Judging Controversy - Part 1 of 3

Sat Sep 11 08:44:28 AKDT 2004

Joe,

The bigger issue here is more than just slamming RVP because of his note
about Bob Noll.  The issue at hand is that the decision to nominate the USA
judge was taken out of our hands when we had an agreement with Dave Brown
that we would rate our judges using a fair system and then based on that
rating we would make some recommendations as to who the judge should be.

Who is in a better position to rate judges?  Us or Dave Brown?  The rating
system put into place last year is fair and, sure, it does need some
tweaking but that doesn't mean it isn't working.

We've all got some skeletons in our closets but that doesn't mean we have to
post emails that are blatant lies and then to not apologize for those lies.

I still don't see an apology from either you or Eric, and I think an apology
is warranted.

I've told Eric before and I'll state it again... Eric is like a bull in a
china shop.  Sometimes he opens his mouth and says stuff without checking
the facts but the damage is already done.  Using libelous statements in an
email without knowing the facts is extremely damaging and Eric, and you,
should have known better.

-----Original Message-----
From: discussion-request at nsrca.org [mailto:discussion-request at nsrca.org] On
Behalf Of Joe Lachowski
Sent: Saturday, September 11, 2004 6:08 AM
To: discussion at nsrca.org
Subject: RE: Judging Controversy - Part 1 of 3

Derek. First of all, don't shoot the messenger. I really didn't want to post
this, but here it is. Below is Eric's response to me after he realized he
made a mistake in his sequence of events.

From: Eric Henderson

Joe,
         I'm sorry if I misled you and very sorry that I was I was a bit off
geographically in my recall and impression about Ron VP being kicked off the
panel in "Australia". Shame on me for not doing my homework properly.

This is what I believe actually took place:-

Ron VP was the USA FAI-F3A judge in Japan in 1995. I don't know how he was
selected or who recommended him. I am informed that after the event was over
the judges performances were evaluated.

The Judges numbers were crunched and it looked like Ron was favoring US
pilots. Nothing was done to the change 1995 results.

What did happen was that the USA, namely the AMA, was penalized and was not
allowed to have a USA judge on the panel in the Poland 1997
championships.(This should be confirmable by Ron Chidgey - the predecessor
to Skinner).

So we went four years until the Pensacola WC's where Earl Haury did the job,
then Mike Dumphy did it twice etc. and the rest you know.

I have always felt that It would be better if those concerned just came
clean instead of the selective "paragraph" answering, but that is their free
choice.

It is my fundamental belief that you can make much better decisions if you
are given as much information as is practical. In the case of the AMA
selecting a USA judge for the FAI-F3A world championships, the history is
important to know. It lets you to understand and anticipate the AMA
reactions to individuals. You can also see why they need to maintain some
control and keep the standards where they have returned.

I liked what Maureen said about the other properties that a USA
representative needed to have. It is a highly visible position and the judge
needs to almost be more of a statesman than an accomplished judge.

There are, however, obvious minimum requirements of experience to be a world
championship judge. In the old days you needed to have a couple of FAI
finals and team trials under your belt to even begin to be considered.

My own experience at this years team trials was that you also needed to be
very good at judging unknown schedules.  The current rating system needs a
few tweaks to take the above into account before you can go head to head
with the AMA.

Regards,

Eric.

>From: "Derek Koopowitz" <derekkoopowitz at earthlink.net>
>Reply-To: discussion at nsrca.org
>To: <discussion at nsrca.org>
>Subject: RE: Judging Controversy - Part 1 of 3
>Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 22:35:58 -0700
>
>Joe,
>
>What I don't see from you or Eric Henderson is an apology to Ron Van 
>Putte for the blatant lies that were written in this forum about Ron's 
>apparent removal from the WC's judging pool during the WC.  That, to 
>me, is an egregious error made on your part for posting a total 
>erroneous message from Eric and then for not stepping up to the plate 
>and apologizing for it.
>
>Now... That is too bad for this hobby of ours.
>
>
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