Warning this is going to be long.
I don’t think I realized how painfully ignorant the leadership is at USFS until I read this interview. It’s so cringe worthy that I wonder if everyone that works there Has had their head buried in the sand since 2007. There are so many fundamental problems that he never even touches on and puts the blame in all the wrong places. They fact that he said that the Olympics as a wake up call was alarming. Things have been bad for a very long time. Here are some of the questions I’d love for him to answer.
Yeah, USFS leadership is so ignorant in so many ways - both of their incompetence and of their disorganization. While the central organization has a strong goal and ideals, they do a very poor idea of not only disseminating it to all clubs, but also implementing it at all clubs.
I think their biggest issue is how out of touch they are with everything but what's in their backyard. Yes, they have ideals, but they don't know the reality or care to know they reality. You see this a lot with synchro, but I'm sure it happens in singles as well. They don't care to find out why their ideas aren't implemented or aren't working, and therefore they aren't able to fix them.
For instance, they could ask why talented skaters in a certain region aren't moving to a top training rink or a top coach in their region. Maybe it's because of local club politics, full sessions at the top rink, a lack of coaches able to take on skaters, the skater is unable to find transportation to a rink, the rink is 90+ minutes away due to traffic (while when USFS looks at a non-commute hour it's 30 minutes), the rink/coach schedule doesn't match with what the skater can make, maybe the skater/family doesn't have the money to move, etc. etc. USFSA needs to look at this more or else their ideas will never succeed.
Injuries are a terrible problem in US figure skating and manage to have derail a lot of careers. What plans do you have to prevent injuries?
I think this is the least of USFS's worries. Skaters all over the world are having injury problems - this isn't a US-exclusive problem. It's a natural consequence of upping tech content. As long as they're not pulling an Eteri and forcing athletes to train when they're not ready to get back to it, I'd say nothing's wrong. Maybe they should tell skaters to do all training they medical team lets them do when injured, but it's not like there's much else they can do.
For a decade USFS has had the tendency to hype a promising new comer and then pressure that new comer into winning competitions before they’ve had a chance to establish themselves. This always ends in disaster, with the skater caving to pressure. What actions to you plan to make to prevent this from happening in the future?
With the new president (?) being a former marketing/ad person, I somehow don't anticipate this improving.
I think we just need to find skaters that thrive under the spotlight like Adam and Ashley. Starr Andrews seems to be someone that could do that, and same with Alyssa Liu and Ting Cui. Plenty of other countries put a lot more attention and pressure on their young skaters and they're just fine - maybe we need our young skaters under a brighter spotlight to get them used to it. Maybe not acting like they're the savior of USFS like they currently do, but maybe just giving them skating magazine features and social media boosts like sharing videos of their programs.
Several skaters had equipment problems that hindered them this quad. What’s important is that these equipment failures be resolved as quickly as possible. What are new plans regarding equipment? For example training the technician to handle all models, all skaters having two back up pair of skates and blades, Having the manufacturer on call during competitions, specific guidelines on when a skate is too dangerous to use, etc.
I don't think this is USFS's problem. I think this is the skater's problem. USFS's skate technicians are very well trained and familiar with pretty much every skate/equipment brand skaters use. The problem with Avanta was that they apparently didn't let anyone get trained in their methods. Usually the skate techs are also easily able to contact the manufacturers for help or advice - it's a small community, so they all know each other.
Skaters are often forced into doing shows all summer long to help pay for their training. Are their any programs going to be put in place to increase funding for training so skaters can increase their summer training time?
I was shocked to see how much money USFSA has stashed away in its funds vs how much it gives out for training. I saw somewhere that the Friends of Figure Skating Fund has an endowment of literally millions (I saw around $70 million somewhere, but I can't figure out where I saw that to double check) - and that's not the only fund USFS has. If they have that much money, why are they saying they can't fund athletes better?
Many skaters are struggling to improve their PCS scores. How do you plan to help them improve their skating skills and transitions as well as their choreography, interpretation and performance?
PCS are at least partially political and mostly subjective, and that means that to some extent you can't control them. The PCS system rewards consistency and politics, not what it's supposed to reward. Ashley got overscored, Alina is way overscored, Vincent's overscored. So while improving skating skills, training performance, and paying for choreography is important, there's no incentive to do it. If you see all the skaters getting rewarded for their poor skating skills because they can jump consistently and no one getting too harshly punished, why bother to spend the time and money to improve it?
I betting that Ting is pushed to go senior next year. With some politicking, she may get a GP slot.
Obviously there's exceptions to this, but North American Ladies tend to be late bloomers or at least have sustained success into their 20s as opposed to young wonder kids like Russia produces. I wish USFSA would notice that and let them stay in Juniors longer to develop longer. If they have long careers like most US ladies, there's no reason to push them to Senior as soon as they qualify for it.
) where he said essentially the same thing about men’s skating:
As I recall, Kori was trying to get coaches to work together quite some time ago, and she has been fairly collaborative with coaches who are also collaborative.
