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Once again- Why the category rule has got to go!

8K views 76 replies 29 participants last post by  Hap MecTweaks 
#1 ·
I hope that all Delegates and EC members read this post. (Like that's going to happen!)
It is my understanding that last year at the Grand, the Delegate who thought up this rule and pushed for it's passage had come to his senses and tried to have it removed. (No reason to name the Delegate, many of you already know who it is.)
From what I have been told, the EC and the BOD didn't even bring it up in talks, so we're stuck with it.
I am sure that many of you are aware of how stupid this rule is but I feel the need to give another example of how totally retarded this rule really is.
Today at the Wisconsin State Shoot the top three scores were 99, 99, 97. Trophies were for Champ, R/U and third plus 1st in each category and yardage group.
All three shooters were, unfortunately for them also category shooters. The end result is that 96's ended up being R/U and 3rd place, while two of the top three scores are actually not awarded as such.
There was unanimous decision among all who were talking about it, that it is just plain wrong. Even the fellow who does the figuring for shoot offs and carryovers said that it has not made it any easier (the original argument for the rule) to figure out things. He said it's actually worse now.
I know it has been discussed here many times but I just felt I had to vent my feelings on it again. I will also be talking to my Delegate and ask him to once again try to end this stupidity at the BOD meetings in August.

Tim
 
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#3 ·
What did the people involved in this "situation" think? Where they as outraged as to their misfortune?

The people who shot those scores made their decision as to what was more important to them <i>before</i> they shot. In this case, they decided that winning champion or category champion was more important than winning a place trophy.

They could just have easily not declared for their categories. Nobody forced them to declare for category.

When somebody can give me a good reason why a shooter should be allowed to pick and choose what they want to do <i>after</i> they've shot, then maybe I'll agree that the situation is bad. But so far, I haven't heard a good argument.

I'd like to decide what class I should be in after I've shot singles or doubles. Do you think that would be a good rule change?

Modifications to the category rule have come up for discussion at the Grand in each of the last two years. But none of the modifications have gained a majority vote. The one proposed in 2010 was totally incoherent. The 2011 one wasn't much better.

One modification that I am aware of is to change the rules so that shooters who are high in category, and eligible for an overall Runner-Up trophy, be allowed to take that. But that modification hasn't been proposed yet.

Face it, for every "outrageous" situation like you describe, there have been hundreds, if not thousands, of situations where the rule has worked perfectly.

We're in the process of shooting the Western Zone. I've administered the WZ shoot for the last three years, during which the current category rule change has been in effect. And I can tell you that this rule change is a God-send. Trophy determination is a very straight forward procedure. As it should be. Not some goat-roping CF, like it was in the past.

Thanks for expressing your opinion, but I respectfully, and wholeheartedly, disagree with your outrage.

Scott Hoover

Ex-ATA Delegate, Utah
 
#4 ·
To my knowledge, none of the shooters involved in the top three scores were upset about it. They know the rules.
It's too bad that the proposal's you talked about in your post, V10, were not voted in favor of.
My only gripe would have been corrected if that rule would have been changed to allow the top score(s) to get their deserved R/U, third, etc. It's just wrong to the naked eye, of even those who understand the rule, when the score tied for the top isn't R/U. That was the unanimous feeling of everyone I heard talking about it.

Tim
 
#5 ·
I don't see how you can be in favor of rule changes that you've never even read.

Trust me, I was being generous in calling them "incoherent."

I could support changing to allow a category shooter to take R/U, as I described above. But anything more than that I would not have supported. Allan Radway, WZ VP, has mentioned proposing this change. I'm not sure what the status of that is.

As Jim mentioned above, All American points factor in to this discussion.

If a shooter doesn't care about AA points, then they need to seriously consider whether to declare for category. But for a lot of people, the lure of being able to have a chance at another trophy is too great, and they declare for category even though they don't care about points.

As with any of the rules, it takes a majority vote to change them (most of the time.) So far modifications to this haven't been supported by a majority.
 
#7 ·
The only goat roping is the current administering of the rules, which are bad rules. The BOD had a knee jerk reaction to the events at the US open a few years ago. There is no reason why any category shooter shouldn't be elgilble to shoot for Champion and RU in any event and in caps CH, RU and as many places as the event is trophying. It doesn't have anything to do with AA points, as most shooters are not going to accumulate enough to mean anything.

The bottom line is some shoot administrators know how to run shoot offs and others don't. It used to be a shooter had 5 minutes or less to determine if he wanted to shoot for cat. or champ. - no fall back. They can even screw up the current system as evidenced at the Great Lakes Grd.

Now throw in more categories and you really do have a goat roping. It shouldn't be the EC's choice at a shoot but let shoot management decide if they want to offer more trophies to attract shooters. A great example is Jr. Gold, a complete farce, one shooter wins all trophies and all AA points because he was the only shooter in the category at a major shoot.

The ATA EC & BOD can take complete responsibility for the current debacle.

Don
 
#9 ·
It is a very bad rule. V10, it sure seems now that your support for it lies in your feeling that it's not fair for a category shooter to have a choice of trophies prior to entering shootoffs (or maybe at all). People with that mindset are about the only people that could support this rule. I don't think anything can be done to overcome that feeling you guys have.

I feel differently, obviously. Under the old rule, if a Category shooter beats me, I have no problem with him taking class from me, or choosing to take his category. HE IS IN MY CLASS & HE BEAT ME! I'm in no different position than if there was no category, well actually I'm a little better off since he might choose category and I get the Class.

You make it sound like they are deciding a category trophy means more to them than a event runner-up, place or class trophy, and I don't believe that is true for the majority of shooters (AA team excepted). Shooters want to win a trophy period. Add to that the fact that many, many shooters, and many in shoot management don't understand the rule.

This change was sold as method to speed up shoot-offs (which was smoke and mirrors anyway) not because category shooters were getting too many trophy opportunities. The only good part of it was limiting them (ladies)to choosing a single category, that was good. As BigDon already stated, the old rules for shootoffs were fine if the time lines were enforced. The fact that some shooters were allowed to drag their decisions out and delay things wasn't a fault of the old rule.

What we will end up with here if everyone really understands it is nobody declaring Category at the big shoots unless they are AAA shooters. Think about why categories were offered in the first place and you should see this would really be a sad statement.

Seems I'm always sticking up for ATA issues on this site, but this is one issue where I think they went the wrong way.

In the end, it's just my opinion.
 
#11 ·
One question on the original post: How did the 97 not get the RU trophy and instead it went to a 96? That would seem impossible under the facts you presented,unless they were all in separate categories, but they would have won category in that case?

If all in same category it would have been 99 event Champ, 99 loser wins category, and 97 wins event RU if those were the only 3 shooters with those scores.

EDIT: I assume there must be separate categories involved and that the 2 shooters won their categories. From the OP my initial read was that they received no trophies and that just could not be.
 
#14 ·
I am 50/50 on the subject -- I agree with the Lady I / II and the Jr Gold, but for the Sub Vet...

But mainly wanted to comment as to the WI shootoff director's comment. Do not understand that issue whatsoever... the addition of more categories in my mind has made it easier -- at worst the same -- to run shootoffs as last year. I completely agree with Scott Hover's first comment -- the category rules as a whole make shootoffs MUCH easier to run.

And Big Don --- don't hold Sunday's shootoffs at Indiana against the new guy -- he's just learning the ropes and will be much more prepared next year. He was kinda thrown into the fire Saturday night...

John Voliva
 
#15 ·
I can tell you this . . . as someone who doesn't qualify for any category (which I think puts me in the minority at most shoots), it much easier to look at the scoreboard and determine if I need to stay for shoot-offs. Prior to the change you had to wait until shoot-off time for all the category shooters to pick/shoot-off/fallback (or not). Now I know for sure if I am or am not in a shoot-off. I'm with John, it has to make doing the shoot-offs easier.

It also bothered me a little bit when I'd see someone (and I saw this first hand once) pick class or category based on who would get the other trophy. Saw a guy go to the info desk to find out who was tied in the category and class and then decide which trophy to take based on that.

Scott
 
#16 ·
John:

Sure it makes running shootoffs easier, but is it worth it? The OP, and I am in agreement, thinks that the fact that 2 of the 3 top scores don't qualify for RU and 3rd place is not right. In fact, if all 3 top scores were identically classified caregory shooters, one would go home with nothing, while other similar category shooters that did worse could take home RU and 3rd. I just don't like that and don't think the ease of running shootoffs makes up for it.

If someone loses out on a trophy because they made a choice that's fine with me; but not when an identical shooter making the exact same choices and shooting worse than me wins the trophy I was banned from. Under the rule, the score might be the only thing different between shooters, all declarations identical, and the shooter with the higher score loses. Just my opinion, but that ain't right.

Scott: regarding your last point, I agree that doesn't look good and happens sometimes, but in the end it's not a disaster because no matter what, the guy making that decision already beat me. He beat me, I don't think I should be able to tell him what he has to do.
 
#17 ·
870, your explanation on how a category shooter can win and lose at the same time is spot on guy! The top shooters of the events placement should speak for itself!

This rule was brought to us thanks to a young lady shooter that couldn't choose which trophy she wanted????? Held up the shoot-offs for quite some time and the EC and BODs blessed us again. The old "five" 5 minute call was ignored because of the lady's fame?? That was that clubs fault and not the ATA but ATA fixed it but good??

Hap
 
#18 ·
Sigh -- once again, I don't understand why I still post on this board. Nobody seems to take the time to read and/or understand what you are writing.

870 -- I clearly stated I was 50/50 on the category subject, especially on the new categories. Perhaps you are trying to persuade me to "your" side? IDK & IDC... You started this thread saying the rule has to go BECAUSE it is harder to run shoot offs - and I completely and wholeheartedly disagree with that.

To further the point, sure "its no big deal" to have to declare within the (non-official ATA rule, BTW -- it was up to shoot management to decide the time cutoff -- at the Indiana State Shoot, we provided 30 minutes if memory serves - and if that is correct, we went with that time because that is what was done at the Grand) time period provided, but it played holy hell on whomever was running the shoot off. ONE person's decision could have ramifications on many, many shootoffs. Now, if there was more than one category to declare, that increased the number of possible changes exponentially. It's hard enough to figure out who is in the shoot off to begin with, let alone one or multiple changes after that once you have it figured out.

Again --- just making comment in regards to shootoffs. Not getting into the "correctness" of the rule...
 
#19 ·
The reason these new categories need to be eliminated is they are not going to attract new shooters and waste money. As an example in 1976 there was a total of 22 trophies handed out for the Grand American Handicap that year.

1st through 10th place.


2 each (1st and 2nd) for the following: Women, Juniors, sub Juniors, Veterans, Industry and one each for past Grand American Winner, and high Canadian.


The most important fact was there were 3718 people that shot the event.


Fast forward to 2011 where 2275 shot the GAH and the ATA handed out 63 trophies.


This begs the question “how did the EC come to the conclusion that adding trophies was going to attract more shooters”??


Jerry Hauser
 
#20 ·
In my perfect world, there would be open, veteran (over 65), lady, Junior (under 18). period.

All these catagories so more people win a damned trophy is nonsense.

Might as well have a "left-handed, one-eyed, retired military, sub-veteran" category, too.

And having weight classes might be a nice touch. Like boxing, every 10-15 pounds or so starting with "Super-duper small" (Under 90 pounds)
 
#23 ·
2Birds, that's not necessarily true. If you declare category, you may shoot for event champion 1st, then you may shoot for category champion if you do not win champion. You may NOT be runnerup. If your score does not make you eligible to shoot off for Champion, OR Category, you may revert to class...


Soooo, got that ? going to get another aspirin...

makes it interesting for shootoffs.

first shoot off champion, then you reshuffle for runnerup, probably from a group that didn't shoot off for champ.

Then you've got your category and class shootoffs.

the biggest struggle is getting the biggies(champion & runnerup) out of the way..
 
#24 ·
Sigh: John, you stated "... the category rules as a whole make shootoffs MUCH easier to run," I agree but was just stressing the point of "at what cost." I'm not trying to change your opinion, since I have no idea what your opinion is.

I didn't start the thread, and I certainly never said it made running shootoffs harder, what are you talking about? I just try to explain the workings of a largely misunderstood rule. No comment on your post at all, other than in regards to the oft-repeated excuse that it was implemented to speed-up shoot-offs. Enforcing the then existing ATA rule (and there was a rule) would have accomplished it without the unusual results we get now.

I'm pretty neutral on the new categories as well.

Regarding the old time limit issue: if management allowed 30 minutes and that was considered as so long that it unduly complicated shootoffs, I'd say management made a bad choice. The ATA rule did leave it up to mgmt, but in the absence of any local provision, set it at 15 minutes I believe. That applied to all category shooters, all at the same time. 15 minutes after the event ended, you know everyone's decision; on paper anyway, at a very large shoot it would take longer. If they don't respond, the rule was they went in category. I just don't accept the time saving issue as trumping the strange results we get now; that is my opinion and you are free to have your own.
 
#25 ·
870 - I do apologize. You did not start the thread. But you did expound on my original post that was first talking about the category rule is screwing up shutoffs (which was the original post)... ahhh... never mind, now I am confused.

I don't really have an opinion on the NEW categories... I do think they put a new burden on the states to provide trophies at an added expense, but in the case of Junior Gold and Lady II... could there be a possibility of bringing in new shooters? Maybe. I just feel that the Sub Vet gives an even smaller chance of bringing in more revenue. But, if they get rid of the new categories in August, I won't lose any sleep about it.

"oft-repeated excuse that it was implemented to speed-up shoot-offs" -- it's not an excuse. It is fact, at least in my eyes in the case of running shoot-offs for the Indiana State Shoot. The category rule, as it pertains to declarations, does speed up shoot-offs and does make it easier to run them. Now, is it right? Is it just? At what cost? Again -- that comes down to personal opinion.

Are the results "unusual" because they are new or because they are unjust? And if it is because they are unjust, in who's eyes? The people winning the trophies or the people who don't? If it is the people who don't, then who cares? If it is the people that are shooing winning scores that are upset, then that is a different story -- but I have yet to hear anyone raising holy you know what, either here or at shoots doing that.
 
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