*SEISA Graduate Directors Report*
SEISA has had a good run over the last 12 months. Several new programs have taken well to college sailing and are greatly contributing to the quality of racing in SEISA (Colorado, Loyola, & Oklahoma City U) and three inactive programs are rejoining the ranks (A&M Corpus, LSU, & UWF). My biggest concern continues to be the smaller teams that seem to fall in and out over the years. SEISA teams and supporters need to keep in mind that it is much more difficult to restart a program than it is to keep it running and that the success of these smaller programs affects you all because it determines berths to National Championships and SEISA’s finances, not to mention general regatta size and the overall health of the sport across the central and southern United States. Please take your time to interact with the smaller SEISA schools and offer whatever advice and help you can, it will make all the difference. SEISA’s finances have continued to improve under the capable hands of Alli Jones (Kansas), with a little help from Kyle Wilson (SMU). Unfortunately Alli will be leaving us this spring to join the Peace Corps and a new Treasurer will have to be elected. Likewise Derek Whallen (Texas A&M) will be moving on from is web/media role and a new officer will have to be elected. The introduction of 2x2 team racing last semester was a huge success! This new discipline doubled the number of SEISA programs that team race and we have a schedule full of it in the spring. I strongly encourage everyone to give this a try. I think it is one of the bigger innovations to dinghy sailing in a while, allowing full team racing with only 4 boats and a basic modified triangle course. On the national level both SEISA Undergrad President Chris Burd (Tulane) and I attended the ICSA annual meeting in San Francisco last Spring and I was elected to the 3 member ICSA Executive Committee, along with the Georgetownand Harvard coaches. Chris attended the ICSA Winter meeting as the lone SEISA representative since I had a job conflict and it’s probably not necessary for both of us to attend every meeting anyway, given the extra time and cost involved. The biggest changes on the national scene are the new semifinal systems for Women’s and Dinghies and the move to match racing instead of sloops. There may also be a change to the Team Racing berth allocation formula in our future. Last year by the numbers: Spring 2009 Regattas Attended by SEISA Teams: 11, one out of district intersectional ( Texas @ BDC) and 3 district championships Teams: 22 (includes multiple teams by some schools, but not women’s teams), 7 women’s teams (champs), and 4 TR teams (champs) Highest Attendance: Q1: 15, Nelson Roltsch 14, Dinghies 10 Fall 2009 Regattas: 16, 2 out of districts intersectionals (Texas @ Danmark & Loyola @ Jesuit) and 2 district championships Teams: 27 (includes multiple teams by some schools, but not women’s teams) 4 women’s teams, and 8 TR teams Highest Attendance: Swetnam 18, Sugar Bowl 13, Hammond 11 So far this Spring: Massive increase in out of district intersectional attendance: A&M Galveston 3, Tulane 1, Loyola 1, Texas 1-2 and 14 teams for Nelson Roltsch in 2 weeks! Goals for the Future: · Sustained district membership of 20 quality programs; I would like to see a 20th program added to SEISA and for all our schools to reach regular member status and be self sustaining without any worry from the district leadership that they will still be attending regattas in another semester or year. Currently I worry about roughly a third of our programs and if they will still be active in a year, but that is a very pessimistic estimate. · Championship Conditions; After the debacles at both Women’s Champs and Team Racing last Spring I am going to push for a series of championship conditions for SEISA. These conditions will clear up any misconceptions teams and RC personnel may have about how SEISA Championships are to be run. · All SEISA Team; I would like an All SEISA team (for coed, women’s, and crews) but in the past the difficulties of vetting the candidates has been too difficult. I am still not sure of the best way to complete this task, but hope to resolve it fro this Spring. · Re-Birth of SEISA awards and trophies; We are going to make a serious effort to bring back many of the SEISA awards that were lost over the years. This began last Fall with the Sloop and Singlehanded Championships and the naming the SEISA Sportsmanship award after Baylor Alum and SMU and Corinthian Sailing Club benefactor Anderson Jones. · Recruitment: Too many of the good juniors from local yacht clubs are leaving SEISA to sail fro colleges in other districts. A concerted effort needs to be made to keep these sailors closer to home and representing the region they grew up in. SEISA can provide the same opportunities that sailing in other districts can and at significantly lower costs for education with no decrease in quality. · Greater streamlining of district paperwork, rules, & bureaucracy: Running SEISA and its programs is still too complicated and time consuming in my opinion and while progress is being made I will continue work in this effort. · Improved financial standing: SEISA’s finances are drastically improved. Part of that is due to the work of Alli, but is also thanks to our member teams and schools who are working hard to stay current with eth district and managing their own finances well. I would like to sincerely thank all our member schools, their supporting yacht clubs and sailing communities, alumni, family and friends for the kindness and support you provide to collegiate sailing in SEISA. If you look at local, regional, and national race results SEISA alums normally dominate the fleets in which they compete and have been doing this for decades. Please keep up the support. Sincerely, Blake Billman SEISA Graduate Director (817) 366-5022 [email protected] collegesailing.org/seisa ________________________________________________ seisa mailing list [email protected] http://www.collegesailing.org/mailman/?listname=seisa Unsubscribe: Send a blank email to [email protected]
