... and yet you judge his ability to be rational, measured, and fair?
Originally Posted by MyrddinsPrecint;835277
If you want to write a long post talking about the situations you've seen him avoid biased actions, navigate difficult political waters, and schedule things..... that might be a more useful application of your personal knowledge
How about his decision to not remove Erin Smart and replace her with Doris Willette, his own fencer? Doesn't that count as unbiased action?
Although I am not familiar with the politics of the USFA, it sounds like he's been around a few years and seems to be competent at navigating those waters.
I'm not privy to how things are scheduled nationally, but I've seen how things were rearranged at GGFC to enable Mike to spend several months in Europe with the US foil women. I've seen scheduling handled so that the needs of our athletes are met whether they are at there first RYC or heading to Europe for a WC, while things are kept running smoothly at home for the rest of the fencers. He is very much a part of that scheduling.
But again, I'm biased, because I'm at a place that is serving the needs of a diverse group of fencers of different ages, different skills, and different competitive levels, and he is very much a part of making that place possible.
... and yet you judge his ability to be rational, measured, and fair?
No, I really don't. I merely have asserted that those are the important qualities we ought to be discussing, as those are the relevant qualities (among a few others).
I'm a spectator here. I have no horse in this race. I don't even like women's foil. I have some vague sense that it's in the interest of fairness that we continue to have a women's foil program. That there continue to be women's foil events. But, seriously, my life might actually improve if there was some sort of targeted antibiotic that cured the world of women's foil.
Despite that, I was trying to be helpful, and explain to you what the position more fully entailed so that you, biased as all humans are, could make an argument for your side that was as effective as possible. I was trying to be nice.
I'm sorry, I'll try another approach:
You're a bloody moron.
.... Nah. Still not my style. I'll leave that one to ex-boyfriends, wherever they might be...
When it comes to deciding schedules for which competitions to go to, and will count towards various qualifications, let me suggest this way, in order to limit bias but still have input from general knowledge of high-level fencing:
1. All high-level coaches of fencers are invited to field a suggestion of which competitions should be on the schedule of the upcoming year. These suggestions are sent in in writing. The coach identifies himself with his signature written on a special paper which is put separately in the envelope. The suggestion must fit into predescribed criteria, such as total number of competitions within a set range, financial considerations, etc. The coaches are encouraged to support their suggested schedule with extensive motivations.
2. A coach if considered high-level if he has at least one fencer who is: in the top-8 of the weapon/gender combination on the NRPS, top-64 in the most recent FIE points standings, or was either the relevant top-4 or top-32 last year in a younger age category, and aged out of it.
3. The USFA secretary makes a sufficient number of copies of the suggestions. The suggestions are marked not which the respective coaches name, but with some nameless identifier.
4. Each high-level coach suggests a number of reasonable deciders. The coach may suggest as many deciders as he wishes. The names of the suggested deciders are written on separate slips, which are put in a smaller envelope which is put in the larger envelope which also contains the motivated suggestions.
5. A decider must fulfill the following criteria: Have coached a fencer to at least critera sufficient for being high-level coach in any of the two other weapons sometime during their career, have been active as a coach sometime during the latest 4 years, and during the last 2 years have not coached anyone - in the weapon for which a schedule is being made - to anything but middling level. In this context, it means that coaching a fencer who made it to win regionals, or compete in the DIV I Nationals, are out.
6. The USFA secretary prepares information/decision packages this way: At first, a decider name is pulled at random from the decider name envelope of the first high-level coach who has submitted a suggestion. An envelope is prepared for this decider, which contains the motivated suggestions of all the high-level coaches - except the one who nominated that decider.
7. The USFA secretary continues to prepare new decider packages the same way, only that the new decider names are randomly drawn from the decider name envelope of the next high-level coach, and then the next. If a decider name comes a second time, then a second name is drawn from that decider name envelope. No further action is taken regarding already complied decider packages. If the decider name envelope of a a specific high-level coach becomes empty, then the secretary simply moves on to the next high-level coach.
8. The preparation of decider packages is continued until all copies (see stage #3) are used, preferably at least 8 different deciders.
9. The deciders are mailed their respective decider packages, with motivated but anonymous schedule suggestions. Each decider weighs the pros and cons of each suggestion, and then returns his suggestion. This suggestion must fit the same predescribed criteria mentioned in stage #1, and all competitions listed in the schedule returned by the individual decider must have been mentioned in at least one of the suggestions sent to him. Other than that, the individual decider is free to compose a schedule as he sees fit. The deciders are given sufficient time (several weeks) to do this before they send back their schedules to the USFA in closed envelopes. The deciders do their work at home.
10. As soon as the decider deadline has passed, the USFA secretary collects all return envelopes sent in by the various deciders by then. Late send-ins are disregarded. The USFA secretary choses three of these, completely at random. Those three envelopes are openend, and the schedules are inspected for compliance with the predefined criteria (se stage #1). If any suggestion does not comply with these criteria, new envelopes are onpened and checked, one at a time, until the secretary has exactly three compliant schedules. All surplus schedules are thrown away.
11. The three surviving schedules are posted on the USFA website in their entirety, but without personally identifying information.
12. The high-level coaches for the weapon are summoned to vote for whichever of the alternatives they can accept. The coaches can vote for all three of them, two of them, or only one of them - but they can not reject them all.
13. The USFA secretary tallies the vote, and whichever alternative gets the most number of votes becomes the official schedule for that weapon/gender combination for that year. In the case of a tie, lots are cast to find a winner among those that got the most number of votes.
So there! A system which incorporates knowledge of high-level fencing (through the deciders), has input from those directly affected (suggestion and voting from high-level coaches) and is difficult to game, since no high-level coach can know which decider is considering his suggestions, and what the decider thinks of those suggestions. Deciders have little incentive to mess up the system, since they have no dogs in this fight. Th predecided criteria ensure that whatever comes out of the system fulfills minimal quality levels.
The discerning reader will instantly spot that the system that I have suggested above is a sequential mix of approval nomination, extended random ballot, and finally approval voting. The reader with some more knowledge will instantly realize that the suggested system is a greatly simplified version of the voting system used to elect Venetian Doges in the middle ages, a system which proved surprising resistant to nonviolent gaming. This is not rocket science, people.
In any normal fencing federation a much simple system of schedule generation would be used - a designated national coach would make up his mind, and that would be that. However, with all the dysfunction among members of USFA, USFA needs a system which not only prevents shady business, but also makes it evidently clear that the system is very difficult to game.
......
In any normal fencing federation a much simple(r) system of schedule generation would be used - a designated national coach would make up his mind, and that would be that. However, with all the dysfunction among members of USFA, USFA needs a system which not only prevents shady business, but also makes it evidently clear that the system is very difficult to game.
Peter Gustafsson
By the lack of responses, I gather that we are blown away by Peter’s suggestion. As oiuyt has pointed out many times, we can’t even get top American coaches to do a membership application!
…but I am going to keep it positive and avoid low-quality-thoughts.
In the past, the national coach for men’s foil conducted a meeting at Summer Nationals with the coaches who had fencers in the top 10 nps. This seemed to work but this would be even better with a little admin preparation …and maybe an anonymous voting system….some scaled down version of Peter’s “Doges” election system.
As for the national coach selection process, I’m going to assume positive intentions.
*“Assuming innocence or positive intent doesn’t mean that the person (or persons) is necessarily innocent of the actions they took, or you should ignore the behavior. It means understanding that people are just doing what makes sense to them based on their own thinking. In that frame of mind, we can approach situations with perspective, which helps us determine the truth and decide on the best course of action.”
*2005-2008 Senn-Delaney Leadership Consulting Group, LLC. All rights reserved.
Last edited by MdA; 11-02-2009 at 12:43 PM.
Reason: our
Despite that, I was trying to be helpful, and explain to you what the position more fully entailed so that you, biased as all humans are, could make an argument for your side that was as effective as possible. I was trying to be nice.
I'm sorry, I'll try another approach:
You're a bloody moron.
.... Nah. Still not my style. I'll leave that one to ex-boyfriends, wherever they might be...
My sympathy to you. It's obviously difficult for a misogynist to have to put up with the concept of women in sports.... which might be why you don't even like women's foil...
When it comes to deciding schedules for which competitions to go to, and will count towards various qualifications, let me suggest this way, in order to limit bias but still have input from general knowledge of high-level fencing:.....
So there! A system which incorporates knowledge of high-level fencing (through the deciders), has input from those directly affected (suggestion and voting from high-level coaches) and is difficult to game, since no high-level coach can know which decider is considering his suggestions, and what the decider thinks of those suggestions. Deciders have little incentive to mess up the system, since they have no dogs in this fight. Th predecided criteria ensure that whatever comes out of the system fulfills minimal quality levels.
In any normal fencing federation a much simple system of schedule generation would be used - a designated national coach would make up his mind, and that would be that. However, with all the dysfunction among members of USFA, USFA needs a system which not only prevents shady business, but also makes it evidently clear that the system is very difficult to game.
My sympathy to you. It's obviously difficult for a misogynist to have to put up with the concept of women in sports.... which might be why you don't even like women's foil...
Look, you wanna know something about me? My college said "**** title 9". Who needs equity in sports? It's meaningless at a school like I went to. When only one sex shows up to play varsity or club sports, it's not the athletic department's fault!
... Oh, wait, it was the fault of admissions. You see, my college only accepted people "born female". So, while we had some guys on campus, they were either enrolled elsewhere or had transitioned to male. And there weren't enough of them to field a team of anything.
Also important is that you didn't ask me how I feel about men's foil. I can live without that one, too. It just affects my life somewhat less directly, because I've only been forced into directing women's foil before, so I'd rather do away with women's foil, but I would personally be happy to eliminate the weapon altogether. I've got some friends who would object, though, and they care about it a whole lot more than I do, so they're gonna win.
Look, I get that women, even women who like looking at other women naked, can be misogynist. Even women who chose to be surrounded by other women for four years straight can be misogynist. It's just.... I'm pretty sure that I'm really not.
Look, you wanna know something about me? My college said "**** title 9". Who needs equity in sports? It's meaningless at a school like I went to. When only one sex shows up to play varsity or club sports, it's not the athletic department's fault!
... Oh, wait, it was the fault of admissions. You see, my college only accepted people "born female". So, while we had some guys on campus, they were either enrolled elsewhere or had transitioned to male. And there weren't enough of them to field a team of anything.
Also important is that you didn't ask me how I feel about men's foil. I can live without that one, too. It just affects my life somewhat less directly, because I've only been forced into directing women's foil before, so I'd rather do away with women's foil, but I would personally be happy to eliminate the weapon altogether. I've got some friends who would object, though, and they care about it a whole lot more than I do, so they're gonna win.
Look, I get that women, even women who like looking at other women naked, can be misogynist. Even women who chose to be surrounded by other women for four years straight can be misogynist. It's just.... I'm pretty sure that I'm really not.
Is your problem with foil a result of the new timings, or do you just not care for the weapon and its rules?
Is your problem with foil a result of the new timings, or do you just not care for the weapon and its rules?
I don't know. Basically, I fundamentally don't understand it. I have no sense of anything tactical, I can only guess at the difference between a beat and a parry... And since I don't even begin to understand it, I don't enjoy watching it. It may have something to do with the fact that I've never belonged to a club/team with a particularly large and strong foil contingent.
I'm not suggesting my viewpoint on this one is particularly defensible. It just happens to be part of the reason I really don't care who the foil national coaches are except for in a vague "for the good of the sport" kind of way.
In an attempt to change the thread back to the OP, anyone care to suggest candidates for new HP Director, unless you feel the USFA is going to use Mike's resignation to restructure and eliminate the job.
In an attempt to change the thread back to the OP, anyone care to suggest candidates for new HP Director, unless you feel the USFA is going to use Mike's resignation to restructure and eliminate the job.
Originally Posted by USFA
Aichele sees this as an opportunity to re-evaluate the current structure of the High Performance Program saying, "The USFA has witnessed a number of highly-talented individuals rotate through this role over the last five years. With that type of turnover, one has to step back and take a look at the role itself. I believe the time is right to consider a change. We have been working to develop a departmental structure that will effectively prepare us for the Olympic Games in '12, '16, and '20...Reorganization is never easy, but the opportunity before us is great. "Aichele will assume most of the communicative and programmatic functions of the Director High Performance, while Christine Simmons, Director of Operations for the USFA, will provide direct oversight of the High Performance staff effective November 9th.
There is nothing in the above that indicates that Kurt's and Christine's assumption of the role is temporary or that the HPD job is open. Moving this role to permanent staff is consistant with other recent changes (e.g. youth program).
There is nothing in the above that indicates that Kurt's and Christine's assumption of the role is temporary or that the HPD job is open. Moving this role to permanent staff is consistant with other recent changes (e.g. youth program).
That's exactly my point. Kurt and Christine can certainly handle the administrative stuff, but that means that the individual national coaches will have probably more autonomy over their domains, now that they do not have to report to the HP director. Is this good? What do other countries do? Does this help with overall planning and strategy for our so-called elite fencers and the quest for more medals in 2012? Is it simply a matter of saving money by eliminating the HP position and salary, since it was obviously not planned, but was a reaction to Mike resigning?
My sympathy to you. It's obviously difficult for a misogynist to have to put up with the concept of women in sports.... which might be why you don't even like women's foil...
I'm pretty sure this was unintentionally funny, but it definitely was funny.
The only way to atone for being occasionally a little over-dressed is by being always absolutely over-educated. -Oscar Wilde
There is nothing in the above that indicates that Kurt's and Christine's assumption of the role is temporary or that the HPD job is open. Moving this role to permanent staff is consistant with other recent changes (e.g. youth program).
Originally Posted by USFA
"Aichele will assume most of the communicative and programmatic functions of the Director High Performance, while Christine Simmons, Director of Operations for the USFA, will provide direct oversight of the High Performance staff effective November 9th.
Is there a reason or two that I have severe concerns about this?
1) With all due respect, how on earth could Kurt have an inkling of what dealing with high performance fencers and coaches is about? This is the Olympic team and World Cup teams for gosh sakes... not the beginner high school team.
2) Communication hasn't yet proven to be a strong suit of the USFA brass, the efforts of Brad and Mark notwithstanding. Note the three communications "successes" of recent months:
- The Training Camp at the Dallas World Cup
- Stay and Pay
- Hung-a-Star
3) Our high performance group clearly needs some structure and coordination. We have groups that seem pretty happy (WF), groups that have seen challenges (WE) and groups all in between. No doubt this is in large part due to the management of the program - and the families involved in it - but having someone at least ride heard on the management side to bring/improve the overall status makes some sense.
Again, I go back to my gut feeling on this - which is that there is more to it than meets the eye. This doesn't look like an "gee, Mike quit so now we can play around with this program." Instead, it looks like a "we want to play around with this program, so Mike, it may be a good idea to quit." Of course, I could be paranoid - but it just doesn't really pass the smell test.
Note that many have viewed HP as a financial sink hole in the past, which lends further credence to my suspicion. Still, having Kurt as the HP figurehead doesn't quite seem right to me...
I'm pretty sure this was unintentionally funny, but it definitely was funny.
Actually it was meant to avoid saying something rude that might upset "MyrddinsPrecint" further.
When the preferred way of expressing yourself is by calling someone "a moron" and then allude to the fact that you are going to leave the name calling to that person's "ex-boyfriends" there are a few conclusions that can be made.... one of them the "m" word... which I might add is not gender specific by definition.
Although the "current" boyfriend and I had a good laugh when we read his post... I decided NOT to post the initial response we had.... although I'd wager you probably would have found that much funnier than the sanitized response I posted.
actually it was meant to avoid saying something rude that might upset "myrddinsprecint" further.
When the preferred way of expressing yourself is by calling someone "a moron" and then allude to the fact that you are going to leave the name calling to that person's "ex-boyfriends" there are a few conclusions that can be made.... One of them the "m" word... Which i might add is not gender specific by definition.
Although the "current" boyfriend and i had a good laugh when we read his post... I decided not to post the initial response we had.... Although i'd wager you probably would have found that much funnier than the sanitized response i posted.
Actually it was meant to avoid saying something rude that might upset "MyrddinsPrecint" further.
When the preferred way of expressing yourself is by calling someone "a moron" and then allude to the fact that you are going to leave the name calling to that person's "ex-boyfriends" there are a few conclusions that can be made.... one of them the "m" word... which I might add is not gender specific by definition.
Although the "current" boyfriend and I had a good laugh when we read his post... I decided NOT to post the initial response we had.... although I'd wager you probably would have found that much funnier than the sanitized response I posted.
You still think I'm a guy, despite me telling you I went to an all women's college????? Do you not read carefully or do you not care?
I'm a woman. I have all the associated woman-parts. My preferred way of expression is not calling someone "a moron"--- I merely tried it out to see if it helped, and it clearly didn't. I suggested that it was more the style of one of MY ex-boyfriends, who is on this board, and who is often very.... confrontational..... in his online persona.
While it may be the style on other internet forums to assume that everyone is male until proven otherwise, there are enough women here that it's ill-advised.
And, by the way, if you think you can "upset" me, you drastically overestimate your impact on my life. Although I admit, you have "amused" me quite a bit....
Last edited by MyrddinsPrecint; 11-05-2009 at 12:30 PM.
Reason: questionable grammar usage
I think that this would be a funny, and to some enlightening, time to post a picture of MP dressed all in FIE whites, but mask held in hand.
Ask and ye shall receive.
The ones with my mask literally in my hands were of poorer quality. I assume this one will suffice?
[Edit: And let me add a more... feminine one as well...]
Last edited by MyrddinsPrecint; 11-05-2009 at 12:37 PM.
Originally Posted by MyrddinsPrecint
of USFA, USFA needs a system which not only prevents shady business, but also makes it evidently clear that the system is very difficult to game.
