BABYSITTING??

Wow, babysitting. Yep that's how I have felt over the last few weeks. I have 17 young men on the cycling team at ETSU and if I had known what was coming down the pike I'm not sure I honestly could say that I would have accepted the position of President of the club. Yes we are a sport club. We are not a varsity sport where the University takes care of us and all we have to do is focus on doing our best. That said, we have to handle ALL the things ourselves that most schools take care of for their athletes. That said we manage to consistently qualify and send several riders to Nationals each year and pull very good results in the end as well! Last year alone we had three riders finish in the top 5 in gravity. Pretty good for a team that is totally self-sufficient. This year the school has started following the Tennessee Board of Regents rules for all colleges in Tennessee. Bottom line is the rules pretty much suck! We no longer have access to transportation from the ETSU motor pool after this mountain bike season. They are looking into other options for our travel but it's not looking good. Another example of the rules is the ETSU Cycling Club can no longer be named the ETSU Cycling Club but has to change the name to The Cycling Club at ETSU. ETSU can't be the leading name for any sport club because it may confuse someone about the relationship of our club with the University. TBR doesn't want anyone to think that we are directly related with the University like the baseball or soccer teams. WTF? It makes me feel as if they are ashamed of us. Heck we get better results nationally than all their teams combined! Maybe they will look at the club differently when USAC gets the training center built in Erwin...

Sorry I'm venting here but I'm on a roll. First off how many peeps you know that ride a bike and smoke? I only know one and he's on our team and he does it flagrantly in front of other school officials. Jeeeezzz. I also have 4 guys that have been racing without a license this year. I received a message from a USAC official confronting me with this today! I put the 4 members on temporary suspension until they renew their licenses and provide me with proof of a license as well. Man what am I these dude's babysitter??? I got enough going on with the club now and I have to handle this BS as well? I swear if I had known what was coming down the pike I may have never taken the responsibility of being President. In the long run it will help things I'm sure but I need all the guys pulling together and right now I'm only running on about 85% of them doing what needs to be done. The CPA has laid down some new strict rules and I think it will get a couple of the guys on the team. I have given out several warnings that haven't been heeded so it will be no fault but their own so I don't want to hear any crying when the axe falls.

Maybe we can get one of the networks to come in and film all this like a reality show? Ya never know....



LAter G......................................