Curious as to whether USCF has ever revoked a membership, based upon disciplinary issues?
I can’t answer the original question, but I believe the USCF may suspend a player’s right to play in USCF rated tournaments.
Doesn’t the rating supplement include a list of players whose right has been so suspended?
There is a list of suspended members in the supplement. Suspended members to play over-the-board, suspended members to being the director.
Directors are going with the MSA, than looking up members in the supplement. Affiliates (some affiliates) have given up their rights to get the supplements and annual rating list. The MSA does not show members that are suspended. If it did, it should show the date the suspended member can play over-the-board chess.
The USCF has suspended TD’s in the past for not submitting tournaments on a timely basis as well, however I’m not sure how strict they are recently. We’ve had a few severe problems recently, but the TD was not suspended, even when simple 30 player events were over a year old.
It has been since the June supplement, since the last time I looked at the revocations and suspensions of the directors. If the list has not changed, there are twenty-one members on the list. Think the last time anyone got on the list was 1999.
Will check the MSA of the directors. It should show when the director certification did expire. Not sure the certification when it did expire, and the revocations or suspension was the same time.
Looking at the list of directors (2004 Annual Rating List), the last director with a reported tournament was November 2001. There are 4 directors without any tournament history.
As I have not looked at a supplement since the June 2005, if the TD certification revocations and suspensions list has not changed, it needs to be corrected before the 2005 Annual Rating List goes to the printer. One of the directors on the 2004 Annual Rating List is now reported to be deceased. If it is true that member 12740115 is deceased, there is no rational reason to keep the member on the td certification revocations and suspensions list.
I am not really interested in low-impact issues regarding mere administrative foibles of Tournament Directors.
What I am interested in is finding out if any clubs have issues with assaultive players, death threats, fighting, and loud vocal outbursts with profanity and threats to players and TD’s.
At last year’s National Youth Action a coach/USCF member attacked me. I filed a complaint. I had to remind the USCF a lot to process the complaint. In June the Ethics committee recommended that USCF suspended the guys membership. So far his membership has not been suspended. The Board says they need to be notified. So far they have not been notified–sheesh!? (By the way the fellow that attacked me has let his membership expire, so…???).
I don’t know what has happened with other complaints against members/TDs. I do know as a member of the Rules Committee we have received very few complaints over the last several years.
So it is possible that a membership is suspended; however, for whatever reason it appears to be rare.
Tim
i hope you called the police; i’d be more concerned about someone with a tendency to physically harm others than his ability to play rated OTB chess.
Eric
Yep, I called. It was worthless. The police considered it an annoyance. They had better things to do. Other TDs have also told me stories about the uselessness of calling the police when they had problems. I now understand.
When I realized that this guy might also hit a kid, I tried to get a rule passed at the delegates convention that parents and coaches should not be on the playing floor at National Scholastics. The scholastic committee got that one defeated.
Tim
That’s much more to the point of the issue I need to discuss. My concern is that assaultive and threatening behavior and offensive vocal outbursts are dismissed, without concrete action.
The effect of this upon clubs is that members vow to never return, which hurts clubs and tournaments.
“Battered Wife” Syndrove seems to prevail in some clubs. That is to say, there is a typical denial that a problem exists. The assaultive behavior is viewed, unfortunately as a normative behavior, and chess is badly damaged in the long-term as a result.
In the instances that I have seen here, little action has been taken. As a result, many young chess players do not participate.
The problem with what you seem to be driving at is the the USCF can (and should) exercise authority only over matters directly related to playing chess. If someone causes a disturbance while playing a tournament game, you can file a complaint with the Ethics Committee and try to get him suspended. (Though in practice, most of the suspensions I know of were for things like bad checks or cancelling tournaments). If someone simply behaves in an annoying or disruptive manner, you should ban him from your tournaments, vote him out of your club, or call the police.
Another way to put it is this: If the miscreant is unimpressed by your threat to have him arrested for trespassing, is he really going to cower in fear at the thought of having his USCF membership revoked?
It should also be noted that for the sort of problem Tim Just descibed (disruptive behavior by a parent, coach, or spectator), action by the USCF would be fairly useless, since such persons are often not even members.
I suggest people read the summary of the latest EB meeting. A complaint that went through the Ethics committee process was acted upon by the Board. Few details are provided, but it should answer the question of whether or not members are still suspended or revoked.
I just read the Board’s minutes. The fellow that attacked me has had his membership suspended! My advice to me: Patience, Patience, Patience.
Tim
My chess club recently hosted a tourament and we had to call the campus police to have a guy arrested for battery. I was shocked that this behavior would happen at a chess event, but it did. My question is this: how do I file a complaint with the ethics committee? Maybe Nolan can give me this information. the person arrested is a uscf member and this person then went ahead and cancelled their entry fee (the person paid by personal check). This guy was arrested (this is all alleged, until of course the person gets a conviction) for putting his 6’4" 280+ hands around the neck of a 14 year old who might have been about 140 and 5’6". The guy arrested was upset at the 14 for “bumping” into him while he was deep thought. Trully uncalled for behavior and I’m glad he was arrested. From what I understand, this guy has behaved like this before in the past. I hope the USCF suspends his membership for life, especially when he gets (I hope) convicted.
The USCF Code of Ethics includes procedures for filing an ethics complaint.
It is in the USCF rulebook and available online as part of the 2005 Delegates Call: uschess.org/org/govern/2005U … es1-31.pdf
Complaints should be sent to the USCF office in Tennessee, the office will distribute the complaint material to the members of the Ethics Committee.
Thank you Nolan for your information and reply. I will follow up this posting with an ethics complaint for the ethics committee. Thanks again for the information.