find peace.

[Fencergrl]

Originally Posted by jBirch

Whoa there girl.

James,
I’ve been thinking about why I reacted the way I did, and I think I have some insight.

As you know I don’t normally respond this way to people, especially newcomers to the site. I consider this forum to be a friendly knowledgeable community of fencers, parents, coaches and refs. Some of the people I have met here I consider friends.

I have been known to lean towards passionate responses at times, and this is no exception. I have also been known to stand up for people who I like or something I believe in. I am certain; my pro-Canadian stance has been misinterpreted at times as anti-American.

It offended me that this guy was not only taking the posts and blog comments of some of my friends off to court with him, but also using them to take their money.

I don’t think suing the USFA is reasonable action, when all other avenues have not been thoroughly explored. I see the USFA as more than just it’s board members. The USFA’s money belongs to all of the USFA members. Money intended for developing fencing in the country will now be spent on lawyers and possibly high school programs. For what??? The way he initially represented the situation, it appeared the refs were just applying the rules of our sport. Such as this example:

Originally Posted by johnny blade

a referee calling a yellow then red card on a fencer for straighting his blade on the strip.

Then there was the annoyance factor… Even after saying I’m Canadian, he’s made statements that I’m “scared of the USFA” or kissing their butts”. Or even worse… insulting the other coaches here.

Originally Posted by johnny blade

you just in it for the money?

I don’t know if he was referring to a specific person or all of the coaches in this section, but this offended me. None of us are getting rich teaching kids, some of us are not even being paid. We do it because we love the work.

As I said before, I don’t think suing the USFA is an appropriate course of action, especially considering the board may be changing. I don’t like seeing the money my friends pay to their sporting organization to be used towards paying lawyers. What I find particularly distasteful is jonny blade joining f-net (for what appears to be) as a way to rub people’s noses in and threaten people…. Some of these people may be my friends, so I reacted.

I think if you’re going to sue someone, just do it. Don’t harass, threaten or rub their noses in it publicly…. Then again, in my view smart people seldom show their cards or provide fodder for the other side.

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!


Johnny Blade:

You just managed to get Fencergrl, one of the most sanguine characters here, irritated.

That is quite a feat! You are entitled to feel special!


Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

[jBirch]

Originally Posted by Fencergrl

James,
I’ve been thinking about why I reacted the way I did, and I think I have some insight.

One thing I learned here a long time ago, is that, like sport, we get out of this forum what we put in to it. You should try playing in the politics section for a bit...

In fact, one of the guys who used to post a lot in there (and in other places) was ReverseLunge. He used to come off as quite a dink, but if you dug underneath the surface, you'd find some worthwhile comments. In many ways, he was much like Mr. Epee or DFP...or Johnny up above.

Yeah, there's a lot of noise in his posts. Some of it, quite offensive. A lot of it just bizarre.

But he is raising a pair of good points. Something that really does bear thinking about.

1) He brings up the point about repeated LEGAL actions leading to scrapes, blood and bruises (which many parents get horrified at). What are you to do as a coach when the ref refuses to reign in younger fencers who fence very "hard"? Yes, you can teach the kids the proper ways to defend against hard actions...and to a certain extent it's an important thing for the kids to learn to defend against on their own. But it can be quite traumatic for the parents and can lead to situations much like you posted about in your blog.

2) If you do feel you have a valid complaint, what do you do if your sport body chooses to ignore you? If you think it's an important enough issue that you need to stand up for the safety of your students and the very survival of fencing in your area?

Like all controversially presented opinions, the trick is to ignore the vitriol (and the threats) and try to tease out the issues that lie at the root.

I don't suppose that women engage in "pissing contests", but that's what happens when you engage in ad hominem.

But we all love you anyways girl. *grin*

James.

[Fencergrl]

Peter... off to the peanut gallery for you!

James... you're a much better Canadian than I. I have way to much east block in my veins to pull it off. I get my back up to easily when my friends are being threatened and insulted and start throwing punches.... plus being in severe pain these days doesn't help my mood.

I love ya too James... lord help anyone here who insults you!

[Fencergrl]

Originally Posted by jBirch

You should try playing in the politics section for a bit...

At least you didn't invite me to participate in dissecting ROW.

As for the politics... I don't feel I'm very political, and I certainty don't like political situations.

Having said that, I think I am adept at dealing with people mired in politics without staying on the fringes of the action. Am I reading too much into your suggestion by thinking that if I involve myself more often in the political discussions, I will further improve my objectivity? Something I dearly could use right now in my life? Certainly some food for thought.

[jBirch]

Originally Posted by Fencergrl

At least you didn't invite me to participate in dissecting ROW.

As for the politics... I don't feel I'm very political, and I certainty don't like political situations.

Having said that, I think I am adept at dealing with people mired in politics without staying on the fringes of the action. Am I reading too much into your suggestion by thinking that if I involve myself more often in the political discussions, I will further improve my objectivity? Something I dearly could use right now in my life? Certainly some food for thought.

I certainly didn't mean to imply that you need to learn anything about communication. I suck at it myself while I've always admired your own skill at it.

I just found that after posting in the politics section for a while, I got to see a lot more of these bizarre rants. And I fell for them a lot too, so I was mentally wincing when I made the comment "you should try posting in the politics section."

In that section, Inq and Jeff (who I always thought had the premiere rhetorical style) would often attack a discussion using logical fallacies to disprove the other. If I wanted to participate, I was forced to learn and understand each of the logical fallacies so I could keep up with them.

One of the major fallacies that I encountered was "ad hominem" or attacks on the character of a person in order to discredit their argument by proxy. I saw this a lot and learned that the counter to that particular fallacy was to simply ignore the ad hominem parts. Pointing them out or responding in kind got me nowhere.

Many arguments that they entered into in the Politics section involved a lot of hand waving in order to distract attention from the main points being made in an effort to discredit the topic or distract the other person. Sorta like the drift from the role of amateur coaching and my personal feelings at the time upon it, to sueing the sport body for injury to students.

Something else I learned was that almost always these fallacies were employed without conscious thought, instead based upon an emotional reaction or a lazy construction of the argument. Which is kinda what I think happened above with Johnny's posts.

What I learned, more then anything else was to engage the IDEA not the PRESENTATION.

As for objectivity, I think it's WILDLY overrated. If you can't engage with subjective passion then clearly you don't care. And you, obviously, care. Which is a good thing.

Just stay away from the insults. You're better then that.

Hope this helps.

James.

[Fencergrl]

Originally Posted by jBirch

As for objectivity, I think it's WILDLY overrated. If you can't engage with subjective passion then clearly you don't care.

When I was referring to objectivity, I was thinking about stepping back and looking at the facts (like you did with johnny) rather than reacting to the presentation.... which I thought of as being more subjective.

One of my strengths when dealing with the politics of fencing is my objectivity. I try not to get to involved in any rifts, or take sides, but try and deal with the issues.

Having someone enter f-net, not with an introductory posts or a few questions, but coming in swinging... insults, threats and suing. Got my back up. As Peter pointed out... rarely does someone do this.

The other factor was I felt I had nothing to lose. He said his piece and he didn't strike me to be the type to stay around. He seemed to be here to just threaten people and and move along. So insulting the guy wasn't going to have any longterm consequences. Despite this... you're right. That isn't a good enough reason and I'm above that type of behaviour.

[johnny blade]

I would like to say I am sorry for the way I say my feeling.
I did not see how i was being understood. I thought that as coachs you all have ran into the referee who did not care. Its the first time I ran into a bout commitee who did not seem to care.
When the usfa did not care. I saw the bruises a few days later of all my young fencers on their legs and back and arms. I was ready to knock that referee in to next year. Ther was no recourse i could go to.
When I heard that football team use to have smaller player beat up on the field by bigger players and the courts stepped in and set laws fot the sport
where the referee and schools were held accountabile for misconduct and negilgence. i was told it made them more aware of unsafe actions that they had to control by players,coachs, and referees. it also made a place where a person could be heard by a body who would determine if the complaint was valid.
I was hot and to tell the truth i am a big man i can hit very hard and have in
past. but as I got older and started coaching and grew to love this sport and our kids. I see each one as great. they are all different but each is special.
most are not great fencers but they love it and their friends in fencing.
When they got beat up and some were crying and some went after the hard hitters for hiting hard by hiting hard. and what could i do tell them to use skill when the referee said no coaching? watch in anger when little girls got welts.
well i lost it. if you were my friend or a person on that strip i was trying to stop what i saw to be the worst case of bad refereeing I ever saw.
When mr goldtstein saw the video and heard all of the parents and the three coachs he said we can sue them and it will be easy. we film them for a year and then file a class action suit. If thte voting boady votes them out great we can try to work with the new head of the usfa. but i don't think they will win. So what do we do.
the referee was zysomething from ILL a sabre referee. james i think was his first name. and please try to sue us sir!
i wanted to put that clip on youtube
but everyone thinks we should hold it for court.
What did i think posting it here would do i don't know I guess i was hoping someone form the usfa would say hey i am sorry call me and we can talk and
work this out. but no this is not the site for that.
so i guess court is the only place we can go.
how much money could win not much i think. but it would get the usfa to hear us and face us on a fair playing field where someone after hearing all of us and them decide if what happen was the right or wrong thing to have happen and will it happen again. would it be good for the sport,
I hope that the usfa would set up a hot line or complaint line for fencers or coachs or parents if they did that I am sure that this group would not want a dime if it was a true process and not a paper defence but would listen and act if something was wrong. But if they don't have to hear complaints and can decide not to try, then they need to lose their own money from their pockets.
and that referee should be watched by a older referee and if that referee thinks we are right retrain him. he was young and ok was wrong
so teach him before other kids get hurt.
pleaee don't tell me welts are part of fencing i am not talking about the commond stuff we get i am talking about blood welt so long and deep that if your kids went to school a police officer would be at your door and you would be talking at the station. theses were on all the kids not just one or two.
i should have pull them out of the event and walk out with refunds.
My fault next time I will. but I lost a lot of respect for the usfa that day.
take the money and push them throught the event, give out some medal.
and move on. we could set up our own events and run them with out the usfa. most of us will never be the top fencers. why do we need them.
for trained referees oops! medals? no we don't our youth are the way to make fencing big, so we train them and take care of them and we will grow.
like baseball. We give them great events that are fun and exciting and where they make friends.
i am still very mad and when i see the photos i shake my head and in the old ways we would catch that ref somewhere and he would learn a hard lesson.
but today we fight in court so
I will not post again here on this subject. you can do notthing even if you wanted to. and some of you well perhaps we will meet perhaps not.
it will be fun if we do lets see if you can take what you say kids should take

[jBirch]

Johnny,

I understand how much it hurts to watch the little kids (especially the girls) get beaten up on the piste. You may find this thread helpful: Violent Fencers. We have talked about this before and you may have some good thoughts to put in there.

As coaches, one of the things that we teach most importantly, is for the little children to fight with skill. And to understand that sometimes, it hurts. But it's ok that it hurts. That what is important is that they fight through the hurt and fight well.

This is one of the most important things that we, as coaches, can teach. Because when they become men and women, they will know that pain just hurts, but can't stop them.

This is the life lesson of fencing.

And to deprive them of that lesson, rather then teaching them how to deal with it, is not being a good coach. I do not think that it is right to protect your fencers from life. Rather, you teach them how to beat life.

Suing the USFA is very much like beating up the other little child who was fencing hard and hurting your fencers. It is mean and petty and wrong.

Let it go.

I also hope that you keep posting, even though many may not like what you have to say. *I* find your posts helpful at least.

But post smaller. *grin*

Hope this helps.

James.

[Fencergrl]

Johnny,

I do sympathize with you and your fencers. I have found most of the people on this site care about the sport and safety, especially the coaches. I coach mainly little kids, so I am even more conscious of the safety of my fencers.

I suggest you find out who is wanting to form the next board for the USFA. I would approach them for help. If these people don't get in, they will at least know who can help you. I have found talking to the right people can make all the difference.

As a side-note, you might want to find ways to get connected within your local fencing community. I have found that knowing who to talk to and having a good relationship with them goes a long way towards a speedy resolution to issues at events.

You may also want to reconsider about hanging around this forum. It's a valuable resource for any coach and I promise I'll be nice.

[tdwg83]

Johnny,

Before you get too carried away with the law suit please make sure that you have correctly identified the people responsible. In your first post you told us that this was a high school meet. Usually USFA does not recognize high school meets and the only responisblity they might have is in the training of the referee. What avenues of communication were used in dealing with the high school athletic association in getting them to recognize the problem.

I'm not so much trying to shift blame but looking for what you expect to be a reasonable response from the national orginization. USFA as a whole usually only organizes NACs, Summer Nationals and maybe a handful of other national tournaments. Sections and Divisions are usually organize qualifiers and maybe a few others. All other events are organized at a very local level. This means the Bout commitee is not necessarily very qualified or the referees are high level. This is especially the case at high school events. Much of the time they get referees that are simply willing to be available regardless of experience. I know in my division we seem to have an extreme shortage of rated refs and often end up with non rated refs to direct pools and early DEs. Before you carry out the suit please make sure the area high school athletic committee recognizes your complaint and has looked at the acceptible referee list and modified it to exclude the affending ref.

Please realize that an inexperienced ref is going to call more simultanious actions as they are still learning to watch and decern actions. Touches with brutality is a different issue. A referee usually calls brutality if it looks like the fencer is intentionally trying to cause harm. Try to understand that if a fencer is getting frustrated with the simul calls then they might escalate the game to hit harder and faster to get to touch. If thats the case its not necessarily a cause for "touches with brutality". There is a line that has to be crossed in order for it to be the case and if the ref was inexperienced enough to call 12 simuls ina row they may not recognize that line.

Once again I implore you to address the issue with tournament organizers and those responsible for the BC and the hiring of refs before the carrying out a lawsuit. USFA may have looked at the letter sent to them and saw this was a high school tournament and not a USFA sanctioned event and disregarded it. It may be that since the letter is addressing something out of the realm of control that it has been placed in a "to take care of when we have the time" pile. USFA is an organization run by volunteers and has a lot of work especially as we approch Nationals and Olympics.

What course of action are you expecting USFA to take?

[johnny blade]

this was a jo qualifier and it was ran very bad. The usfa should have responded to our letter. I have heard from other coaches who said the usfa will not respond as the person who made the complaint after getting no response will go away most of the time.
If they had sent a letter saying we will look in to it, I would have sent the video we have, if they had said we will retrain the referee and talk to that bout comm.chair. WE would have stopped there they would have done all we wanted and what they should have done.

And the person who think it a life lesson to be hit hard so you can take it when life get hard. YOUR NUTS. you hit a kid outside fencing and leave welts like that you are going to jail. now if Teaching a child to stand up for them self and report bad conduct and face their problems in court with our laws. then ok we are doing that. to break the rules and hit hard too and take it cause it will make a man out of you. Go away and stay away from children.
We are sending a 3rd letter to the usfa. lets see what happens.
our lawer is sending it.
Fencergirl thank you for saying the nice words. I think if your were there and saw this person and his mannor in refereeing. and the kids being hit like that you would have said something to the referee like we did and when he carded you you would have went to the bout comm, when they did not send anyone till the pools were over. and you saw the welts and then one guys comes out walks around and said OH It is over so its done you would have
got upset like we did. our fencers took first and third. so they went to the jo.
but the other kids did not go and got beat up. So what do you do let it go.
the jo are always in the same place here every year. You want to go in to the same thing next year. So coach my kid did what he was coached to do and got beat up bad even after he won. what do you do about it no one will listen. look at that parent and you tell me what do you do. OH ITS a life lesson.

This is stiil a bad thing if the vote in the next usfa election keeps them in power then it will be the same. just for fun anyone every have the usfa respond to your complaint on a referee.

I bet NO