By Matt Howey, SpokePost.com Cycling News
[Matt Howey of SpokePost.com Cycling News is also a race organizer in
the Northeastern United States. As such he is very interested in issues
affecting cycling in the USA. Thanks ever so much to Matt for sharing this fascinating
interview.]
SpokePost.com caught up with the head of USA Cycling recently and discussed
their plans to straighten out cycling in the United States by forming state
associations and by supporting grassroots and regional racing efforts. The focus
was particularly on the formation of a possible New York State association. I’d
like to thank Gerard for taking the time out of his ridiculously busy schedule
to find time to speak with us!
SpokePost.com: First, could you just explain to me what the reasoning
behind the whole association "push" is – what it is – people generally know that
it’s 20% of the license fees are going to come back to the state associations…
Gerard Bisceglia: Well, let me give you a historical background, how’s
that?
SpokePost.com: OK…
Gerard Bisceglia: It’s born from one of the most efficient programs
that we’ve had…it was a program called the "District Rep" program. A number of
years ago, which is foreign to me, but it’s in the recent past – we discontinued
the district rep program and replaced it with a regional coordinator program,
and your regional coordinator is Judy Miller…
SpokePost.com: Right…
Gerard Bisceglia: Well, when I got here and started assessing the
situation, I looked at these five people and realized that we were running 3,000
races a year, so each one of them was going to be responsible for 600 races. I
had heard people talk about the District Rep program and also recognized that
the demise of the District Rep program was instrumental in creating the
divisiveness (separation) inside of USA Cycling – I started looking at it more
closely and asking, "Are we giving the customer service that we need to the
racers and the promoters?"
SpokePost.com: Sure…
Gerard Bisceglia: First and foremost, when I came here, I decided that
rather than acting as a monolithic governing body for the sport of cycling in
the United States, that USA Cycling is really there to serve the role of
customer service and that the people that really do all the heavy lifting in
cycling in the United States are the local promoters and the local clubs. They
look to us for guidance and direction, but the fact of the matter is that
they’re the ones out there really doing all the work as volunteers with little
to no compensation…
SpokePost.com: Right…
Gerard Bisceglia: …so I realized also that we probably couldn’t just
go out and replace the District Rep program as it had been known in the past –
and I also saw that the background of all this was financial as well…the amount
of money that we were spending on the Regional Coordinator program was the same
amount of money that we had already spent previously on the District Rep
program. So when we discontinued the District Rep and went to five Regional
Coordinators, we really didn’t save any money. The only people that suffered
were the "field" people like yourself because we didn’t have the number of
bodies to provide the service. So I thought how do we get resources down to the
lowest level and I started getting indications that it might be smart to look at
the state associations and I thought, "Why don’t we support these folks
financially…so that they can assist in local bicycle racing issues that are on
their agenda?" It really depends on how developed racing is in their geographic
locale. If it’s someplace that’s highly developed and say they want to buy
timing systems with cameras and such, in some places it’s not developed at all
and they need to put together a website and buy cones, while other places are
very focused on junior racing and want to support their juniors – no matter what
it is, let the local people decide what is most important in their areas – and
that way, they would sort of serve the function of the old District Reps…
The second reason that I like this setup is because, rather than paying a
District Rep, like it or not - I’m not going to be critical of the District Reps
at all, the did a great job – but the fact of the matter is that the money that
was going to the District Reps was income for them.
SpokePost.com: Sure, yeah…
Gerard Bisceglia: I thought by doing it this way, instead of the money
just becoming income for a group of individuals, it gets re-invested in the
sport at large.
SpokePost.com: Of course…
Gerard Bisceglia: …and then the third thing was…when you’re dealing
with a state association, or a regional association, whatever it may be, you
have a much better chance for creating purpose, because now you’re dealing with
the cycling community as a whole, rather than as an individual – if an
individual quits, gets transferred, gets annoyed because something happened, or
doesn’t do a good job and gets fired…then you’re starting from scratch…whereas
if you acknowledge and identify a state association, the continuity of that
association gives you a better chance of making sure what’s happening in that
area is to the benefit of cycling, and by us helping to fund it, it can then
have a guaranteed level of resources on an annual basis, so they can do better
budgeting and prepare better…
So, all of our motives were how to get money back down to the local level –
now some have expressed the concern that we were "forcing you to start a state
association…" – that’s not the case at all. You don’t have to. If you don’t
start a state association, we have no place to give that ten dollars to, so
where that ten dollars goes is to the resources that we’re going to have to
expend to support New York in an appropriate manner. So what we’re saying is
that if you don’t have a state association that we still recognize that it is
our responsibility to handle those chores, but since there’s no place to send
the money, it stays here to help fund those chores. We do not in any way, shape
or form want to force you to feel that you HAVE to have a state association…
SpokePost.com: I think that’s one thing that a lot of people have been
confused about …
Gerard Bisceglia: We are not mandating that you start an
association…the other thing is that it is not restricted to the state
boundaries. That’s where the whole NEBRA thing comes in – my whole familiarity
with New York – you’ve got downstate New York – Westchester County, New York
City and Long Island…which they may feel like they’re more interested in being
with northern Jersey, while the Hudson Valley area may feel like they spend more
time racing in New England and they want to affiliate with New England, and
you’ve got the western tier that may say, you know what, we want to go in with
northwest Pennsylvania and Ohio. It sounds like once you get out of metro New
York City, it sounds like the rest of the state has what is necessary to form a
state association. By the way, if you think this is premature, but down the road
you want to consider it, that’s fine with us as well…we don’t want to put you on
a deadline, on a clock, we never wanted this to appear to be threatening – we
want to do what is best for the cyclists in the state of New York and at the
same time we want to encourage you to get organized, we want to support you
financially whenever possible, and we want you to go out there and work as best
you can to build up grassroots cycling in the state of New York.
SpokePost.com: OK, one of the things that people have said in that
respect is that the 20% of the license fee would basically just end up going to
pay – you can’t do the things such as the permitting and the license upgrades,
for free. No one is going to do it for free. If you could find someone to do it
for free, they’d be a saint and more power to them. So you’re going to end up
taking a good portion of that 20% and pouring it right back into whoever heads
up the association…
Gerard Bisceglia: Each association is looking at this differently.
Some of them have said, "We WANT to do the upgrades…", "We’re MORE QUALIFIED to
do the upgrades…", "We WANT to do the permitting…" – now the permitting, you’re
going to be able to permit online through our system through the USAC – but what
we want the association to do is to check the permits and make sure that it’s
accurate, but the permitting is still going to be done by USAC online, but the
state or local association is just going to do a review process. If you guys
don’t have a state association then Judy Miller will still review…
SpokePost.com: OK, I see…
Gerard Bisceglia: As far as the upgrading goes, there’s nothing saying
that you CAN’T pay an individual to do this work – one association is large
enough that they want to pay individuals to handle all their administrative work
– the only stipulation with the money is that at the end of the year when it is
time to renew your charter, just tell us what you did with the money.
SpokePost.com: So basically, if we don’t have an association, and we
decide NOT to have an association, it just goes through USA Cycling like it
always has? That was one of the questions that was brought up at the promoters
meeting…
Gerard Bisceglia: Yes, but we are encouraging them because I believe
philosophically and fundamentally that the sport will be served by active groups
of individuals in areas, getting together and working together to further
cycling.
SpokePost.com: That’s kind of what the clubs have done, it's somewhat
confusing, but the association covers a somewhat broader audience…
Gerard Bisceglia: What we’re imagining is that the clubs sort of come
together – they still stay their individual clubs – but we were just looking for
that trigger point where we could get the funds down to a more grassroots level
where it wouldn’t get so diluted…
SpokePost.com: What about the existing clubs…they already have an
infrastructure built and you can tell exactly how many licensed riders are in
every club, has that been kicked around at all, or…?
Gerard Bisceglia: Well, it has been talked about, but all I can tell
you is that this is the conclusion that we came to was the association…because
again, trying to deal with some clubs out there that may only have say 10 or 15
members – what we’re trying to do is create a consolidation of resources so that
we can get serious stuff done – like buying timing equipment and trailers and
things of that nature.
SpokePost.com: Now when you get into getting mutual equipment such as
that – I’ve seen it just on the club level – you run into a lot of problems with
who’s going to store it, how’s it going to get to the venue, or who’s going to
have it one weekend or the next…
Gerard Bisceglia: That’s a decision for each association to make. You
might decide that all of the funds that come back to New York go to junior
racing. You might use that money to fund the people that qualify for nationals
from that state to defray their costs of going to the nationals…you can do
whatever you want to do with it as long as it’s to encourage cycling.
SpokePost.com: Speaking of nationals, what direction is the selection
process for nationals going to take?
Gerard Bisceglia: Well, most of that stuff hasn’t been finalized
yet…but we do want to implement a selection process based on the number of
riders in a particular region…so if New York represents 10% of all of the
licensed riders in the United States, then New York is going to get 10% of the
starting positions at nationals.
SpokePost.com: Interesting…you’ve already answered a lot of the
questions that I had…
Gerard Bisceglia: …by the way…I do want to say this is a work in
progress, but I don’t want to be redundant because it’s always going to be a
work in progress…we’re going to keep changing, we’re going to keep adjusting –
because again it goes back to the concept of customer service. We’re going to do
certain things now that are going to work, and two years from now they’re going
to get stale and two years from now we’re going to change them.
SpokePost.com: So that 80% that you guys are keeping…you hear from a
lot of people that say – LOOK – we don’t know WHAT USA Cycling is spending the
money on…is that information public? Can you find that information somewhere?
Gerard Bisceglia: If you’re talking about publishing our budget, I can
tell you what we spend our money on. We just spent $200,000 creating this entire
new software and hardware package for permitting and licensing, a new email
system, and obviously you know that we support the national team and send teams
to the world championships – you’re going to see much, much more for your money,
than you’ve seen in the past. You’re already seeing it now because of the amount
of time we are spending out in the field right now. We pay one and a half
million dollars in insurance. We’re going to continue to enhance our services
with online rankings with VERY current rankings and results rather than
something that is three months out of date.
SpokePost.com: How is the rankings and results system going to be
coordinated? Is that all through the website as well?
Gerard Bisceglia: Yes, it’s going to be through the website.
SpokePost.com: How far off is the launch of the new website and some
of these new services?
Gerard Bisceglia: This morning it was two weeks, but now it looks more
like four…it’s very much on the horizon. If it’s not online by April 1st
there’s going to be problems in this building. This is one of the things that is
going to fix something that I looked at when I first got here…I looked at the
license and said, "hey guys, this license is nothing but tax…" – we’re a service
organization, we have to make this license something that people desire, and
don’t feel that it’s just a tax – we need to continue to keep adding value to
it.
SpokePost.com: Perhaps something that could have been done differently
is maybe the way that this information was originally disseminated and presented
to the cycling public at large…
Gerard Bisceglia: Yes, you are absolutely right…because we’ve been
developing this on-the-fly by talking to people…one of the big misnomers is that
this package was developed to bring back the breakaway groups – one of the very
first things that I told California was that – whatever we develop is going to
be offered to everybody in the United States, we’re going to try to develop
something that is enticing and whether you take it or not, this is the deal that
is going to be put on the table for everybody. It was not the idea of "hey let’s
cut some separate deal and make these guys come back…" which is specifically for
the reason that – why would I reward people who have left, and not support
people who have supported USA Cycling?
SpokePost.com: ABSOLUTELY!
Gerard Bisceglia: But yes, there is no doubt about it that it has not
been communicated in a proficient manner and I take a certain level of
responsibility for that with having been so busy with actually going out and
visiting with people face-to-face
SpokePost.com: …well, yeah, I know you have been doing a lot of
traveling and I think that’s great that you are actually getting out there and
talking to these people – getting involved – not sitting there in Colorado and
saying, "this is how it’s going to be…" – I mean the fact that you are talking
to me right now, you know, that says a lot about how you are trying to operate
things. There’s been several states that have already said that they are ready
to go…
Gerard Bisceglia: You’ve got California, Texas, Louisiana, Tennessee,
the New England people, and there are a lot of other states that are looking at
things and getting their act together – the state of Washington, Nevada, still
waiting to hear from Florida – but most of these, it’s just procedural at this
point, we’re just trying to get the paperwork together. You guys are important
because you are pivotal on the east coast…for instance, if we DO get the
Olympics in 2012, I want to make sure that you guys get at the front of the line
for the different cycling opportunities that will be there for you – I want to
work through the state association and do that.
SpokePost.com: Well, Gerard, I think it’s great to see someone taking
some action to get something done. Obviously, there’s been a bit of complacency
in USA Cycling in past few years. There’s a lot of potential change happening
right now, and I think it’s good…and what I’ve seen here in New York, if
anything, is that people are talking – people in Long Island are talking to
people in Syracuse who are talking to people in Poughkeepsie – and it’s great to
see that these promoters and others are actually communicating now – and this
has certainly served a purpose in that respect…
Gerard Bisceglia: Let me tell you what one of my goals is, Matt, and
I’d appreciate it if you’d pass this along to your compatriots. If all I do is
transfer the energy that used to be spent bitching and complaining about USA
Cycling, into energy spent talking about how we can improve the sport…we will be
so far ahead of the game…
SpokePost.com: I agree.
Gerard Bisceglia: Justifiably there was a tremendous amount of
grinding of teeth and complaints directed at USA Cycling and we deserved every
bit of it.
SpokePost.com: Certainly, part of the skepticism that you’re seeing
now is a product of the past several years…
Gerard Bisceglia: …and that’s ok with me.
SpokePost.com: Obviously that’s going to take some time to get over
and heal.
Gerard Bisceglia: We know it’s not a short-term fix – there’s no way
we can just come out and say, "Hey! Everything is changed…" – we need to work at
it everyday to make sure that we keep delivering.
SpokePost.com: Well, Gerard, I’ll tell you what…talking to you in
person has been a pleasure and I certainly have a much more positive outlook on
the future of USA Cycling. I can tell that you’re actually making a concerted
effort to do something positive for this sport – you’re working towards clear
goals – I appreciate that, and I think when the nay Sayers … sort of … stop
worrying about what might go wrong, and start looking at the positive aspects, I
think we’ll certainly get somewhere…
Gerard Bisceglia: Thanks for taking the time with me…and Merry
Christmas to you!
SpokePost.com: Merry Christmas to you too!
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