Topic: IWF HIJAB RULING EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY

[Andy Dick]

The thing that is the most biting is that if you don't like the rules or how the USAW is run or IWF is run you have no other recourse.  This past year (some of you may remember me mentioning this) we tried making our own WL organization that ran separately but partially with USAW.  What I mean is that we wanted to set up unsanctioned meets that high school athletes could lift in without being a part of USAW but would tie into the top level USAW meets.  These unsanctioned meets ran around the state meet so if we had lifters that wanted to lift in the state meet or could potentially qualify for nationals we could send them (to state to qualify for nationals and if they wanted to go to nationals they could).  Hopefully if we get guys competing at higher levels with success we might keep them motivated to train for WL, besides just to get better for football or basketball. 

Aside from this, basically the goal was to reduce costs (to get one kid it costs the kid - $35 for a junior or $25 for a school age + say a $20 meet fee, our state meet cost $35, so you are looking between $45-55 for a standard meet).  This is not even factoring in transportation (another high school who was on board with this idea went to the state meet and had to come up with an additional $25 per kid for a bus, so you can see it can get pricey.  This may not seem like a lot except when you have kids who are doing WL as a means to an end (WL is not their main sport), they are unwilling to pony up or get the parents to pony up the money when it can be used for say a football camp instead.  It was difficult to get kids even interested in a meet.  Our hope was that if a kid only wanted to go to 1 meet that cost say $20, that it was an easier pill to swallow. 

Anyways, the point of all this is that when we started getting things planned we could not get any other schools to be on board with the idea.  In the end we had three schools (mine, the one I mentioned prior, and another school just starting a team this year).  The schools who we thought would be on board, or those that already had teams, basically shunned us and would have nothing to do with us.  This was purely on the basis that we were not affiliated with USAW (because we used the USAW rule book as our standard for rules to set a middle ground).  I do not fully blame them, why when you have a method in place when the kids are already paying to be a part of USAW would you go to a meet that counts nothing on rankings (AKA compete strictly for the joy of competing and lifting).

It becomes a losing battle because to move away, very few will follow to break from the powers in place.  What we are stuck with is basically the Field of Dreams mentality of "if you build it they will come."  Hoping if we can get good meets with kids putting up good numbers that hopefully these other schools will come for the competition.

[Andy Dick]

Got an email from USAW...the unitard can be worn by both male and female.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

Thats good. They are back up to a 7 out of ten then. ;)