1st Bi-Weekly Junior Coaches Poll - Tues. Nov. 24

We will publish the results of our first bi-weekly Coaches Poll on Tuesday November 24. We have twenty coaches taking part so far.

By that time several Junior tournaments will have been completed.

These will include: the Bob Maydo tournament, Vaughan tournament, Father Henry Carr Junior Crusader Classic, Huron Heights (Nov. 6) Tournament, and G. L. Roberts Tournament.

Coaches should have a reasonable number of games and tournaments on which to base their assessments.

This will be published on Tuesday of next week.

If there are any other coaches interested in taking part, you can e-mail me at robertjclement@hotmail.com

I have sent out the ballots to the twenty or so coaches who have volunteered to participate.

I hope to have the results up by Tuesday. It is a poll and I will publish the number of votes received. No coaches names or schools or indication of how any individual may have voted.

Any coaches who wish to be added can e-mail me at:
robertjclement@hotmail.com

One thing we've ALL been critical of with the Grossman Top 10 was the lack of transparency. Specifically, there was a points system that he used but no one really had any idea of how it worked.

Aside from the obscure points system used by the Toronto Star, we've been quite critical that Grossman mentioned he 'polled' people but was never public about who they were just that they were players, coaches, etc.

Since our points system has already been made transparent (20 for 1st, 19 for 2nd, all the way down to 1 for 4th HM), I think we should also list the coaches or individuals participating in each bi-weekly ranking. It adds some validity to the rankings and it fixes up something that Grossman did that many of us were against.

I'm not sure how my fellow coaches or others would feel about this. Would having your name published at the bottom of the results affect how you vote? If not, what are some reasons for and against this approach?

Personally I have never been shy about giving an opinion. I have always been hesitant about ranking teams I could play against however. That is purely from the point-of-view of giving ammunition to my opponent.

I would not object to publishing names but I will leave it up to the coaches involved.

The voting is interesting so far.

There are coaches from York, Halton, Peel, and TDCAA who have voted so far. Even with the few votes that I have a couple of interesting trends have emerged.

Teams that have not played are not receiving many votes. That includes perennials like Pope John Paul and Oakwood.

I am also finding that teams from all regions in the GTA are receiving support and that is definitely a positive.

I 100% agree with Coach Clement's rationale and his suggestion of keeping the individual rankings anonymous, but tagging ALL the involved coaches on the group rankings.

Coach Clement has already dedicated a lot of time to this ranking venture and I want to make sure it's done right, and that we learn from the mistakes of other publications...

The results have been slow in arriving. Only nine coaches have voted.

Hopefully things will pick up.

I will publish regardless.