Safesport comments from an EVP

[robert6262]

This was my first executive meeting and it became a preview for the upcoming January 2022 board meeting. Lots of good conversations about the changing world that is engulfing water skiers with new expectations, possible rules and requirements from Congress. It was pointed out that we have received letters directly from Congressional leaders related to our handling of Safesport and background check expectations as a national governing board (NGB). It was also evident that insurance companies use their influence and control for demands to force the implementation of some of the newly defined requirements on our membership as well. What was enlightening was that membership in USOPC has little impact on these requirements. Our membership as a recognized NBG is an incredible benefit to keeping our credibility in the eyes of potential sponsors and media outlets for future funding and support for teams, events and athletes at a variety of levels.

 

The most critical conversation of the morning included details that our membership needs to be aware of no matter the sport. We are going to have to figure out a way to comply with the new requirements.

A great deal of conversation has been shared about the impact of new requirements and membership criteria as well as questions about disassociating from USOPC. For insight into where the requirements for coaches, managers, drivers, and all other officials comes from consider the following, SafeSport was created by the US Congress and is mandated to all sports that are affiliated with the USOPC as well as any other amateur sports organizations.

 

Untangling USAWSWS from the USOPC is a challenge at many levels. Nearly $600,000 over the last 3 years of USAWSWS’ revenue has come from the USOPC. We also benefit from additional sponsorships and grants solidified by the organization’s USOPC relationship. That revenue is benefit to keeping the lights on. Even if we had the money to go independent the organization's legal liability could increase substantially and it seems, we cannot avoid congressional or legal oversight.

 

Blaming the current USAWS leadership for the mandates misses the point. No one in leadership at USAWSWS or AWSA has the power to do away with the mandates nor did they create them. If SafeSport and background mandates are the last straw and you are going to quit over it, you will have a hard time finding a new sport. The national governing body for soccer, softball, baseball, bowling, hockey, tennis, weightlifting, swimming, surfing and most other organized sports all fall under "Protecting Young Victims from Sexual Abuse and Safe Sport Authorization Act of 2017". It is understandable to dislike the mandates. It may also be inconvenient and burdensome at a time when we need to encourage membership growth, but it is an unfortunate reality of the world we live in.

 

The board has assurances from Nate Boudreaux, USAWSWS Executive Director, that the details related to the liability and responsibilities for the LOC will be clarified in greater detail. He relayed we have seen few changes from past years except in minor language clarification.

 

USAWSWS is also working to meet the security demands of online technology and will be implementing a new Membership Dashboard. This new resource will be announced shortly via email requesting a reset of your member access password. This new platform is designed to meet the security expectations of the membership and will integrate some new features that will be implemented over the next year including simplified tracking of certifications, licenses, background checks and educational successes.

 

Please remember we are a great family of people that love water skiing and we have the ability to come together to make it work for everyone involved.

 

Robert Howerton

 

[ToddL]

Robert, thank you for taking the time to share this information.

[bigtex2011]

@robert6262 thanks for the update

[Golfguy]

It is time for the AWSA to disassociate from USAWSWS. I can see how the revenues from USOC are important to the USAWSWS, but not so much to the AWSA. When I say AWSA I generally refer to Local area tournament skiing. Our segment is small and funded by the skiers and LOC's themselves for the most part. Some of the new requirements placed upon the LOC and club s are onerous and present potential liability to the other owners of the lake properties. Why not change this to make SS an individual responsibility for each competitor. As an organizer I can not expose the millions of dollars of asset and investments that it take to build and own a private lake complex. Making the LOC and Club responsible for enforcing SS regulations does this. I now there are good intentions to this law, but it is over reach just like so many other regulations of late. What would it take to figuratively withdraw the AWSA from the USAWSWS?

[JackQ]

The update is nice, but late to the party. Membership should have been informed of the issues before board action, and then after, explaining the decision and rational. That is how many well run organizations operate. This is even more desirous given AWSA's past history of lack of transparently, and dubious decision making ( Headquarters' building , and others)

[The_MS]

I may not be able to find another sport to compete in but I can sure quit competing in this one and still ski my tail off with my friends whenever I want. I will also keep my Est 2k per year in my wallet.

[unksskis]

@robert6262 can you give further detail to the direct letters from Congressional leaders and what they were commenting on?

[ForrestGump]

All I know is that I don't have to deal with Safe Sport training to race in USA Cycling events or be an official in USA Cycling events. Only if I'm a coach.

[skidawg]

@ForrestGump in addition to that....SS is required in cycling only when coaching juniors, participating in clinics with juniors....pretty simple and makes sense

[robert6262]

@unksskis, @skidawg see if this works https://tinyurl.com/28s3prat

 

I think what is identified in the letter is that SafeSport training is expected and insures that our membership is reinforced to understand the obligations under the law.

 

[klindy]

@skidawg Your statement is exactly the struggle with the mandate. With waterskiing there are lots of opportunities for interaction with juniors. The law requires special attention to any time an adult has influence over and interaction with a minor (I didn’t write the law nor am I debating the logic).

 

For many sports that’s pretty easy to define. Either participants are athletes or coaches, trainers, referees/umpires/etc. Many times waterskiing skiers are judges and the judges ski. So the “net” cast under the definitions gets bigger and more complicated to manage. For example, for show skiing essentially everyone has contact with and ‘influence’ over minors, so a 100% requirement is easier to understand.

 

Three-event is less straight forward but still lots of potential so the USAWSWS board saw fit to simplify and make the requirement applicable to everyone (hence the language of being “proactive”).

[sunperch]

All adults who are authorized to interact with minor or amateur athletes at an amateur sports organization facility or at an event sanctioned by an NGB or member of an NGB are obligated under the law to report suspected child abuse, including sexual abuse.

I did not see anything in that letter other than an authorized adult is obligated to report suspicious/abusive behavior and the NGB cannot interfere with such reporting. Where did the mandate for SS training and background check come from? If the broadly cast "net" references judges of the minors, I would be happy to volunteer to judge only the adults! I have done my time with the junior divisions including judging at Class C, Regionals and Nationals, driving and volunteering at junior camps, etc.. I would gladly pass the baton to the younger group of parents.

[jayski]

I call bull$h!T...I would LOVE to see proof a judge has more chance to interact with a minor....My ass is in the boat with another adult, or in a tower with a couple adults, or scrambling to change to go ski in 3-4 skiers whom are adults then back on repeat, this holds true for the majority of folks I regularly judge with, whom if we all said screw it would cripple tournaments at multiple sites...enlighten me where my interaction time is greater than JOE SKIER just showing up to ski and can lurk around the site all day with just a course under their belt...

 

skip it...felt good to type that..but it's useless efforts...

[Bruce_Butterfield]

@robert6262 @klindy ok, so Congress says "...adults authorized to interact with

certain minors and amateur athletes must report evidence of child abuse,......" I think most can see how that flows down to the "training mandate", but there is still a huge gap to get from Congressional laws to requiring background checks for judges and the onerous new requirements for the LOCs https://teamusa.org/usa-water-ski/safe-sport/sanctioned-event-requirements, especially wrt the comment from Nate regarding LOC requirements "we have seen few changes from past years except in minor language clarification."

 

Its obvious that the "Sanctioned Event Safesport Requirments" levied on the LOCs was written by someone who has never been to a waterski tournament or has any idea what happens at one. How do we get these changed to something reasonable?

[The_MS]

They are dug in like Alabama ticks and will not back out.

[ForrestGump]

In BMX(a real olympic sport), as a track operator, I do not need Safe Sport training to run the facility and races. Neither do I need it to score. Or be a track judge. I only need it as a BMX certified coach. Which I am.

[bigtex2011]

yawn

[skidawg]

It broadly says interaction....back to the earlier statement...define interaction...counting to six from a tower as a minor skis or watching from a boat while a minor skis. Needs to be a better definition....close interaction i.e. jd week long clinics, ski school settings. weekend tournaments with parental supervision makes no sense... Nate B. is just being lazy.

[LeonL]

I wilted under and did SS, as there was SOME reasoning behind it. (Read very little, and painting with a broad brush) But the BG check for judges, and only judges, is asinine. Its gonna be a sport killer. I predict that the number of tournament sanctions will drop significantly, due to lack of available judges.

[Jody_Seal]

Thanks Robert for your feed back and your understanding of the events during your first rodeo!

It is commendable that you stepped into the fry pan.

However many of your statements and remarks are naive at best.

There is a reason our historical sponsors have dumped AWSA for the most part.

They have seen that AWSA has lost enormous membership in numbers. Those members are potential customers. loss of revenue as well as resources some of these sponsors-supporters provide , they have to cut their marketing loss somewhere.To make the statement about benefits of compliance with the USOCPC and potential

sponsor Returns is the Naive part.

 

Again your input of $600k by the USOC into USAWS however you did not mention that out of that USAWS has to purchase the SafeSport franchise.

What went to AWSA in the last three years?

Estimate maybe right around $50K a year? A Second hand tow boat cost that!

 

Reminder sir, You also represent the members in your region of this Organization that find these mandates-Policys are out of line, overeach but mostly in an Economically poor direction for the sport.

There is a Reason Most All the Major boat companys have moved their sponsorships and Marketing dollars away From USAWS/AWSA .

 

It's Funny but The WWA is not associated with The USAWS NGB and yet is the predominate entity in the Sport of WakeBoarding. Guess where our sponsorship/marketing dollar loss went?

 

 

Carry on!

[ToddL]

@robert6262 " Our membership as a recognized NBG is an incredible benefit to keeping our credibility in the eyes of potential sponsors and media outlets for future funding and support for teams, events and athletes at a variety of levels."

 

Has this been quantified?

 

Cycling and BMX have been mentioned repeatedly in these threads thanks to members who participate in those sports. They have reported repeatedly that their sports are not requiring these depths of controls.

 

Will AWSA leadership schedule a meeting with those sport's BOD to clarify how and why they can operate as such? Possibly there is a best practice to be learned via some benchmarking? This topic is clearly primary to our organization. It seems like a very small effort to invest in learning about these sports' handling of these challenges.

 

I'll add the following... I started competing in autocross. In order to compete, I do not need any national membership. I do not even need a local membership. My costs per event are roughly $40. I do have to work 1 heat in order to be able to race in my heat. To work, I need no special training, no background check, no certification. The track is typically between 40 to 70 seconds long to complete and we get between 3 to 6 runs in a heat. So, the actual time "competing" is quite small, similar to slalom skiing, eh? The participants range in age from 16+. Spectators can be any age. Riders (no drivers) can be as young as 13. These events are part of the SCCA, the national governing body for solo racing. The drivers' scores are part of their qualification for the national competition.

Any of this sound familiar? Yet, as a participant and volunteer worker, I have none of the costs and regulations that I have in water skiing. $40 to participate. Most events, there were over 120 drivers, and two of them had over 160. All were completed in 1 day.

 

So, there is another sport which is competing for my time on the weekends. It seems to be in the lead. And this sucks because I love waterskiing and my water skiing family.

 

 

[teammalibu]

@ToddL Sounds like fun to me!

 

[ToddL]

@teammalibu - It is!!! I have also learned a LOT about safely piloting my car in pretty intense or extreme maneuvers. I have very skillfully dodged a deer in the road since developing these skills.

[lpskier]

I just checked with Sportsinsurance.com. Their club/event policies do not exclude SAM liability. For you clubs and HOA’s worried about SAM liability at tournaments, here is your solution.

Call Wayne at (518) 891-2020

[A_B]

Lost me at Congressional "Leaders"....