CRCA Board Meeting Minutes
Present: Emily Ford, Becky Robinson, Joe Wilhelm, Kevin Sauer, Brad Holdren, Bill Zack, Carie Graves, Karen Klinger, Andy Teitlebaum, Stephen Kish, Mike Hughes.
Missing: Aimee Baker.
Approval of Minutes: Please check your email, read the minutes from the last meeting and fire and approval back to Aimee asap.
Discussion and Review of Budget: Update of current standings…Bill is happy to finally have the check books and such. There are no outstanding bills from last year as everything was charged to the previous fiscal year. Working on a blank slate. Note that last year’s awards were more expensive than anticipated. Smith College will be able to cover some of the costs of this year’s directory and mailings. Fiscal year is July 1 to June 30. Emily Ford will be buying frames for nat’l coach of the year and submitting receipts to Bill for reimbursement.
Committee Reports
Standing Committees:
Awards Committee: Review of Awards process for 2003: Becky says timeliness has improved. Delay on certificates until later in the summer is justified. DII and DIII went very well. Emily reported that DI went well but that they need access to final standings. Conclusion/discussion of motions re: Asst Coach of the Year award: Much discussion regarding publishing regional awards as they are versus revoting for regional awards. Bill suggested revoting. Committee recommended publishing as is. Vote (9-2) confirmed recommendation. Awards committee will proceed with process and ask membership to vote for national asst. coach of the year. Andy asked whether such an untimely vote is valid. Emily asked whether we should require a certain percentage of membership should be required for a vote to be valid. Please email Becky and Emily with suggestions.
Championship and Competition Committee: (JoeWilhelm, Kevin Sauer, Brad Holdren) Bill reported that the women’s rowing committee recommended Sacramento. Becky said DIII has requested expansion and that since the NCAA championships run on a three year budget cycle, any requests for expansion would be have to made in time for the late September vote.
Legislative Committee: Karen and Bill attended long range planning meeting with NCAA. Goings on can be found on NCAA website and NCAA News. NCAA committee looking at scholarships and # of scholarships and how athletic aide is quantified and reported. Bill talked with Miles Brand (NCAA president) and he mentioned that conceptually, nothing would prevent men’s rowing from becoming and NCAA sport. Bill also catalyzed discussion regarding NCAA violations that rowing coaches observe among other rowing coaches and what to do. CRCA will definitely get involved in helping to educate coaches about rowing specific violations as well as a recommendation of what to do when you spot one. Bill will draft something to go out asap and will resend once the new membership arrives later this year. If you know of any typical or unique rowing violations, please email Bill with them.
Membership Committee: Carie Graves. Update on membership process for 03-04: Discussion about encouraging asst. coaches to become members. Carie specifically believes that educating the asst. about rowing specific ncaa compliance issues is the most compelling reason to get asst. coaches to join the CRCA. Larger membership will also provide a larger budget for the CRCA and in turn allow for more coaching education.
Nominating Committee: Karen Klinger. Everyone is remaining in their positions for the next year, so no news from this committee.
Coaches Poll: Andy Teitlebaum. It was very difficult to find pollsters for DI and as a result Andy made a motion to reduce the number of DI pollsters per region from five to four. Bill seconded the motion and all were in favor, none opposed. Bill suggested that pollsters need to be informed that it is okay to rank schools that have not raced yet.
Ad Hoc Committees:
Ethics Committee: Mike Hughes. What action to be taken re: code of ethics: We have adopted the USOC ethics code which will be put on our website. We will also use it as an attachment when we do a letter on recruiting violations and reporting.
Coaching Education Program: Update on USRowing Convention for 2003. Wednesday: golf outing. Thursday: Thor Nielsen, Beyond Basic Rigging. Friday: Core Strength w/ Jack, CRCA lunch (requiring no sponsorship since it is supplied by the conference fee), Darkfish technology. Saturday: Concept II breakfast, compliance seminar for jr. coaches. Bill said UCLA AD is still willing to speak on marketing yourself as a coach (interviewing, negotiations etc.) Karen will contact Jody regarding this.
Sponsorship Committee: Discussion of proposal for 2003: CRCA will continue producing the directory as well as awards but we need sponsors. Karen discussed ideas such as getting companies to pay and small fee to have their contact information listed in the directory. Second step is larger sponsorship for awards, to be worked on over the winter for the spring.
Lightweight Committee: Steve Kish. Have been in contact with majority of lightweight coaches from Dad Vail and IRA and early discussions revolve around standardizing weigh-in procedures for fall regattas and also helping to inform and educate lightweight coaches as best as possible. No discussions about lightweights at the NCAA as people had previously assumed this committee would encounter.
Other Business:
Communication issues: please respond to emails with votes and comments in a timely fashion. And keep up the great work!!!!
Mens Rowing Coaches Association: ISSUE: Should be widen our mandate as an organization to include all women’s coaches, not just NCAA Varsity Programs? Consider this for future discussion.
Additional championship issues: Kevin and Joe raised the issue regarding the Saturday racing conditions at the NCAA championships and suggested that perhaps there should be a coaches group contingency committee to be called on by the Judge Referee’s. There was discussion about whether this would just be committee-overkill and whether the NCAA committee was already responsible for assisting the Judge Referee in making difficult decisions. Bill suggested that the CRCA should urge the NCAA Committee to take a more active role in situations like that and to not blindly rely on the referees.
Next Conference Call -Suggested Date: Tuesday, November 11, 2003: Everyone agreed that Tuesday is a good day.
Adjournment at 12:45 with 8 seconds to spare.