This is not the final post in the series. It is not the alternative options or additional measures I promised. Those are still coming, just not today. (If you haven't seen the other posts in the series they've all been posted this month.)
Today I want to tell y'all the story of a single player. Today the player came to me and wanted to know if he could take a year off paintball and still compete in the future. That's what he asked but not what he wanted to know. He wanted to know what to do and he wanted to know if his "career" as a competitive paintball player was over. As soon as he appears on a Phoenix roster the PSP will rank him as a semi-pro player. Just like all last year's NXL players who won't be on a pro roster this year because of the roster reductions. Last year in January this player came to an open tryout with 2 events of D3 experience (so maybe the PSP thinks he was a D2 player. It's hard to keep track.) He showed promise. He had the right attitude. And the desire.
Yesterday (along with his remaining teammates from last season) he was told that his team wasn't gonna be carried over this year. (The plan was to keep the team but a series of unexpected changes forced the change of plan.) Last season they did well and finished with enough points to be moved up. Last year no division existed for them to move up to. There's only one team with 2 spots that he can play on without long distance travel for practice and that just isn't possible or realistic. Tomorrow or next week he may be an ex-competitive paintball player. All before his 19th birthday.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
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12 comments:
something needs to be done!!!
Is the problem that he doesn't have a place to play, or he doesn't have a place on a team that will pay his expenses to play?
There are apparently tons of players pushed out of Pro, and according to you too many pushed up from lower classifications - yet nobody playing Semi-Pro. What is stopping all these supposed displaced players from putting together some teams and playing?
That's a sad story. Truly a sad situation.
Does anyone else have a way of doing things to ELIMINATE these type of sad situations?
Lots of people are willing to point out the failings of a system but no one is able to offer a BETTER system.
There are people in every walk of life that are simply too good to stay and play (or work)at one level and not good enough to make it at the next level.
It's all sad.
I don't think any league has offered a perfect classification system. I don't think it exists.
If anyone has it, I guarantee PSP, NPPL, CFOA, Millennium, etc, etc would love to implement it.
No matter what the system. So long as there are levels of classification, there will be players who complain they are too high, there will be teams who claim the other teams are too low, and there will be people who get caught in the mix - good people who have done no wrong - with sad stories to tell.
As a matter of fact the only place he might have a place to play will require him to pay and he's willing to do that except one of the things he'll have to do is 'beat out' some of his teammates, or ex-teammates for a spot given they will all be semi-pro ranked.
The same thing keeping all the now ex-D1 players from playing.
* should be 'same things' in the last sentence of my first comment.
Hi Anon
Nice try but you're a fraud. You overplayed your hand but I'm happy to leave the comment up where everybody can judge it for themselves.
Btw, kids, here's a blogging lesson for y'all. Our anon friend gave himself away with the all caps on the key points he wanted to make along while trying to deflect attention from the PSP by including every other league he could think of. :-)
God I love you.
As commented by the great Raehl...
What is stopping all these supposed displaced players from putting together some teams and playing?
Obviously money, economy, and many of these ridiculous player status rules. If you havent noticed the good old days are gone where teams would just pick up the leftovers and move forward. No sponsorships equals less teams, more travel, more cost.... I agree rules are necessary for ranking status but there needs to be a better way to really categorize there status, and it just not be based on roster.
Just a side note, you would think becoming pro is the pinnacle of our sport. Not so sure, once your PRO all it seems to do is limit you from the Bigger Purse events ie. Spyder Cup
speaking of which -- what is the prize purse for PHX? i dont see it anywhere on the PSP site.
Oh, Anon
You say that now but will you mean it in the morning?
So Baca, let's say you have 5,000 players.
How many classification groups would you divide those players into?
From top to bottom, how many players would you put in each group?
Chris
You aren't helping yourself here. Today's post makes it clear I'm quite satisfied with this season's divisions in theory. Additionally, last July in my D1 series I suggested nearly the same divisions and you objected to those. Your track record isn't very good in this respect.
As to how many players in each division? It depends. I'd have to do a statistical analysis from the closest likely data I could find but roughly I would project something like 45%, 30%, 15%, 7.5% and 2.5%
A related problem is disincentives to move thru the brackets. There will be more on that in the series' final post--coming soon.
It's not the same world now that it was in July.
I'm likely to agree with you on disincentives for moving through divisions though. I'm a big fan of same price for the same play time. Maybe next year.
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