USSA Northern Division Winter Meeting
January 19, 2007
Hidden Moose Lodge
Whitefish, Montana

Call to Order:  7:00 PM

Welcome/Identification of Members present

Members present were:  Jenn Stielow, Craig Krueger (Discovery), KC Palagi (Big Mtn.), Zachary Heller (Blacktail), Rick Jacobs (Showdown), Rick Duncan (Discovery), Lucia Pizales (Casper), Alrick Hale (Big Mtn.), Pearley Wells (Casper), Ted McNamara (Silver Run), Logan Cook (Missoula), Erik Hamilton (Missoula), Geoff McDonald (Big Sky), James Eliason (Bridger), Fritz Wood (Bridger), and Jeff Pickering (Big Mtn.).

Old Business:

  1. From the WR ACC meeting:  Jenn Stielow is now the new Western Region Development Manager. 
  2. Discussed projects – upper level kids.
    1. - Keystone – North Peak
      - Beaver Creek
      -       Lake Louise
    2. Western Region Elite Team – Chet Cook has been selected.
    3. Topolino Shoot-out – Four athletes from Northern Division participated.  Need to move this out of Christmas Camp time period – possibly add an educational value to the camp.

New Business:

  1. Regional Report
    1. Jenn Stielow discussed the following proposals:
      1. Intent to Compete (out of region) (see Appendix 1)
      2. Quota Distributions (see Appendix 2)
      3. Calendar addition proposal (see Appendix 3)

      These are Western Region ACC proposals.  Jenn asks for comments on these proposals to be submitted by coaches.

    1. Officials/Rules Committee – USSA is watching closely for officials/coaches/race officials to have completed background checks and be up-to-date. Teams/Hills are to make sure that they adhere to rules and use up-to-date officials/coaches etc.  This process is not going away – get used to it.
    2. There was light discussion on Speed Protection – netting – use of tape measures in course setting.
    3. Discussion regarding homologation updates.  As course allowances have changed, older homologations may now be invalid.  Hills considering major events need to adhere to new specifications.  The loss or change of event sites is a high possibility with the new specifications.
    4. Athlete tracking was discussed with an overview of its goal.  Physical assessments will begin being used.  This was discussed more in-depth.  (See Appendix 4)

    This concludes the Regional Report.

  1. Selection Process for Championship Events

    There was discussion on the conflict of race calendars due to upper level racers needing to attend Northern Division races which sometimes means the athletes will miss valid race opportunities elsewhere.

    A proposal was made by Fritz Wood regarding Intent to attend a series or FIS race, an athlete must be 150 USSA points or lower.  Rick Jacobs seconds.  Craig Krueger calls for a discussion on the proposal.  There was a call for a vote on the proposal.  Vote fails.

    Further discussion on how to tie divisional team athletes as automatics to upper level races without being tied to attending ND races to qualify.  Possibly up to quota naming the team as the season progresses with remaining slots filled by ND race finishes per board.  This issue tabled until the Spring Meeting for further discussion.

  1. Financial Report

    2. Current bank balances of $25,983.88.

  2. Travel Issues
    1. Race attendance confirmation/development slots.
      1. There was discussion on short notice of possible development slot openings – and how can we have more notice, i.e., more than 3-4 days prior to the event?

        2. Fritz Wood asked to put together a recommendation and submit it to Craig Krueger.

    2. J3/J4 travel coach issues.
      1. There was discussion on transportation to regional events, i.e., Mammoth J3 JO.  Possibly charter a bus?  Jen Stielow is going to look into this. 

        2. Responsibility of coaches to make every effort to chaperone athletes, and athletes need to be on task discussed.

    3. Discussion on possibly having a summer coaches education forum and J3/4 ND camp in Red Lodge.

 

There being no further business the meeting was adjourned by Craig Krueger.

Minutes recorded by KC Palagi, compiled by Susan Krueger.

Appendix 1

Western Region ACC
January 10, 2007

Proposal: Modification to the Intent-to-Compete Procedure for Out of Region races

    This proposal would not replace any current policy but would be added provisions to existing procedures:

    1. Intents may only be filed for one series on any given date or dates.  Reasonable travel allowance, of at least one day between multiple series requests is required.  Filing for conflicting series is prohibited.
    2. Intents may be filed for full series racing only.  Western quotas may not be used for partial entry to a series of FIS races.  The regional director may allow 1) a first year FIS eligible racer exceptions to this provision in order to comply with FIS entry limitations or 2) an athlete qualified to a conflicting USST or NDS invitation to an international competition trip or a western quota team to a continental cup event.
    3. A maximum of 2 out-of-region race opportunities may be applied for in any one declaration period.

These provision will take effect for lists due February 1, 2007 for Races in March and following.

Appendix 2

Proposal:  Quota distribution for Western Region FIS Series

Part 1.  When a Western Region FIS Series Race is used as a qualifying competition for any Championship event the Region will regulate and modify how the quota may be filled by the divisions.

  1. Those automatics eligible in the age range for the championship event may attend the series.
  2. Additional automatics may only attend if they are included in a five-per-gender Regional Director's quota as "pace" skiers.  No other Western Region Automatics [to the elite FIS series] may attend.
  3. Fifty of any divisional quota must be reserved and offered to the age group that is qualifying to the championship event.  [Example:  series as a qualifier to the National J2 Championship would have divisional quotas that were at least 50 J2 racers.]
  4. Quota expansions may or may not be restricted by age category.
  5. The remaining Regional Director's quota, following the "pace" skiers, is not restricted.

Part 2.  Western Region Development Series Races that are not qualifiers to championship events are open to entry by regional automatics to the Western Region Elite FIS series who are either a) first year FIS eligible or b) members of a five per gender "pace" quota from the regional director.  No other automatics may attend these events.

There are no other restrictions on divisional quota selection procedures provided these methods comply with the FIS, USSA. and Western policies and procedures, including the Stevens Amateur sports act.

Appendix 3

Proposal:  Calendar addition proposal.

In years where the opening qualification series of either Western Elite FIS and/or Western FIS ("development series") races occur after January 1, the regional calendar may include an additional FIS series for Men and Women to be held between the first week of December and the Christmas holidays.  

The quotas would be given to the divisions for distribution, based on the Western FIS Series with no restrictions on attendance of any kind.  The regional director would manage quota expansion and there would be only regional director's quota for development opportunity, as opposed to pace.  Following one round of quota expansion, if that were possible given required Foreign and other USA regional entry, the remaining open slots would revert to the host division.

The inclusion of such a race will be determined as the last topic of business of the calendar following the completion of the remainder of the calendar by the ACC.  Given recent calendaring trends this series would conflict with either the RMD, Canadian, or Eastern Cup races or all three.

Rationale:  The pressure on out-of-region travel in December this year was tremendous.  Even teams with no training are trying to race in December, with athletes without points.  There is an unrealistic expectation as to Canadian and other region access that is fostering frustration in all sectors of the population.  So, in the face of clear desire, rational or not, opportunity may be desirable to none.

Appendix 4

Western Region Athlete Tracking
2006-07 and beyond

Objectives:

The underlying reason to track athletes is to obtain an objective and subjective record of individual athletes' past athletic activity, accomplishments, demographic and various types of descriptive records in order to facilitate decision-making processes.  When profiling and assessing athletes for invitations to projects, training opportunities, teams, and discretionary selection to competition, the availability of information should contribute to the validity of such processes if the information is reliable and appropriate for the purposes for which it is used.  Individual profiles in various domains of sport and athletic performance, comparisons of athlete to one another and comparison of athletes across time will be enhanced and facilitated by elementary record compellation and analysis.

A secondary objective is to aid in future design of athletic programming by having a body of historical records on past athletes.  While it is not known what value and purpose such records will hold, without such information the sport will forever be ignorant of its actual development processes and the results of such effort.  Currently, when a coach retires, the knowledge he has leaves the sport with him.  Maintaining records of athletes in more than only results and rankings will allow sport practitioners across many fields to have a body of data upon which to base analysis.

Goals:

  1. To compile a written, graphic and visual record of individual athletes in various domains of athletic performance.
  2. To create an accurate assessment, knowledge base/picture of an athlete that is kept up-to-date.
  3. To aid in the process of decision-making concerning invitations to various kinds of training, competition, and membership opportunities.
  4. To create a career history of athletic training efforts of the top prospective athletes of the USSA Regional and NDS athletes.
  5. To create awareness of athletes, coaches, parents, and clubs of the nature of the athletic preparation and training requirements of alpine skiing.
  6. To have means to compare and contrast athletes' skill levels at various points in and across time.
  7. To create and maintain a longitudinal record of the activities of USSA athletes from the Western Region training and competitive progress, methods, and result.  

Types and Means of Recorded Materials:

Sources:

  • Home program
  • Divisional, Regional and NDS Camp records
  • USSA and FIS Racer Histories
  • Rankingrecords, USSA and FIS Visual records on an annual basis
    • Technical clips
    • Event competition clips
    • Identified by period and year

Fields of content:

  1. Training records
    1. Home program records in whatever format used
    2. Regional and divisional camp records/assessments/recommendations
    3. NDS camprecords
  2. Various athlete evaluations by home programs and Camp records
    1. Strengths and needs
    2. Effective means
    3. Current goals
  3. Technical Skills
    1. Video clips of event competitions and training sequences
    2. Scores of subjective assessment of standard tests
    3. Annual technical goals
    4. Use EPM categories
  4. Tactical skills
    1. Video clips of event competitions and training sequences
    2. Scores of subjective assessment of standard tests
  5. Management
    1. Starts by event
    2. Starts over time
  6. Results, annual
  7. Ranks, annual and progress over time (graphic format).
  8. Physical assessment
    1. Health, physicals
    2. Health, demographic growth record
    3. Fitness scores
      1. USSA field test scores
      2. Lab results
    4. Injury and rehabilitation records
    5. Concussion baseline tests
    6. Nutritional monitoring
  9. Social/Mental skills
    1. Citizenship
    2. General personality
    3. Learning Styles
    4. Motivational Styles
    5. Attribution
    6. Optimism, pessimism
  10. Equipment records
    1. Type, setup, preferences, etc.
    2. Skill level in self help.