The Dallas Morning News and Swimming World have posted on the UIL rule change. Read more here and here.
The UIL seems to have met us halfway.
Good news:
They're throwing out Appendix B, the optional protocol that allowed the computer to trump common sense.
Bad news:
We're not going back to the days when we were being told the equipment could save a relay.
Kind of makes you wonder why we're one of the only states that even bothers using automatic relay judging at all...
3 comments:
2 steps forward, 1 step back.
Still, good news. Just embarrassing that it took -2- yrs to correct the gross error. One would HOPE the UIL would act in the best interests of the sport and the participants by diligent investigation and review on its own after the FIRST report of a problem, instead of burying its collective heads in the sand and pretending something wasn't a problem, instead of waiting until the door was kicked in by -national- mention and hordes of members of the sports community exoressing outrage, so a CHANGE could be implemented.
More HOPE and CHANGE disappointment.
Still... Kudos anyway to UIL for partially fixing the problem, great big ATTABOY to Kevin Murphy for his persistent and CIVIL pursuit of changing a flawed system, and congrats to Southlake Carroll girls for being what everyone knows was the REAL state champ, much as Churchill was, not so many years back.
Please, no flaming rebuttals, it's the truth.
Kudos also due to Mark Dent of the DMN and Brent Rutemiller and Jason Marsteller of Swimming World for keeping the pressure on the UIL by focused reporting, and also to Texas Swimming for staying focused.
Good news indeed!
Well written, I could not agree more with you oh wise lion king..
Epiphany!
Given the "new" protocol,
Why have the RTOP's at all?
*except to see how close the exchange was?
(providing the touch pad registers an accurate touch)
Funny, no mention at all, by the UIL decision-makers, is made for the possibility of touchpad malfunction, which is the basis of the entire argument!
The RTOP's were supposed to "save" the swimmer with a positive reading, or "flag" a possible negative reading that had to be confirmed by a human judge.
The "save" factor was how the manufacturers got into the door with the coaches and swimmers in the first place.
Just wait until the RTOP registers a very close positive or 0.0 reading, and see how loud the coaches cry when their team is the one that gets DQ'ed by two hunan officials.
We will be right back where we are now. Possible confusion and questions and animosity between the officials and the participants/coaches.
Get rid of the RTOP's altogether (save lots of money, sorry manufacturers) and go back to human judges for ALL of the decisions on relay exchanges. Then we are back to "any doubt goes to the swimmer".
This "old-fashioned" protocol of human relay exchange judges, was good enough for over 70 years. Why aren't the human judges good enough to do without a flawed automatic system now?
Trust the human judges, get rid of the machines (or those that "interpret" the use of the machines), and let's have a swim meet!
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