Topic: College scholarships, grants, building and supporting clubs

[glennpendlay]

you talked about situations around the country being funded...  i think that has been tried, hasnt it?  in my opinion, it wasnt done right.

USAW  cant go out and "create" a situation that has the ingredients neccessary for success.  not with 10k a year, not with 60k a year.

what WOULD work, would be to give something like some money for college scholarships to places that have proven they can produce, and cover the other related costs themselves.

with one $500 scholarship, i can go out and talk to 20 high school coaches, and actually hold a "try-out" where these high school coaches can bring their best athletes to compete for the scholarship.  we are talking about girls who EXCELL at volleyball, powerlifting, basketball, not the girls who couldnt play so turned to a not so competitive sport like weightlifting.

then what happens when this is going on is that the high school coaches start to train for and talk about the available scholarship...  you in effect coop a whole group of people, the ones with access to the best athletes.

freshman girls know there is that opportunity out there.  so they train for it.  the high school coaches come to you and want to know how their girls can get it, how to do the lifts, what they should concentrate on, etc..  a whole different situation than us going to them begging them to listen.

think small, modest amounts of money wont work for this?  you think the availability of one scholarship cant bring 100 good girls to training, and lots and lots of coaches in high schools to your side?  well then, you havnt been around high school sports enough.  kids devote their lives from age 6 to age 18 to baseball, year round, for the possibility of a partial scholarship to some crap junior college.

ill guarantee you this, give me $10,000 of scholarship money no strings attached for 3 years, and ill have 6 of the 8 spots on the junior world team.

we try to re-invent the wheel.  what do successfull sports have in common.  10 million kids competing for a relatively few college scholarships, the pursuit of which get them training young, keeps the parents behind them and their efforts, then the giveing of the scholarships keeps the talented kids in the sport and training hard thru the college years when they really develope into good athletes.

this doesnt count on any pparticipation from schools either, or entry into the NCAA.

will it work?  of course.  it already has, on a limited basis, here in wichita.  why did we have 13 kids qualify for senior nationals our third year as a team?  why cant we do better?  no money, or the money we have has strings attached and cant be used properly for recruitment.

you want 100,000 kids doing weightlifting in high school?  its pretty simple, and could be started tomorrow.  you want the best ones to continue on to college where they graduate to a really competent coach and take the 4 years of college to go to as high a level as possible.  its simple, and could be started tomorrow.

we have a budget of something like 2 million i think.  we could turn this sport completely around, move up to where we should be in the world, with 30k to 40k a year devoted to the purpose.

its really that simple, and personally, i dont see how else to do it.  but if we want it, its there for us to have.

[Steve Gough]

To me it still boils down to the "chicken vs the egg." While we talk of future athletes and high school acceptance, what do we do to improve the present-lot of those we do have? Not to mention active producing coaches who may not have access to said colleges. This becomes a "Catch 22". Your thought is there. It may turn out to be the best option and the only option. Then again the older team/club concept that got us through the past (what?) seven decades may still be the best viable candidate. Or maybe a combination of the two...

I think we must generate some acknowledgment and acceptance of the general idea and let it start to move out of the talk-stage. A list of viable sites/candidates may be order... at least to give us some kind of idea of who and where we might consider pulling this off. We seem to have a somewhat blurred vision, but a vision nevertheless. If this vision is in the right direction then we should logically move towards it.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

Glenn Pendlay said:

USAW cant go out and "create" a situation that has the ingredients neccessary for success. not with 10k a year, not with 60k a year. what WOULD work, would be to give something like some money for college scholarships to places that have proven they can produce, and cover the other related costs themselves. with one $500 scholarship, i can go out and talk to 20 high school coaches, and actually hold a "try-out" where these high school coaches can bring their best athletes to compete for the scholarship. we are talking about girls who EXCELL at volleyball, powerlifting, basketball, not the girls who couldnt play so turned to a not so competitive sport like weightlifting.

I think there are some interesting and promising ideas here. Here is the catch-22, or the chicken and egg problem Steve Gough cites, it is very difficult for a dedicated new coach to get something started on their own with no help. Can it be done? Yes, it can and has. But, it takes a great deal of time and hard work-hard work in many areas (administrating, public relations, fund-raising, etc.) that distract and take away valuable time and energy from coaches primary mission of recruiting and coaching. Now, don't get me wrong, all these things, and more, are part of a coaches job. But, the central question facing us is how do we help dedicated, promising, coaches get successful clubs started and producing? And, how do we help dedicated, already producing coaches produce more?

There seems to be many different ways to build a successful club. Some have done it through YMCAs, community recreation centers, high schools, garages, universities, and on and on. So, how could the USAW assist coaches in building new successful programs and improving the capabilities of already producing clubs?

Perhaps, instead of re-inventing the wheel as Glenn said, we need to look to other systems where there are organizations dedicated to supporting individuals in the pursuit of common goals, like in scientific research, or community outreach programs. In other words, what do you all think of a grant system?

Here is the proposal I'd like to throw out for the purpose of discussion. Could we establish a grant review board made up of experienced coaches and administrators in the USAW to consider funding grant requests submitted by coaches?

Some of the elements examined/reviewed in such grant requests could be:
1) Credentials/production of coach making grant requests
2) Potential for producing athletes (numbers) and/or athletes of high level
3) Size of grant requested/needed
4) Cost/benefit analysis

Of course, grants could be reviewed periodically to reexamine the cost-benefits, and tweak the direction of the program and/or funding levels. It seems like this might provide the flexibility needed to assist coaches that want to work hard toward production and do it in a way that suits their unique situation while giving the USAW greater control and accountability for the funding that it provides.

Of course, the next question after discussing the idea of a grant system would be where the money would come from. It seems to me that giving money to athletes via subsidizes is not working well for us. The sport psychology research certainly is showing that it is not effective, especially in young people (juniors) because it tends to misdirect their motivation away from the love of the sport to love of money (distractions). Perhaps much of these subsidies are spent on things that a grant system to clubs/coaches would more effectively handle? Perhaps, instead of assisting individual athletes with weightlifting and life related expenses, it would be more effective to assist coaches and clubs in providing more services and better support to their athletes? Perhaps, instead of assisting athletes maintain their ability to train effectively in isolated environments, grants could encourage and support athletes in more club/team oriented atmospheres (encourage the development of more clubs/regional OTC-like training centers)?

Another advantage of using such a grant system aimed at focusing our funding on coaches and clubs would also be the potential for applicants to apply for grants from other like minded organizations interested in community outreach, juvenile delinquency prevention, education, research, etc. The very grant process that coaches would go through to apply for a USAW grant could surely get them started on grant requests for other organizations. Perhaps, we could create grant request templates that then could be altered minimally and submitted to other funding organizations. Perhaps, the USAW grant committee, after approving a grant request and funding it at some level, could then assist these grant recipients in applying for further funding from such organizations.

I realize what a major change in direction I am proposing and how controversial it could be (especially to athletes currently or hoping to soon receive cash from the USAW). But, I'm just trying to examine our options.

Thanks you all for reading about this idea. I'm very anxious to hear your responses.

[glennpendlay]

steve, i dont see this as chicken or egg at all.  i also dont see our present system as having been successfull, in a real sense... at any time period.

heres what i mean by successfull.  100,000 weightlifters training, 200,000 weightlifters training, our sport expanded to the point where we have the talent neccessary to produce medals consistently, where if a top performer gets hurt, there IS someone, or multiple someones, there to replace him or her.  a constant hard-core competition between not 1 or 2 top performers, but 100 or 200 top performers that pushes that special someone to world records.

is this not really what we all want?  the question is, is it possible.  well i say it is.

consider the fact that there are more high school powerlifers, FAR MORE, in one weight class in just the state of texas, than there are total weightlifters in the whole country.  consider that the depth of athletic ability and talent in that one weight class of powerlifting in texas high schools, overall, probably also compares favorably with the entire sport of weightlifting.

the USAW simply CAN NOT give enough grants, we simply CAN NOT organize enough clubs, if gone about in the traditional way, to achieve what we want.

its like we are trying to empty the exxon valdez of oil using the old rope and bucket system, and being unsuccessfull, we are argueing about how many more buckets we should use.

throw the buckets away, and open the drain spout is what i would say...we have a huge, ready and waiting high school infrastructure waiting to aid us.  a monster waiting for us to harness it, something far bigger and stronger and with far more rescources than we have, but we CAN still use it, we can with a little effort direct this monster to our purpose.

i have explained my proposal in detail (something far easier to do in person than over a keyboard), how it would work, why it would work... tpo people employed by USAW or in elected positions with USAW, and have gotten pretty much the same response from everyone...  yeah, that would probably work, yeah, im sure that would work, but it will never happen, becasue there is no way to make it fair.

[glennpendlay]

before i get into all the reasons that this type of plan would work, let me explain exactly what i propose to happen.

a number of places around the country selected.  these places could number from 1 to 100, depending on how much money we wanted to spend, and how many suitable places there are available.

qualifications for selection as a site.

1.  already have a team and coach in place.  have proven already the ability to produce athletes and run a team.

2.  proximity to a college, very prefereably some close association with a college.  weightlifting should, if possible, at least be a "club" sport at the school.

3. have a coach who has the TIME to recruit, and act like he was a football or basketball recruiter, going our to high schools and spending lots of time recruiting.

4.  a coach who has preferably had experience dealing with high school/college athletics before.  who knows how to talk to parents.  who understands the dynamics of the high school athlete/coach/parent.

5.  it would be preferable to locate these centers, at least at first, in places where high school weightlifting or powerlifting is already an accepted varsity sport.  florida and texas would be ideal.

[glennpendlay]

grants are fine.  but if we dont want to keep things just as they are, we for sure better find a way to spend that money in a way that leverages it really well, and spend it towards dramatically increasing our talent pool.

if we dont do that, we are just fooling around.

i think we have already shown that we can pay elite athletes more, that we can set up little USAW funded training centers, that we can spend 2 million or so a year on our present system and priorities and just end up with the same thing.

[Rhys Lucero]

I would like to address Chris' and Glenn's posts.
 
Chris said

Some of the elements examined/reviewed in such grant requests could be:
1) Credentials/production of coach making grant requests
2) Potential for producing athletes (numbers) and/or athletes of high level
3) Size of grant requested/needed
4) Cost/benefit analysis

 
I agree that these would good criteria to consider when giving money to the needy, but the cost benefit analysis would have to be the crux of the process.  In fact, criteria 1, 2, and 3 are just aspects of the cost benefit analysis.
 
The real question is how would you analyze the benefit?  Money brought into USA Weightlifting through new members?  What benefit can come from giving money to people when that money must be diverted from other functions?  What programs, that USA Weightlifting is currently involved in, need to be cut to produce the money, and how will that improve the fiduciary stance of USA Weightlifting?
 
I think that the ONLY way to analyze benefit to USA Weightlifting is to analyze the increase of money coming in to USA Weightlifting based on the investment.  There is no long term benefit from anything but increasing USA Weightlifting's bottom line.  I don't see how giving grant money will significantly increase the funding of USA Weightlifting.
 
Glenn said

throw the buckets away, and open the drain spout is what i would say...we have a huge, ready and waiting high school infrastructure waiting to aid us. a monster waiting for us to harness it, something far bigger and stronger and with far more rescources than we have, but we CAN still use it, we can with a little effort direct this monster to our purpose.

 
I just went to the Florida High School Athletic Association's (FHSAA) Weightlifting State Finals which consists of the Bench Press and the Clean and Jerk.  It was great!  The Bench Press brought in the numbers, and the most dedicated coaches and athletes knew that to win, they couldn't ignore the Clean and Jerk.  I saw kids that weren't USA members Clean and Jerk some weight.  77 kilo lifter CJ 152.5 kilos.  A Super heavy power clean and jerked 182.5 kilos.
 
There was a lot of interest in weightlifting information from the high schools dedicated to winning this competition because they realize that the clean and jerk is half the competition.  
 
I belive that more states need high school weightlifting.  The format with the bench and clean and jerk is perfect for drawing numbers, and the format can be sold to state high school athletic associations because everyone cares about football.  The best weightlifters are the best football players, and this is displayed in the science.  
 
Hoffman JR, Cooper J, Wendell M, Kang J.    
Comparison of Olympic vs. traditional power lifting training programs in football players.
J Strength Cond Res. 2004 Feb;18(1):129-35.
PMID: 14971971 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

[glennpendlay]

rhys, improving our bottom line has really nothing to do with it.  i think we are a rich, rich federation.  whats our budget?  isnt it something on the order of 2 million a year?  we dont need more money.  we just need to spend what we have on things that will make us better.

giving more to our top p erformers has been tried and hasnt worked.  i read somwhere that our top few have recieved over $500,000 over the past quad and performance from them has actually decreased?  this might not be exactly true but ive heard similar things in enough different places to think its close.

simply trying to give more opportunity to our talented juniors and those on the way up is a good thing, but not going to really get us anywhere.  right now, anyone who is really good has lots of opportunity.  look at our best juniors, look at their situation.  if they really wanted to be at a place where they could train hard, they are or they could be.

what we need is more talent.  we need so many great juniors that where to put them DOES become a problem.  we need a bunch of those great high school florida weightlifters and and high school coaches actively pursueing getting their best kids into college weightlifting programs.

im gonna bet that there is enough talent in florida high school weightlifting right now, that if we could attract the top 30 kids, we could in 5 years have a team that would win senior nationals easily and be actively in the process of helping to move us significantly up in the world rankings.