Hattrick - U-20 USA coach election

[vex]

Ok, I sent out a few PMs last night to see if there would be any interest in having FOFCers unite in an attempt to elect a fellow FOFCer as the USA U-20 Coach in a little more than a month. Everyone seemed to like the idea, so I will now propose it to the board.


In Hattrick, as everyone knows, being a National Team coach carries with it a great deal of prestige. I would venture to say that when someone is elected a National Team coach, they are not soon forgotten.

We have approximately 60 FOFCers playing hattrick at the moment. About 55 of these are from the USA. That is a very strong alliance in USA Hattrick. I think, that with some campaigning, we could possibly have a fellow FOFCer elected as the U-20 USA coach. Even if we don't win, if we can come up with 40-60 votes for someone from FOFC, it would definitely send the message to USA Hattrick that FOFC is a force to be reckoned with.

What we need in a candidate:

We need someone with experience in Hattrick. Someone who knows how to get the best out of the formations and the players available.

We need someone who has a decent non-FOFC fanclub. Because while 40-60 votes would be very nice, it probably wouldn't win us anything but 2nd. In the recent National Team election, slashers recieved 174 votes. While there probably won't be this many votes for any other candidates, we will need more than 60. Does anyone know if GM-Apoc will be running for re-election?

We preferebly need someone who has friends in high places in Hattrick such as GMs, MODs, or players in Division 3 or better that others in Hattrick will listen to.

This kind of goes with the experience, but we probably need someone in IV or will be there by seasons end.


How others can help:

Once we have decided on a candidate, everyone will need to Hattrick-mail everyone in their series of 8. Also, mail all of your other Hattrick friends, people in your feds, etc.


Ok, now for some possible candidates. And before anyone inquires, Ardent has already said that he won't be able to run this time around.

Everyone feel free to add nominations, ideas, and if this interests you.


My nominees:

DataKing - Currently # 1 in IV.49, so if he made it to III, it would look very nice. Has helped many a Hattrickers out with his beginning of thread help.

HornedFrog Purple: Is the Founder of the FOFC Federation. Is currently #2 in V.97. Organized this season's FOFC Cup.

[GoldenEagle]

Wow I didnt realize Hattrick had national team coaches.

I wonder if I can still keep my team.....

[JeeberD]

HFP!!!

[bbor]

Ardent and Horned....that is if Ardent has the time.

[vex]

Ardent said he doesn't have the time.

[bbor]

Then my vote goes for the 4-5-1...err...i mean Horned :D

[vex]

Oh, btw, this isn't really a vote at the moment, I'm just gathering interest and informing everyone about it. Nominations are welcomed though. I will probably conduct for our FOFC candidate via PM. I would do it on our great polling system here on the board, but then we wouldn't know if the people voting were really Hattrickers.

[HornedFrog Purple]

Well I am flattered by the nomination, but I personally would nominate DataKing over myself if he is willing to do it. Being a national coach is a pretty big deal. DataKing knows more of what he is doing than I do, he also has more of a presence in the public HT boards over there as I rarely post in them. Ravenhawk is pretty successful too. I wish ardent would run because he has all the things you would need to win also.

The U-20 national coach from what I understand has to assemble a squad from a huge list of players.

I enjoy doing the FOFC Cup and if I ran and won someone would have to takeover it because quite frankly I would not have the time to do both. The Cup was a dream of mine and ardent's to do and actually ardent and I were co-founders of the fed, I just started it is all. One thing I would love to do is make a website about the Cup and things like that but I have no website creation ability.

I really do not have any connections at all with the "higher ups" and I have only emailed GM-George a couple of times regarding ardent.

I think the idea of getting ourselves a voice in the HT community is a good idea though, if anything we could cause quite a ruckus in the election.

My honest opinion is elect DataKing if he is willing and make an impact in the election. Even if he did not win and he keeps chugging along we can get him some momentum for the next one. The thing is whoever is running is going against people who have played this thing at least a couple of years. There is a clique in the HT community.

Besides, could you imagine the ruckus if our national team played a 4-5-1? I would be deported. :)

But seriously if DataKing does not want to run, I will, I just dont think I am the best qualified of all the people here on FOFC.

[vex]

That would be the greatest thing ever, seeing USA run the 4-5-1,lol.

[Airhog]

I said in PM I would vote. I think we should vote as a block, elect our candidate and everyone here vote for that said person. I think Dataking would be a better choice mainly because he is actually in a division higher than level 5. I dont know if HFP could get votes outside the Fofc community. then again, I dont know if Dataking could ethier :D

[vex]

I agree, we should all vote for the same person. If we didn't, it would all be kind of pointless.

[Poli]

Originally posted by HornedFrog Purple

I really do not have any connections at all with the "higher ups" and I have only emailed GM-George a couple of times regarding ardent.



I knew there was a conspiracy!

Anyway, I would absolutely love to do it. However, we all know current events and if you all knew what I knew (and if you think about it, you probably do[this is fun]), you would know I couldn't possibly do this until November.

I totally support DK and Horned regarding this, though we have yet to hear from DK.

There is definitely a clique in HT regarding who becomes coach, with feds larger than ours throwing their weight around. That kind of frustrates me. I'm a part of one fed where the founder sent me a message telling me that the "fed" had decided we would all vote for "x". I will, huh? Instead, I voted for Horned, as I invariably do every election.

Every election Horned has his one write in.

Just keep me in mind about this time next year, I'll be willing.

[Alf]

DataKing for U-20 USA coach !

[daedalus]

If DK goes, I'll vote.

[Er, just remind me or something when the voting business is near. Memory, bad.]

[DataKing]

Let me start by saying that I am flattered so many of you would consider me for such a lofty position. I would be honored to represent the proud FOFC community as our U-20 National Trainer nominee.

Now, with that being said, I have to let the pessimist in me point out a few things. :)

1. While I have accumulated some experience managing players in the 2-3.5 stars range, when you're talking about the U-20 team you're talking about players who put up 4-7+ stars on a regular basis. I have no experience dealing with players of this skill level (but then again, none of us do). This is a big part of the reason I myself have voted for managers from the top leagues in the past. They have experience with high-end players that managers from lower divisions do not.

2. My formation experience is pretty much limited to 3-5-2 and 5-4-1. I have not really had the opportunity to experiment with other formations to see how well they work, although I intend to in the future.

3. I have pretty much disappeared from the Hattrick Conferences as of late. This isn't due to any lack of interest on my part. Rather, it seems like every time I try to access the Conferences, there are technical problems.

4. Finding the time for new responsibilities is always an issue, but I am sure that is the case for anyone. If I was to get elected, some other things would have to be put on the back burner.

I don't want this to sound like I would refuse the nomination, should you all decide to give me a shot. I most certainly would not. More than likely, whoever we did nominate would probably not win the election, but like vexroid said, we could certainly let everyone in Hattrick know that the FOFC community has a strong voice.

Of course, if we decided as a group that someone else (HornedFrog Purple perhaps) was a better candidate, I would certainly support the decision.

Okay, enough rambling. Let me know your thoughts on this.

[illinifan999]

Go me! I mean go HFP or DataKing ;)

[PilotMan]

I think that we could have someone run, just to see what kind of vote we could generate. It would be a good gauge of what we would need to do If we were to really compete.

DK raises some valid concerns ( 7 stars? I had no idea). At this point we lack the experience to have a valid challenge. But I think we should put someone out there, have everyone vote and see what we can get for votes.

It would cause a stir and have everyone looking at us. I certainly think that someone with experience at the game, as well as, someone with credentials will be needed (sorry horned). I just don't think a Div V team will sway people to want to vote for you as coach of a prestigious team.

[samifan24]

I agree that this vote needs to be a straight vote. Everybody votes for ________ and we try to get some attention for it. If we split the votes then we lose the effectiveness.

We don't stand a chance, but if we start building now...then come three or four seasons and a promotion down the road, maybe Data, ardent or HFP would be a "valid" candidate, but for now, we need to vote for _______ and try to raise a ruckus.

[Alf]

DataKing (or whoever gets voted on), you could always decline the job should you win it (which seems doubtful)

[vex]

If we get someone to win and they decline, I might go crazy.

[Alf]

That's just an option. As I stated, I doubt a FOFCer would win it on his first attempt. However, that would lend to some name recognition

[QuikSand]

If we don't feel that we could get one of our own elected, perhaps we could make it known to the more viable candidates that we have a solid voting block here - and that we could deliver a nice chunk of votes to someone who panders to us properly?

Might be a way to build some clout...

[illinifan999]

They should bribe us! ;)

[illinifan999]

Dola.

I don't see why, it would be any different, if a guy got seven stars compared to 3 stars. Does the game give the coaches the ratings? If not then it could be harder, but if the do, jsut compare, like you do to set up your own line-up. Just this time you will have players that are better. I would like to think that dataking, or horned could do just as good as the current U-20 coach with some good players. I believe in you guys. :D

[Aylmar]

QS, you may be on to something. Offer our collective vote to the guys dishing out the sweet government contracts...and we all win, in the end. :)

[DataKing]

If, by some small miracle, I were to win the election, there's no way that I could then turn around and decline the position. To be honest, I've licked my chops in the past at the thought of coaching one of our national teams. There's no way I could just turn the job down when it was about to be handed to me.

If memory serves correctly, the most recent U-20 coach (before slashers) was the manager of a Div. IV team (or was it Div. III?) but he up and quit the game. I think this left a bad taste in the mouths of some of the voters out there, and slashers (manager of a Major League club) won the ensuing election in a landslide.

Quiksand raises a good idea, but personally I think we're better off voting for one of our own (myself, HFP, whoever). I think it would create more publicity. Even if we lost the election, people would take a look at the final tallies and say "Who the heck is this HornedFrog Purple guy, and where did he get 50+ votes?"

The top 5 vote-getters in the last election were:

slashers: 169 votes
OnionPatch: 56 votes
US-MLSFan: 20 votes
bigwilly02neg: 18 votes
lytic: 15 votes

We could definitely make some noise. :D

[vex]

Bob Hemp was the manager that quit. He was in Div. III.

[PilotMan]

It appears that looking at the u-20 news, that it is moving into a very important area. Meaning that the u-20 group play is starting for the World Cup.

What an opportunity...and the pressure.

[vex]

Well, actually those aren't the results for the U-20 election but rather the National Team Coach.

[DataKing]

The current manager, slashers, will be running the U-20 team until the conclusion of the U-20 world cup. The next election occurs when the U-20 world cup has concluded.

Each election is for roughly a two-season period, concluding with the world cup. So whoever wins the next election will be U-20 coach through the next U-20 world cup, which should be in the fall.

[HornedFrog Purple]

I agree with Quiksand. I think vexroid's idea is to nominate someone from here, this person puts a campaign speech then when the votes are tallied when our candidate has 50+ votes the HT clique will wonder "Who the heck is this DataKing dude?" Then they will start paying attention to all us little guys.

The real chances of whomever we nominate (DataKing ;) ) probably are not good but it will make a statement.

DataKing is also a member of the Chicagoland Fed and would get some votes from them also I would bet, so we would have 50-70+ vote potential. We just need to make sure that we ALL vote when the election comes which is quite painless and takes 3 clicks if I remember.

[SplitPersonality1]

Whatever is decided, I will back 100%.

Exactly when is the voting? If we have enough time, maybe we can influence some the the regional groups.

I plan on getting involved in the Wisconsin region; maybe I can get some votes from them.

[Doug5984]

I will also vote for whoever we decide to vote for.

We have 21 members in the FOFC Federation, and a lot more members of FOFC who have a hattrick team, I could see us getting someone atleast 50 votes.

[Aylmar]

Well, it appears as though we need to make a choice. Someone post a poll...and let's vote for whom we're going to vote for... :)

[DataKing]

Originally posted by SplitPersonality1
Exactly when is the voting? If we have enough time, maybe we can influence some the the regional groups.

I believe GM-Apoc position expires on March 31st, just after the conclusion of the U-20 World Cup. So voting should be right at the beginning of April.

*Edited because I'm a mo-ron. :p

[vex]

DataKing, I thought GM-Apoc ran the U-20 team til March 31st.

And slashers ran the National Team unntil July something?

[DataKing]

Originally posted by vexroid
DataKing, I thought GM-Apoc ran the U-20 team til March 31st.

And slashers ran the National Team unntil July something?

Ack! You're absolutely right vex...my bad. GM-Apoc is the currently U-20 coach, and slashers is running the national team.

Better not vote for me boys, I'm lexdysic. :p

[vex]

Ok, I have made another thread with instructions on what to do.

Basically, PM me your choice.

[Alf]

Just so you see that someone can win the elections and still decline (and it was in Sverige !!!)

Election for National trainer in Sverige

Voting ended 12/16/2002 at 08:49 with the following results

1. EM-Tigers 625 votes (Declined)
2. DrDDD 611 votes
3. pansarmyran 339 votes
4. Heights 226 votes
5. SacBoy 222 votes
6. Zerberus 218 votes
7. Norsgatan 179 votes
8. nikja671 112 votes
9. Valium 40 votes (Declined)
10. Geddan 24 votes (Declined)