The NCAA News - News and FeaturesAugust 4, 1997
Men's gymnastics lowers base score to develop new skills
Men's gymnastics fans can expect to see some new and exciting routines during the 1997-98 season because of action taken by the NCAA Men's Gymnastics Committee.
At its annual meeting July 8-11 in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the committee voted to lower the base score from 9.5 to 9.4 for routines meeting all minimum requirements in all events except the vault, which will continue to be judged using the NCAA vault table.
The committee voted to lower the base score in an attempt to stimulate the learning of new skills.
Men's gymnastics has used a modified base score of 9.5 since 1992-93.
In another scoring-related issue, the committee voted to assess a misconduct deduction of .30 for failing to provide a system, other than the score flashing system, for the display of start values.
Other highlights
Men's Gymnastics Committee
July 8-11/Jackson Hole, Wyoming
Recommended to the Division I Championships/Competition Cabinet that the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and the University of Oklahoma serve as host institutions for the 1998 East and West regional championships, respectively, and that Pennsylvania State University serve as host institution for the 1998 National Collegiate championships. The committee also noted that it will immediately begin soliciting bids for the 1999 and 2000 championships.
Reviewed a proposal from the National Gymnastics Judges Association (NGJA) regarding the method used to assign judges to regional and national competition. The committee voted to establish a random selection method using judges nominated by coaches and the NGJA. The committee will approve the final pool of judges used in the random selection process.
Voted to eliminate byes in the regional format and to conduct regional competition using the same format as the national championships. Also, the committee reduced the warm-up time in the warm-up rotation from 14 minutes to 12 minutes.
Voted to use the scores from the fifth competitor on each team to break ties in team scores at championship preliminaries to determine advancement from preliminaries to finals. If a tie remains after five scores, the sixth score will be used. This method also applies to ties at regionals to determine advancement to nationals.
Reviewed Bylaw 20.9.3.3 regarding the minimum number of contests required and discussed the effect of lowering the minimum number of contests from nine to seven.
Discussed the Code of Ethics for Judges and Coaches and problems associated with coaches trying to influence or intimidate judges. The committee agreed that NCAA misconduct provisions are applicable.
Reviewed proposals for creating conference automatic qualifiers for championships competition. The committee noted that automatic qualification is being considered as a means to reduce costs associated with institutions qualifying and participating in the championships.
Agreed to ask the national office staff about conducting a Youth Education through Sports Clinic at the national championships.
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