ToddL

@lpskier - John, if you think the opinions of departing members don't matter, then I would never want you working for any corporation's marketing division. Such an inwardly-focused, siloed perspective is the death of organizations.

@Bruce_Butterfield - that link mentions a virtual "Town Hall" with the insurance broker to explain "why". Every town hall event I have attended allows for comments and questions by the attendees. This seems like the perfect opportunity to bring exactly your points and many more directly to the insurance entities since USA-WSWS has placed much of the blame directly upon them.

@jedgell - I guess you missed most of my prior posts on this topic. I totally agree with you. There is no sense in this. As I stated, leadership put up a challenge of "give us ideas for a solution". So, knowing where they are starting and were the rest of us are, I made a middle-ground suggestion. They are clearly unwilling to back completely off this BGC bandwagon. The best we can hope for is to steer it away from the edge of the cliff it is stampeding toward.

@jedgell - you can't have your cake (youth sports) and eat it (no BGC), too. Pick one. Also, which would you choose: allowing adults to continue in the sport or running off adults for the sake of the youth? Unless we divide and conquer, I fear both halves will suffer. The BGC part is a huge pill to swallow. The Safe Sport training is debatable, but not truly a deal breaker as long as it remains included in the value of one's membership fee. Do you send your kids to ski schools or paid for coaching? Did you ask to see their BGCs?

Just FYI - I posted a proposal in the other thread for one possible solution.

One more comment about coaches and BGCs. Are all coaches at all ski schools L1 or higher certified? Are all "pro" coaches L1's? I am sure some are, but many are not. One very popular ski school is primarily staffed by international collegiate skiers. I significantly doubt those "coaches" are L1 certified and have been BGCed. I have taken lessons from several pro skiers in recent years. Yet, none of their names appear on the official USA-WSWS directory as instructors. Maybe this is a bigger risk to truly protecting our youth than forcing all officials to do BGCs. Current list of instructors attached for your review.

from Nate's letter: "mandatory reporting and prevention training for adult members who have regular contact with minor athletes" Regular contact means routine or on-going participation in activities directly with minors. Regular contact means ongoing interactions during a 12-month period wherein an Adult Participant is in a role of direct and active engagement with any Minor Athlete. This includes coaches, and team managers, staff, physicians and trainers. source: https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/regular-contact What I see above are roles whereby the person is in extended, direct personal contact or frequently recurring contact. The roles appear to be associated with adult positions assigned to manage or lead groups of youth by the designation of that role. Again, from Nate's letter: "The definition of regular contact is debatable but typically covers coaches, instructors, officials, leadership boards and national team members." I think no one debates the appropriateness of coaches, instructors, and team leaders of youth teams. However, officials is where the debate starts. There is nothing that I see in the law that states that ALL officials in a sport where sometimes youth may participate must be BGC-ed. This is the part where USA-WSWS needs to regroup. Nate's letter then cites California and Show Skiing as reasons to force this on the entirety of the sport divisions. Those are irrelevant to the bulk of our states and divisions. It is clear to me that USA-WSWS feels ill-equipped to handle local municipality or unrelated sport divisions separately. Both Nate and my regional EVP have asked for ideas and help. I have not yet responded, because I don't get any sense that they see anything as negotiable, flexible, or up for modification. I do have a poorly developed idea. So, consider this a rough draft. We have Assistant, Regular, Senior, and Emeritus official levels. We have functional designations (driver, judge, safety, scorer, etc.). We have a database which tracks our ratings. Simply add "-B" to those who voluntarily submit to the BGC. Thus, the database would contains two flavors for all existing designations. An assistant judge would be "AJ" while another with BGC would be AJ-B. When the LOC sanctions an event, the LOC can decide to allow under 18 or not to participate. If they chose to allow under 18, then they must secure "-B" officials for their event. Events with no competitors under 18 have no risk for USA-WSWS and therefore could still occur in compliance with the law using normal officials with no BGCs. Clearly, this would have a potential to reduce the number of youth-allowed sanctioned events. Also, the demand for "-B" officials might exceed the supply. The solution is simple, the parents of all youth skiers should be required to have at minimal an assistant official rating with BGC. Then, the parents can work the events in which their children participate. Many already do, so that would not be a big change in truth.

The highest sker-interaction role at a tournament is not even a rated official. Dock starters are just random volunteers. Oh snap! Now will USAWS require that every spectator must have a BGC? Lol. There is no "reasonable" solution to this slippery slope.

Where is the language that says, "all officials must have background checks"? Where is the language that translates "mechanism" and "reasonable procedures" into mandated background checks for every volunteer "official" at any event? This is the misapplication that needs to be challenged. If our insurance company is failing to properly provide "reasonable" allowances, then that is not a SS problem. That is a need to shop for a different insurance provider.

If you are on the fence or have decided to non-renew, you should let the leadership know so that they can accurately plan for the future. The link below will open up your default email program and populate the key USAWS/AWSA leadership emails & provide a sample email message text. You can edit the text to suit your situation before sending. Click to compose an email to key USAWS leadership contacts PS: Be nice. Be constructive. Offer suggestions. But, let them know if you are truly conflicted about renewing.

I want to defend @klindy. 1) He is engaging in the discussion. Regardless of our approval of the response content, at least he is responding. I wish more of the USAWS/AWSA leadership participated and responded to these topics. 2) These issues have been growing for a long time. No one person is to blame, and he is fairly new to his role and the national leadership. I also want to support @Jody_Seal. His passion for our sport (and thus his engagement on this topic) is clear. If only every one of us were to express our concerns so directly, the leadership would fully understand the depth of the concerns. His frustration with the responses from Keith are honest, despite becoming aggressive. There is a feeling of defeat before the question is asked when reading Keith's responses. Too much, "We can't do that." and not enough "what it would take is...", IMHO.

@TEL - best time to make big changes (like grip) is the start of the new season. Also to prepare, grab the top or bottom of your steering wheel using the new grip when driving in a low risk context. Most people spend more minutes behind the wheel than on the water, so use that time to make the new grip feel more normal.

@Bruce_Butterfield - I agree. It does nothing. However, if this freight train is gonna run over this sport, then it should at least be focused in areas where "they" think it matters. I am not saying this is what I want. I am saying if this goes forward, it shouldn't be drinking from a damn firehose of mandates aimed at everyone's mouth. Recall, that the assumption is stated above.

Assuming that the BMX/US Cycling model can't be adopted by USAWS (still not proven), then if I were in charge, this is what I would promote as the right thing to do to ease into this for 2022: Membership - required to watch a free SS awareness video - cost of single video production/purchase covered by USAWS by diverting funds from the $600k/yr benefit from USOC involvement. Why wouldn't this suffice? Officials - Assistant/trained - no additional requirement (they already watched the membership video) Regular - no additional requirement (they already watched the membership video) Safety - required SS training - puts one fully trained person at every event Senior/Pan Am - comply with BG check and SS training due to significance level of competition and potential for influence Coaches - continue with existing SS training and BG check requirements Senior/Pan Am officials would have the option of downgrading their rating if they opposed the requirements, but would also acknowledge the loss of working certain levels of sanctioned events as a result. Edit for Bruce: BGC does nothing. I was just suggesting an interim state assuming USAWS still believes that all this is necessary.

Had a discussion with some NCWSA members recently. They are very worried. They thrive on growing the sport by introducing water sports enthusiast to 3EV competition. They already struggle with convincing a college student to "try" the sport via paying for an active membership. Additional training requirements will only further limit follow-through to achieve participation and membership, and thus growth. Additionally, a recent collegiate tournament was nearly scrubbed due to lack of officials. Background checks to count buoys will surely discourage voluntary pursuit of official ratings within the college aged skiers. This is not just someone's opinion. This is the talk that is spreading throughout the NCWSA. Some have already stated they will stop working towards theirs given the current context.

@klindy - so in the other thread, it was asked if any skiing leadership will investigate how cycling and BMX can exist without the "everyone must" requirements. Will you research this? The basic premise is: if they can let people compete without all these requirements, then so can we. Prove this incorrect. Then, you can say that every other sport is having to comply...

FYI - I am selling two pairs of size 11 in excellent condition: SIA62283 SIA62285

This causes me to wonder about how much smaller the rules book could be if we strip anything above Class C and E events. Maybe someone has a rule book from the 80's that can be updated with a few key improvements we currently embrace. Also, the blank slate means older boats equipped with non-ZO speed control could be allowed as the norm for Class C in this new organization. Scoring could move back to Excel templates, and scorers do more than data entry.

@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.

@RAWSki - go deeper... why do they have sponsors? Why do beer companies, etc. want to sponsor cornhole? It is simple. It is because the general public population playing it is significant. Drones are no different. Drone sales (from toys to pro units) outpaced water ski sales exponentially. We don't have a sponsorship problem. We don't even have a "packaging" problem. We have a public participation problem.

@lpskier - I couldn't tell... was your "sarcasm font" on or off?

It seems clear to me that what the elite world competitors need is radically different from what the national competitors need. As a result, we have competing values, resources, and needs. Clearly, it is too difficult to sustain both under a single organization. Why must they be so tightly connected? Maybe USAWS needs to have a more distinct org structure Pro vs. Non-Pro. Imagine if all of the non-world members left. Could the elite survive? Could the non-Pro survive without the elite? Probably no on both counts. But, they sure seem to have very different needs. Possibly, they should be separate but complementary entities. Just a brainstorm idea for now, but this current way of working isn't on a sustainable path.

If membership = access, then the sport would grow. If membership = state public waterway advocacy, then the sport would grow. If membership = public visibility of non-competition participation, then the sport would grow. Remember, cornhole didn't make it to ESPN because of pro competitors and governing bodies. Those are all a result of prevalence in the population. Grass roots if you will drove it there. When we take away the public prevalence, the source of interest and subsequent demand is cut off. There no source of water flowing from the well to sustain this sport. Investing disproportionally at the top without equally investing in the well, will only isolate the sport from the public. Anything and everything that can be done to put combo skis back on the feet of the public families will save this sport. Anything else is just sucking from a dry well.

@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.

A skier who arrives at a buoy later than desired is more likely to rush the finish of the turn. Many skiers try to rush or pre-initiate the finish with their shoulders while typically also not balanced on the ski or with butt/hips behind them. That type rush to finish causes a broken stack. Those skiers typically found keeping shoulders down course longer resisted the broken stack. However, that action is an attempt to fix a symptom, and not a best practice by itself. I believe that is how this keeping shoulder down-course approach became promoted. It was a crutch. In other words, skiers who are balanced into the turn and who allow the ski to complete the turn will not need to keep the shoulder down course beyond the apex. I was also coached to think about my front knee as a focus for finishing the turn. The ski pretty much goes where the front knee is pointed. The hips can help that knee point to an aggressive line out of the turn. As noted in Rob's video, the hips can be hindered by the shoulders. The point was to have a bottom up focus. I think that is still key. Thus, closing the door is less about forcing the turn using the shoulders and more about not having the shoulders prevent the hips from moving around fully.