Open Diving Discussion

Coaches,


With the 07-08 diving seasons now over, it's time to congratulate those who earned MISCA awards for the guy's season and to look forward to addressing changes needed for next year while the season is still fresh in our minds. First things first - congrats to the following MISCA Dive Coaches of the Year for the 07-08 guy's season:


AWARDS


D1 - Eric Gale - East Kentwood - 31 pts.


D2 - Rachel Herpin - B.C. Lakeview - 26 pts.


D3 - Don Mason - Lahser - 36 pts.


The following divers will be receiving MISCA Diver of the Year awards as well:


D1 - Joe Smith - Caledonia/Byron Center


D2 - Jordan Long - Grosse Pointe South


D3 - Collin O'Brien - East Grand Rapids


***Jordan Long will also be the representative diver on the newly formed "MISCA Swim and Dive Dream Team" to be released to media outlets soon.




MISCA DIVE MEET ENTRY PROCEDURE CHANGES
It was decided at the MISCA diving business meeting that the top 12 divers from each division at the MHSAA finals will be granted an automatic qualification into next year's MISCA diving meet. While the top 16 used to automatically qualify, this adjustment was made to accommodate the addition of the third division. In addition to this change, next year divers/coaches will have to confirm their entry into the meet by submitting a text version of their diving lists at least three days before the meet. Any diver that confirms his/her entry will be responsible for entry fees regardless of situation. We are trying to ensure that there is ample time to notify alternates before the date of the meet (this year at the guy's MISCA meet the 45th and 46th ranked entries dove in the meet simply because they were the only alternates present. While I think it's important for all alternates to come and watch even if they fail to qualify, the current system provides an unfair advantage to meet alternates living on the East side of the State).


PROPOSED CHANGES
At the last MHSAA committee meeting, a couple of diving changes were proposed. Please read the following carefully and provide any feedback you deem necessary. This e-mail is meant to poll the Michigan diving community and gain input to best meet the needs and desires of all those associated with diving in the State. The first change looks like it'll make it through the process with no problems, and I need feedback regarding the second proposal:


Proposal #1:
Currently, divers can qualify for the Regional meets at their conference/year-ending invitation meets. The rule right now states that each meet will give Regional qualifications to the top X finishers at the conference meet. X = the amount of teams with divers entered PLUS the amount of returning MHSAA State meet finalists (top 16). The proposed change is to replace the word "finalists" with "participants" (top 36).


Rationale - Three regional meets were added with the third division, yet no effort was made to increase the pool of regional qualifiers to fill these additional regional meets. This proposed change should help to ensure that divers from stronger conferences have a greater shot at qualifying for the State meet. While this may not be enough to alleviate the current "drought" of regional participants, it is my belief that this is a step in the right direction. The input received and data analyzed pointed that this was a better method than simply dropping the current win requirement to 4 wins; those in strong conferences would still have difficulty getting their 4 wins and the regional meets would increase with lower skilled divers less likely to qualify for the State meet. Reminder - in dual meets where divers have no competitors to dive against, a "win" IS still awarded to divers as long as the diving event is run. Also, a "win" can only be earned in dual meets - not invitational meets (unless all teams are scored against each other as dual meets).


The second proposal was tabled pending further review and input, and I ask that you please RESPOND WITH YOUR THOUGHTS ON THIS PROPOSAL. Bear with me here; while this seems really confusing, it really isn't that difficult and a plug & play excel spreadsheet would be utilized to do the calculations.


Proposal #2:
Currently, the top 12 divers from each of the three regions in each division qualify for the MHSAA State meet. The proposed change would alter this structure and provide additional spots to regions based on the performance of each region in the previous year (very similar to the NCAA). According to this proposal, each Region would be guaranteed at least 9 qualifiers for the MHSAA State meet. The other 9 qualification spots would be determined by a combination and average of two factors:
1) The top nine returning divers from the previous year's State meet would each earn an additional qualifier for their respective regions
2) Each region would earn additional qualifying spots based on the percentage of points earned at the previous year's State meet. In other words, if Region 9 earned 66% of the points at the D3 State meet, they would be given an additional 6 qualifiers (66% of 9 = 6), giving the region 15 qualifiers for the next year's MHSAA state meet.


The amount of qualifiers from each region would be calculated (an average of 1 & 2) and released publicly along with the next year's swimming State Cuts (although I'd distribute the spreadsheet so anyone can easily figure it out and more than likely include the information in an e-mail after each State meet).
Applying this formula to the '07 girl's season, the amount of qualifiers from each region next year would look like the following:


Region 1 - 15
Region 2 - 10
Region 3 - 11
Region 4 - 11
Region 5 - 9
Region 6 - 16
Region 7 - 10
Region 8 - 10
Region 9 - 16


Comparatively, I think the guy's D1 (haven't had time to figure out the rest) would look like this:
Region 1 - 12
Region 2 - 11
Region 3 - 13


Rationale-The goal of the regional meets is to get the best 36 divers at the State meet. Currently, we are getting the best 12 divers from each region, and this isn't the same. A great example of the failure of our current system was with Region 9 for the girl's season. All 12 divers from region 9 were finalists (top 16) at the State meet. I'm guessing the girl who missed the cut (13th by less than 4 points) in region 9 had a pretty good shot at placing at the State meet as well. Her 316.05 wasn't enough to get into the State meet, yet the 12th place, 223.15 from region 8 got to dive in the State meet. The proposed formula looks at both the depth of a region as well as the top-tiered talent and makes great strides at improving the qualification process to get the BEST 36 divers at the State meet. Another suggestion was to only have TWO regional meets for each division, yet with travel time, missed school (on a Tuesday), and way overcrowded boards during warm-up, this didn't option doesn't really fly very well.


Please consider this proposal and provide me with feedback so we can best address this issue.


Proposal #3
If coaches don't like proposal #2 or we're unable to get it through committee, then the alternative would be to attempt to (the key word is "attempt") to set up a feedback session with the MHSAA on their drawing of regional lines. I've discussed this with several coaches and the moving of 6 or 7 "on-the-line" schools from one Region to the next would help tremendously with the misappropriation of strength within individual regions. Regardless, something needs to be done about this issue.


Proposal #4
Swim coaches are still working on the issue of the MHSAA not allowing exhibition swims to qualify for state cuts. The changing of this rule could also affect the earning of "wins" in dual meets, with the possibility that an exhibition diver could still earn a "win." This would be especially helpful for larger diving teams with more than three State-meet caliber divers. Just something to keep our eyes on.


MISCA GOLF OUTING
The MISCA annual golf outing is May 16th-18th at Garland Resort in Lewiston, Michigan. There are still some spots available. More information on this event can be found at MISCA.net. This is a very affordable outing, and golfers of all abilities (and lack-there-of) are present and welcome. There is no better way to get to know over 30 fellow Michigan coaches than by partaking in this fun-filled weekend. A good time is always had by all and I'll even back this with a money-back guarantee. While the deadline was March 7th, there are still a few spots available. Sign up today (money-back guarantee void in Michigan).


ANYTHING ELSE?
Again, please provide some input on the proposals described. And as always, please feel free to share any comments or questions. Best wishes to all during this off season. I'll continue to update with any information as it becomes available to me. Thanks.


Divingly Yours,


-Brad Huttenga (MISCA Dive Chair)


Brad Huttenga
Ann Arbor Huron H.S.
English Dept.
Men's/Women's Diving
huttenga@aaps.k12.mi.us




Hi Brad,

Thanks for all of your efforts to keep us informed, it is a big job, and you do it well.

As for Proposal 1, I'm all for it. Some of the conferences deserve the extra spots!

As for #'s 2 and 3, I would prefer proposal 3. Proposal 2 could set up a situation that is self perpetuating. If you have more qualifiers from one division, are you more likely to have more individuals from that division placing higher at the State Meet?

Also in proposal 2, if you use points instead of places first and eighth place are more heavily weighted than the other places. If you replaced the word points with places (or each place equals1 point, for a pool of 16 points, instead of dividing up 155 points), I would find it more palatable, but I still prefer proposal 3.

Proposal 4 could be interesting.

I look forward to seeing what everyone thinks about the proposed changes.

John Pearson
Romeo High School
Dive/Assistant Swim Coach


www.ThePearsonAgency.com


Brad -

#1 Thank you for doing this - and taking your time to facilitate discussion and provide a means to coordinate ideas from the dive coaches in our State.

#2 I support Proposals 1 & 2. Proposal 4 - I'd like for exhibition divers to continue to use a "win" as a "win." It sounds like this could be affected by a decision in this area. I think we need more divers @ regionals and will support measures to increase the numbers until we consistently get more than 30; but draw the line at dropping qualifying wins to 4.

#3 I want to open a discussion on the MISCA "Coach of the Year" Zone Awards given at MISCA banquets. Why does MISCA only [seem to] give a "Coach of the Year" award to whoever happens to win the "Swim Coach of the Year" from each Zone? Could MISCA also give a similar one to the Dive Coach? Or, if a Dive Coach's diver(s) performed so well as to suggest that the "Coach" of the year from that Zone be (gasp) a Diving Coach? After all, our sport is called "Swimming AND Diving."

I certainly welcome thoughts and feedback.

Best wishes for continued success,

Bruce Foster
Haslett Diving


John,


I agree with you on the fact that it should be 16 pts. for 1st and 1 point for 16th, without the extra points for 1st, 8th, and 9th. I do still like the proposal though; I was concerned with a self-perpetuating situation, yet the more I looked at it, I don't think the 12th,13th-16th diver should matter too much for scoring (which is why we're looking at the top 16 versus the top 20 or 27 divers). If they do make a scoring difference, then I'm glad they made it and the policy is working quite well. Each region should still have a quality chance at making the top 16. It may not even matter - we'll see how the coaches like it.


On another note, thanks again for all your work as well. You've picked up quite a bit of my slack lately and have done an excellent job at helping with the running of and communication about meets in Michigan. Thanks.


--Brad


Well,

We all agree adjustments need to be made. The best part of this entire thing, is that there is open discussion about diving and the changes that need to be made. I will obviously go along with the consensus. The 'weighted' regional may achieve the desired result. Often times when we want to make changes, we actually just need to make the change and give the change a chance. We always have the option to evaluate the change at a future date.

As to the communication and helping with the various meets, your welcome. Its fun to be involved, and I have enjoyed getting to know more of the Coaches from around the State.

Take care,

JP



Brad,

Thanks for compiling all of this information. I don't think people realize how much you have improved high school diving with all of your communications.

I'm in favor of Proposal #1. With our numbers down at regionals we need to include more divers.

I believe everyone wants the best divers to be at State Meet the question is how to make sure that this occurs.

I like proposal #3 better than #2 for many reasons. I believe we can make small changes in which schools go to which regionals and keep are current format in place.

Also, I am in a unique situation where our girls would have 10 and our boys would have 15 or 16.

The problems I have with Proposal #2 are based upon when we moved from Class A to Class B. At that time Class A qualified 12 divers out of 3 regionals and Class B qualified 18 divers out of two. I remember how much different it was. The pressure was remarkably less on the divers. More spots made it a totally different meet. If we created a similar situation I believe the pressure on the divers in the smaller regions would be much greater than those in larger regions and that would create a very uneven playing field.

I also have a problem with increasing the odds at state meet and using that to create the regional numbers. I know that the divers would have to dive well to get the places but 44% (16 out of 36) is totally different from 28% (10 out of 36). I believe that having more divers (more chances to final) would lead to a self perpetuating cycle of more divers for certain regions.

Along with more divers also comes a perception of better divers. Region X is better so they should get scored better. Creating a bias like this would not be good for our sport and should be avoided. Would the next step be to have more judges from Region X because they have more divers?

The idea that we can make a spread sheet that shows everyone what the numbers are is also not as easy as you think. We can drop out the graduating seniors but what about a diver who gets hurt, quits or moves away during the season. The numbers would change during the season every time a diver has an accident, doesn't make regionals or any other of a litany of problems that may occur. Would we have to update the spreadsheet before regionals?

And the biggest problem I have is that it will increase the politics at State Meet. We are all smart enough to realize that if I score my Regions divers higher we will get more spots. The judging will get worse in a very predictable way. The judging at State Meet has come a long way towards scoring the divers as fair as possible and this would ultimately lead us to supporting our regions and scoring the divers as fairly would become a lower priority.

We need to create the fairest State Meet possible and I see this leading us in the other direction.
Don Mason

I think the best method might be to blend a couple different proposals.

First, cut the base number of qualifiers per region to 8 per region.

Second, based on the previous seasons state finals results, the regions with the top 12 returning divers from the state finals, get one additional qualifier per top 12 returning athlete.

This type system would not allow a "free pass" to anyone as has been suggested in one proposal. All competitors would need to still earn their way to the finals.

The field would still be kept at the current size of 36 divers.

The stronger regions would be rewarded for having better divers.

By using the returning athletes, you don't give a region credit for something that happened the previous season with a bunch of athletes that have graduated.

from mlive