The Greatest Athlete

Challenge Ladder

Competitive, Healthy and Fun!

How good of an athlete are you? TGACL is the only ladder that maintains individual sports rankings as well as overall athletic rankings. Use the iPhone app to view and sort rankings by: Gender, Age, Zip, State, Country or Group.

Challenge Ladder Rules:

1. You may challenge a player up to 2 rungs/spots/rankings above you in the master rank (overall rankings) or sorted rank (Gender, Age, Zip Code, State, Country, or Group rankings) as long as the difference in master rank between the two players is 5 or less. The number of rungs allowed (above) may change as the ladders grow.

2. A player may neither extend nor accept a challenge when
a previously arranged challenge match is pending.

3. If you are challenged and are unavailable for longer than
1 week, then you lose your spot to the challenger.

4. Scoring should be whatever is agreed upon by both players. Scoring is not reported (only a win or loss).

5. Match results must be reported by the winner by using the
“Submit Results” button on the mobile app.

6. "New" players to a sport will assume the lowest ranking on the ladder. However, they get 1 attempt to beat anyone they feel they can beat. If they do in fact beat the higher ranked player, the new player will assume the higher ranked position and the player who lost will move down a spot. However, the new player will remain at the bottom of the ladder and have to challenge upwards as described in rule #1 above. New players may be placed on the ladder where the site administrator deems fit (ie. existing local, state, and national rankings, etc.)

Nothing changes on the ladder unless a lower
ranked player beats a higher ranked player. If this occurs,
the lower ranked player will assume the higher ranked
position. The higher ranked player who was beat will move
down one rung / spot. "Slackers" (those who have not had a challenge match in over one month) may be removed from the ladder and be allowed re-entry for 1 year.

Mobile App Installation and Usage:

From an iPod, iPhone or iPad: go to the App store and
download "FileMaker Go 12" (free app). Exact directions may vary slightly between the devices. Contact me if you have any intallation problems.

Open "FileMaker Go 12"

Click on "Open File Browser"

Click on "Add Host"

Enter this IP address in the Host Address section: 76.101.164.146

(be sure you enter periods - not commas)

Under Host Name you can call it anything you want: ladder
Click "Done"

Click on "ladder" or what ever you named it under "Favorite Hosts"

Click on "TGACL"

You may then browse the ladder, challenge players and submit match results straight from the app.

Simply click on any sport and then on a player’s name to quickly address an email to the competitor you wish to challenge. Click the “Sorted Rank” to sort the rankings by Gender, Age, Zip Code, State, Country or Associated Group. You may even use the “Sorted Rank” button to quickly find someone by name, challenge match dates, etc.. If sorting by age, be sure to put either a <, >, or = before the age. For example: <14 will return the rankings of all players age 13 and under. =23 will give you the rankings of the 23 year olds.

Easily share information by printing or saving as PDF / Excel, etc.. Athletic rankings are automatically calculated only if athlete is participating in all the sports being offered.

About / History:

When I was a young kid, I signed up for a tennis ladder at a
small neighborhood tennis club. The ladder itself was a
numbered pegboard with names (people) associated with
each peg. The concept was (and still is) very simple
(if you win a match, you move up and replace the person's
peg that you beat - and the loser of the match would move
down one peg spot). I remember how fun it was to challenge
other members of the ladder in an effort to improve my ranking. Another aspect that I loved was that the ladder was not limited by age, sex or ability level. Therefore, this ladder became the talk of the town and a ton of fun.

Unfortunately, after about two months of success, some of
the ladder members stopped participating which prevented
lower ranked players from challenging upwards. Also, someone kept tampering with the pegboard standings and basically ruined the enjoyment that the ladder provided.

Since those early days, technology has advanced and many
ladders have been established. There are many online
resources that seem to do a decent job at organizing, updating and maintaining the integrity of a ladder. However, all of these sites only rank the members by overall ability.

Although this is the key ingredient of a sports ladder, my goal was to also build a ladder that would:

1. Prevent "slacker” players from stagnating the ladder's activity.

2. Sort the athletes by similar commonalities:
(Gender, Age, Zip Code, State, Country).

3. Group the players by those who they are most likely to play against (friends, family, teams, school, employment)

I hope you like this concept and enjoy the competition that it provides. Please feel free to communicate suggestions to improve the ladder's functionality.
In the meantime, have fun enjoy and good luck!

Suggestions:

If you have suggestions on how to improve
this database, please contact thegeek@thecomputergeek.biz.