GYMN-L Digest - 6 Apr 1996 to 7 Apr 1996

There are 15 messages totalling 488 lines in this issue.

Topics of the day:

1. Judges payments. WAG (2)
2. 97 Code Additional Interpretations #2 March 4, 1996
3. rich
4. WAG: Desert Devils (3)
5. Judging--affiliation
6. Judging
7. Nadia Comaneci on TV
8. WAG: Hindorff (sp?)
9. Nadi & Bart at SeaWorld
10. Florida Men's Awards
11. Questions
12. videos

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Date: Sun, 7 Apr 1996 10:13:32 +1200
From: ***@VOYAGER.CO.NZ
Subject: Judges payments. WAG

From: ***@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU
Subject: Questions

Heather I can only speak for Judges around these parts but judges are not
paid at all, it is entirely a voluntary thing. We do get paid a lecturers
fee if we take judges courses.
We are lucky to have our travel to meets paid sometimes, and it was not
very long ago that I had to pay to travel to International competitions with
the NZ team as their judge. For example when I went to Worlds at
Indianapolis I paid the travel and the accomodation, I received no funding
from my Federation.
The judging courses that I have attended Internationally to renew my brevet
have normally been funded by myself with maybe a 50% subsidy if I was lucky.
And these courses have been in Europe.
Remember also that living down here in the Southern Hemisphere it is a lot
more expensive to travel to Internationals.
My husband will only be too pleased if my hobby goes professional. He is a
little tired of propping up the system.

It will be interesting to see the situation in the USA, I know that the
Aerobics Judges get paid quite handsomely and now that they are part of the
FIG will payments for Artistic have to come in!

As far as coaches go, you only have to read about the assests that Bela has
got to realise how much money there is to be made by a successful coach in
the USA.
Avril

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Date: Sat, 6 Apr 1996 17:48:29 +0000
From: ***@DORSAI.ORG
Subject: 97 Code Additional Interpretations #2 March 4, 1996

An additional page of 97 Code Interpetations is available
at http://www.ngja.org

97 Code Additional Interpretations #2, March 4, 1996
Sorry it wasn't listed sooner.

Ken

Attention Judges: If you wish to be listed in our online email
directory, please email me with permission, city, and state.


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Date: Sat, 6 Apr 1996 19:41:01 -0500
From: ***@EROLS.COM
Subject: Re: rich

Rich -- you wrote (with a list of thoughts re the code and various
(ab)uses of it) --
[ellipses]
> I know I didn't really stay within our guidelines, but maybe this will
> generate a thread. [ellipses -- your sig, etc.]
> Let me be ashamed to die until I have won some small victory for humanity.

One for the list, I hope, anyway! Oh, how nice to see an actual
substantive post again. Thanks,

Ann

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Date: Sat, 6 Apr 1996 17:39:21 -0700
From: ***@ASU.EDU
Subject: WAG: Desert Devils

I don't know why Coreen Murphy left Desert Devils, but I read an
article in the Arizona Republic about the turmoil that's happened since
Stormy Eaton's tragic death. Apparently Stormy's son and ex-wife have
taken over Desert Devils, and other formerDD coaches have set up a rival
gym in the area. One of the most promising gymnasts (whose name I have
forgotten) is the daughter of Stormy's girlfriend, who he was going to
marry. She switched to the other coaches' gym. With so much going on,
it's not surprising that some gymnasts have chosen to leave. It's rather
sad to see a program I respected as much as Eaton's have this kind of
conflict; hopefully both gyms will thrive and produce quality gymnasts
like Stormy did for many years.

Leslie

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Date: Sat, 6 Apr 1996 20:02:43 -0500
From: ***@MOOSE.UVM.EDU
Subject: Re: WAG: Desert Devils

The name of the girl whose mother Stormy Eaton was going to marry was, I
believe, Coreen Murphy. Is it really true that some of the coaches opened
their own rival gym? I went to both their one week summer camp (1992) and
their three week supercamp (1993) in the mountains and the coaches were really
good. They all seemed so close, so it's hard to believe that they would do
this. They have produced so many great gymnasts like Tiffany Simpson, Kim
Arnold, Juliet Bangerter, Aimee Trepanier, Sandy Woolsey, and many
more. Did those who are not yet in college, or that age, leave to go to
the other gym? Which coaches went? I also hope that both of these gyms do
well and I hope to see the memory of Stormy Eaton live on.

Jen

> I don't know why Coreen Murphy left Desert Devils, but I read an
> article in the Arizona Republic about the turmoil that's happened since
> Stormy Eaton's tragic death. Apparently Stormy's son and ex-wife have
> taken over Desert Devils, and other formerDD coaches have set up a rival
> gym in the area. One of the most promising gymnasts (whose name I have
> forgotten) is the daughter of Stormy's girlfriend, who he was going to
> marry. She switched to the other coaches' gym. With so much going on,
> it's not surprising that some gymnasts have chosen to leave. It's rather
> sad to see a program I respected as much as Eaton's have this kind of
> conflict; hopefully both gyms will thrive and produce quality gymnasts
> like Stormy did for many years.
>
> Leslie
>

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Date: Sat, 6 Apr 1996 19:50:59 CST
From: ***@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU
Subject: Judging--affiliation

>I have a question for Robin, the gymnastics judge.
>I was wondering what you thought about someone judging at a Level 9/10 State
>Meet (and being the head judge) who was also an owner of a very large well
>known gym that was competing and who also happened to have her daughter
>competing in that meet?

As I have the "USA Gymnastics 1995-96 Rules and Policies" in front of me, I
will answer this question by quoting from the book. THIS IS A USA
GYMNASTICS QUESTION. I am in NO WAY representing USAG, but simply quoting
their rules. Further questions should be addressed to the appropriate
USAG personnel.

p. xiii, "Should questions arise, members should seek answers by following
the 'chain of command' described below:
Members ask State Chairman (SC)
SC asks RC
RC asks ABC
ABC asks NWPD or USAG President"

"Interpretation of the Rules & Policies is the responsibility of the
Women's Administrative Board."

p. 63 of the Rules and Policies:
II. AFFILIATION OF JUDGES

The rules are NOT meant to prevent officials from judging, but to prevent
unfair situations for the gymnasts.
A. Affiliation refers to:
1. An immediate family member of a competing gymnast, her
coach(es), or the club owner.
2. A person on the payroll of a competing Club.
3. A Team member of parent of a team member of a competing club.
4. A Coach of a competing gymnast.
5. A Club Owner of a competing gymnast.
B. Affiliated judges MAY be assigned, with the following stipulations:
1. In USA Gymnastics qualifying competitions with a two or a four
judge panel:
a. An affiliated judge may be assigned as a Panel judge or as
the Meet Referee.
b. No more than 1 judge with the same affiliation may be
assigned per panel.
c. An affiliated judge may not be assigned as Chief Judge,
regardless of certification.
2. In non-qualying Open Invitations with a two or four judge panel:
a. Affiliated judges may be assigned as Chief or Panel judges.
b. Meet Director must list the judges (and their affiliation) on
the pre-meet information."

A state meet would be considered a qualifying competition.

--Robin

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Date: Sat, 6 Apr 1996 20:55:14 EST
From: ***@PRODIGY.COM
Subject: Re: Judging

This has happened to my daughter (L5) also. Although I personally
know that this judge/coach tends to judge girls she coaches harder
than girls from other teams, I do believe that this is a conflict of
interest and should not be allowed.
In the case of my daughter, the judge was a former coach of hers from
another gym, but her own girls were there competing. She
consistently scored them .2 to .3 lower than others. When my
daughters turn was up I told one of the parents from her new gym to
watch the scoring for my daughter. Sure enough she was scored approx.
.2 to .3 lower because the judge knew her. (This particular judge
does not want parents to think she is favoring girls she has coached.
) This is as unfair as Bethany's problem with girls being overscored.

Is there anyway that judge/coaches can be barred from judging at
meets their girls compete at? I don't know, but I think they should
not be allowed to.
Just my $.02 worth
Linda

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Date: Sat, 6 Apr 1996 19:28:47 -0700
From: ***@ASU.EDU
Subject: Re: WAG: Desert Devils


> The name of the girl whose mother Stormy Eaton was going to marry was, I
> believe, Coreen Murphy. Is it really true that some of the coaches opened
> their own rival gym? I went to both their one week summer camp (1992) and
> their three week supercamp (1993) in the mountains and the coaches were really
> good. They all seemed so close, so it's hard to believe that they would do
> this. They have produced so many great gymnasts like Tiffany Simpson, Kim
> Arnold, Juliet Bangerter, Aimee Trepanier, Sandy Woolsey, and many
> more. Did those who are not yet in college, or that age, leave to go to
> the other gym? Which coaches went? I also hope that both of these gyms do
> well and I hope to see the memory of Stormy Eaton live on.
>
> Jen

I dug up the article (from 3/31/96, Arizona Republic, pg. 1 of
the Sports page), and here's what it says:

--Geoff Eaton, Stormy's son runs Desert Devils now. Only Ian Kirk, a
former ASU teammate of Geoff's, remains from the former staff. Stormy's
ex-wife is the office manager.
--The new gym is called Emerald Gymnastics, and is run by Eaton's former
coaching staff. It's less than five miles from the DD gym. The coaches
are Jon Aitken, Craig Keaty, Debbie Wehr, Aimee Jacobs, Adele Sanowski,
Natalie Laino, and Gina Corona Schwartz.
--the day he died, Stormy wrote a will. He left 75% interest of the gym
to his children, Geoff and Jessica. The remaining 25% was left to Jon
Aitken, a coach at DD and Stormy's good friend. The interest left to the
kids was contingent on the kids finishing college, which has stalled for
Geoff in the last couple of years. Stormy's brother, "Bingo", the
executor of the estate, said that what Stormy wanted was "his kids to go
to college, and Geoff to run the gym as a partner to Jon (Aitken)."
Unfortunately, that didn't work out, and five coaches were fired, and
Aitken a few weeks later, freeing them to work at the new gym.
Ironically, concern about the new gym apparently was the reason for the
firings.
--Geoff thinks that the former DD coaches plotted against him and planned
to leave soon after Stormy's death.
--the story quotes an _Atlanta Constitution_ story, which quotes Kim
Arnold saying the gym was too high pressure. It says "she said she was
criticized and told she was fat by Desert Devil coaches. In 1994, when
she chose not to compete through nationals, she said, `they didn't have
any use for me. I understood then the coaches were doing it for
themselves and didn't care about me.'"
--Geoff Eaton, on his coaching philosophy: "When I came in here (after
Eaton's death), I saw everthing Stormy wanted except good gymnastics. It
was masked by too much fun. This isn't a romper room or a playground.
We bring our excellence by positive reinforcement."
--"But for one parent, who said his one regret about leaving Desert
Devils for Emerald was that he didn't punch Geoff Eaton first, the son
will never be the father. `He represents the absolute opposite of
Stormy,' the parent said."
--Geoff has kept his best level 8-9 gymnasts (10-13 age) out of
competition in order to train harder. "I don't want any more gymnasts to
walk out of this gym and say that they could have been better, that they
didn't work hard enough."
--The story says that Colleen Murphy and Kristen Ellis have switched to
Emerald.
--The division of booster club funds after the split "almost forced a
lawsuit."
--Bingo Eaton: "The bottom line is what's important for the kids and the
future of gymnastics and realizing there is room for everybody."
Amen to that!
Sorry that this was so long, but obviously, the division between the
gyms is a complex problem, and I didn't want to oversimplify.

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Date: Sat, 6 Apr 1996 23:47:24 PST
From: ***@EPIX.NET
Subject: Nadia Comaneci on TV

Did anyone else happen to see the interview with Nadia
Comaneci and Al Roker on CNBC tonight at about 7:30pm? I
caught the end of it. They were discussing how she defected to
the US and Nadia and Bart's wedding plans. Does anyone know
what else they talked about?

Tara

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Date: Sun, 7 Apr 1996 00:30:53 -0500
From: ***@AOL.COM
Subject: Re: WAG: Hindorff (sp?)

> I was watching the PAC-10 championships a while ago and noticed
>that Keri Monahan, who competes for Stanford, has an awesome Hindorff (hope
>I'm spelling this right) in her bars routine. The only other woman I've
>seen perform this skill is Dominique Dawes. Are there any other women
>who currently perform this skill? Did other women perform it in the past?

Stephanie Andrews from Seattle Pacific University just added a Hindorff to
her UB routine.

Dean

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Date: Sun, 7 Apr 1996 00:31:11 -0500
From: ***@AOL.COM
Subject: Re: Judges payments. WAG

Payment to judges in the USA can be quite lucrative depending on your rating.
You are paid a minimum of 2 hours per meet and your hourly fee is based upon
your rating. The higher your rating, the more you receive per hour. As a
level 10 judge I receive $21.00 per hour. We receive payment for our total
mileage less 30 miles and if we judge for longer than 3 hours or travel for
more than 100 miles round trip we receive $10.00 for meals. Being that I
live a large geographically spread state, I will rarely get under $50 for any
meet I judge. I have heard that in Canada, like New Zealand the judges do it
all by volunteer.

While I feel we put in a great deal of effort and time for this sport I am
not convinced that we should be paid so handsomely for it. Personnally I
would be happy with just my expenses covered. However, then once left up to
volunteer judges, we may not have people who are as dedicated because they
are getting something for their efforts. Also, to be quite honest, I do
think of the money sometimes when I am dragging my tired butt out to my
fourth high school meet in a week and then I have a four session club meet on
the weekend and a junior high school meet on Monday only to have (maybe) a
day off before it starts again for the next week.

Dean Ratliff

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Date: Sun, 7 Apr 1996 01:15:01 EST
From: ***@PRODIGY.COM
Subject: Nadi & Bart at SeaWorld

I just returned from SeaWorld (Florida) where Bart Conner and Nadia
Comaneci were performing. The show was sponsored by John Hancock
and included performances by Paul Hunt, 3 - level 8 girls (2 were
Paul's daughters), a class 3 and class 4 boy, and a few words from
Paul Ziert.

They did 2 shows on Saturday. The 1st was outside where the
"Baywatch" show takes place and had to end early due to rain. They
took the next show inside and had to turn away MANY people because of
the size of the facility.

Nadia seemed nervous and shy when speaking. Bart was his usual,
confident, charming self. They talked about their wedding coming
up at the end of the month and joked about Bart changing his name to
"Bart Comaneci" :-} Bart gave a very nice little speech about
Gymnastics and its many benefits.

Paul Hunt performed his usual, funny beam routine (including the
smiley face on the buttocks). He was not wearing his mustache like
usual - I actually heard some people wondering out loud if he was a
man or woman. Paul's 9yr. old daughter was an extremely muscular
little munchkin (just like dad).

Bart and Nadia did their little routine that most of us have seen on
tv already. She does the beam and he does some ph and pb and they
dance around together and then end with Bart doing a planche over
Nadia and then lowering to kiss her. They both look great!! Nadia
is still very graceful, shapely and elegant and Bart is "ripped" and
a great showman.

They had a "name that skill" contest with some people from the
audience and gave some autographed gymnastics t-shirts as prizes.
The skills used were:
1) V hold - press to handstand (the sister of one of my level 6
girls won this shirt)
2) Thomas flairs (the guy guessed: the flying Walenda turny
thing)
3) Silivas on beam

Bart told the locals how lucky they are to have such great clubs and
coaches in the Orlando area and then praised "Broadway Gymnastics"
(Winter Springs, Fl.) for their GREAT coaching staff and introduced
'84 and '88 Olympian Scott Johnson.

At the end of the show - "IZZY" the Olympic mascot presented Bart
and Nadia with a special Wedding gift.

I enjoyed the show and think that it represented our sport nicely.

STEEL

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Date: Sun, 7 Apr 1996 01:21:32 EST
From: ***@PRODIGY.COM
Subject: Florida Men's Awards

At the Florida Optional Men's State Championships the following
awards were presented:


Optional Coach of the Year - Jim Hisey (Fla. State Chairman)
*** This was very appropriate considering that his team
(TGC) won the team title at every optional
level!!!

Compulsory Coach of the Year - David Bradley (Apollo)

Gymnast of the Year - Jodi Liebler (Olympic)

"Jon Culbertson" Judge of the Year Award - Eric Fulcomer

Congratulations to all of the award recipients.



STEEL

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Date: Sat, 6 Apr 1996 23:40:39 PST
From: ***@CISCO.COM
Subject: Re: Questions

1) What does IMHO mean? (sorry if I'm stupid)

"In My Humble Opinion" (see also "IMNSHO")

2) When you write 1/1 or 2/1 etc., what do you mean? I know what most
skills are, but I can't figure out what exactly you mean. I catch the
gist of what you're saying about how many twists, but what's the other
number for?

For multiple twisting multiple somersaults, the numbers indicate which
flip the twisting occurs during.

3) I hope this is not a TABOO question, but do coaches and judges make
very much money?

No. Gymn owners make a little more (but owning a gymn takes a lot of work
in addition to being a coach), but it's not really a lucrative career. A
few coaches get to be famous enough that they can probably produce
significant side income from book deals, speaking, etc.


Are there any training sessions to become either of these?

Yes. Both. Training is required to become a judge, and there are even
certification programs for coaches (even for specific tricks, I think,
as in "this coach is certified to teach XYZ vault.) The coaching
cerification is apparently useful for getting insurance.

Chops

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Date: Sun, 7 Apr 1996 12:41:28 PDT
From: ***@AMDAHL.CO.ZA
Subject: videos

Would everyone who I sent my video list to, please send me theirs. If you
would like to send it by snail-mail, let me know.
Helen.

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End of GYMN-L Digest - 6 Apr 1996 to 7 Apr 1996
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