FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MSHSNSCA President
April 15, 2008
Spring Meeting Update
- An Advisory Committee member-at-large to serve for the next 4 years. This position requires a minimum time commitment. Talk to Jill Hanson or Joe Teff for their up close and personal experience as at-large members.
- A treasurer to serve for the next 2 years. As treasurer you are responsible for the association checkbook, taking notes at meetings, All-State Awards, keeping track of current memberships (which John Erickson actually does for you), and helping the President out with the State Meet Banquet. This is a pretty easy job (I did it for 4 years).
- A president to serve for the next 2 years. I won't sugar coat this one! As president you are responsible for organizing and running 3 meetings per year, coordinating communication between coaches, the association and the MSHSL, organizing the State Meet Banquet (along with Dave Johnson and the treasurer), writing up approved association proposals and submitting them to the MSHSL by the league deadline each year, keeping the website updated, writing 4 articles per year for the MN Coach newsletter and attending 1 advisory committee/MSHSL meeting at the MSHSL office each fall. This is a challenging but rewarding job where you will learn as much as you teach (kind of like coaching). There are good reasons why we as an association have decided on 2 year terms for this position. One year isn't enough time to get good at it, more than two and the person is toast. I'm getting a little crispy and am ready to hand over the reins to a new leader. Over the course of the last 8 years Mike W., Dave J., Matt L. and I have brought this association to a place where we are efficient, organized, clear of purpose, and all-in-all squared away. The job for the next person will be much easier than it has been in the past and you will have the full support of all of the above mentioned individuals (I have relied heavily on Mike, Dave and Matt over the past 2 years and they have been and will continue to be a huge support). Since this position is unexpectedly open this year, I am willing to sort of "job-share" the duties with a new president over the course of the next year, thereby ensuring a smooth transition. In other words, you will get to ease in! The person for this job needs to be an active coach but doesn't need to be a head coach. I know that we are all very busy people, this is a given. I know that we are all very committed to kids and to sk iing, we wouldn't be here if we weren't. What I ask is that you reflect on and evaluate your personal commitments and priorities at this time and see if you can move your coaching time commitment up a notch or two on the priority list for the next two years or so. You will make a difference! Thank you.
- A president-elect to serve for the next 2 years, taking over as president after 2 years. Enough said.
FINAL MSHSNSCA MEMBERSHIP STATISTICS FOR 2007-2008
The following schools are NOT represented in the coaches' association this year:
1 Park High School James Kyes
2 St. Cloud Cahtedral Jim Fredrick
3 Visitation Jayme Schricker
4 Stillwater Kris Hansen
5 Champlin Park Charlie Rietschel
6 Benilde-St. Margaret's Bob O`Hara
7 Proctor Glen Sorenson
8 Brainerd Nicole Kellerman
UNIFORM REQUIREMENT
All team members and individual skiers shall compete in school-issued uniforms. Coaches are responsible for proper team attire and should encourage uniformity in team dress. Team uniforms (racing suits) should be appropriate to Nordic ski racing and shall not include advertisement of ski products of companies or other ski team names (i.e. US Biathlon, USSA, etc.). A team’s uniform or any item of apparel that is worn by a student/athlete during competition may contain only a single manufacturer’s or distributor’s logo or trademark on the outside of the apparel. The logo or trademark shall be contained within a four-sided geometrical figure (i.e. rectangle, square, parallelogram) that does not exceed 2 ¼ square inches. This restriction is applicable to all team apparel worn by the student/athletes (i.e. team warmups, hats, etc., it does not apply to neutral warm-up apparel). Please refer to NCAA Rule 11.7. Neutral warm-up apparel refers to any non-team apparel with manufacturer logos (Swix, Toko, etc.). Non-neutral refers to USSA, Biathlon, CXC, etc. This rule states that hats, warm-ups, gloves, mitts etc. that are non-team and are considered “neutral” are exempt from the 2 1/4 square inch requirements.
The issue lies with the team apparel logo restrictions. Many of the high school team racing suits in MN are illegal by definition at this time. Logos keep getting bigger; when we ordered Ely’s new uniforms from Podiumwear 4 years ago the logo was bigger than the legal size but was located up on the hip where it didn’t show much. The current suits have a logo 1” larger yet and placed on the upper thigh in a much more visible location.
All coaches will sign a uniform verification form prior to Section and State meets confirming that they are in compliance with the uniform rule. All coaches will discourage the wearing of warm-ups, hats, patches on jackets, etc. that are not team issued or neutral at all competitions during the season. Any athlete wearing a non-team issued or non-neutral piece of apparel at awards’ ceremonies will not be allowed onto the podium (if applicable) but will receive his or her award .
Some food for thought:
- Do we want a uniform rule?
- If so, then how do we deal with the current state of affairs? Most team’s uniforms are not compliant with the rule right now (not necessarily coaches’ fault; more of a manufacturer’s issue along with a communication issue). Do we amend the rule to make it bigger? Can we? (I will check with MSHSL) Do we really want to police this? I don’t think so; however, we shouldn't have a rule that we can’t or won’t enforce.
- We could force the issue by requiring coaches to tape over illegal logos ; manufacturer’s need advertising and would pay attention. This would be a real pain for coaches and kids; some of these illegal suits are new this year and will be around for at least 4-5 years.
- We currently use the NCAA rulebook along with an addendum for MN high school nordic skiing as our rulebook. We have discussed changing from the NCAA to the FIS rulebook recently. The FIS size regulation for a single logo currently is 100 cm square. This is much larger than the 2.25 inch square and would fit with our current suits, making them legal. Should this discussion be about switching rulebooks?
Our coaches' education clinic on Saturday will be by