Attendees:
John Veentjer; Scott Shelton; Shawn O’Brien (At Large); Sham
Austin (Webmaster); Ed Rafferty (Bears); Susanna Chung (for Paul and the
Knights); Beckey Ranstrom, Duane Ranstrom (Inglemoor); Rick Hansen (Issaquah),
Dan Pitzler (Kirkland LW), Donna Eken (Mercer Island), Dan Albaum (Skyline),
Dave Schroeter (Redwolves), Zach Hector (Woodinville)
Not present: Bob Goldberg (Officials); Bob
Peterson (Bellevue B&G Club); Greg Pardee (Wolverines), Bill Kusulos (Bothell),
Bob Woods (Eastlake), Chris Garrod (Five Star), Allen McDowell (Redmond); Neil
Aguiling (Kirkland B&G Club); Roger Moore (Juanita); Chuck Nichol (Univac);
Gregg Meyers (Wildcats)
Although this was a poorly attended meeting, we had a quorum, with half or more
of the Systems represented (9 of 16).
MINUTES FROM LAST MEETING: Minutes of the September 2, 2003 meeting distributed by email and will be posted to website.
OUTSTANDING ADMIN: All WSP forms, Code of Conducts, Master roster and birth certificates are now well overdue. A couple of Systems are still outstanding on fees to Boys and Girls Club and to the Admin/Referee/field use account. These will be addressed directly with the respective Systems.
GAME SCHEDULE:
• Schedule changes become necessary when we lose fields. Some teams
are short on home games because they lost home fields and the games were then
put at the opponent’s field (the opponent naturally becomes the home team).
• We lost one field on a Friday afternoon at about 4:00pm which caused a mad
scramble for alternative fields. Unable to find an available field for all the
games, the games were split up to other fields that had time early or late times
available. While no one likes such late changes, all games seemed to go well.
• The original posted schedule for the Rookie level had each team with one NC
game. As it turns out they each play two cross-over games. After some
discussion, it was voted that each of the second cross-over games not now so
marked on the web site schedule will count toward the standings. Those currently
marked NC will continue to be non-counting games. This is also the case for the
Varsity schedule; only those currently marked NC will be non-counting games.
• Everyone is reminded that game scores should be to Sham by noon Sunday. Sham
will monitor reports and get them posted ASAP, however, give Sham until Monday
evening to pick up all reports before questioning the scoreboard. Sham has
footnoted scoreboard entries to let systems and coaches know what scores are
missing or in question.
• Shawn continues to work on scheduling exchange games for the Seniors. Right
now the Seniors schedule is pretty full. Woodinville Seniors even matched up
with a Canadian team in BC for Canadian style football – Zach reported on the
great experience of this event.
BOUNDARIES: (Proposed
off-season project)
We still have some problems with boundaries, most of which go undetected by the
Systems at registration and during the review of preliminary rosters. Give some
thought to a cleaner way to establish boundaries which would make it easier for
all concern. One proposal would be to center each System on the high school as
we currently do but then just list the elementary and middle/junior high schools
that feed that high school to that System. Where an elementary or middle/junior
high school feeds to two high schools, assign that school to just one System.
Players are more concerned about playing with their current classmates than they
are with playing with those with whom they might be classmates in high school.
Many of these kids will not even play high school football.
GAME REPORTS:
• Scott Shelton reported
on the first three weeks of game reports. We have had a couple of player
ejections for unsportsmanlike conduct – profanity or punching. We have a few
other complaints that we are handling directly with the System or the officials.
• We monitor the reports for indications of repeated bad/improper behavior. When
we get complaints about officials we look to see what they were rated in any
game just before or just after the one in which we got a complaint and we check
it against the opponent team’s rating. We usually find these complaints to be
isolated.
• Game Reports are to be emailed or faxed to Scott Shelton by Monday following
game.
SPORTSMANSHIP: (attachments)
• All are reminded of our ZERO TOLERANCE policy. Admittedly, we tolerate more
than we should, but we must strive for zero tolerance. This means no improper
behavior no matter what.
• Grievance Committee Report – nothing to report; the Grievance Committee has
yet to have reason to meet, i.e., no coach ejections or other complaints to
address.
• Safety is of utmost importance. Officials strive to catch problems and address
them, but they don’t see everything. We all have a responsibility to properly
address and correct problems that we see or become of.
• Communications to and from the officials. We have received a number of
complaints that the officials are difficult to communicate with. Generally,
communications to and with the officials should be by or through the captains.
Regardless, based on some independent observations, it appears that in most
cases the difficulty starts with the improper behavior of the coaching staff
that wears on the officials until he no longer tolerates it. At this point the
officials may be less inclined to explain things.
• High 5s after game – it has been observed that many of the players are doing
high 5s after the game using a fist or trying to slap as hard as they can. This
meeting of the teams at the center of the field after the game is intended to be
a show of sportsmanship. Coaches need to correct any inappropriate behavior in
this regard.
32 POINT RULE:
(no attachment was provided at the meeting, but is included with these minutes).
The intent of this rule has been questioned each year by those who thing is
stifles play by the leading team. The rule has multiple intentions: (1) in part,
it keeps one team from demeaning another by running up the score; (2) it
encourages the dominate team to teach players more than one position or all
positions (consistent with leading youth sports advocates, including the NFL,
who state that players should be taught all positions) so they may get the
opportunity to play those positions when, by the lopsided score, the outcome of
the game is essentially already known.
REMINDER: We have had no known conflicts in game jersey colors, however, it is good to remind everyone that the rules state that home team wears their primary color as listed in the rules and the visiting team is required to wear a contrasting colored jersey.
WEBSITE: Sham has made some excellent improvements to the web site. Still some of the Systems need to update their information on either their own web site to which the GEJFA site links or the page on the GEJFA site that they are provided. Basic information about the System, a list of coaches and contact information, and registration procedures should be current. It is important that the System sites be updated even in the off-season so that player applicants can be pointed in the right direction where they can expect to find current information.
OFFICIALS: This subject was addressed in the topics above, and the only thing more to state is that we never have enough officials and we are always looking for more adult officials. On Husky home games we continue to be stretched to get enough officials to all the games.
OTHER BUSINESS:
Adjourn at about 9:00pm.
NEXT MEETING: October 14th,
8pm @
Bellevue Boys & Girls Club