Youth Coach of the Year and All-State Teams

[tomcookus]

So I am a little annoyed at how the Coach of the Year and All-State Teams work.

In a nutshell, only teams that participate at the State Championship tournament are eligible to have players win the title of "All-State" and the same for Coaches. In my mind that is the same as saying that only NBA players that play in the playoffs are eligible to win NBA awards, like 1st Team All-NBA or MVP or CotY. Sounds pretty ridiculous to me.

Also, only one vote per team. Again, a ludicrous proposition, why only one voice per team? Tie the voting into a person's USAU account and give every player one vote.

In my mind this is USAU continually moving the focus away from SOTG and playing the game and putting it squarely, and only, on competition. I am pretty sure I am not the only person who thinks that youth Ultimate should have a stronger focus on SOTG and learning the game properly, and leave the heavier, competitive focus for College and Club.

[rrudnic]

Why should your player be eligible for the All State team if they arent playing at States? If you aren't competing in the only tournament specific to your state and the only one USAU is promoting for your state then why should you have a chance to be on the All State team? Your analogy is just plain wrong because all those awards are regular season awards, what you are asking is like saying any player in the NBA should be eligible to win NBA Finals MVP even if they don't play in the finals. If you aren't going to play at States you shouldn't expect to be on the all STATE team.

Every person does have a voice, every one of your players had a chance to fill out the survey and nominate people the same as every one of the other teams players did. They still have to be proactive and make that decision and you have to let them know about it. Again that might only be if the team was playing at States though, not sure on the specifics of it. The players nominations in my mind allow the kids to be somewhat self serving but also allows for a lot of names to be listed, then the second vote by the coaches allows for more unbiased vote to pick something close to the best 7 players. Really as a coach you get 2 votes because you get to vote in the initial nomination phase then once USAU compiles it you get the final vote for your team.

I really don't have much of an issue with the process just how long its taking. Our state tournament was a month ago and they haven't even sent out the consolidated list for the coaches to vote on. I'm ok with USAU doing the process this way if they do it in a timely fashion, within a week of states would be best, 2 weeks would be acceptable. Anything else is just to long all my seniors have already graduated and are gone so I wouldn't even get the privledge of telling them in person that they made All State if they did. If USAU really wanted to do it right they would have the consolidated ballots to the State Coordinator for the State Tournament Coaches would vote by end of the day Saturday or a certain time Sunday then the Coordinator could announce the All State Team and COY when presenting the Championship trophy.

[ambler]

The Youth All-State awards are similarly structured to the College All-Region awards. When the college version first went into place in 2002, I remember thinking it was really great to have just one vote per team. With one vote per team for All-State and All-Region awards, every team gets an equal say and there's no unfair voting advantage for a team of 20 vs a team of 12. It also encourages a higher voter turn-out. In 2011 I believe there was around 70% participation among college teams voting for the All-Region awards. I would be willing to bet that is a higher percentage than the voting for the Callahan award (where every college player is able to cast a vote). One vote per team does not prevent the players on the team from having input into that vote.

As for tying eligibility for the All-State awards with participation in States, it makes perfect sense to me to have a USA Ultimate award linked to play in USA Ultimate championship events.

[tomcookus]

Great, then can we change the name to the State Tournament MVP team? In most HS sports, the All State team alludes to the best players in the state, not the players on teams that made the State Championship game. I think is is rather deceptive.

My analogy is not the problem. The Finals MVP is the best player at the Finals tournament. The name says it all. The MVP of the league would be the best player in the league.

USA Ultimate has several lead-up tournaments to the USAU State Championship tournament. It would make sense to say that if a player competed at a USA Ultimate tournament that lead up to States then they could be eligible to win All State honors. Some teams have great individual players, but the team itself is not strong enough, or maybe just not financially able, to make the State Tournament. Those great players are snubbed the recognition they deserve.

This is yet another example of USA Ultimate placing competition, media recognition, and the desire to fit in a nice little box, well above the idea of Spirit and doing what is right because it is the right thing to do.

[rrudnic]

There are teams with 1 good player and many not good players at States every year, in fact I nominated 2 of them for All State Team from my state this year. Any team is strong enough to go to states the first year of our teams existence we hadn't scored a single point yet and still went to states, it was there that the team score their first ever point and it was a highly motivating factor for them in the future. Using the exuse that your team wouldn't be competitve is pathetic, if its about the spirit of the game and doing the right thing then going and competiting even if you arent competitive should be one of your highest priorities. There are several JV teams at our state tourney this year who didnt score a single point until they were all relegated to consolation brackets against each other, but every one of them we there competing and they will be better next year for doing so.

If the lead up tournaments you mentioned were all sanctioned and only filled with teams from your specific states then I would agree with them being allowed to be nominated but otherwise it wasnt a USAU tournament or it wasnt a fair example of their abilities in relation to the State.

This has nothing to do with competition the best player on the worst team at states can still make all state team even if his team isnt even sightly competitive. This isn't about media recognition, USA Today isnt putting this on the sports page anytime soon. Its just the first step they have taken to try and formalize the process better.

[shawn.m.harr]

In some states, such as New Jersey, participation in the state championship tournament was limited to a certain number of qualifying teams. Are the players and coaches of those teams which were eliminated at the "qualifier tournament" considered eligible to receive awards?

[padagentile]

First, PA States votes were due last Friday. It's been over a month since the tourney. When can we expect results to be announced?

[padagentile]

Second, comments on the above posts.

I think every player should be eligible for an all-states team. There are lots of reasons for a team to not attend states and it’s not an individual, quality player’s fault. It just doesn’t seem right to exclude a player from nomination because the team couldn’t attend. That said, players NOT going to states may get fewer votes as they may be unknown unless they attend other, relatively big tourneys during the season.

Without a better idea, I think I prefer multiple nominations balanced by one team/one vote after nominations. Prevents large programs from continually drowning out the smaller squads (think House vs Senate) but insures that all quality players will ‘make the cut’. And that’s one team/one vote, whether they attend states or not. This should be as inclusive a process as possible.

If USAU wants to tilt things toward teams that attend states, perhaps those votes could be weighted. Perhaps, something like teams not attending states get ½ vote.



“This has nothing to do with competition the best player on the worst team at states can still make all state team even if his team isnt even sightly competitive.” - rrudnic


This may be true today, as some state tourneys are small, but as the sport continues to grow and ‘worst’ teams don’t qualify for States, individual quality players will get excluded.

[bakerpratt]

Thanks for all the feedback (and please, keep the discussion going). A couple of notes:

1) Re: Delay in results. This has taken longer than originally anticipated, due to a variety of reasons (in many cases having to do multiple rounds of nominations and/or voting in order to make sure teams are as accurately represented as possible and that there is enough information to make reasonable determinations). That being said, many of the votes are nearly wrapped up, so I expect we will see them posted soon. We'll be looking at ways of refining the nomination/voting process for next year, but simple heightened awareness of the program should help quite a bit.

2) Re: State Championships. I don't foresee allowing teams or individuals to participate in this process that aren't participating in the championships. That being said, we are working with a number of states to develop pilot championship structures to help support large numbers of teams. In these cases individuals can be nominated, even if they don't compete on a team in the State Championship event, but do participate in a Championship qualifying event (think Conferences -> Regionals in the college division). As a concrete example, New Jersey had a championship qualifying event - http://scores.usaultimate.org/scores/#youth-open/tournament/8826. Teams that participated in this event but did not place could still nominate players and coaches for All-State recognition.

[rrudnic]

I still disagree that every player should be eligible, you should only be eligible if you play states, and I'll add in, or some state qualifying tournament specific to your state. You cant make a fair assessment of a players skill in relation to the rest of the kids in the state when he is playing teams from some other state. For example I coach in VA, I would never assess VA players when they are playing in a tournament against kids from Maryland, nothing against those kids but the best team in Maryland couldnt even make the semis at the VA state tournament, they havent had competitive ultimate nearly as long and the talent level just hasn't gotten up there yet. How can you expect someone to vote for a player as all state if they didnt go to states and the only time you saw him play was against your team and teams from other states, its not a fair assessment of his skill and its not fair to all the other kids who went to states and you saw in a different capacity.



This may be true today, as some state tourneys are small, but as the sport continues to grow and ‘worst’ teams don’t qualify for States, individual quality players will get excluded.

It would be interesting if Baker could tell us how many states currently dont allow every team to play at states due to sheer numbers or whatever reason? Because other than New Jersey I'm not aware of any, maybe PA? Even then its not that they arent allowed to play there is the qualifying tournament. As long as teams from the qualifying tournaments are eligible I don't think thats an issue though. The qualifying tournaments are still giving everyone a chance to play that is still specific to their state.

[kyle.weisbrod]

I definitely agree with rrudnic and Baker. If you aren't eligible to win the state championship (either by participating in the championships or in the official qualifiers) than you shouldn't be eligible to win all state. I think these awards also serve as a carrot to drawn teams in to the USA Ultimate structure - we are all better off if more teams participate in the structure.

As a side note, I'm writing as a coach whose team did not participate in the GA state tournament this year because of a conflicting event.

[padagentile]

This is good stuff. In the end, I think we'll have to agree to disagree. I think my view is more open/inclusive or maybe I'm just misinterpreting the intent of all-state. I’m not satisfied with the thought that a superstar player on an overall inferior team or a team that cannot participate in states (for whatever reason) can be ignored in the current process. This sounds a bit too much like the ‘haves’ excluding the ‘have nots’. And that’s not how I roll.

I think I could get fully onboard with the concept of ‘qualifying events’. This would allow more teams to participate (and thus players to be eligible).

Mike

[tomcookus]

PA restricts the number of teams that can participate at States to 16 in each the Open and Girls Division.

[padagentile]

Lots of state results posted yesterday, but not PA. Problem??

[matthewbourland]

Lots of state results posted yesterday, but not PA. Problem??

We are posting each state's results when all the divisions of play in that state have had their voting finalized. PA is not yet done.

baker@hq.usaultimate.org can provide more details on any given state's progress.

[padagentile]

PA restricts the number of teams that can participate at States to 16 in each the Open and Girls Division.

Right. But if 'PHUL Playoffs' and 'PHUEL Cities' are qualifying events then I think that solves my main issue and, I think, the main part of your original post.

[rrudnic]

PA restricts the number of teams that can participate at States to 16 in each the Open and Girls Division.

Then they need to have qualifying tournaments and anyone in a qualifier should be considered. If not then there is a reason to have an issue.

[bakerpratt]

Since VA and PA have been the topic of conversation, I just wanted to note that both are now published:
http://www.usaultimate.org/news/2011-pennsylvania-hs-states-awards/
http://www.usaultimate.org/news/2011-virginia-hs-states-awards/

The full list is here: http://www.usaultimate.org/news/2011-hs-states-results/

Thanks.