IST and NISCA
IST has been involved with the National Interscholastic Swimming Coaches Association (NISCA) since the early 2000’s. IST has always been partial to High School coaches and their programs. We began our business to provide reasonably priced and long-lasting equipment to high schools that didn’t have big budgets. When Dick met Mark Onstott (New Trier, IL) and Dana Abbott (Katy, TX) he was impressed with their passion for high school swimming and their work with NISCA.
All America Diving
The first thing that IST partnered with NISCA on was the All America Diving program. Diving had to be scored and tabulated by hand prior to IST coming on board. With nearly 500 divers doing 11 dives, that was a lot of calculating and it took a lot of time. Judges would watch each dive and shout out their score. A recorder would write down the scores and do the math to tally up the totals. They checked the sheets and placed them in order to determine the top 100 divers.
Beginning in 2004, IST begin providing hardware and software for scoring the dives. Now judges sit with a keypad in their hands. The operator reads the dive number, the judges watch the video of the dive and enter their scores. The computer operator reads off the final scores and the computer performs all the calculations. It allows the judges to judge more quickly and accurately. It also removes any bias caused by hearing the judges around you shout out a score. This past weekend, All America Diving judging occurred. 17 judges and 2 computer operators judged over 550 divers doing 11 dives in 2 and a half days.
Membership and other All America Programs
Once NISCA realized how much more efficient they could be, their executive board and All America chairs started brainstorming ways to make other aspects of the organization run more efficiently. In 2007 IST and NISCA partnered on creating a Membership portal to allow NISCA members to sign up for memberships online. They also made the All America Diving application an on-line process. Beginning in 2008, the entire NISCA membership list went on-line and AA Diving began accepting applications on-line.
Eve Julian is IST’s Sales and Marketing Director as well as a high school coach and NISCA member. In 2008 she made the mistake of complaining to NISCA President Lanny Landtroop about the state of the NISCA website. Lanny talked Eve into becoming NISCA’s first Webmaster. He put her in charge of updating and organizing the website, a role that she still fulfills.
Once Diving applications went online, AA Diving Chair Don Mason was doing much less paperwork. The other All America Chairs were jealous! The next program to go online was All America Swimming, followed a few years later by Academic All America and Scholar Team. Finally, just this year, All America Water Polo has also gone on-line with the applications. Each program presented their own unique challenges to create the online application portal. Upgrades and improvements were added as each application has moved online. The system is still evolving to meet the needs of the users and the Chairs processing the applications.
NISCA/IST National Dual Meet Program
IST is also a proud sponsor of the NISCA National Dual Meet Program. The National Dual Meet program uses Power Points to rank teams in 9 different classes. The classes are based on school size and whether they are public or private. Our MEETWARE software allows you to automatically generate an entry, as well as make manual changes as you see fit. You can print the entry directly from MEETWARE and send it to the National Dual Meet Chairperson for consideration. Eventually, even that program will probably be going online.
Join NISCA
Not a member of NISCA? You can join online. The NISCA membership year begins on August 1st and expires on July 31st. If you join NISCA starting on June 16th, you will get an extra month and a half of membership. Mark your calendars and join NISCA on June 16th . Be part of the only professional organization specifically for high school aquatics coaches.
IST is a proud partner of NISCA. We support their efforts “To Educate…. To Honor… To Serve” high school coaches around the country. Volunteers run NISCA. They support high school swimming, diving and water polo athletes and coaches around the country. We think they do an outstanding job and we are happy to help them achieve their mission.
