2002 NCCC Commentary and Summary
by
Doug Simpson
July 8, 2002
Note : The thoughts and opinions found on this page are my own and may not reflect or convey those of 3CT, Clemson University, Clemson Department of Civil Engineering, CNCCC, CSA, ASCE, or MBT.

University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison WI June 21-24, 2002

After winning back-to-back championships in 1999 and 2000, Clemson missed an unprecedented three-peat by less than six points in 2001. In 2002, The Clemson University team of detectives arrived at the scene in Madison and left Madison four days later with that ever-elusive NCCC Accomplice. For their efforts in capturing this character - who was wanted by 20 regions across the US, and also sought in Canada and Mexico - Clemson University was named champion of the 15th annual ASCE/MBT National Concrete Canoe Competition. In claiming their third national championship in four years and having the best overall record at nationals over the past five years, 3CT have clearly established themselves as one of the best teams in the history of the competition. Only three teams (Alabama-Huntsville, 5; California at Berkeley, 4; Clemson, 3) have combined to win 12 of the 15 titles. Berkeley owned the first five years, UAH earned the next five and 3CT has owned the last five. Now don't go off pouting if you're team has yet to win a title. At the end of this commentary I will share with you the "secret" of how to have a consistent top 5 team – so stick around.

An even greater accomplishment than a few wins at the NCCC is the success and longevity of ASCE!! This year was special in that it was ASCE’s 150th anniversary. To celebrate this event the first ever national ASCE student conference was held in Madison, WI. In addition to the student conference, both the National Concrete Canoe Competition and the National Steel Bridge Competition were held at the same location during the same week – as were many other civil engineering competitions such as Surveying, Environmental, and the Mead paper competition. Not everything is a competition though, as civil engineering students donated their time to community service by painting two local houses.

Best NCCC Location
I would not mind if the NCCC was held in Madison every year. The layout of the campus in relation to the academic and race locations combined with the dorms, hotels, local watering holes, restaurants and local tourist attractions make this the best site from a logistical standpoint and for things to do (if you have the time while at nationals!). With the convenience of Memorial Union right in the center of all the competition activities, you’ve got everything you need – water, food, sun screen, snacks… and then at night, the terrace is the place to be as you look over a beautiful lake Mendota as the live band cranks out the cover tunes. UW - Madison's campus is tough to beat for hosting an event like the NCCC.

I have to confess that I did not have the time to observe the academic events in great detail this year - and I quickly lost any hope of catching any of the steel bridge competition or painting a house! My analysis is based on my own observations as well as discussions with various teams, advisors, and fellow CNCCC members and whatever info the judges will share - which ain't much!! ;) I managed to write down some thoughts along the way and then played my numbers game with the races to try to guess the winner. I had to fly out of Madison immediately following the races and although I had a pretty good idea who won, I was not sure until I got a call from a friend the next day! I was pleasantly surprised by who was in the top ten and by the order of the top five. Let's see why.

International Flavor
While Canada has been represented for several years at the NCCC, for the first time ever we had a team from Mexico in 2002. Based on the successes of Canada, I’d like to say to Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM) – keep at it!! This year they did not leave empty handed as they took home the Spirit of the Competition award.

Am I repeating myself?
I know I say this every year... but THIS year was the toughest competition ever and I’ve got more than my own subjective point of view to back me up... the scoring makes this point for me - and my coverage this year will not only be on how I thought the scoring dynamics were changing, but using the actual score sheets provided by the NCCC I will simulate a "real-time" view of the scoring dynamics as judging for each academic event was complete. Let me start with the subjective ;)

It's Academic... My dear Watson.
On Friday, both the displays and canoes were available for viewing. I immediately noticed that about the 12 displays and 8 of the canoes had a chance at a top 5 spot - usually you’ll see three that stand out before dropping off in quality after that. Not this year. I thought that six products were easily top three candidates. The judges were going to have it tough. I felt that only a few points in the judges grading were going to separate these teams. When you see the scoring, that is the way it happened. More on the "real' scoring later ;)

What really impressed me were the regional second place qualifiers.  With the exception of the Southeast conference with UAH, Florida, and FIT, there has historically been a huge drop in quality among other second-place qualifying regional teams.  Well, (and get used to me saying this) not this year. Three teams came as second place qualifiers and two of these teams (University of Oklahoma and North Carolina State University) had excellent overall showings (8th and 11th respectively) while the third team (Colorado State) finished a very respectable 16th overall and even took sixth in the Oral competition.  These three teams placed top ten in at least one of the academic events.  NC State and U of Oklahoma finished 7th and 10th, respectively in the races! This says a great deal about the strength of these regional conferences - and how much better regional and national competition is today than just a few years ago.

It was also evident that the teams I mentioned in my 2001 commentary (opens another window) as being ready for prime time were ready to compete for the title in 2002. Western Kentucky, Wisconsin, and Laval looked very strong in Display and Product. And while I'm on that note, I'll go ahead and tell you that my pick to win in 2002 was Laval - my reasoning was that with most team members returning in 2002 they could do as well as they did last year in all events with the ability to improve greatly in Display (avoid penalties!) and Orals (remember, Laval students speak French as their native language and have struggled with their English during orals in the past - every other aspect of their previous oral presentations was top 5 quality). They also had a great paddling team in 2001 (four 3rd places and one 5th place!). Laval needed one, maybe two wins in the races this year and hang in the top 3 in the other races. If Laval did this and combined it with a top 3-5 in each academic event, I felt that they would take the title in 2002.

After the orals came to a close on Saturday, I conducted my informal poll and concluded that roughly five of the the 12 teams looking great after display and product would need a big race day to get back in the running. However, with the Design Paper scores still unknown no one could point to an obvious leader among the remaining seven teams after the three academic events. The consensus on who the contenders were at this point was Western Kentucky, Wisconsin, Oklahoma State, Clemson, Laval, Florida, and Oklahoma - and it was close.

Races - 7:30am-3pm, Monday, June 24
With my "chores" completed, I was now able to observe the competition first-hand! Not putting much faith in my informal polling results, but having a gut-feeling that things were tight in academics, I felt the races were going to determine the winners. For the first 9 years of the competition the team with the most race points coincidentally won the overall competition. But the rules were changed for 1997 giving more weight to academics and less on paddling. The result was dramatic. Every year after 1996 the team who won academics also won the competition. But let's be careful here - since 1997 the teams who usually do well in academics also do very well in paddling... so you can not just focus on academics and forget about the races. To win, you have to do well in both. In a very tight academic competition, race points are critical. A spectator who has a list of their top teams based on their observation of the three academic events can make a very good prediction after two or three races whether those teams are staying at the top ("top" being from your perspective). It's simple - are these teams beating each other in these races, thus, keeping the race points even? Yes? Then you're gonna have to wait until the banquet! No? Which teams are consistently placing higher than the other top contenders, and is the point margin adding up in favor or one or two teams? You've narrowed it down and may now know the winner before the banquet - sorry, no refunds! ;) The teams at nationals in 2002 known to have traditionally strong paddling are OSU, Florida, Berkeley, Michigan State, Clemson, Cal Poly, New Orleans, and SDSMT. Schools beginning to show consistency as top paddling teams the last few years are Laval, UW-Madison, Western Kentucky. The up-and-comers are Oklahoma University and NC State.

Women 600M Slalom/Endurance - After twelve teams had completed the race, Oklahoma State and U of Oklahoma were 1-2. But two teams known for their paddling strength had yet to race. Not to disappoint its hometown fans UW-Madison temporarily took first place by seven seconds. The Florida Gators were next in the water and took a 17 second bite out of UW-Madison's time. The last contender up was Clemson who edged out Florida by only eight seconds to take the title.

The top five in order were: Clemson, Florida, UW-Madison, OSU, and Oklahoma.

Five teams stayed the same or improved their standings in this race from last year. Clemson remained unchanged, Wisconsin and Cal Poly moved up one spot from last year, OSU moved up three places, and the most improved was University of Oklahoma moving up from 10th in 2001 to 5th place in 2002. Berkeley and NC State had the largest drop compared to last year's finish in the distance race losing four and six places, respectively.

Although one race does not mean its over for a team's chances, having attended every national competition since 1995 I start running the numbers in my head and immediately I was worried about Western Kentucky and Laval. If these two teams were close with the other five teams I had tops (my informal polling) after academics, worst case scenario Laval was looking at three points in this race and Western Kentucky was already out of the top ten - no chance for points now. These teams would need to win a race or two plus have the top schools in this race beat each other in the remaining races. Definitely possible.

Here are the final standings and times for all events and races.

Men 600M Slalom/Endurance - While the Oklahoma and Oklahoma State women were pulling their share, only the OSU men managed to contribute to their cause with an eighth place finish. For OSU, this was four spots behind last year's finish in the distance races, while Oklahoma dropped five places. In fact, after the men's distance races were over five teams in 2001's top ten lost ground in 2002. The biggest of these was Berkeley's drop of ten places, followed by Laval and Western Kentucky at 6 and 5 spots, respectively.

This can not be attributed to these teams lack of effort - not at all. As it was in the academics this year, there were more teams capable of placing in the top 5 than a year ago. Teams such as UW-Madison was not even in the top ten last year but took fourth in 2002 while New Orleans improved by a whopping 14 places to grab fifth place. Cal Poly moved up six spots in 2002 with seventh place. It really was the unexpected improvement these teams in the 2002 races that began to shake up the overall final standings.
The drama began to unfold between 3 teams vying for second place behind Clemson - when it was all over only two seconds separated #2 and #4.

The top five in order were: Clemson, Florida, NC State, UW-Madison, and New Orleans. Give it up for the women's teams from Berkeley and San Diego State - they each had better times than their men's team ;) Clemson's men did manage to post a better time than the women this year ;) Clemson's women still posted the 5th best time among the men this year after posting the 2nd best time in 2001! Here are the final standings and times all events and races.

OK - let's assess the race point differential after these two races. I'll share with you a technique I've used for the last six years to try to narrow down the overall winners (this assumes my scoring is close to the judges' scoring - which has only been about 60% of the time ;). But hey, I'm an engineer at heart and as spectator at an engineering competition it's fun crunching the numbers! Here is a chart that I use to keep track of the point gaps created during the races between the teams I think are tops in the Oral, Display, and Product events. Pick a team in the far left column (A) and then choose a team from the top row (B) and the point of intersection shows how many race points A trails B. For example, after two races Oklahoma is 6.5 points behind Wisconsin, Laval is 11 points behind Florida, and Berkeley is 5 points behind OSU.
Clemson Florida Wisconsin OSU Oklahoma Berkeley Laval
Clemson
Florida -2
Wisconsin -5.5 -3.5
OSU -8 -6 -2.5
Oklahoma -12 -10 -6.5 -4
Berkeley -13 -11 -7.5 -5 -1
Laval -13 -11 -7.5 -5 -1 0
WKU -18 -16 -12.5 -10 -6 -5 -5
Use this information and your academic standings (according to your personal scoring preferences for the three observer events) and see how your standings change after each race!

Women Sprint - With one exception, all the my contenders (chart above) up to this point made it to either the Grand or Petite final races and received race points. But with no top ten time in the preliminary race heats, Western Kentucky's chances of taking home the title now looked remote unless they were ahead in academics by 25 points - still, anything is possible, but with this year's competition that was not likely.

The Petite finals concluded with each team about two seconds ahead of the next - no thriller like last year here - and Cal Poly took that race with Drexel and Oklahoma next. The closest race was in the Grand finals where UW-Madison edged out Laval by 0.97 seconds for third place. In the sprint races, anything more than a second between two teams competing in the same heat is not as close as you think from a visual standpoint. Over one second equates to the nose of the trailing canoe being about twelve feet or more behind the nose of the leading canoe. However, the fact that this gap was much wider after the first turn and the trailing teams were rapidly closing the gap during the home stretch is very exciting to watch! I know some teams were thinking "if we only had another 10 meters!". Clemson was widening it's lead as it crossed the finish line 2.5 seconds ahead of Florida to take first place. Here are all the standings and times for qualifying, petite final and grand final.

Men Sprint - Once again the grand final lived up to expectations. UW-Madison posted the best qualifying time 1.19 seconds ahead of Clemson. The difference between 2-3 and 3-4 in qualifying was 0.46 and 0.22 seconds, respectively! Cal Poly just missed getting into the Grand finals by 0.40 seconds.

More to come later this week so check back!