Each year there is a national convention for NSAS (National Swimming Aquatic Sports) . This convention covers all aquatic sports Swimming, Water Polo, Synchronized Swimming, Masters and Diving. While the convention is an annual event, USA Diving only considers rules changes every other year. The 2009 NSAS convention in Chicago was a convention where rules were submitted, debated, accepted or rejected. The process to have a new rule considered begins by submitting a proposed new rule in writing to United Sates Diving in accordance with USA Diving guidelines. Prior to the convention USA Diving post the proposed rules on USAdiving.org. Later they are printed and distributed to all USAD Diving attendees at the convention.

During the first General Assembly all of the proposed rules are reviewed. The assembly votes on each rule to recommend if the rule should or should not be considered by the Rules Committee, although the rules committee may still consider a proposed rule even if the first General Assembly meeting votes against it.

When the Rules Committee convenes each proposed rule is debated, the committee asks people to speak for and against each rule. After a serious, in depth and sometimes lengthy debate the Rules Committee members vote on each rule, but this is not the final act.

Before rules that made it through the Rules Committees are formally accepted they must be presented to the final session of the General Assembly, where any voting member may ask for a rule to be reconsidered by the entire General Assembly. Those rules are then argued by the entire general assembly and then voted on. The rule may be adopted, rejected or set aside to be considered in two years. The remaining rules recommended by the Rules Committee that were not reconsidered by the General Assembly are adopted. The entire process is taken seriously and every rule is fully considered. The convention is open to everyone who cares to attend. DiveMeets has sent a representative to each USAS Convention since 2004. Our representative is not a voting attendee.

DiveMeets is privileged to manage meets for all of the Major Diving Organizations. DiveMeets is in a unique position; we work with divers, coaches, judges, parents and NGBs (National Governing Bodies). We are honored to work side by side with many people who are dedicated to doing what is best for the sport and in particular what is best for the divers. It is for that reason we occasionally voice our observations and even offer recommendations.

This year DiveMeets offered a proposed rules change to USA Diving. The rule related to USA Diving Regional meets. Regional meets are held for the purpose of advancing qualified divers from each region to Zone meets where they may advance to national level meets. There is nothing wrong with the Regional to Zone format however there has been an inequity. Simply stated 15 divers from each event in each region are advanced to the same event in the Zone meet. Unfortunately some Regional meets have more depth of talent in some events than other regions. This means a diver in a strong region may dive exceptionally well but not finish in the top 15 while a less skilled diver in a region with fewer qualified divers in the same event advances.

In some cases a Regional Meet may not even have 15 divers in an event so all of the divers advance to the next level. Mean while another Regional may have many more than 15 divers in the same event and only advance the top 15 even if more divers may have easily finished in the top 15 had they been in another region.

This problem has existed for many years resulting in what is known as "region shopping". This is when divers, coaches and parents try and guess what Regional meet may offer the best chance to move on based on a belief the divers may not be as skilled as themselves or they think there will not be as many divers in an event thereby improving the divers chance to finish in the top 15. "Region Shopping" creates a whole new set of problems. You may guess wrong, the region may turn out to have an abundance of qualified divers so some skilled divers are still left behind, the region may resent their meet being flooded with divers from other regions, this may cause some judges to score the outside divers a bit lower than local divers, there is usually an additional expense for travel to out of region meets.

In defense of original top 15 rule; it was as fair as possible when it was originally implemented. We also think region shopping (for the most part) was used to help level the playing field for the benefit of qualified divers. Unfortunately region shopping is a roll of the dice and often does eliminate local divers from advancing in their own regions.

When DiveMeets began managing all USAD Diving Regional meets we recognized there was now a more equitable way to advance divers from Regionals to Zones. Our proposal was simple. Let divers compete in their own Regional even if the region may be very strong in some events with more than 15 truly qualified divers. Under the new rule the top 15 divers (or less if the event did not have 15 entries) will advance, this is the same as it has always been. In addition to the top 15 divers, any diver(s) in the event who's score is higher than the average last qualifying place score from all 10 regions will also advance. As soon as the last of the Regionals upload their scores DiveMeets will calculate the new average qualifying score. The divers who equal or beat the average last place qualifying score will also advance. The Divers names will be posted on DiveMeets.com and USAdiving.org

Diving is a subjectively scored sport. Judges are supposed to judge what they see. When that happens there is not too much deviation in scores. If however a region bumps the scores a bit to try and advance more divers what happens? If a region's average score is more than 1 standard unit of measurement high as compared to the other 9 regions that region's scores will not be included in the new qualifying score calculations, the same is true for regions who are below by the same amount. The top 15 divers from both the high and low regions will still advance as will any diver from those regions who meet the new average score. Once the average scores for the Regionals are posted it will be apparent if a set of scores are noticeably higher than all of the other Regionals. Certainly those divers would be expected to place very high at Zones and Nationals.

It is important to understand this is not the qualifying point system used in other organizations where the divers and more importantly the judges know how many points are needed to qualify prior to the event. In the new average point system no one knows the actual average last place qualifying score until all of the Regionals are completed.

At the convention this rule was accepted in the first General Assembly, vigorously debated and passed in the Rules Committee and accepted in the second General Assembly without discussion.

The rule was proposed for the divers. If a diver competes at his or her best and surpasses the new average last place qualifying score that diver will advance to the next meet, not as a wild card but because odds are if the diver had competed at the majority of other Regionals he or she would have advanced. Truly qualified divers will no longer be excluded from moving on simply because they competed in a region with more than 15 truly qualified divers.

Important: No diver who would have advanced under the old top 15 divers rule will be held back. Even if the event only has 2 divers they will both advance. The rule is for the purpose of advancing truly qualified divers who could have been held back under the old rule. Prior to the convention in 2008 and again this year DiveMeets retroactively reprocessed all Regionals using the new average score rule. We did this to see just how many extra divers would have advanced. The numbers are very modest, on average about 8 extra divers will advance from each Regional. That is 8 extra divers from the entire Regional not per event. Had the rule been in place for 2008 and 2009 each Zone would have had an average of 16 more divers who equaled or beat the national qualifying average score.