This race has got me thinking again about how the pusher eligibility rules are slanted heavily towards the independents. The independent organizations have the ability to have someone come out on raceday or just a few week before and push without any long term commitment to the organization. By contrast, the fraternities all have to pledge a guy to be their brother for life before he can get behind a pushbar on raceday. Fraternities can also never recruit a guy once he's initiated into another fraternity. So, if some fast guy joins Beta for a year and then wants to leave, he can't become a PiKA. I don't think the fraternities want some random track star to push on raceday (I know I wouldn't) but maybe the fair thing is to have more constrictive rules on the independent orgs:
- Every organization must submit their roster the day after pledge night (spring or fall, I'm not sure how much happens in spring rush anymore). No one not on the roster can push on raceday for any org.
- Once a pusher has pushed for one team, he/she is not allowed to push for any other team. (if this sounds too harsh, perhaps just a one or two year lay off like the NCAA for transfer students)
Any thoughts?
Pusher Eligibility Rules
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lchomas
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Carl Nott
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Re: Pusher Eligibility Rules
If memory serves everyone who lives in a dorm is technically a member of SDC. This differs from Spirit (at least when I was a member) in that we had to participate in, I think, 3 Spirit activities.
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TommyK
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Re: Pusher Eligibility Rules
The greeks set their own rules for membership, there is no 'slant'. If they want to have a buggy exception, or even a booth or buggy only membership level that's their prerogative. The last time I talked to a Pike about it he thought it was a dumb idea that subverted the accomplishments they have made in buggy as a fraternity.
As for making it HARDER for students to participate in buggy ... are you on Phipps' payroll or what?
As for making it HARDER for students to participate in buggy ... are you on Phipps' payroll or what?
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revo
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lchomas
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Re: Pusher Eligibility Rules
Tommy, the fraternities actually could not make a buggy exception to add people the the roster and they do not really make their own rules for membership. The basic rules come down from National organizations and/or IFC. There is no way to have two levels of "brotherhood" that would be kosher with IFC or any house's National. And, you missed my point that I wouldn't want to see the fraternities simply allowed to bring in "ringers" of their own. I think that the independents should have to play by the same rules, that's all. If having an even playing field rules wise would keep some students from participating, presumably because they don't want to come out until three weeks before the race, maybe they could participate in some expanded exhibition.
Carl, I think it would be hard to set rules for overall organization involvement, but maybe pushers could be required to have some minimum number of freeroll appearances, just like drivers. Also, do all members of SDC actually live in the dorms all four years? Can they have grad student members then, since no grad students live in the dorms?
Revo, I brought this up again because I think it's worth considering, especially given the recent results.
Carl, I think it would be hard to set rules for overall organization involvement, but maybe pushers could be required to have some minimum number of freeroll appearances, just like drivers. Also, do all members of SDC actually live in the dorms all four years? Can they have grad student members then, since no grad students live in the dorms?
Revo, I brought this up again because I think it's worth considering, especially given the recent results.
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Carl Nott
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Re: Pusher Eligibility Rules
I would much prefer a lifting on restrictions for fraternities than putting restrictions on independents as I'd rather not discourage participation in buggy.
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tbach0729
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Re: Pusher Eligibility Rules
Full disclosure: I'm Greek.
To answer the SDC question, an SDC pusher lives in our Greek House, so thats not a requirement.
I understand wanting to up participation in buggy. That makes sense. But I would argue that the better way to do that is for casually interested people (read: people that can't be bothered to come out before 3 weeks before raceday in any capacity) to push in expanded exhibition and maybe addict them for their next 3 years.
Buggy is about the competition on Raceday, but to me its also about the team unity that is built by incredible amounts of work over the entire year. It really is a full year of work (starting the day after raceday) for a 2-3 minute race. That's what makes buggy special. I think that the Greek teams for the most part really feel that, because our entire team is 100% committed to the program for the entire year (except for any new members in the Spring who join the org, in which case they're still committed for 4 months before Raceday).
Independent orgs have many people who are just as committed, and I would argue that those are the people that get the most out of it. They are certainly the people in independent orgs I respect the most.
Now I'm not saying that every person in an independent org has to be putting in 40 hours a week on buggy to make it to Raceday, but I think it doesn't add anything to buggy when you have a random track star show up and push and then they're done with buggy. What did we get out of that? The ability to say the record is lower? What adds to buggy and what lets all of us on teams take things away from buggy is not the few minutes we race on raceday, its everything leading up to that point.
There was a good point raised above about switching teams. I think a mirror of the NCAA transfer rules has merit - if you're going to allow roster additions so late, at least make them commit to one independent org so you have a semblance or belonging to a team.
And I'm still not convinced that any of this discourages participation in buggy rather than just encouraging independents to recruit sooner and make people who are joining actually consider who to join.
To answer the SDC question, an SDC pusher lives in our Greek House, so thats not a requirement.
I understand wanting to up participation in buggy. That makes sense. But I would argue that the better way to do that is for casually interested people (read: people that can't be bothered to come out before 3 weeks before raceday in any capacity) to push in expanded exhibition and maybe addict them for their next 3 years.
Buggy is about the competition on Raceday, but to me its also about the team unity that is built by incredible amounts of work over the entire year. It really is a full year of work (starting the day after raceday) for a 2-3 minute race. That's what makes buggy special. I think that the Greek teams for the most part really feel that, because our entire team is 100% committed to the program for the entire year (except for any new members in the Spring who join the org, in which case they're still committed for 4 months before Raceday).
Independent orgs have many people who are just as committed, and I would argue that those are the people that get the most out of it. They are certainly the people in independent orgs I respect the most.
Now I'm not saying that every person in an independent org has to be putting in 40 hours a week on buggy to make it to Raceday, but I think it doesn't add anything to buggy when you have a random track star show up and push and then they're done with buggy. What did we get out of that? The ability to say the record is lower? What adds to buggy and what lets all of us on teams take things away from buggy is not the few minutes we race on raceday, its everything leading up to that point.
There was a good point raised above about switching teams. I think a mirror of the NCAA transfer rules has merit - if you're going to allow roster additions so late, at least make them commit to one independent org so you have a semblance or belonging to a team.
And I'm still not convinced that any of this discourages participation in buggy rather than just encouraging independents to recruit sooner and make people who are joining actually consider who to join.
Last edited by tbach0729 on Wed Apr 20, 2011 10:19 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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shafeeq
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Re: Pusher Eligibility Rules
I would've thought that if SDC's push captain was Greek, he'd be pushing for his house out of loyalty. Or does his house feel they'd be holding him back if he didn't push for someone with a chance to win?
There are plenty of non-competitive reasons for people to switch independents - your friends joined a different one, you realize you like the people over there better than your current teammates, you have to get away from your ex or that one really annoying new person who joined. If these people couldn't switch, they'd probably just quit buggy altogether, and that's not good for anyone. To some extent, the rush/pledge process at least gives you a chance match people with the houses that they'd be best in, and avoid getting people the house will end up hating.
Can a team really bring in a track star on truck weekend and have them be good by raceday? Even if they were effective, bumping the guy who's been showing up every day isn't the best thing for team unity. Then again, losing all the time isn't all that great.
There are plenty of non-competitive reasons for people to switch independents - your friends joined a different one, you realize you like the people over there better than your current teammates, you have to get away from your ex or that one really annoying new person who joined. If these people couldn't switch, they'd probably just quit buggy altogether, and that's not good for anyone. To some extent, the rush/pledge process at least gives you a chance match people with the houses that they'd be best in, and avoid getting people the house will end up hating.
Can a team really bring in a track star on truck weekend and have them be good by raceday? Even if they were effective, bumping the guy who's been showing up every day isn't the best thing for team unity. Then again, losing all the time isn't all that great.
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tbach0729
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Re: Pusher Eligibility Rules
He joined our house after being in SDC, and there's no way we'd make him quit an org he established himself in on our behalf.shafeeq wrote:I would've thought that if SDC's push captain was Greek, he'd be pushing for his house out of loyalty. Or does his house feel they'd be holding him back if he didn't push for someone with a chance to win?
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shafeeq
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Re: Pusher Eligibility Rules
That makes total sense. I keep forgetting that people don't just pledge as freshmen.tbach0729 wrote:shafeeq wrote: He joined our house after being in SDC, and there's no way we'd make him quit an org he established himself in on our behalf.