UNIT-III Methods, Organization and administration

UNIT-III

Methods, Organization and administration

          Methods of Teaching physical Activities, lesion plan parts and preparation of general lesion plan. Organisation of intramural and extramural competitions, Tournament, preparation of fixtures, single knock out and single league.

 

Physical Activities (0.5)

Laboratory—2 hours. Sections in: (a) sports skills, rules and strategy; (b) physical fitness and personal health; (c) recreation; (d) aerobic dance. May be repeated along with course 6 for a combined total of 6 units. (P/NP grading only.)—I, II, III. (I, II, III.)

6. Preparation and Participation in ICA Competition (1)

Discussion/laboratory—10-20 hours. Prerequisite: consent of instructor (coach). Preparation and participation in Intercollegiate Athletics. Development of fundamental and advanced individual and team skills. In-depth knowledge of rules and strategy. Advanced sports competition and Conference and NCAA levels. May be repeated along with course 1 for a combined total of 6 units. (P/NP grading only.)—I, II, III. (I, II, III.)

7. Professional Physical Education Activities: Men and Women (1)

Lecture—1 hour; or laboratory—2 hours. Fundamental skills for: (a) coaching competitive athletics; (b) classroom teaching and coaching, and (c) classroom teaching and officiating. May be repeated for a total of six units.—I, II. (I, II.)

8. Student-Athlete Life Skills (1)

Lecture—1 hour. For student-athletes. Balancing academic and athletic demands. Academic, psychological, and sociocultural issues which influence success as a college student-athlete. May be repeated up to 3 times for credit. (P/NP grading only.)—I, II. (I, II.)

15. Administration of Intramural Sports (2)

Lecture—2 hours. Planning and administering intramural sports programs at the high school and college level.

25. Theory of Lifesaving and Water Safety (2)

Lecture—1 hour; laboratory—2 hours. Prerequisite: sound physical condition, and no physical handicap that would render student unable to perform the required skills and ability to pass preliminary swimming test. Provides the student with the knowledge, organizational procedures, and skill development necessary to provide for water safety and save his/her own life or the life of another in an aquatic emergency. (American Red Cross Advanced Lifesaving Certificate awarded upon successful completion of necessary requirements.)—III. (III.) Jahn

27. Training Course for Water Safety Instructors (2)

Lecture—1 hour; laboratory—2 hours. Prerequisite: advanced swimming (course 1) or consent of instructor; course 5 and current Advanced Life-Saving Certificate. Theoretical knowledge and practical experience necessary for the organization and teaching of swimming and lifesaving classes. (American Red Cross Water Safety Instructor’s Certificate awarded upon successful completion of necessary requirements.)—III. (III.) Jahn

29. Basic Scuba (2)

Lecture—2 hours; laboratory—2 hours. Prerequisite: good physical condition, ability to pass preliminary swimming test. Introduction to basic knowledge required for scuba diving, function and maintenance of equipment, physics and physiology of diving, diver first aid and CPR, oceanography and marine life, and underwater communication. Pool and open water sessions available for certification. (P/NP grading only.)—I, III. (I, III.)

40. Drugs and Society (2)

Lecture—2 hours; fieldwork—2 hours total; film-viewing—5 hours total. Pharmacology, methods of use, and effects of use of psychoactive and performance-enhancing drugs. Historical overview of drug use. Identification of behavior of “at-risk” and “user” populations. (P/NP grading only.)—II, IV. (II, IV.)

44. Principles of Healthful Living (2)

Lecture—2 hours. Application of scientific and empirical knowledge to personal, family, and community health problems. (P/NP grading only.)—I, II, II, III, IV. (II, III, IV.)

92. Physical Education Internship (1-5)

Internship—3-15 hours; written project proposal and evaluation. Prerequisite: consent of instructor; enrollment dependent on availability of intern positions, with priority given to Exercise Biology majors. Work experience in the application of physical activity programs to teaching, recreational, clinical or research situations under department faculty supervision. May be repeated for credit once but no internship units will be counted toward Exercise Biology major. (P/NP grading only.)

97T. Tutoring in Physical Education (1-5)

Tutorial—1-5 hours. Prerequisite: lower division standing and consent of Program Director. Tutoring of students in lower division physical activity courses. Weekly meetings with instructor in charge of courses. Written reports on methods and materials required. May be repeated one time for credit. (P/NP grading only.)

97TC. Tutoring in the Community (1-5)

Tutorial—2-15 hours; discussion—1 hour. Prerequisite: lower division standing and consent of Program Director. Tutoring in the community in physical activity related projects under the guidance of the Physical Education faculty. Regular meetings with instructor in charge and written report required. May be repeated one time for credit. (P/NP grading only.)

98. Directed Group Study (1-5)

Prerequisite: consent of instructor and Program Director. (P/NP grading only.)

99. Special Study for Undergraduates (1-5)

(P/NP grading only.)

Upper Division Courses

100. Field Experience in Teaching Physical Education (2)

Discussion—1 hour; fieldwork—4 hours. Prerequisite: upper division standing and appropriate course 1 or 7. Tutoring or teacher’s aide in physical education activities, including athletic coaching, in public schools under the guidance of a regular teacher with supervision by a departmental faculty person. May be repeated one time for credit. (P/NP grading only.)—I, II, III. (I, II, III.)

120. Sport in American Society (3)

Lecture—3 hours. Sociological approaches to the study of sport and contemporary American culture, including sport interaction with politics, economics, religion, gender, race, media and ethics. Socialization factors involving youth, scholastic, collegiate, and Olympic sport. (Same course as Exercise Biology 120.) GE credit: SocSci, Div.—II, IV. (II, IV.) Salitsky

128A. Intermediate Scuba Diving (4)

Lecture—3 hours; laboratory—3 hours; fieldwork—2 hours. Prerequisite: course 29 and consent of instructor. Lectures and practice in diver safety, rescue, accident management and patient care. Pool and open water sessions required for certification. (P/NP grading only.)—I, IV. (I, IV.) Salitsky

128B. Research Diving Techniques (4)

Lecture—3 hours; laboratory—3 hours; fieldwork—3 hours. Prerequisite: course 128A; consent of instructor. Lectures and application on search and light salvage, night diving, research techniques, cold-water, low visibility diving, blue water, deep and altitude diving. Pool and open water sessions required for certification. (P/NP grading only.)—III. (III.) Fastenau

131. Physical Activity and the Disabled (4)

Lecture—3 hours; laboratory—3 hours. The study of the diverse and complex nature of individuals with disabilities and how they adapt to their disabilities in daily living. Integration of individuals with disabilities into the community, schools, and physical activity and recreational programs. Not open for credit to students who have completed Exercise Biology 131.

133. Prevention and Care of Sports Injuries (3)

Lecture—2 hours; laboratory—3 hours. Prerequisite: Cell Biology and Human Anatomy 101 (may be taken concurrently). Prevention, care, and rehabilitation of injuries incurred by athletes. Laboratory on anatomy, emergency care, physical therapy methods, and taping techniques. Not open for credit to students who have completed Exercise Biology 133.—IV. (IV.)

135. Advanced Procedures in Evaluation and Management of Athletic Injuries (3)

Lecture—3 hours. Prerequisite: course 133 or Exercise Biology 133, Cell Biology and Human Anatomy 101, consent of instructor. Advanced study of the evaluation and management of athletic injuries, including mechanism of injury, biomechanics and pathophysiology. Current topics in athletic training. Not open for credit to students who have completed Exercise Biology 135.

142. Physical Education in the Public Schools (3)

Lecture—3 hours. Analysis and study of the principles and methods basic to teaching physical education at the elementary and secondary levels.—S. Williams

143. Coaching Effectiveness (3)

Lecture—3 hours. Prerequisite: upper division standing; 3 units of courses 1 and 6 combined. Synthesis and application of basic components of sport psychology, sport pedagogy, and sport physiology and basic management and administration of athletics in public high schools. (P/NP grading only.)—I, II, IV. (I, II, IV.) Bronzan

144. Principles of Health Education (2)

Lecture—2 hours. Prerequisite: course 44 and upper division standing or consent of instructor. Principles of teaching health education in the public schools. (P/NP grading only.)

150. Recreation in the Community (3)

Lecture—2 hours; discussion—1 hour; two Saturday field trips—8 hours. The nature and scope of community recreation programs in California emphasizing low income, highly populated areas, and poor rural communities.

192. Physical Education Internship (1-12)

Internship—3-36 hours; written project proposal and evaluation. Prerequisite: upper division standing and consent of instructor; enrollment dependent on availability of intern positions, with priority given to Exercise Science majors. Work experience in the application of physical activity programs to teaching, recreational, clinical or research situations under department faculty supervision. May be repeated for a total of 12 units (including course 92) but no internship units will be counted toward Exercise Science major. (P/NP grading only.)—I, II, III. (I, II, III.)

           Intramural sports

Intramural sports or intramurals are recreational sports organized within a set geographic area. The term derives from the Latin words intra muros meaning "within walls",^[1] and was used to indicate sports matches and contests that took place among teams from "within the walls" of an ancient city (as opposed to a varsity team which competed with teams from other cities and towns).

Elmer D. Mitchell, University of Michigan Director of Intramural Athletics, 1919

The Ohio State University and the University of Michigan created the first intramural sports departments in 1913. Elmer Mitchell, a graduate student at the time, was named the first Director of Intramural Sports at the University of Michigan in 1919 and the first recreational sports facility in the country opened at the University of Michigan.^[2] Mitchell is considered the "father of intramural sports" and taught a class in intramural sports taken by William Wasson, founder of the National Intramural Association (NIA), the forerunner to the National Intramural and Recreational Sports Association (NIRSA).^[3]

Mitchell later authored Intramural Athletics (ED Mitchell - AS Barnes, 1928), and Intramural Sports.^[4] He co-authored Intramural Sports with Pat Mueller.^[5]

Today, "intramural" tournaments are still organized within a specific community or municipal area, between teams of equivalent age or athletic ability. For example, intramural sports programs are often organized on college campuses to promote competition and fun among the students. "Extramural" or varsity games, are games played between teams from different geographic regions or towns.

For most schools and campuses, intramural sports are used to promote wellness and allow students who do not compete on a national (NCAA) level an opportunity to be active.

Contents 1 Intramural sports in the United States 2 See also 3 References 3.1 Cited references 3.2 General references

Intramural sports in the United States

The National Intramural Recreational Sports Association (NIRSA), a professional organization based in Corvallis, Oregon, provides a network of more than 4,000 highly trained professionals, students and Associate Members in the recreational sports field throughout the United States, Canada and other countries. In most of the world outside North America, sports scholarships and college sports on the North American model do not exist so the distinction between college and intramural sports has no relevance and is not made. One of the early innovators of intramural sports in the US was Forrest Craver of Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.^[6] Craver began the intramural sports program at Dickinson in the late 1920s or early 1930s.

EXTRAMURAL SPORTS PROGRAMME

GENERAL

1.     Extramural sports within 2 CMBG/CFB/ASU Petawawa are controlled by the Military Sports Committee to ensure that participants in these sports meet both the physical and athletic caliber to effectively represent 2 CMBG and CFB/ASU Petawawa in sports competitions.

AIM

2. The aim of this order is to detail the conduct of extramural sports within 2 CMBG and CFB/ASU Petawawa

 

 

SCOPE

1.     The ability of individuals and teams of better than average athletic caliber must be recognized. Extramural competitions are a valuable extension of the inter-unit programme and an important component in achieving the objectives of the Canadian Forces sports programme. Extramural sports programmes include:

a. competitions against members of teams from other Bases, Stations or non-Base units;

b. participation against civilian teams or individuals;

c. command competitions;

d. Canadian Forces Regional Championships and Invitations;

e. Canadian Forces National Championships; and

f. participation at the elite level in National and International civilian or military sport competitions.

ELIGIBILITY

1.     All military personnel posted to 2 CMBG /CFB/ASU Petawawa are eligible to participate in extramural sports providing the following criteria are met:

a. Requests to Participate. All requests for player/teams to participate in extramural sports shall be forwarded to the PSP Fitness and Sports Director;

b. Approval. Approval for members to participate in extramural sports is the prerogative of each individual’s unit Commanding Officer;

c. Physical Fitness. To be eligible to enter into extramural competition a member must have successfully

d. Eligibility Certificates. This certificate lists those members who are eligible to compete because they meet all requirements as listed in CFAO 50-3 and CFAO 50-1. These certificates are presented to the host Base organizing Committee prior to a competition.

PSP FITNESS AND SPORTS DIRECTOR RESPONSIBILITIES

1.     The PSP Fitness and Sports Director is responsible to the Chairman of the Military Sports Committee for the following:

a. co-ordinating all individual and team participation in extramural sports;

b. provision of uniforms and equipment to all teams leading to Canadian Forces Regional competitions;

c. provision of advice and general assistance to the committee as required on any matters pertaining to extramural competitions.

CONCLUSION

6. Competitive sports are an integral part of the continuing training and development of members of the Canadian Forces. The Military Sports Committee, working within the guidelines of this instruction, will ensure that individuals and teams have the opportunity to advance to higher levels of competitions through participation in extramural competitions.

A tournament is a competition involving a relatively large number of competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses:

1.     One or more competitions held at a single venue and concentrated into a relatively short time interval.

2.     A competition involving multiple matches, each involving a subset of the competitors, with the overall tournament winner determined based on the combined results of these individual matches. These are common in those sports and games where each match must involve a small number of competitors: often precisely two, as in most team sports, racket sports and combat sports, many card games and board games, and many forms of competitive debating. Such tournaments allow large numbers to compete against each other in spite of the restriction on numbers in a single match.

These two senses are distinct. All golf tournaments meet the first definition, but while match play tournaments meet the second, stroke play tournaments do not, since there are no distinct matches within the tournament. In contrast, football (soccer) leagues like the Premier League are tournaments in the second sense, but not the first, having matches spread across many stadia over a period of up to a year. Many tournaments meet both definitions; for example, the Wimbledon tennis championship.

A tournament-match (or tie or fixture or heat) may involve multiple game-matches (or rubbers or legs) between the competitors. For example, in the Davis Cup tennis tournament, a tie between two nations involves five rubbers between the nations' players. The team that wins the most rubbers wins the tie. In the later rounds of UEFA Champions League of football (soccer), each fixture is played over two legs. The scores of each leg are added, and the team with the higher aggregate score wins the fixture, with away goals used as a tiebreaker and a penalty shootout if away goals cannot determine a winner.

Contents 1 Knock-out tournaments 2 Group tournaments 3 Multi-stage tournaments 4 Promotion and relegation 5 Bridge tournaments 6 Poker tournaments 7 Alternatives to tournament systems 8 See also 9 References

Knock-out tournaments

A knockout tournament is divided into successive rounds; each competitor plays in at most one fixture per round. The top-ranked competitors in each fixture progress to the next round. As rounds progress, the number of competitors and fixtures decreases, and the final round consists of just one fixture, the winner of which is the overall champion.

In a single-elimination tournament, only the top-ranked competitors in a fixture progress; in 2-competitor games, only the winner progresses. All other competitors are eliminated. This ensures a winner is decided with the minimum number of fixtures. However, most competitors will be eliminated after relatively few matches; a single bad or unlucky performance can nullify many preceding excellent ones. Some single-elimination tournaments such as NBA use a multiple-game format, in which teams would play each other more than one game (e.g. best-of-seven series in NBA) in order to determine who is the winner of this round. Other knockout formats provide a "second chance" for some or all losers.

A double-elimination tournament may be used in 2-competitor games to allow each competitor a single loss without being eliminated from the tournament. All losers from the main bracket enter a losers' bracket, the winner of which plays off against the main bracket's winner.

Some formats allow losers to play extra rounds before re-entering the main competition in a later round. Rowing regattas often have repechage rounds for the "fastest losers" from the heats. The winners of these progress, but are at a disadvantage in later rounds owing to the extra effort expended during the repechage.

A family of tournament systems that grew from a system devised for the Victorian Football League, the historic predecessor to the Australian Football League (AFL), allow the teams with the best record before the playoffs to lose a game without being eliminated, whereas lesser qualifiers are not. Several of the most prominent leagues in Australia use such a system, such as the AFL, the National Rugby League in rugby league, and the A-League of association football. Similar systems are used in the Super League of European rugby league, cricket's Indian Premier League, and most curling tournaments.

In athletics meetings, fastest losers may progress in a running event held over several rounds; e.g. the qualifiers for a later round might be the first 4 from each of 6 heats, plus the 8 fastest losers from among the remaining runners.

An extreme form of the knockout tournament is the stepladder format where the strongest team (or individual, depending on the sport) is assured of a berth at the final round while the next strongest teams are given byes according to their strength/seeds; for example, in a four team tournament, the fourth and third seed figure in the first round, then the winner goes to the semifinals against the second seed, while the survivor faces the first seed at the final. Four American sports organizations either currently use this format, or have in the past:

• For over 30 years (generally from the mid-1960s to 1997), most events on the PBA Tour of ten-pin bowling used a stepladder final, usually involving five bowlers.
• Two U.S. college conferences operate a tournament format in basketball that combines two stepladder tournaments into one—that is, both halves of the bracket are organized as stepladder tournaments. The bottom four teams play in the first round; the survivors will face the #3 and #4 seeds, and the winners of those matches take on the top two seeds in the semifinals. This format was adopted by the West Coast Conference for its men's and women's tournaments in 2003, and by the Ohio Valley Conference for both sexes in 2011. Once the WCC expanded to nine teams with the entry of BYU in the 2011–12 academic year, the conference added one round to one half of the bracket for both tournaments starting in 2012.
• The now-defunct Women's Professional Soccer used this format in all of its three seasons of existence. For an example of its playoff system, see 2009 Women's Professional Soccer Playoffs.

 

Group tournaments

A group tournament, league, division or conference involves all competitors playing a number of fixtures. Points are awarded for each fixture, with competitors ranked based either on total number of points or average points per fixture. Usually each competitor plays an equal number of fixtures, in which case rankings by total points and by average points are equivalent. The English County Championship in cricket did not require an equal number of matches prior to 1963.^[1]

In a round-robin tournament, each competitor plays all the others an equal number of times, once in a single round-robin tournament and twice in a double round-robin tournament. This is often seen as producing the most reliable rankings. However, for large numbers of competitors it may require an unfeasibly large number of rounds. A Swiss system tournament attempts to determine a winner reliably, based on a smaller number of fixtures. Fixtures are scheduled one round at a time; a competitor will play another who has a similar record in previous rounds of the tournament. This allows the top (and bottom) competitors to be determined with fewer rounds than a round-robin, though the middle rankings are unreliable.

There may be other considerations besides reliability of rankings. In some professional team sports, weaker teams are given an easier slate of fixtures as a form of handicapping. Sometimes schedules are weighted in favour of local derbies or other traditional rivalries. For example, NFL teams play two games against each of the other three teams in their division, one game against half of the other twelve teams in their conference, and one game against a quarter of the sixteen teams in the other conference.

American sports are also unusual in providing fixtures between competitors who are, for ranking purposes, in different groups. Another, systematic, example of this was the 2006 Women's Rugby World Cup: each of the teams in Group A played each of the teams in Group B, with the groups ranked separately based on the results. (Groups C and D intertwined similarly.) An elaboration of this system is the Mitchell movement in duplicate bridge, discussed below, where North-South pairs play East-West pairs.

Main article: Group tournament ranking system

In 2-competitor games where ties are rare or impossible, competitors are typically ranked by number of wins, with ties counting half; each competitors' listings are usually ordered Wins–Losses(–Ties). Where draws are more common, this may be 2 points for a win and 1 for a draw, which is mathematically equivalent but avoids having too many half-points in the listings. These are usually ordered Wins–Draws–Losses. If there are more than two competitors per fixture, points may be ordinal (for example, 3 for first, 2 for second, 1 for third).

Multi-stage tournaments

Many tournaments are held in multiple stages, with the top teams in one stage progressing to the next. American professional team sports have a "regular season" (group tournament) acting as qualification for the "post season" or "playoffs" (single-elimination tournament). In the FIFA World Cup, each continent has one or more qualifying tournaments, some of which are themselves multi-stage. The top teams in each qualify for the finals tournament. There, the 32 teams are divided into eight round-robin groups of four, with the top two in each progressing to the knockout phase, which involves four single-elimination rounds including the final.

Sometimes, results from an earlier phase are carried over into a later phase. In the Cricket World Cup, the second stage, known as the Super Eight since 2007 and before that the Super Six, features two teams from each of four preliminary groups (previously three teams from two preliminary groups), who do not replay the teams they have already played, but instead reuse the original results in the new league table. Formerly in the Swiss Football League, teams played a double round-robin, at which point they were split into a top "championship" group and a bottom "relegation" group; each played a separate double round-robin, with results of all 32 matches counting for ranking each group. A similar system is also used in the Scottish Premier League since 2000. After 33 games, when every club has played every other club three times, the division is split into two halves. Clubs play a further 5 matches, against the teams in their half of the division. This can (and often does) result in the team placed 7th having a higher points total than the team placed 6th, because their final 5 games are considerably easier.

The top Slovenian basketball league has a unique system. In its first phase, 12 of the league's 13 clubs compete in a full home-and-away season, with the country's representative in the Euroleague (an elite pan-European club competition) exempt. The league then splits. The top seven teams are joined by the Euroleague representative for a second home-and-away season, with no results carrying over from the first phase. These eight teams compete for four spots in a final playoff. The bottom five teams play their own home-and-away league, but their previous results do carry over. These teams are competing to avoid relegation, with the bottom team automatically relegated and the second-from-bottom team forced to play a mini-league with the second- and third-place teams from the second level for a place in the top league.

Promotion and relegation

Main article: Promotion and relegation

Where the number of competitors is larger than a tournament format permits, there may be multiple tournaments held in parallel, with competitors assigned to a particular tournament based on their ranking. In chess, Scrabble, and many other individual games, many tournaments over one or more years contribute to a player's ranking. However, many team sports involve teams in only one major tournament per year. In European sport, including football, this constitutes the sole ranking for the following season; the top teams from each division of the league are promoted to a higher division, while the bottom teams from a higher division are relegated to a lower one.

This promotion and relegation occurs mainly in league tournaments, but also features in Davis Cup and Fed Cup tennis:

• In the Davis Cup:
• The first-round losers in the top-level World Group compete in playoff ties against the winners of the second-round ties in Group I of the competition's three regional zones, with the winners of each playoff tie remaining in or promoted to the World Group.
• In the three regional zones, Group II is conducted in a knockout format. The winner of the knockout tournament is promoted to Group I of its zone. The first-round losers then play relegation ties, with the losers relegated to Group III.
• Groups III and IV in each zone are contested in a round-robin format. The top two teams in each group are promoted, while the bottom two teams are relegated (assuming there is a lower group in their zone).
• In the Fed Cup:
• The four first-round losers in World Group I compete in playoff ties against the four winners in World Group II, with the winners remaining in or promoted to World Group I.
• The losers in World Group II play ties against the four zonal Group I winners (two from Europe/Africa and one each from Asia/Oceania and Americas), with the winners playing in World Group II the following season.
• Groups I and II in all zones, plus Group III in the Europe/Africa Zone only, are conducted in a round-robin format. The bottom two teams in each group are relegated to the next group down, assuming one exists, while the top two teams in Groups II and III are promoted to the next-higher group.

The hierarchy of divisions may be linear, or tree-like, as with the English football league pyramid.

Bridge tournaments

Main article: duplicate bridge

In contract bridge a "tournament" is a tournament in the first sense above, composed of multiple "events", which are tournaments in the second sense. Some events may be single-elimination, double-elimination, or Swiss style. However, "Pair events" are the most widespread. In these events, a number of deals (or boards) are each played several times by different players. For each such board the score achieved by each North-South (NS) pair is then measured against all the other NS pairs playing the same board. Thus pairs are rewarded for playing the same cards better than others have played them. There is a predetermined schedule of fixtures depending on the number of pairs and boards to be played, to ensure a good mix of opponents, and that no pair plays the same board or the same opponents twice (see duplicate bridge movements).

Poker tournaments

In poker tournaments, as players are eliminated, the number of tables is gradually reduced, with the remaining players redistributed among the remaining tables. Play continues until one player has won all of the chips in play. Finishing order is determined by the order in which players are eliminated: last player remaining gets 1st place, last player eliminated gets 2nd, previous player eliminated gets 3rd, etc.

In a "shootout" tournament, players do not change tables until every table has been reduced to one player.

Alternatives to tournament systems

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While tournament structures attempt to provide an objective format for determining the best competitor in a game or sport, other methods exist.

Challenge

In this format, champions retain their title until they are defeated by an opponent, known as the challenger. This system is used in professional boxing (see lineal championship), and the World Chess Championship. The right to become a contender may be awarded through a tournament, as in chess, or through a ranking system: the ranking systems used by boxing's governing bodies are controversial and opaque. If the champion retires or dies, then the current top challenger may be declared champion or the title may be vacant until a match between two challengers is held. Prior to 1920, the reigning Wimbledon champion received a bye to the final; the official name of the FA Challenge Cup reflects a similar arrangement which applied only in that tournament's very early years. The America's Cup is decided between the winners of separate champion and challenger tournaments, respectively for yachts from the country of the reigning champion, and of all other countries. The Ranfurly Shield in New Zealand rugby union is a challenge trophy between provincial teams, in which the holders of the Shield retain it until they are beaten by a challenging province.

Ladder tournament

The ladder is an extension of the challenge system. All competitors are ranked on a "ladder". New contestants join the bottom of the ladder. Any contestant can challenge a competitor ranked slightly higher; if the challenger wins the match (or the challenge is refused) they swap places on the ladder. Ladders are common in internal club competitions in individual sports, like squash and pool. Another ladder system is to give competitors a certain number of ranking points at the start. If two competitors play each other, then the winner will gain a percentage of the loser's ranking points. In this way competitors that join later will generally start in the middle, since top competitors already have won ranking points and bottom competitors have lost them.

Selection

A champion may be selected by an authorised or self-appointed group, often after a vote. While common in non-competitive activities, ranging from science fairs to cinema's Oscars, this is rarely significant in sports and games. Though unofficial, the polls run by the Associated Press and others were prestigious titles in American college football prior to the creation in 1998 of the Bowl Championship Series, a quasi-official national championship (to this day, the NCAA does not officially award a championship in the top division of college football). As of the 2005 season, the AP Poll operates independently of the BCS and can crown a different national champion, while two other polls are part of the BCS formula.

Example of a single-elimination tournament bracket

A single-elimination tournament, also called a knockout, cup or sudden death tournament, is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match or bracket is immediately eliminated from winning the championship or first prize in the event. This does not always mean that the defeated competitor will not participate further in the tournament; in some such tournaments, consolation or "classification" contests are subsequently held among those already defeated to determine the awarding of lesser places, for example, a third place playoff.

Where more than two competitors can play in each match, such as in a shootout poker tournament, players are removed when they can no longer play until one player remains from the group. This player moves on to the next round.

A simple way to describe a single-elimination tournament is that the winner of each match moves on and the loser goes home.

Some competitions are held with a pure single-elimination tournament system. Others have many phases, with the last being a single-elimination final stage called playoffs.

Contents 1 Brackets 2 Byes 3 Nomenclature 4 Classification 5 Seeding 6 Evaluation 7 Other tournament systems

Brackets

Assuming two competitors per match, if there are competitors, there will be rounds required, or if there are rounds, there will be competitors.

In the opening round, competitors will get a bye. Often, the number of participants in a single-elimination tournament is fixed as a power of two, so that nobody gets a bye. For example, the tennis Grand Slam singles championships are tournaments of 128 players. This ensures all competitors will face opponents who have previously played the same number of matches.

The full schedule of pairings across all rounds (the bracket) may be allocated before the start of the tournament, or each round may be allocated at the end of the preceding round. Each successive round halves the number of competitors remaining, assuming there are no byes.

Byes

In cases where the number of competitive entities at the start of the tournament is not a power of two, some competitors may receive a bye in the first round, which entitles these competitors to advance to the second round automatically without playing. Often, these byes will be awarded to the highest-rated competitors in the event as a reward for some previous accomplishment; indeed, in some American team sports—most notably American football — the number of teams qualifying for the postseason tournament will be intentionally set at a number which is not a power of two, in order to provide such an advantage to a high-achieving team in the just-completed regular season. Additionally, the player/team getting byes may get them exclusively by luck or random chance (i.e. if there are 7 competitors, one random one will automatically advance to the next round)

Multiple rounds of byes are also possible: in the FA Cup, the teams in the top two league divisions enter in the third round "proper" (of eight); the two next-highest divisions' teams will have entered in the first round; lower-division teams in one of 6 preliminary rounds. Another example is the UEFA Europa League.

Nomenclature

The round in which only sixteen remain is sometimes called the "Round of Sixteen" or "Last Sixteen", when eight remain at the start it is generally called the quarter-final round; this is followed by the semi-final round in which only four are left, the two winners of which then meet in the final or championship round.

If some teams get a bye, the round at which they enter may be named the "first" round, with the earlier matches called a "preliminary" round, or "play-in games".

Names of rounds in various systems and competitions:

Competitor count	Fraction of final	Grand Slam tennis singles	FA Cup	NCAA Men's Basketball Championship	NCAA Women's Basketball Championship	NADC playoffs
Round of 2	Final	Final	FA Cup Final	Championship game	Championship game	Final
Round of 4	Semi-finals	Semi-finals	Semi-finals	Final Four	Final Four	Semi-finals
Round of 8	Quarter-finals	Quarter-finals	6th Round	Elite Eight (Regional finals)	Elite Eight (Regional finals)	Quarter-finals
Round of 16	Pre Quarter-finals	4th round	5th round	Sweet Sixteen (Regional Semi-finals)	Sweet Sixteen (Regional Semi-finals)	Octofinals
Round of 32	16th-finals	3rd round	4th round	3rd round	2nd round	Double-octofinals
Round of 64	32nd-finals	2nd round	3rd round	2nd round	1st round	Triple-octofinals
Round of 128	64th-finals	1st round	2nd round[t 1]	First Four[t 2]	N/A	Quad-octofinals[t 3]

1.     ^ The FA Cup 2nd round involves 40 teams, of which 20 qualify for the 3rd round, to which the top 44 teams will have received byes.

2.     ^ Starting in 2011, 68 teams will play in the Championship, with four "play-in games" before the 64-team first round.

3.     ^ The number of eligible teams is typically less than 128, but more than 64, so not all teams play this round

Classification

When matches are held to determine places or prizes lower than first and second (the loser of the final-round match gaining the latter position), these typically include a match between the losers of the semifinal matches called third place playoff, the winner therein placing third and the loser fourth. Sometimes, contests are also held among the losers of the quarterfinal matches to determine fifth through eighth places - this is most commonly encountered in the Olympic Games, with the exception of boxing, where both fighters are deemed to be third place. In one scenario, two "consolation semifinal" matches may be conducted, with the winners of these then facing off to determine fifth and sixth places and the losers playing for seventh and eighth; those are used often in qualifying tournaments where only the top five teams advance to the next round; or some method of ranking the four quarterfinal losers might be employed, in which case only one round of additional matches would be held among them, the two highest-ranked therein then playing for fifth and sixth places and the two lowest for seventh and eighth.

Seeding

Main article: Seed (sports)

Opponents may be allocated randomly (such as in the FA Cup); however, since the "luck of the draw" may result in the highest-rated competitors being scheduled to face each other early in the competition, seeding is often used to prevent this. Brackets are set up so that the top two seeds could not possibly meet until the final round (should both advance that far), none of the top four can meet prior to the semifinals, and so on. If no seeding is used, the tournament is called a random knockout tournament.

One version of seeding is where brackets are set up so that the quarterfinal pairings (barring any upsets) would be the 1 seed vs. the 8 seed, 2 vs. 7, 3 vs. 6 and 4 vs. 5; however, this is not the procedure that is followed in most tennis tournaments, where the 1 and 2 seeds are placed in separate brackets, but then the 3 and 4 seeds are assigned to their brackets randomly, and so too are seeds 5 through 8, and so on. This may result in some brackets consisting of stronger players than other brackets, and since only the top 32 players are seeded at all in Tennis Grand Slam tournaments, it is conceivable that the 33rd-best player in a 128-player field could end up playing the top seed in the first round. While this may seem unfair to a casual observer, it should be pointed out that rankings of tennis players are generated by computers, and players tend to change ranking positions very gradually, so that a more equitable method of determining the pairings might result in many of the same head-to-head matchups being repeated over and over again in successive tournaments.

Sometimes the remaining competitors in a single-elimination tournament will be "re-seeded" so that the highest surviving seed is made to play the lowest surviving seed in the next round, the second-highest plays the second-lowest, etc. This may be done after each round, or only at selected intervals. In American team sports, for example, both the NFL and NHL employ this tactic, but the NBA does not (and neither does the NCAA college basketball tournament). MLB does not have enough teams in its playoff tournament where re-seeding would make a difference in the matchups, (The NFL is at the minimum, which is 6 from each league (or conference in the NFL, NBA or NHL) for a total of 12). The NBA's format calls for the winner of the first-round series between the first and eighth seeds (within each of the two conferences the league has) to face the winner of the first-round series between the fourth and fifth seeds in the next round, even if one or more of the top three seeds had been upset in their first-round series; critics have claimed that this gives a team fighting for the fifth and sixth seeding positions near the end of the regular season an incentive to tank (deliberately lose) games, so as to finish sixth and thus avoid a possible matchup with the top seed until one round later.

In some situations, a seeding restriction will be implemented; from 1975 until 1989, the NFL, and, since 1998, MLB have a rule where at the conference or league semifinal, should the top seed and last seed (wild card) be from the same division, they may not play each other; in that case, the top seed plays the worst division champion; the second-best division champion plays the wild card team.

Evaluation

The single-elimination format enables a relatively large number of competitors to participate. There are no "dead" matches (perhaps excluding "classification" matches), and no matches where one competitor has more to play for than the other.

The format is less suited to games where draws are frequent. In chess, each fixture in a single-elimination tournament must be played over multiple matches, because draws are common, and because white has an advantage over black. In association football, games ending in a draw may be settled in extra time and eventually by a penalty shootout, viewed by many fans as an unsatisfactory conclusion to a fixture, or by replaying the fixture. In various forms of one-day cricket, a bowl-out has been used in recent years to settle tied matches.

Another perceived disadvantage is that most competitors are eliminated after relatively few games. Variations such as the double-elimination tournament allow competitors a single loss while remaining eligible for overall victory.

In a random knockout tournament (single-elimination without any seeding), awarding the second place to the loser of the final is unjustified: any of the competitors knocked out by the tournament winner might have been the second strongest one, but they never got the chance to play against the losing finalist.

Also, if the competitors' performance is variable, that is, it depends on a small, varying factor in addition to the actual strength of the competitors, then not only will it become less likely that the strongest competitor actually wins the tournament, in addition the seeding done by the tournament organizers will play a major part in deciding the winner.^[1] As a random factor is always present in a real world competition, this might easily cause accusations of unfairness.

Other tournament systems

Variations of the single-elimination tournament include:

• Double-elimination tournament
• McIntyre System, a group of tournament formats that combine features of single- and double-elimination tournaments. Varieties of this system include:
• Page playoff system (four teams)
• Top five play-offs
• Top six play-offs
• McIntyre Final Eight System
• AFL finals system, a variant of the McIntyre Final Eight
• Super League play-offs, another McIntyre Final Eight variant

Other common tournament types are

• Round-robin tournament
• Swiss system tournament