OK, so here, all in one place, is everything I know about how to do well at Field Day.

For reference, I suggest you open the PDF spreadsheets of the results from 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010.

So bottom line, the way to win Field Day is to get Points. You don’t have to get the most points (which would give an unfair advantage to larger clubs), you just have to get the most average points, or points-per-boy. But given that the number of boys is out of your control (well, it may actually be in your control, but we certainly do not want to try to win by keeping lower-performing boys away from Field Day), the goal still reduces to maximizing points.

Points come from two sources: participation, and competition. We want to maximize our points in each category. Let’s start with participation points, of which there are three kinds:

Participation: First of all, there’s an actual point category called Participation, which awards 3 points for each boy that gets a blue card punch for at least 6 morning events. 3 points is a lot, and this means that all cadets must  have as their primary goal to get 6 punches for morning events. There is basically no reason to leave these points on the table; no event requires competition (timing) to get a punch; counselors staffing the event are always happy to handhold a cadet through an event they’ve never even seen before, and give them a punch. Note that our good club performance in 2009 and 2010 included 100% participation scoring (18×3=54 and 15×3=45), while in 2008 we left points on the table (18 boys present, but only 42 participation points).

Landmarks: Every group A cadet (and every first year cadet, regardless of group!) can get 1 point just for reciting his Landmarks (motto, verse, code, pledge, hymn, and explaining the logo). This free (non-competitive) point is an advantage for clubs that are heavy with younger cadets (like us!), and we should take advantage of it. Every group A cadet needs to get this easy point for our club.

Flag Raising: This is another non-competitive event that awards one point to every participant. Every participant, regardless of group! It is a paired event, so boys need to go in pairs, but you can pair with boys from other clubs if necessary, so everybody get out there and raise that flag! (In 2008, we also left 9 points on the table in Flag Raising, earning only 9 points for 18 boys present)

Note: in 2008, if we had picked up just 15 of the 21 non-competitive points we left on the table (12 for participation, and 9 for Flag), that would have propelled us from 4th place into 3rd place. I think it is a reasonable goal to come away from Field Day with all possible non-competitive points.

So now we turn to points from competition. Each event offers four ribbons in each of the four age groups. In general, the points that come with ribbons are 8,6,4,2 for placing 1,2,3,4 in a skill event, and 4,3,2,1 points for placing 1,2,3,4 in an athletic event. Across the groups, that adds up to 80 points on the table for each skill event, and 40 for each athletic event.

I’ll break the competitive points down into a number of  overlapping categories:

Skill vs. Athletic: Excuse my frankness, but our club’s white-collar demographic has traditionally put us at a disadvantage with athletic events , but I think at an advantage for skill events (look at our morning vs. afternoon totals for 2010 compared to the 2nd-4th placing clubs!)– and that’s good for us, because skill events are worth more points! So let’s continue playing to our strengths.

Athletics: That said, be sure that all boys get out there and participate in the afternoon athletic events. Juan has been getting good results coaching our relay teams, we do have some strongly athletic boys that can earn competitive points, and even for the less athletic, some of the events are amenable to points by luck (softball accuracy, soccer?). Andy has also noticed that the winning strategy for basketball is to eschew high-point/low-percentage positions, and just make as many layups as possible, alternating left/right (the rules require change of position after each basket).

Knots: We own the boards, and with all the hard work we’ve put in over the last few years, we own the event. Out of the 80 points available in the Knot Tying event, we have moved from strength to strength over the last four years: 22, 44, 50, 60 points out of 80! That’s a lot of points, and we gotta keep owning this event.

Knots, other: There are a number of other Field Day events in which our rope skills give us a speed edge, including Tripod Lashing (clove hitch, tripod lashing, bowline), Pup Tent (tautline hitch), Shelter (clove hitch, square lashing, shear lashing, tautline hitch). Clearly this additional focus on rope-related events was a critical factor in our surprise win last year, as we got more points in these three events in 2010 (54!!) than the previous three years combined (16, 14, 6).

Uncontested: Every year there is at least one event — usually shelter building, but also compass and tripod — that does not award all of its points, because there were not even 4 cadets/teams entered in group A. This is another big advantage for group-A-heavy clubs (like us), because that means that competitive points effectively become participation points. After completing the 6 events necessary for the easy 3 participation points, and after competing in events at which a cadet is well-skilled in, cadets should look to participate (competitively!) in at least one of these difficult events. It may just be the case that they will pick up a 3rd or 4th place ribbon just for finishing! Some additional strategies here, for shelter and pup tent: these are both two-man events. The second man doesn’t need to do much. If one cadet can do it on their own, get him in there with anybody else, just to get a time on the board. Also, events don’t need to be done perfectly. Your boys don’t know the tautline hitch? That’s OK. Do the pup-tent guy lines with overhand knots, at a cost of just 10sec per wrong knot. It could still be a good time!

Limited: Marksmanship and Archery are unique in that Cadets must have earned the respective badge (and be wearing it on their uniform!) in order to participate. If points go unclaimed in group A in these categories, it is our fault for not working on Marksmanship and Archery enough, and getting boys badged up. We’ll have to shore that up next year.

To sum up the competitive category, we are in a position to win a lot of points in competitive events, and the nice thing about these is, if we win them, other clubs don’t! (It’s not for no reason that our win last year was the lowest-winning average (13.8 ppb)than the previous years (15.6, 14.6, 18.6!!) — it’s because when we started winning more competitive points, that took away points from traditional powerhouses Crosspoint and Artesia Trinity, closing the gap between them and the lower-scoring clubs).

So let’s get out there and (a) get ALL of the non-competitive points that are out there for the taking, and (b) as many of the competitive points as we can; both in our rope-based strength areas, as well as opportunity points wherever else we can.