COVID-19 Updates

April 3rd, 2020

Hello Ohio Professionals and Member Clubs:

I urge you all to share this with your team families and your coaching staffs. I believe it is vital for us all to understand in greater detail why certain decisions have made.

This is such a crazy time. I am sure almost all of you are in the same boat as me. I have had to close the doors to my business and I am currently considered unemployed. Nearly all of the committee members are also in this situation. I am not asking for pity over these issues, I am merely pointing out that most of the people on the committee (all of whom are true volunteers) are experiencing similar circumstances to you.

With that said, I would like to address one of the hot button topics currently being discussed in the Ohio gymnastics community. That being the decision of the committee to allow the organizations who were set to run our state meets to retain $25.00 of each athlete’s entry fees.

Ohio USA Gymnastics will receive no part of this. Normally, all state hosts are responsible for paying $3.50 fee per athlete to the state as part of the head tax system our state operates under. For this year, I have decided not to charge these organizations for this fee. So, the $25.00 per athlete fee is entirely going to the three host organizations who were set to run these events. All of their expenses will be paid from this amount. The only exception is the awards for the compulsory state meet. The state committee all agreed that the state should purchase those already delivered awards from Olympic Dreams Gymnastics. Those awards will be sold to the one of the state meet hosts next year, thus allowing the state to recoup the money we are spending this year. It also prevents one of our hosts from having to sit on awards they may or may not be able to use in the future.

Why are we allowing the organizations to keep money beyond the physical expenses? Well, they have all done all the preliminary work to host a competition of this size. This includes, but is not limited to, attending countless planning meetings, negotiating hotel rate fees, negotiate facility agreements, equipment delivery and set up plans, negotiate for that equipment, attract vendors and negotiate vendor contracts, collect athlete entries (not as easy as one would hope – not all clubs send their fees in a timely manner – if a club bounces a check the host is left being a bill collector to receive the monies they are owed), create a budget to ensure they run a successful meet, enter athletes into a database, organize a schedule, help determine how many age groups will be needed at each level, order individual awards, order team awards, create facility layouts, potentially reserve bleacher/seating, plan for scoring procedures, secure housing and meals for the judges during the event, arrange and provide onsite meals for coaches during the event and much more.

These things are all done well in advance of the time at which USA Gymnastics and the State of Ohio determined these gatherings should not happen. The compulsory state meet was actually past the time frame where, according to USAG rules and policies, refunds needed to be given. The USA Gymnastics R&P states that refunds do not have to be honored within 10 days of the start of competition. It also states the following on page 99 of the current R&P in regards meet cancellations.

3. Cancellation Policy - The Meet Director should make the best effort to refund all or part of the entry fee in the event that severe weather or a shortage of judges would cause a cancellation of a competition.

In spite of this gray area, neither the state committee or the host organization ever felt that no refund was an option.

While we all agree that the restrictions needed to be in place, it does not mean the committee felt these host organizations should receive nothing for the countless hours they had already devoted. Even if they just paid the physical bills and refunded all the remaining monies to each club that entered, then these host organizations would be losing money when they are not paid for their time and efforts. I have hosted many large competitions in the past 30 years and I never received a single penny for the hours and hours of meetings, negotiating and planning prior to the conclusion of the meet. When you are meeting with the representatives from the hotels and the events centers, those individuals are being paid for their time. When you agree to a contract with a hotel, event center, vendor, awards supplier, etc. there are often performance clauses that the host organization is responsible for even is the event is smaller than anticipated or worst case scenario, doesn’t happen at all.

While I am very sorry the current state of affairs prevents us from moving forward with state meets this year, hopefully this email helps you understand in greater detail why the committee felt that allowing each host to keep up to $25.00 per athlete was a reasonable decision. I also want everyone to know that all state meets will be required to submit Profit and Loss statements to me and that I will in turn post those documents on the state website. I want everyone to know how much I value the need for transparency in these matters.

Thank you all for your time and attention. Please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions regarding this matter. Stay safe and stay healthy!

Best regards,
Patrick C. Jordan
Ohio USA Gymnastics SAC Chair