At the risk of sounding "old school", what are these new fangled divisions "Elite, AA"?

Back in the day, it was D, C, B A and Open and Pro

If you weren't good enough to play Open, you played A.

If you thought you were good enough, you entered Open. If you got your rear end handed to you, the sanctioning body reclassified you down.

It's like Little League, coddling players with special divisons. Is it about a trophy?

Maybe it's the word "Elite" that bothers me - Elite means exceptional, not "not quite good enough to play Open or Pro".

At my club, the "Elite" league division includes dudes that play B at state tournaments. It chaps my rear end to hear guys say they are "Elite" when they are average B players.

Back in the old foggie days in the 80's at my club, there were only a handful of Open players and when there was a league, they played each other and if you didn't play Open or were of Open caliber, you didn't play Open - period.

When did Elite become a division and why?

I vote to get rid of it.

I do not vote to get rid of ELITE but people should play in their divisions. I typically play at LA fitness and many clubs have league night and anyone can play as long as they PAY the FEE. their is an ELITE division at a club I go to with TWO only TWO elite players with the rest being yes B and some low A players. so 2 out of 17. I have complained a lot and decided not to play in a league to to this reason. another club 3 miles away has a B league on a different night, go play in that....

Elite effectively serves the purpose of differentiating skill levels in regions of deep talent.

It can bridge the gap for players moving up or aging and injured players sliding down.

I think of it as the cruiserweight division of racquetball.

[quote=Control Freak]Elite effectively serves the purpose of differentiating skill levels in regions of deep talent.

It can bridge the gap for players moving up or aging and injured players sliding down.

I think of it as the cruiserweight division of racquetball.


Cruiserweight- you must be pretty good to consider elite division that. I was under the impression that many rball players never reach elite division, stuck in A's due to consistency and shot selection. You make it sound like its easy to reach the elite division? Am I interpreting this wrong?

Elite makes sense to me.

Open division alone is like 3 divisions in one before becoming a pro.

A can relatively be easy for many lower open players.

elite seems just right.

I have seen "AA" used.

Elite is a good dropdown division without being called Open Consolation.

Elite is a good way of saying I'm pretty good on the "recreational player" block.

Guess I'm biased as well ;)

Manny

It is my understanding that the word "open" was originally used in competition (a la early 1900's) to disclose that anyone could enter, but there would be no divisions.

This is obviously not how it works in racquetball.

CF's response makes sense. I play in OH, and hardly anybody uses the term "Elite". I'd bet Elite is widely used in CA or TX. At least in OH, if you consider yourself Elite, you play Open.

bayou blaster

At the risk of sounding "old school", what are these new fangled divisions "Elite, AA"?

Back in the day, it was D, C, B A and Open and Pro

If you weren't good enough to play Open, you played A.

If you thought you were good enough, you entered Open. If you got your rear end handed to you, the sanctioning body reclassified you down.

It's like Little League, coddling players with special divisons. Is it about a trophy?

Maybe it's the word "Elite" that bothers me - Elite means exceptional, not "not quite good enough to play Open or Pro".

At my club, the "Elite" league division includes dudes that play B at state tournaments. It chaps my rear end to hear guys say they are "Elite" when they are average B players.

Back in the old foggie days in the 80's at my club, there were only a handful of Open players and when there was a league, they played each other and if you didn't play Open or were of Open caliber, you didn't play Open - period.

When did Elite become a division and why?

I vote to get rid of it.

I think the main issue is that your Elite players are sandbagging in the state tournaments because they think they will have a better chance of winning the bracket. I would suggest calling them out. Even going down one division isn't honorable in most circles, but two levels is ridiculous.

Mannino said it best: Play the division in which you play at your gym.

What you guys say makes sense and what surprised me at the tournament I entered were the number of players who played multiple divisions, Pro, Elite, A - all in the same tournament or those guys at my club who play "Elite" at the Club but were playing B or C singles? I'd rather buy a trophy.

I guess part of my disdain is use of the word "Elite" which I think as a word reflects more on the level of the professional player.

I've never heard any other sport label players as "Elite' in a division below the pro division, just sounds sort of cheesy to me. It's convulted and if I were running a tournament today (I've done in the past), I'd eliminate the division or just push the Elite player to the Open or Pro division.

From what I'm reading it's almost subjective on classifying a player as "Elite".

bayou blaster

I guess part of my disdain is use of the word "Elite"

Feel free to re-name the Elite division "Turnip" or "Monkeybutt" or "Dustin Hoffman" at the next tournament you sponsor.

so I need to jump from an A player to Open...that is a huge gap....

nevergiveup

so I need to jump from an A player to Open...that is a huge gap....

That speaks to CF's original answer. The division is really for larger markets where you can really seperate skill levels. In your market that might be a huge gap, hence the need for a division in-between. In some markets, its not needed.

I also dont like the name "Elite" as it sounds higher than Open. Trivial stuff though

the term use to be called AA or double A. For those that were better then an a player but could not hang with open.

The wide gap exists between A and Open because Open has no cap. The names of the divisions in tournaments are meant to be a limiting factor, not a qualifying factor. The "B" division is restricted to only players who are "B" level or lower. Open means just as somebody else suggested, that there is no limiting factor for who can enter the division.

So, you start with the lowest division Novice. At some point you draw a line and say it is unfair for this guy to play with the novice players because it is no longer competitive, so you call that player a "D" player. This process continues up the chain. An "A" players therefore just ends up being somebody who is too good to make for good competition among the players that had been classified as B.

The basic notion here is that an "A" player is the lowest level player that is just good enough that playing with the "B" players would be uncompetitive. The problem was that by the time you worked your way through the alphabet and got down to "A", there was still a wide range of skills left above that.

What could have happened is they could have shifted the entire scale, and created an "E" division. But that was difficult to do given the history of existing players. Additionally, in areas where there are not a lot of players (or even in smaller tournaments in big areas), the number of players at each skill level gets smaller and smaller as you get to the higher skill levels. In the end, when a tournament is small, the division least likely to be able to field a full bracket is going to be the higher division levels, so what ends up happening is they collapse the higher brackest. Elite division is the first to go, with the Elite players having to decide if they want to play up or play down.

As others have noted, Elite used to be called AA, and that made a lot more sense to me. I never liked the term Elite either. At a very large national-singles tournament (for example), it might even make sense to have a AAA division. The ultimate goal is to have enough divisions that everybody can find a competitive bracket.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuJAUa04wLM

Am wondering if there has been some division inflation.
I.e., how does the A division of today compare to that of yesteryear?

Seems like a lot of tournaments are eliminating the lower divisions. No more "novice", don't often see a "D", and "C" is pretty small in tournaments in our area.

Matt

So here's a kicker for ya…
Last year at Nat Dbls there was a player in the MIX A's who's entire history of tournaments was played in either the Elite or Open level (We talked to a state president who has seated him in these events based on the size of the tournament)
So this issue was brought up to the USRA.
The question was how come a player who is known as an Open / Elite player is allowed to play n an A division?
The answer was that the USRA looks at both Elite and Open level's as an open level so you could have the best player in the state play the guy who just picked up the sport playing each other, it's open to all.
So Elite and Open level players really don't have a skill level since those divisions are open to anyone who wants to play in them….Kind of odd

I guess Elites is only for local / state play, something to bridge the A division and the Open division BUT….At a national level there isn't a gap so in all actuality an OK Open player and a very good Elite player could play in the A's or B's (or lower) at the National level because Open and Elite's are actually skill levels…...