Age-based versus Ability-based for AWSA

[skispray]

@Than_Bogan, for fun:

 

"Or to put it differently, tournaments work best when agent ability is similar which is why in sports tournaments we often have divisions (over 50, under 30) or rounds."

 

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/10/performance-pay-nobel.html

 

I'm not opposed to handicapping, but isn't that just competing against yourself dressed up as a tournament? Chris Parrish once tied his world record but lost in a handicapped pro am to a little girl learning to run up to her speed (the curse of the high average score?). That's cute and all, but I'm not going to pay $75 for that kind of nonsense.

[RichardDoane]

I skied a dozen events last season, from our local C stuff to the BOS CP's, a couple of records, Regionals, and the CA ProAm. Luckily for me, I've been active enough for the past 10+ years to have friends everywhere so the social side is always there for me. The handicap thing is a nice improvement making for something a little different than just another tournament. Personally I'm not worried about a decline in numbers as all things expand/contract over time, and people just need to remember to keep it fun, so as new people are exposed, they feel welcome and interested in joining. I've heard comments from the newer skiers I've met this past season related to people's fear of joining the "tournament scene". Usually referenced is newbies feeling un-welcomed or unwanted. My .02 is to remind everyone to go that extra step when you see a new face, smile and introduce yourself, and make sure they get a good first impression of your site and ski group/club.

 

Ranking list, handicaps, age groups, never-made formats, whatever - remember that it's supposed to be fun, that's what hooked us all in the beginning.

[ToddL]

I pulled all of the National Rankings' Lists into 1 master list. Here are some observations:

Per the National rankings Lists' Past 12 months data:

There are 3019 unique skiers with scores.

48 states had skiers with tournament scores

50% of skiers are from 8 states ( CA, FL, TX, MI, OH, WA, CO, and MN ), with nearly 1/3rd of all skiers from just the first 4 states.

The Midwest region (863) is nearly 2.5 times larger in number of skiers than the South Central region (347).

6 Divisions contain 50% of all skiers ( M5, M4, M1, M6, M3, and M2 )

M1 and W1 make up more than 13% of all skiers, and combined they exceed the largest division, M5

B3 and G3 make up nearly 9% of all skiers, and if combined they would be the 3rd largest division behind M5 and M4

More that 1/5th of all skiers are between the ages of 14 and 25.

B3/G3/M1/W1 are the children of the M/W 4/5 division. They are the next bubble.

M2/W2 are the first divisions which have fewer skiers than the division before them.

M6/W6 are the next divisions to be substantially smaller than the division before them.

[JeffSurdej]

Great stuff everyone. I've been reading it all and taking it all in. Everyone has good points, and there are pros and cons to every idea. I think we will never know until we try some of these ideas. If they don't work then we can always revert back. I would rather have AWSA try stuff over the next years and fail than do nothing and still fail. I do not see how in the world our membership grows without some changes to how we do things.

[JeffSurdej]

One funny observation I always look at with college, and I know this goes against every idea of ability based skiing, and that is that in college we have just one ability group...mens slalom. No one ever complains about getting 74th place or complains that they got 1 buoy and they have to ski against freddy winter. But this is b/c of the team concept, it trumps all other formats and ideas. Team skiing was successful last year in certain areas and I hope that it only expands this year, but the key to team skiing is that every skier matters and they feel like they are a part of something bigger than their own score. 1 buoy matter as much to that team as freddy winter. The best part is that team skiing is self recruiting. Teams go after new skiers, they spent the time to get their team skiers better and take on events they normally would not. Traveling to events to ski against yourself only works for the best skiers. To the rest it is not worth the time and expense anymore, but team skiing changes all those dynamics. I hope states will really push the team concept this year and get behind it. I know when team Illinois left Nationals last year all we were talking about was how we had to get every Illinois skier to 2017 regionals b/c we definitely wanted to qualify for nationals next year. And I know Ohio and Minnesota are talking trash already so I'm hoping this really pushes regional particiaption this year.

[GK]

If Ability Based Skiing (ABS) worked, then INT would be thriving and they're losing numbers faster than AWSA (at least in our area). There are a couple major problems with ABS in our events...

 

1. Sandbagging to stay in one division over another is an issue (ask the INT coordinators).

2. The bigger issue is you still end up with almost 20 divisions. That's certainly better than 34 but we only have 20 to 50 skiers at our local events. On average you'll be lucky to have 2 or 3 other skiers in your division. This does not create more competition.

 

ABS could work for larger regional and national events where you have hundreds of skiers, but what we need for local events with 20 to 50 skiers is a simple handicapping system so that instead of 20 divisions there is ONE division. Then the LOC can afford awards for the Top finishers without needing awards for every division. Ohio has a handicapping system, Horton has a handicapping system, and I know there are others out there as well. Let's come up with the best hybrid of them all and start getting back to COMPETING!

[MISkier]

I never could wrap my head around sandbagging and why I would ever want to ski less than the very best I could do. I suppose it happens, but it seems like a hollow victory to cruise to an easy win well below your capability.

 

I do know that many novice skiers are actually worried about running that first max speed pass and then losing their 4 pass minimum. Some may avoid that. It is another problem to address: value for the money. When I skied my first tournament, my goal was to shed my novice status right then. I did. I won't say that missing my opener in all rounds of subsequent tournaments and being done immediately was enjoyable, but it did make me focus on a strategy to ski more passes that were attainable and being dedicated to improving that opener speed and line length.

[Ralph Lee]

If we can figure out a way to revive the Pro tournaments, the amateur scene will follow suite.

[ToddL]

At the local level, the participant numbers and distribution across abilities make ability based groupings seem illogical when only 0-2 skiers show up for a particular group.

 

However, I think everyone agrees that in any population of competitors there are novice, competitive, and high-level skiers; regardless of age or gender. The issue with those groups is that they are still really big and exactly where do you draw those lines?

 

One idea is to do a handicapped scoring within those obvious groups. By separating the Novice out, those skiers who are just starting out and making huge gains will be on top of the pack. They will be the ones getting recognition. By separating out the high-level skiers, they are also recognized for breakout performances which might be as little as a 1/4 buoy above the handicap score taking the win. The rest of the middle pack is also isolated from those two extremes. If you further separated by gender, the result is 6 divisions with handicapped scoring within each.

M Novice, M Competitor, M Advanced

F Novice, F Competitor, F Advanced

 

Another way to apply segmented handicapped scoring is to separate by age over gender. Youth is already defined for us. I'd draw the line at M6/W6 for Senior.

Consider the following:

Youth Novice, Youth Competitor, Youth Advanced

Adult Novice, Adult Competitor, Adult Advanced

Senior Competitor, Senior Advanced (no need for novice at this level)

With this grouping, there are 8 divisions, again with handicapped scoring within.

 

So, how would we define Novice or Advanced cut off points? We could use national ranking scores and say novice is anyone with less than 24 buoys while advanced is anyone at level 8+. Maybe there are slightly different cutoff points for Youth and also for Seniors. Still, I think it could be honed in upon something that made sense.

[Than_Bogan]

@skispray. I will definitely read that!

 

 

"I'm not opposed to handicapping, but isn't that just competing against yourself dressed up as a tournament?"

 

Yes. Except maybe I wouldn't say "just."

[WBLskier]

I think a handicap scoring system layered over the existing age based categories is the way to go. What ToddL and others have suggested makes sense to me. Or it could be simplified even more into only 4 categories:

 

boys (b1-b3);

girls (g1-g3);

men (all others);

women (all others).

 

If you've never skied a tournament then you just ballpark your handicap. Yes, a new tournament skier might run away with a win (that seems like a win in and of itself). All others who have skied in a sanctioned tournament base their handicap on their non-penalized AWSA average.

 

I would give novice skiers 4 attempts or two falls (count only the first pass for AWSA rankings and count best of the 4 for future handicap purposes). If the first pass is not successful I would not stop the boat and just run all 4 passes continuously for the sake of time. So there are a couple rollers in the last 3 passes...it is likely the best water a new skier has skied in anyway and the 3 extra passes are really just a bonus anyway. If it is a 2 round tournament, adjust the handicap for the second round based on the first round.

 

So the result is that a less experienced skier likely wins the handicap division. We run a tournament with this format every year on our lake with 40 skiers and I can tell you from experience that is works. Someone that is pretty new to skiing generally wins the handicap division and they end up getting hooked after that if they weren't already.

 

Getting prizes for only 4 winners is pretty doable and would make the experience a little more memorable. Make it some donated ski gear and all the better if it goes to a newer skier.

[WBLskier]

I would also add that for purposes of the handicap scoring I would allow zero based scoring for adults skiing novice. Most new skiers will not be able to ski at their designated top speed but if we score their passes in the same way zero based scoring now works for the kids we allow them to ski at the speed they are capable of skiing at and have a good experience.

[The_MS]

None of this matters if we dont figure out how to get Promo boats to pull events.

[Horton]

@MS please stay on topic. That is a whole different subject/problem.

[The_MS]

You need a horse to pull the cart.

[thompjs]

@BoneHead Sounds like you need to wear armor on the bike! I used to ride a lot, but never wanted to race, too many crashes in crits. Plus I would have sucked just like water skiing.

 

 

 

[ToddL]

I just realized that the title of this thread assumes the decision is either or. I am suggesting a combination of both.

 

Applying age+ability groupings on top of the 3019 current ranked skiers, I got the following distribution. Novice is Level 7 or below with less than 24 buoys in the ranking score. Also, I had to break out the Adults' middle group into 2 groups. I chose <72 buoys as the break point for Competitor 2.

 

Logical Group Count of Skiers

Senior L8+ 214

Senior Competitor 267

Adult - L8+ 755

Adult - Competitor 1 561

Adult - Competitor 2 (<72) 460

Adult - Novice (<24) 151

Youth L8+ 220

Youth - Competitor 282

Youth - Novice (<24) 109

Grand Total 3019

 

[sunvalleylaw]

@ToddL , good point to be said out loud. The needs and concerns of a novice such as myself are a bit different from an experienced three eventer. It would make sense, I would think, to consider hybrid approaches. Now how to do that, I will will leave to those with experience. Seems to me, you are trying to attract both new skiers to the sport, and also re-attract, and retain, folks like Shane.

[klindy]

As I mentioned previously in this thread, ability based grouping, developing schemes or handicap systems, even teams and multi-tournament series that can inject some competition at a local level can be done today under todays rules with todays scoring and scoring software. It just sometimes requires some ingenuity and manual effort to get it done. This 'local competition' is good for the sport, it makes it fun and it potentially adds people to the membership. However it does nothing to change the qualifications to Regionals or Nationals (at least the changes discussed here) so we still have the ranking list system where individual scores count - period.

 

When we try and discuss the ideas above we immediately grind into the details and it becomes incredibly complicated quickly because of how we evolved to be where we are today. Seems to me that the best energy we can spend today is recognizing and finding solutions which can help simplify things.

 

For example, ZBS seems to be pretty fundamental to get any kind transition to ability based grouping to work. Add to that the ability to shorten the line before top speed. What about top speed issues? The one thing I think IWWF does right is they have 35 AND UP, 45 AND UP, etc. divisions which effectively allow an older skier to ski in a "younger" group and therefore at a higher speed. Why don't we do that at AWSA? What about jump and the multiple combinations of ramp height and boat speeds along.

 

I'm being a bit of the devils advocate here but we're debating details which ALL can be done today depending on the desires of the site and tournament director. Granted it may be better if it was some kind of fully-baked and endorsed plan but how is it really different from what we have in place already?

[ToddL]

While we can do our own stuff today, LOCs won't unless it aligns to some national model. Thus, if AWSA wants to encourage change, they need to set an example from the top down.

 

I'm not saying that the flexibility at the LOC level is without value. Rather, I am saying that broad adoption of good ideas will only come when the national organization adopts those ideas itself.

[GK]

ToddL, I agree with your assessment of 3 distinct ability levels. For many of our handicapped formats the Field of Skiers is divided into 3 even groups of skiers much like you describe. Those skiers compete against each other to make the finals out of their group. Only in the Finals do you have a Novice skier competing directly against an Advanced skier. Since the Novice skiers have raised their average during the early rounds, the Advanced skiers are more easily able to compete with them in the Finals.

 

When it comes to handicapping, the format of the event is just as important as the handicapping calculation.

[ToddL]

In contrast to the point I made above, if the national organization wants to promote the LOC events as the "think tank" and testing grounds for new ideas, then make an incentive for experimentation. Maybe sanction fees and head tax can be cut dramatically for LOCs who do experimental formats and document their methods and assessment of success. Those discounts could be passed along to the competitors, particularly novice ones, in the form of reduced entry fees.

[BraceMaker]

I don't see tournament growth as something that will grown based on competition, you might reduce the shrinkage.

 

I think the thing that is 100% missing in this sport is a way to access skiing other than buying a boat and hitting public water, or paying for lessons and travel to pro-sites/schools.

 

USA waterski needs to be working with lake owners to set up more clinics regionally, more entry tournaments, and more public water events.

 

They should have a community contact by region to place people with skiing access.

[Dirt]

Great ideas.

 

One thing that confuses and turns off new skiers is the qualification for Regionals and Nationals. They ask what they need to do to qualify and I tell them it floats. They have to wait until weeks before the event to know for sure. IMO we need to set the qualifications after Nationals. No more moving targets.

 

I think the team concept will become more fun as it grows.

 

[disland]

@Dirt I dont think this is a problem. Although it floats the number doesn't change much over the 90 days prior. I bet @klindy can compute exactly how much.

[unksskis]

It doesn't necessarily float, it's a ranking position and then there is a specific cut-off score after a specific date.

[klindy]

@BraceMaker you are correct. But this thread is about rules, format or other changes which would be brought about by AWSA which is simply a sport division of AWSA. I firmly believe that USAWS should stay out of the business of defining competition in the 3-event (and other sport divisions) world. And I don't believe AWSA has any business in the marketing of tower water sports. Initiatives and efforts can certainly overlap and complement each other but it shouldn't be a focus point of AWSA to develop a membership growth or retention plan.

[Ralph Lee]

MONEY MONEY MONEY!! It's not that the tournaments are too steep, it's that it cost SO much $ to get to the level where a person wants to compete. We can make the tournaments more enticing, but it will never flourish in today's economy. I'm very impressed how well AWSA and INT are doing considering our current cost of living.

[unksskis]

Ski Clubs on public lakes. It would be interesting to see a survey of how many people entered the sport via a public lake Ski Club. They should be the main initiative to support from AWSA. Junior Development programs used to be much more open, and encouraging/coaching than today, it needs to be fun to compete, but must be fun first.

[MISkier]

Some people mentioned golf (in relation to handicap), but I think there is another lesson there. I like to play golf for my own score. I also like to play on a scramble team where each player's contribution could be valuable to the team score. I also like individual competitions within a golf event, such as long drive, longest putt, closest to the pin. The variation in ways to compete and use your skill while enjoying the experience is something that I think we are trying to bring to organized water skiing. There are many ways to achieve it, but the point is introducing some more ways to have fun.

 

Don't get me wrong, I still ski against myself and enjoy it enough without even competing against anybody. But, then again, we aren't trying to get me to ski tournaments, pay dues, or share the sport with friends. I already do.

[BraceMaker]

@unksskis - Love the idea - The entire state of michigan has a permit process for ski courses which ALMOST completely prevents installing a course. I for instance am waiting for a neighbor to die.

 

Once he does hopefully the house sells to someone who will sign off on the permit application... and hopefully the others who have signed off won't die before then - but basically I risk a huge fine everytime I use my course. There's another on the lake, but its a big open lake and blows out daily - need to be able to have courses in different points and that's the only permit so far.

[MISkier]

@BraceMaker, I've been through the permit process and, even when you get one, the conditions for use make it almost not worthwhile.

 

I do agree that access to courses and good conditions is a huge problem here. Perhaps another use of the funds we generate from increased membership and tournament participation from the proposed changes to ability-based might go to owning and operating AWSA private sites in each state or to the full out legal challenge to get skiing the same sort of unfettered public land/water usage as mountain bikers, horseback riders, hunters, and fishermen.

[jwroblew]

In an earlier post someone mentioned the old EP system. How did that work?

[skibackwards]

OR is this the problem we are trying to fix. Men's 1-8 skiers at Nationals/compared to qualified to ski at Nationals. 196 attended of 586 qualified for slalom, 86/219 for tricks, and 71/155 for jump. Women 1-7 is 70/208 for slalom, 40/111 tricks, and 29/68 for jump. Now you do the percentages. Either qualifications are too easy or many people have there own reasons not to attend. If you tighten up the qualifications you loose more going AND you are not going to get rid of individuals with their reasons not to go.

[RazorRoss3]

@skibakwards, I don't believe nationals attendance is the point of this thread, that's one really big tournament with it's own set of problems and is rather unique in the time commitment, travel, prestige, and general atmosphere. It is also an event looking at skiers at the top end who we are at lower risk of losing since they have the bug pretty good to get to that level. Not to say they can't lose interest.

 

What we are trying to look at is how can we make your average class C more fun and appealing to people just entering the sport or to collegiate skiers who have recently graduated and we want to keep in the sport. These two groups aren't going to be qualifying for nationals next year but they are the foundation and future of the sport. Keeping their interest and the interest of the weekend warriors is where I believe this thread is looking.

[ski6jones]

While changes in tournament format might increase participation among those that ski or have skied I'd say the biggest impediment to growth is ready access to a ski ride without needing to buy a lot on a private lake and a $60,000 boat. In the Houston area there are many private sites, but as far as know there are no real membership sites or courses on public water. Even the public water is an hour ride each way from most parts of town and you'd need to have a boat when you got there. By contrast when I lived in Shreveport a few years ago there were two membership sites within 20 minutes of my house.

 

Maybe a more friendly tournament atmosphere will get people to come out and give it a try, but how do they continue after that first experience? If they can get up on a ski and attempt the coarse in a tournament it implies they've already skied somewhere, which takes me back to the access question. With some relatively easy access early in their skiing careers I bet you eventually sell some new boats, equipment, lake lots and more tournament entries as they venture out as truly addicted skiers.

[Horton]

@ski6jones I 100 percent agree but that is a totally different subject

[Ralph Lee]

My family and I swap between a course on the river and private site, the River Rats seem to be much more welcoming to new folks than at the man made site. I'm positive a booth set up at the river a couple weekends a year, with a large banner reading AWSA WATERSKI - FREE SKI RIDES!! Would attract enough new members to make it worth while. Gain new members and leave the system as it is.

[skibackwards]

Sorry, wrong topic for this thread, but thought it was interesting.

[lpskier]

@BraceMaker THE best way to reduce shrinkage is to stop skiing in water below 90 degree f. That's what we're talking about, right?

[lpskier]

@jwroblew Before it was part of USAWS, AWSA had a rating system. As I recall from when I started tournament skiing in 1969 or 70, they started with Third Class, 2d, 1st, Expert, Master, EP. Master may have been the top AWSA rating at first, with EP being a bonus rating promoted by EP skis, I'm not sure. I know if you had an EP rating, EP, and later other companies, would give you a discount. But I digress.

 

For Third class, the qualification may have been something like basic ski skills. At some point in the process, the rating became based on tournament scores. If you achieved a particular score (I forget how many scores were needed, maybe one, maybe more), you got that rating and held it for some period of time. As I recall, an Expert rating got you to Regionals and a Masters rating got you to Nationals. Ed Brazil may want to chime in here and get me straightened out.

 

Somewhere along the way, an EP rating became the Nationals gatekeeper. A fixed score was required, and you had to get it once in a record tournament or twice in a C. The last time I had an EP (the last year they were available), you needed 6@35/34 mph in Mens 4. When the ranking list came into being, ratings went away and rankings took their place. Generally speaking, the ranking list qualification for Nationals is lower than the old EP rating requirement. If 6@35 would have gotten you in to Nationals with a rating, 4@35 would get you in on the ranking list.

 

The cool things about ratings was that you got a jacket patch for each promotion. When I was in Junior Boys (no B1, 2 and 3 back then) I had a blue Jean jacket with my AWSA patch, all my rating patches, my Century Club patch, and Harley Davidson wings on the back (don't ask).

 

Also back then, we had two mens divisions, Men and Senior Men. Maybe there were three with Open Men. Sr. Men were 35 +. Same for women.

 

Please feel free to correct my history lesson.

[dchristman]

@lpskier AWSA Rating Card and EP - EP wasn't technically a rating.

 

[lpskier]

@dchristman I knew someone would keep me honest. Thanks, and nice tricking.

[dchristman]

It is interesting to note that with the exception of the master rating, it was not a requirement that a qualifying performance be achieved in a tournament. That means (at least in the East) you could ski Regionals without ever having competed in a tournament previously.

 

The possibility of achieving a rating separate from competition may be an incentive for beginners to join the organization. It gives a way to prove to oneself and others that you have the technical capability. Once confidence is gained by ascending the rating ladder, the desire to compete will grow.

 

There's also something more compelling with descriptive names to ratings rather than level numbers... I'd much rather tell people that "I'm an Expert working toward Master in Veteran Men" than "I'm a Level 5 in Men 5... I hope to be Level 8 when I get to Men 8".

 

 

[dchristman]

Off topic, but interesting rule I just found in the 78/79 rule book:

 

4.15 NATIONALLY TELEVISED COMPETITION. No AWSA member may compete in or officiate for any nationally televised water ski competition unless it is sanctioned by the AWSA, the World Water Ski Union or one of its affiliated federations or Groups.

 

... better be careful, don't want to have your membership suspended!

[Lake3]

I was an INT competitor for two years. Enjoyed competing with guys and girls of my same ability. My goal was to always stand on the dock with the short line guys and be competitive. That got me hooked. The only reason I stopped and I think others have joined in not participating is current managemen of INT. Since then I've bought a ski lake lot and into a new 200. Knowing now the amount of commitment it takes to reach short line status, It seems that a handicap system would take away from what it means to be a -39 skier. The reason I don't compete in AWSA is b/c I'm not ready yet.