Reports From the SkateFAIR Protest

March 28, 2003

Report by Trudi Marrapodi

I was one of the SkateFAIRians out Thursday night already handing out brochures and buttons to advertise the protest (after having handed out many in the arena to the curious all week!). We were competing with the Scientologists, who appear to stake out that Metro entrance/exit regularly, so it was tough, but at least our brochures were blue, and looked quite different from their white handouts about Dianetics!

Friday before the ladies' short, I took my stack of brochures and was determined to get rid of them all before entering the building. I did. I came up with a piece of patter that seemed to work quite well: "You won't know who's giving which marks today or which ones count. You will only know the results. If you don't like that, join our protest!" I can't tell you how many people walked up to me and asked for brochures then! It was as easy as giving away the buttons (which wasn't hard at all--all you had to do was say "No Secret Judging buttons! Have one! They're FREE!"). I was getting rid of flyers with ease. People were coming up to me and saying "I'll be there!" and "Right on!"

One guy--a scalper, I think--asked me (half jokingly, he admitted later) whether we didn't have anything better to do. I said I thought honesty and accountability are important everywhere, and if we can't have them in sports, where can we have them?

After ladies' short, it was time for the protest. As some of you will read in the Washington Post, I was holding the French banner. Although if I hadn't corrected the (probably rookie) reporter sent to cover the protest, she would have reported that it was in Hebrew. (BTW, as you can also see, I am also now officially a resident of New Jersey instead of New York. Oh well! It was NOISY out there!) What a great protest--the only negative thing was that it was VERY hard to hear the speakers on the microphone. Anyway, it was great to have Sally, Paul, Drobiazko and Vanagas...just terrific! And Ron Pfenning! Jon Jackson was in the crowd as well.

Marlene was in front of me holding the "Anonymity Breeds Corruption" sign, and was interviewed by a radio station. And, as you can see, she made the AP!!

We had all kinds of chants..."Hey hey, ho ho! Secret judging has got to go! (along with "Hey hey, ho ho! Toe-tapping has got to go!")..."What do we want? Accountability! When do we want it? Now!" (and yes, we were tempted to say "Yesterday!" too!). It looked great! Nothing wimpy about this protest...it rocked!

Thanks to all of you who couldn't be here but supported us in spirit. We read your online protest on the SkateFAIR message board! You guys rock too! And surely some of you will have a chance to protest in places we can't make it to. Carry on, SkateFAIRians! The message has been sent! And watch for us tonight on the live coverage...I had two guys come up to me when I was handing out brochures and say they were sitting in the front row of a long side one section over from Speedy and they'd be happy to hold up a banner for us! The banners were up all during free dance last night too...in just about every language but Klingon..."NO SECRET JUDGING!" Look for them!