Class C officials requirements -- collegiate, specifically

[Razorskier1]

As you all know my son skis at the University of Iowa and is currently team president. One of the struggles the team has had with running tournaments (which both make money for the team and encourage participation in the sport) is getting enough qualified appointed officials. Thing is, there just aren't that many senior officials in the Midwest who are senior in all three events. Given that these are C class events and we want to encourage participation, I think we need to re-think class C requirements for three event tournaments at the collegiate level. I'd like those of you who are part of the AWSA hierarchy to consider options. For example, perhaps you could make becoming a senior less onerous, such that the collegiate kids could become seniors more easily and be less reliant on the goodwill of adults. Alternatively, perhaps you could allow these tournaments to be run with assistants as the appointed officials for some or all of the categories. The current situation is a meaningful impediment to the team's ability to run tournaments, gain participation, and fund their operations. When I look at what it takes to be a senior official I doubt that many college kids will achieve it in a single discipline before they graduate, much less in three events plus scoring and driving. @jdarwin -- what say you?

[ForrestGump]

Two things..... you don't need Seniors for appointeds. Or even chief officials. Just regular is all that's required. And your Regional EVP can grant exceptions to the requirements for appointeds. You just have to contact that person.

[MattP]

@Razorskier1‌ what Shane said also it's a NCWSA issue. NCWSA uses the AWSA rule book with a few changes. We are lucky in the East/SAC to have a group of dedicated officials that is mostly Alumni based who spend 8 of their weekends a year to helping keep the college skiers on the water.

[Edbrazil]

Don't need any Senior Judges to run a Class C, far as I know. For many years, I have been the

Chief Judge for a NH tournament on Dube's Pond in Hooksett, NH, and I'm a Regular. See

AWSA Rule 6.03.

 

Back in the back when, the only reason to become a Senior was to judge the Nationals. Of

course, that has changed a lot, particularly with the advent of Record tournaments, and PanAm

ratings. At the time, I was just fine being a Regular, and put my energy into the Technical area.

[ntx]

@Razorskier1 Senior judges are not required for class C. Regular are ok. With EVP approval, they will most likely allow assistants. One regular as chief judge and I bet the rest of the appointed judges can be assistant. Chief Driver regualar and regular scorer.

[ForrestGump]

And if I'm not mistaken, when sanctioning you have to appoint at least two judges. But that doesn't mean that's all you can appoint. Which means you don't have to have 3 event judges for Cs. You could appoint 2 regular trick judges, 2 regular slalom judges, and 2 regular jump judges if you want. You just have to have 2 appointed per discipline.

[RazorRoss3]

@shaneh, that's part if the problem, by the time I compensate 2 appointed judges per event and a chief I don't have any profits left and have run a money making event that lost money. No one in the Midwest does this for free, most want hotel rooms at a minimum which ends up as $200/person. And even finding a chief judge is a challenge.

[klindy]

At the risk of volunteering folks, there's a lot of MN people that have traditionally been pretty generous folks!

 

And like others have said, you need a Regular judge as CJ most of the rest of your officials can be chosen from the 'best available' onsite.

 

Years ago I was Chief Judge for a collegiate tournanment with 12 teams. Ended up being the Chief Scorer too. There was a Senior driver that served as Chief Driver and appointed judge. Far as I recall we were the only "rated" officials onsite. Various skiers who had been around for a while all stepped up to judge, score, whatever. Had a blast!

[ForrestGump]

@RazorRoss3 That wasn't my point. My point was that you have options as far as who and how many to appoint. Talk to your EVP. I've been chief scorer before when I was only an assistant scorer because they couldn't find anyone else. An email to the EVP squared it away ahead of time.

[JeffSurdej]

razoross, I'm surprised to hear some of your issues. But glad to help in anyway the NCWSA and midwest can.

 

Looking at the officials directory I think your issue seems to be more of an IOWA issue rather than midwest or NCWSA. Iowa has 1 regular judges in the entire state and 2 senior, ouch. Neighboring illinois has 10 seniors and 7 regular. So technically you need every regular senior judge in your state to run a class C without going outside your state.

 

 

As for money making, from my experience ncwsa events are huge money makers, they tend to be much more profitable than awsa events in my experience even if you have to put up a few judges. You get a ton of entry fees in ncwsa, even though the fees are low, b/c its one round you tend to have 100 skiers if not more compared to 30 entry fees in AWSA event tournaments so your income should be much higher.

 

I think what has happended a little in the midwest is b/c it has grown so much we are now at 3-4 ncwsa events in 1 weekend in the midwest and this has spread out the volunteer officials, promo boats , etc and I feel your pain there but its a good problem to have.

 

We have talked about coming out with a class U for NCWSA but problem is most kids want to get their scores on rankings for AWSA and thus the class C.

 

Its just going to be a matter of getting the ncwsa skiers to get their ratings, they could easily become regular judges in 4 years. We have seena huge increase in this in years, last year we hosted a 2 lake 400 skier 800 pull conference and the entire thing was almost ran by ncwsa skiers and recent alumni, a lot are getting their ratings,

 

But I do feel its important to have that regular rating to run these events, they are not easy and you tend to run into many more issues, protest, and rule interpretations at the NCWSA level so I feel regular judges should be on site to help run.

 

jeff Surdej

 

 

 

[LeonL]

I guess part of the problem is that a lot of collegiate skiers were not really tournament skiers before they got to college. We have a young lady who has skied with us since she was 10. We encourage our members to seek an official rating of some sort. She's now beginning her second year of college and she has a reg rating in 3 events, and is a trained driver.

[Kelvin]

Remember, any skiers that have attained a level 8 status can automatically apply to be an assistant judge in that event. In the SCR, my wife has taken steps to identify the qualified skiers and ask/tell them she was going to send the forms into AWSA for them.

[webbdawg99]

I dont think any of the teams in the SAC make any money on any of their tournaments. But its hard to make a profit when you only charge $25 entry fees for a 3 event tournament! What are other conferences charging for entry fees?

[Razorskier1]

I can assure you based on the math we've worked through for the Iowa team that the margins are slim, and it doesn't take a lot to tip you from making a couple hundred bucks to losing a couple hundred bucks.

[MattP]

@webbdawg99‌ I agree. Changes are coming!

[JeffSurdej]

razor, are you having to pay the LOC a lake fee? I just hate to see that the putting up of judges in a class C be your tipping point of profit, can you put them up at a lake house or anything, is this for the Shane Dejong Fall Classic event? If so you should have about 15 teams there, 150-200 skiers at $40 a pop plus $5 to camp. $8,000 in revenue. Dont forget you can also charge a team fee around $25 which usually helps pay for the DJ or other nightly activities you are providing.

 

[RazorRoss3]

We have to pay the LOC $10/skier then most officials won't come if a $100/night hotel room isn't provided. Then officials meals takes another bite. The fall tournament we usually aren't at risk of losing money, a blind chipmunk could likely make a buck, but making $200-400 isn't a huge chunk of cash when you consider a team that runs around $7500 in anual expenses. We need these tournaments (particularly the fall) to generate $1000+ to be considered a meaningful success. In order to do that this year I've been busting my you know what to find officials who would be willing to camp and cut costs at every corner as well as raise entry fees but I can only go so high with a college student budget. I would like to throw a big thank you to Mr. Dave Clark as he is a chief official, super nice, and nearly insists on sleeping on a cot that he brings. He is a huge help to us and the sport.

 

Spring season the math doesn't work no matter how you cut it, officials, LOC, low entry fees, and low registration. As a team we are discontinuing ours since before we cancelled last spring we were looking at a $600 loss, our summer non-collegiate hardly broke $100 and was nearly a loss but jump got stormed out so gas was below expectations.

[MattP]

@RazorRoss3‌ you are not alone in making college tournament ends meet.

[LeonL]

I feel for you guys that need to make profit on tournaments. It's hard to do.

[6balls]

When is the fall tourney?

[webbdawg99]

@MattP Looks like @waterskispreads mentioned an entry fee of $40 and potential "team fee" of $25. If the SAC implemented these types of numbers, everyone who hosts should make money.

[RazorRoss3]

The fall tournament is September 6-7

[chris_logan]

@webbdawg99 @MattP the spring tournaments in the SAC have been money losing nightmares for years. The fall isn't usually a problem turning a profit, especially if the 2 FL teams show up. My point being: team attendance should be more of mandate in the spring (more weight for all-stars standings), which would likely solve the money issue. I don't necessarily see that raising entry fees will help because participation from the scrappy teams full of new-to-the-sport skiers will go down (I know there's no way I would have been able to afford $40 entry fees for every tournament and would have likely cut half of them out)... but I digress.

 

@RazorRoss3 you need to find judges like the SAC judges (low cost alumni). I remember what its like trying not to lose money on collegiate tournaments. So when I work the tournaments now, the only thing I ask for is a ham & cheese sandwich on Saturday and maybe a couple bottles of water (if for some reason I can't get to my own). No hotel. No anything else. If I can get a ski ride in, cool - but not a requirement.

 

 

[GK]

I would look at what states are sending collegiate teams to your events and then reach out to those state federations. There are bound to be parents and alumni of those teams who would be willing to help for little to no money. I agree with Jeff that it sounds like the Iowa Federation needs to focus on building more officials. Only 3 regular/senior officials in the entire state is going to make putting on any 3-event tournament difficult whether it's collegiate or AWSA.

[webbdawg99]

I disagree @chris_logan‌. Can't afford a $40 entry fee....but can afford all nighters at the bar. If you can't afford it, it's not your priority. I don't expect raising the entry fee to impact attendance at all. It's been $25 for over 15 years. The price of everything else has gone up....gas, boats, hotels, food....all costs associated with putting on an event. The hosting teams shouldn't be the ones footing the bill when the event loses money. Everyone needs to step up and do their part.