USFA Election 2008 Debate Question #6: FIE Politics

[fencinginDC]

Parts if this are just another example of a poor job being done by somebody placed in that position. My children participate in a number of trips involving overnight travel. It is not that difficult to put rules and a structure in place, and the appropriate people to act as chaperones, to keep under-age fencers safe.

I am sometimes amazed at how immature the USFA is as an organization. It's like we are stuck in the 1970s.

Now... Let's focus on what we need to do going forward and quit rehashing our mistakes. Who, EXACTLY, is in charge making team travel arrangements (assuming we are talking about an event where fencers are representing their country as part of a team)? That SPECIFIC person can delegate the task of making appropriate decisions regarding chaperones (I hope that is the same thing referred to here as "Cadre").

Related question: If I have a 16-year-old son, for example, on a national team and send them with the team, but without me, am I required to sign some sort of liability waiver? Does that waiver also include language about what is expected of the fencers, AND the consequences? I'm trying to figure out when/if the responsibility passes to the USFA. I can promise you that my child wouldn't go unless I was sure of the procedures in place, assuming I couldn't get myself.

[Capt. Slo-mo]

Originally Posted by epeemike81

The implication of T's statement was that we hold the Athletes to higher standards than the rest of the cadre. We don't.

Well, not technically true. There are some different, substantially more restrictive rules for athletes. For instance, National Team fencers at the competition are not supposed to drink at all...or smoke crack, for that matter. The cadre can drink, but are not supposed to be intoxicated, or have the appearance of intoxication in the presence of the athletes. (see earlier post--falling drunk out of own chair at team dinner)

Athletes are not supposed to be in the room of a teammate of the opposite sex. There is no such restriction for the adults. Cadre are apparently allowed to sneak into each other's rooms and shag themselves blind, as long as it's not an unwanted or inappropriate shagging that veers into sexual harassment.

The kids have adopted a cadre-approved compromise (following certain...ahhh...liberties a few years back). They can socialize before curfew together for some of their killer Scrabble and card games, but the door has to remain propped open at all times.

[Capt. Slo-mo]

Originally Posted by fencinginDC

Who, EXACTLY, is in charge making team travel arrangements (assuming we are talking about an event where fencers are representing their country as part of a team)? That SPECIFIC person can delegate the task of making appropriate decisions regarding chaperones (I hope that is the same thing referred to here as "Cadre")..

DC: At the National Team events, it's generally Andrea Lagan who organizes and approves the team travel...although generally the individual flights are the responsibility of the fencer, as far as researching all the options. There's also a sliding scale of how much money the USFA covers for the flights, based on the international points accrued by the team member. If you don't have enough, and don't get any flights expenses covered, you are free to book whatever you like. If you want Andrea to help coordinate the rooms and the transport between the team hotel and the airport, you have to give her your flight itineraries.

Originally Posted by fencinginDC

Related question: If I have a 16-year-old son, for example, on a national team and send them with the team, but without me, am I required to sign some sort of liability waiver? Does that waiver also include language about what is expected of the fencers, AND the consequences? I'm trying to figure out when/if the responsibility passes to the USFA. I can promise you that my child wouldn't go unless I was sure of the procedures in place, assuming I couldn't get myself.

If you have an under 18 fencer, you get as part of your paperwork packet a code of conduct and a waiver page that has to be notarized. The code of conduct spells out very clearly what is expected of your fencer.

Now, there are many fencers on the team, and only a handful of cadre. Do they have an eyeball on your kids, and keep them under lock and key 24/7? No. Is there plenty of room for mischief? Yes. Do the fencers do a good job of self-regulating their behavior? Not always.

And that's at a National Team event like the different Championships. If it's just a world cup...you get very little travel/supervision help.

[Mo]

Originally Posted by T

Unfortunately, we don't have to go very far to find behavior from "Responsible adults" on both junior and senior world cup/championship trips that is not appropriate. When I go into the bar at the world championships (to get a coke, of course), the bar is often full of American cadre and coaches drinking excessively. There are also incidents of 'relationships' between cadre and other coaches that goes on in public. Every evening is a cause for a party for many (not all). Is this the best example to put forward for our athletes? We hold the athletes to such high standards with the athlete code of conduct but we don't apply it to our cadre.

Pot/ Kettle??
What about coaching fencers when an American is fencing an American and then getting in a shoving match with Cadre members?? Isn't this practically an INTERNATIONAL agreement that such coaching won't happen??
Everyone has been seen drinking in bars at meets... I do mean everyone including well everyone.
Some of the kids who show some of the worst self control at the hotel during international meets, like making excessive noise in the hallways at 11:30 at night when there are kids who are getting up at 6AM the next morning, are those who should REALLY REALLY Know better but don't care. They tell the person that told them to quiet it down,
"well you are making noise telling us to be quiet."
Control your own.
Momster

[fencinginDC]

I'm sorry, but that's just another excuse. You certainly CAN control the actions of minors on a trip.

I am not experienced at all with international fencing events, but this is a matter of simply managing the oversight of minors and keeping them safe. Are you telling me that if my son makes a national team and I can't join him, I have to live with the fact that he won't be surpervised because the USFA can't handle it?

Wake up!! You have 20 fencers (just an example) and three responsible adults. Each adult is in change of 6-7 specific fencers, at all times when outside the fencing venue. They travel as a group. You can let them choose the groups beforehand.

Furthermore, if they sign an agreement that dictates a specific set of requirements, I am assuming that there are CONSEQUENCES. If they drink (assuming that is one of the big violations), you send them home. No questions asked. Let them know this ahead of time.

Originally Posted by Capt. Slo-mo

DC: At the National Team events, it's generally Andrea Lagan who organizes and approves the team travel...although generally the individual flights are the responsibility of the fencer, as far as researching all the options. There's also a sliding scale of how much money the USFA covers for the flights, based on the international points accrued by the team member. If you don't have enough, and don't get any flights expenses covered, you are free to book whatever you like. If you want Andrea to help coordinate the rooms and the transport between the team hotel and the airport, you have to give her your flight itineraries.

If you have an under 18 fencer, you get as part of your paperwork packet a code of conduct and a waiver page that has to be notarized. The code of conduct spells out very clearly what is expected of your fencer.

Now, there are many fencers on the team, and only a handful of cadre. Do they have an eyeball on your kids, and keep them under lock and key 24/7? No. Is there plenty of room for mischief? Yes. Do the fencers do a good job of self-regulating their behavior? Not always.

And that's at a National Team event like the different Championships. If it's just a world cup...you get very little travel/supervision help.

[seak]

Really? I mean if they're 14 sure, 17 no way, and on the junior trips you've got kids in college. Kids at the elder teenage level are going to find ways to hang out, and have fun, and honestly in a lot of those countries they are legal to drink.

This issue is of course not unique to fencing trips, my senior year (HS) trip to Israel was rather fun, and we were all reasonably well behaved kids, but drinking happened, late nights happened, and so did sneaking out of the hotel at night. Expecting adults to be able to control them who aren't their parents at a 1:6 ratio

[fencinginDC]

I have been a chaperone on a trip to New York City with 200+ kids and a relatively small number of adults. We maintained complete control, never had an "incident", and took a reasonable approach to things like giving them time to wind down at night. Kids were on certain halls in the hotel, and parents worked shifts so nobody left their room after lights out.

I am aware of other trips (more than one) where a student was sent home on a bus at the parents' expense, including the cost of the chaperone that accompanied them.

If someone is not a minor, I'm not sure what to do. My college trips were pretty loose with some basic rules and timetables.

My comments only relate to minors, and only if they are representing their country. If I send my son to Summer Nationals without adult supervision, I would be the irresponsible one.

I promise you that if I were given responsibility for you as a minor respresenting your team, you absolutety would follow the rules, without the slightest doubt. And I would do it without having to hang out with you and try to be your buddy (how pathetic is that) or being in your face about anything (there are right and wrong ways to do things). What "other kids" do or what "other countries" do is completely irrelevant.

Originally Posted by seak

Really? I mean if they're 14 sure, 17 no way, and on the junior trips you've got kids in college. Kids at the elder teenage level are going to find ways to hang out, and have fun, and honestly in a lot of those countries they are legal to drink.

This issue is of course not unique to fencing trips, my senior year (HS) trip to Israel was rather fun, and we were all reasonably well behaved kids, but drinking happened, late nights happened, and so did sneaking out of the hotel at night. Expecting adults to be able to control them who aren't their parents at a 1:6 ratio

[seak]

But how old were the kids? Also NY is a totally different animal, given that the legal drinking age in the states is 21, as opposed to 16 in many European countries.

On the aforementioned HS trip a kid was sent home, at his parents expense, he got caught. It had very little effect on the behaviour of the rest of the kids. Most of the stuff going on was in the rooms.

Given that most of the international trips are at the junior level, with a couple at the cadet level most of these kids are 16-20. That's a hard age group to control.

[Mo]

Originally Posted by seak

But how old were the kids? Also NY is a totally different animal, given that the legal drinking age in the states is 21, as opposed to 16 in many European countries.

On the aforementioned HS trip a kid was sent home, at his parents expense, he got caught. It had very little effect on the behaviour of the rest of the kids. Most of the stuff going on was in the rooms.

Given that most of the international trips are at the junior level, with a couple at the cadet level most of these kids are 16-20. That's a hard age group to control.

While this is true for the most part, the thing that bothers me the most is that these trips are not just for fun trips. People who go on them have a lot of training, time and money invested in making it possible to go.
They sign a code of conduct agreement.
If they make a team, shouldn't they follow that code of conduct?
I had an interesting discussion with a fencer from the mid east about being quiet. He said that he had been making noise, knocking on and slamming doors and staying up really late at night but NO ONE TOLD HIM he should stop it.
I asked why someone should have to tell him to stop it.
He was in a hotel with probably 40 other competitors who were fencing the entire range of events. The fencers were dispersed on three floors of the hotel.
He knew when he was trying to sleep that noise carried loudly and easily but could not admit that maybe it was his personal responsibility to be polite or beyond that behave decently to his fellow fencers.
The issue is that this is a kid's responsibility. That being said, it is really hard when there are a few kids who are high spirited who are bent on staying up most of the night and making a lot of noise to keep noise down.
As an adult in the hotel, I felt it was time for someone to tell them to hush up. I may have been ruder than I needed to be but heck, after being woken up for the third or fourth time and then catching a bunch of lip, I was a bit of a *****.
It seems that making a world team is hard enough. Teammates causing other teammates to lose sleep and performance ability because they are just don't seem to care about anyone but themselves, is sick.
Parents who are on trips but stay in other hotels should be darn sure their children are not causing problems.
Later in the trip all I had to do was stick my head in the hallway and ask if we were "remembering to use our inside voices." We could all laugh at that but the quiet time was respected.
The Momster

[seak]

Mo, I completely agree with you that the behaviour is deplorable, and shouldn't happen, it just doesn't surprise me, and unless FencinginDC is Mary Poppins I doubt that just because he was there all of the kids would be well behaved.

Now, if the adults who are supposed to be chaperoning are getting drunk at the bar, that probably doesn't help matters.

Honestly though, I think less rules may actually have a greater impact then very strict rules, such that if you're above the legal drinking age in that country you are allowed to drink, and having a room where people who want to be up late can go, might help solve matters. Then again I'm not a parent, have never been a parent, and will (hopefully) not be a parent for a very long time, so I'm perfectly willing to be corrected on this.

[zéphirin]

Originally Posted by Mo

Pot/ Kettle??
What about coaching fencers when an American is fencing an American and then getting in a shoving match with Cadre members?? Isn't this practically an INTERNATIONAL agreement that such coaching won't happen??

Hmm, "Watchoo talkin' 'bout, Mo?"

Shoving matches off the strip between coaches and cadre on OUR team at international events? Care to explain?

This thread is getting interesting!

[tdwg83]

Those on national team should act as though they truely like representing their country. I honestly don't care if a fencer is the best of the best of the best if they can't behave in a proper manor. It should be an earned responsibility rather than a reward for just performance.

[sleepyweasle]

I can only talk about behavior at cadet & junior World Cups - but something that I think might help is if everyone involved treated the kids like a TEAM of internationally competitive athletes representing not only themselves but the USA at these events. At least at the WC's I've been to, everyone involved seems to treat the event like a NAC that just happens to be taking place in a different country. The US coach pretty much ignores most of the kids (with the exception of fencers from his/her club) - some kids bring their own coach for that reason - people eat meals and arrive at the venue at whatever time they want, there's no formal warm-up or practice, there's not much camaraderie for the team as a whole - club affiliation beats out US affiliation.

At least from my observations, fencers from other countries seem to have breakfast as a team with their coach, travel to the venue as a team, and warm up together at least for part of the time as a team with a coach looking on. I realize that many of these other teams are, in fact, all from one central club and do have the same coach and are used to traveling together as a team - which makes it easier. But perhaps a little more "team discipline" would improve behavior for those involved - at least before the competition.

Of course, AFTER the competition all bets are off...as my kid and her room mate found out as they had to convince the naked drunken Hungarian banging on the door outside their room that he was on the wrong floor...

[Capt. Slo-mo]

SW: This is beginning to veer off thread from FIE politics, but it's all good stuff for international issues consideration.

You are absolutely right...there could be much more of a "team" component at Cadet and JR World Cups...but the Weapon Coach--if he/she is actually there--has no formal responsibility to organize anything other than activities around their personal students. This "little help from the USFA" scenario seems to always come as a huge surprise to new parents/fencers just coming into the international scene.

So maybe that's a good question to the candidates:

How would you improve the "team" situation at the World Cup level...or is the staus quo working just fine?

[sleepyweasle]

Well - one thing might be to have at least Junior National coaches who go to world cups with the team and are actually there to HELP the fencers - like by paying attention and at least giving advice like "watch out for the Italians - they all like to do this action...", rather than their current vocation which seems to be hanging out with their buddies at the bar.

Today's juniors are tomorrows seniors. If the USFA wants to be internationally competitive they should be willing to lend a guiding hand (since they don't help much financially).

[oiuyt]

Originally Posted by epeemike81

To both slates: What are your plans regarding dealing with the FIE Congress? Who do you intend to have as your FIE Congress representative, and whose counsel (if anybody) do you intend to seek out to aid with the politics at the FIE level?

Collective response from the NC-nominated candidates:

We are aware that our expertise and experience in the international arena is limited, and have begun to take steps to address this lack. We feel it is important that we be ready to make decisions promptly after the ballots are counted, should the results be in our favor.

While it is typical that the president serves as the delegate to the FIE congress, it is by no means required or necessary. Historically, for example, Chaba Palagy, Sam Cheris and Sunil Subharwal served as our delegates, as did Stacey Johnson and Nancy Anderson prior to their presidencies. Kalle is prepared to serve in this role; alternatively, we may ask someone with established ties in the international community to be our delegate. We are talking with people with experience in this area about their views of the FIE political scene, relationships with other federations, and how best to ensure that we continue to have significant influence internationally. This information will inform our decision concerning who to name to this post.

We also will meet with those who have an interest in serving immediately after the election and will make a decision soon thereafter so that that individual (if it is not Kalle) will be included in our conversations about international matters from the start. Whoever serves as our representative will be expected to consult with those who have knowledge and experience with the matters on the agenda in advance of the meeting, to have a clear understanding of the positions to be taken during the debate and during the voting, and to report promptly concerning all discussions and actions taken at the meeting.

[HDG]

Originally Posted by seak

in a lot of those countries they are legal to drink.

Originally Posted by seak

the legal drinking age in the states is 21, as opposed to 16 in many European countries.

Originally Posted by seak

if you're above the legal drinking age in that country you are allowed to drink

Strictly speaking, under the Nationality Principle if you are a US national, our laws attach to you wherever you go; it's still stricto sensu illegal for an American to smoke pot in Amsterdam, or drink under 21 in a country with a lower drinking age.

Would these things ever be prosecuted? Obviously not. Does it give extra leverage to chaperones? Sure.

PM for citations.