Specifically, the e-mail notes that year-end ratings should be published in the first few days of December, but if you want to get your rating sent to you via e-mail early on November 29th, they will do so if you take one of three Safe Sport training courses by November 11th.
The three courses are:
- Parent’s Guide to Misconduct in Sport
- Abuse Prevention for Adult Athletes
- SafeSport for Volunteers
I will admit I've been aware of Safe Sport and have always thought it was largely applicable primarily to juniors, so found it interesting the USTA was seemingly sending this to all USTA League players (those that care about their year-end level) as it wouldn't really be applicable to this audience.
I did take the 2nd and 3rd course above to see what the content was, and indeed they are both very much focused on juniors or youth/collegiate teams and scenarios related to that. Certainly what is covered can apply to any sporting situation and USTA League does have teams, but none of the content addressed those sorts of scenarios.
The cynical part of me thinks the USTA has Safe Sport training metrics they need to meet and is looking to boost the numbers by using the perk of getting your year-end rating early. There is nothing wrong with that, and some USTA League players have kids playing sports or interact with high school or college teams, but those metrics will need to be looked at with a lens knowing they were perhaps artificially boosted with members the training doesn't really apply to.
Am I being too cynical?
It is also interesting that the USTA apparently will have the ratings ready by 11/29 but it choosing to hold on to them and not publish for four days. This is perhaps by design, wanting to wait until the work week to publish and have staff available to deal with the influx of questions and complaints, but if a lot of people take the Safe Sport training and get their rating e-mailed to them early, it is really no different than just publishing the ratings on TennisLink on 11/29.
In fact, it could cause more confusion as players get an e-mail with their new rating and then go to TennisLink and still see their old rating. It all seems a little odd.
And to be honest, it really would be a service to league players to just publish a little earlier as some leagues start immediately in January and have registration deadlines in early December which really puts a crunch on captains to figure out who can captain which team and figure out rosters. The four extra days could really help.
What do you think?
