Parents Ethics question

[LMS70]

My daughter and several of her teammates switched gyms 7-8 months ago. Although the parents tried to have it be an amicable split, the gym owner/coach was very upset. This coach is also a judge and recently showed up to judge a meet we were competing in. It was the first time our girls had seen her and needless to say it shook them terribly. She would not smile or really even acknowledge them outside of being the judge on that event. My question is, "Is this ethical behavior? Does she have a duty to recuse herself from judging a session with former athletes?"

 

[QueenBee]

Sounds like the judge acted like a judge at the competition. Her being your old coach doesn't seem to have had any impact in her judging.

There isn't any "duty to recuse" for judges that I am aware of...as we see current coaches judging their current athletes every season.

 

[LMS70]

How are current coaches allowed to judge their current athletes? I've never seen that. My point was that, as the adult in the situation, it should be her responsibility to make sure she's not intimidating these girls in any way, and that was certainly not the case. They were completely terrified. I wasn't implying that she should go up and give them a hug, but a small smile when they give her the go ahead to salute and begin, as most judges do, would have made these girls breathe easier.

 

[RTT2]

So, she is a current coach/gym owner and actually judges her own athletes at meets?

As far as judging former athletes I doesn't sound ethical to me, but I guess there is no rule about it.

 

[LMS70]

So, she is a current coach/gym owner and actually judges her own athletes at meets?

As far as judging former athletes I doesn't sound ethical to me, but I guess there is no rule about it.

No, she does not judge her own athletes. I've never seen that happen. In fact, most of the judges I've met are either former gym owners, former coaches or former athletes. I think the reason for this is precisely what I'm asking about.

 

[gymgal]

Several have mentioned on CB previously that judging your own athletes happens more frequently in mens gymnastics due to the limited number of judges. It does happen in womens as well and as long as there isn't any clear bias in the scores, it is fine.

As for this case, did anyone see that she acted differently to the other competing gymnasts? If she smiled at all the others but not at your girls, then she may be holding a grudge and being childish but as long as she scored fairly (and since you didn't mention this, I assume this is correct), I don't see how that could be considered unethical, unless she was giving them death stares. On the flip side, she may have just wanted to be purely professional and not acknowledge the previous connection at all, as this might have caused parents of other teams to question bias. Who knows what was going on in her head but again, as long as she scored fairly, that's what counts. I would just move on. There are so many things that will come up in gymnastics over the years that you just can't sweat the small stuff or you will go crazy. Downplay it with the girls. Prep them ahead of time (I know you likely didn't know this would happen but moving forward you can). Judges can be very intimidating in general. They have to learn to stay calm and focus on their routines.

 

[LMS70]

Several have mentioned on CB previously that judging your own athletes happens more frequently in mens gymnastics due to the limited number of judges. It does happen in womens as well and as long as there isn't any clear bias in the scores, it is fine.

As for this case, did anyone see that she acted differently to the other competing gymnasts? If she smiled at all the others but not at your girls, then she may be holding a grudge and being childish but as long as she scored fairly (and since you didn't mention this, I assume this is correct), I don't see how that could be considered unethical, unless she was giving them death stares. On the flip side, she may have just wanted to be purely professional and not acknowledge the previous connection at all, as this might have caused parents of other teams to question bias. Who knows what was going on in her head but again, as long as she scored fairly, that's what counts. I would just move on. There are so many things that will come up in gymnastics over the years that you just can't sweat the small stuff or you will go crazy. Downplay it with the girls. Prep them ahead of time (I know you likely didn't know this would happen but moving forward you can). Judges can be very intimidating in general. They have to learn to stay calm and focus on their routines.

I agree with downplaying it and moving on. That is how we approached it with the girls. I think the thing that gets me is the intimidation factor. My daughter is a L9 gymnast and is totally comfortable with intimidating judges, however this seemed like intentional intimidation. The gym wasn't set up in a way that I could observe how she treated all the gymnasts, and honestly, if I could have watched, I probably wouldn't have paid it that much attention after my daughter's rotation. As for fairness of scoring, I thought the scores were low, but I'm not a judge, coach or gymnast so I try not to second guess that. It just seemed like it was a bad judgement call on her part when she could have chosen to judge a different session and not put them under any additional stress. Just my opinion and how I hope I would handle it if I were in the same situation.

 

[momnipotent]

I don’t know how it works in artistic, but I am a T and T judge and we are assigned positions and sessions. I never know who is in the sessions I am assigned to beforehand. Also, once the schedule is set up, that is when judges plan to be at the meet, so it would be almost impossible to trade sessions because there wouldn’t be other judges just hanging around to switch with. With that in mind, she may not have known these girls would be in that session, and even if she would have made the decision to switch once she knew, it may have been impossible.

 

[Flippin'A]

I've seen this happen before. I actually had a girl on my high school team who had one of her old club coaches judge our big county meet. It was similar to what you described-- the judge was particularly distant to the entire team, no smiles, no good luck ladies, none of the usual polite, professional friendliness we were used to. But nothing you could specifically complain about. She definitely didn't give her gymnast the benefit of the doubt score wise, but she could have pointed to every deduction she gave, so, again, there really wasn't anything concrete to report. The gymnast was mad, but kept a game face on and didn't show she was rattled.

Sadly, I don't think there are enough judges out there to prevent this from ever happening. And it's not like there's a backup waiting to take over in case the judge has to recuse herself unexpectedly. Based on your description I think the judge was being petty and immature (judges are professional, but not unfriendly, so I doubt this was just how she treated everyone.) But you can't control her behavior, you can only be glad that your DD is no longer coached by someone who behaves that way and help her to let it roll off her back.

 

[gymgal]

Hopefully a meet director will chime in here but it is a huge feat setting up schedules and while a director may try to avoid a coach judging her own current gymnasts, it would be nearly impossible to account for all former gymnasts. Also, It is unlikely that this coach/judge could have just switched out sessions. Certainly not in a small meet and likely not in a large meet either. And the coach may not have even known who was in the session until she/he sat down to judge, at which point it's too late anyway. Could he/she have been more cordial? Yes, but you may also be reading into this too much. There are many judges who act this way - all business. Since you weren't watching for reactions to other gymnasts, this may have been the case and had nothing to do with the gym switch. To answer the original question - as long as she was scoring within the guidelines, she was not being unethical.

 

[LMS70]

Hopefully a meet director will chime in here but it is a huge feat setting up schedules and while a director may try to avoid a coach judging her own current gymnasts, it would be nearly impossible to account for all former gymnasts. Also, It is unlikely that this coach/judge could have just switched out sessions. Certainly not in a small meet and likely not in a large meet either. And the coach may not have even known who was in the session until she/he sat down to judge, at which point it's too late anyway. Could he/she have been more cordial? Yes, but you may also be reading into this too much. There are many judges who act this way - all business. Since you weren't watching for reactions to other gymnasts, this may have been the case and had nothing to do with the gym switch. To answer the original question - as long as she was scoring within the guidelines, she was not being unethical.

I can only imagine what goes into a meet and all of the scheduling. I would never expect a meet director to cross reference judges and former gymnasts. As I said, I don't know protocol in these situations and I just wanted to put the question out there to a group that would know more than me.

 

[LMS70]

I've seen this happen before. I actually had a girl on my high school team who had one of her old club coaches judge our big county meet. It was similar to what you described-- the judge was particularly distant to the entire team, no smiles, no good luck ladies, none of the usual polite, professional friendliness we were used to. But nothing you could specifically complain about. She definitely didn't give her gymnast the benefit of the doubt score wise, but she could have pointed to every deduction she gave, so, again, there really wasn't anything concrete to report. The gymnast was mad, but kept a game face on and didn't show she was rattled.

Sadly, I don't think there are enough judges out there to prevent this from ever happening. And it's not like there's a backup waiting to take over in case the judge has to recuse herself unexpectedly. Based on your description I think the judge was being petty and immature (judges are professional, but not unfriendly, so I doubt this was just how she treated everyone.) But you can't control her behavior, you can only be glad that your DD is no longer coached by someone who behaves that way and help her to let it roll off her back.

You pretty much summed up our situation. My daughter is young and this is the first time she has had to encounter something like this. I know she will grow a thicker skin as she gets older. And yes, this incident really confirmed to us that we made the best decision all those months ago.

 

[Aussie_coach]

The way it works for us, is at a competition every club must provide a qualified judge to judge at any session the gym has gymnasts competing in, if they don't provide a judge they pay a $200 proxy fee to the competition.

So everyone will have a judge from their club judge them at some point. This could be their coach or club owner depending who is a qualified judge from their club.

 

[amiandjim]

I worked our gym’s meet two weeks ago and both judges on my event had athletes from their gym in the competition that day. They did not treat them or judge them differently as far as I could tell.

 

[2G1B]

Hopefully a meet director will chime in here but it is a huge feat setting up schedules and while a director may try to avoid a coach judging her own current gymnasts, it would be nearly impossible to account for all former gymnasts. Also, It is unlikely that this coach/judge could have just switched out sessions. Certainly not in a small meet and likely not in a large meet either. And the coach may not have even known who was in the session until she/he sat down to judge, at which point it's too late anyway. Could he/she have been more cordial? Yes, but you may also be reading into this too much. There are many judges who act this way - all business. Since you weren't watching for reactions to other gymnasts, this may have been the case and had nothing to do with the gym switch. To answer the original question - as long as she was scoring within the guidelines, she was not being unethical.

This.

On the boys' side it is very common for coaches to judge their current and former athletes (at least in our region). Even on the girls' side though, it happens. The judges are scheduled while sessions are still being worked out. There really is no way for judges to recuse themselves from certain sessions just because they know some of the gymnasts. My girls have had former coaches judge them, some have been friendly, some haven't. Some judges in general are friendly, some aren't.

 

[3rd_time_around]

When I judge the gym I am affiliated with, I am not the chief judge, therefore I do not speak to the athletes at the table, nor do I signal them to go in any way. I also instruct the ones who know me to pretend we don't know each other at the meet. Most judges in our state are affiliated somehow, whether coach, gym owner, or parent. It's almost impossible to avoid having affiliated judges.

There's no rule against it, except affillliated judges cannot be chief judge, and 2 judges with the same affiliation cannot be on the same panel. There is no affiliation if the athletes no longer attend the judge's gym, and the judge cannot recuse herself even if she wanted to. The same level has to be judged by the same judges an the same event. If some of you are going to reply, "Not in our state!" Then either 1) They aren't following the rules in the R&P, or 2) Its not a USAG sanctioned meet.

 

[FlippinLilysMom]

We have a mom at our gym who is also a judge. She has judged girls from our gym as well as her own daughter. There are always 2 judges and their scores have to be within a certain difference of each other or else the head judge has to get involved. So there isn’t an issue with a coach judging their own kids as long as there is more than one judge.

 

[JessSyd]

I feel like we would never have competitions here if coaches could not judge their own gymnasts. It is not ideal, but it happens. It can be tough on the girls - my daughter finds that having her own coach judging her makes her much more nervous than a stranger would because she so wants to impress her. But her coach also knows every flaw to look for.

The first time she had a judge who was a coach at a previous gym was scary too, but the result from that event was so fair she lost that fear quickly.

Most sessions though it will be another coach from the gym judging the girls - a level five coach judging a level six session, for example. So that could also be an ex coach. And given how readily both staff and girls move between gyms here, if you also ruled out ex coaches you’d pretty much have to shut down the sport.

Judges are only human and I guess occasionally a bit of bias comes into play. But this is why generally at competitions there is more than one judge, and a bit of an obligation to have scores that are not too disparate.

 

[Deleted member 18037]

Sounds like she behaved like a judge. How did you expect her to behave?

 

[stillhoping]

If the judge knows your dd well, and knows all of the mistakes she usually makes, that judge can catch more deductions in real-time than a judge who has never seen your dd.