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JW: What's the hardest thing about teaching juggling?

Greeley: Teaching is really very easy. The hardest thing is that juggling is such an important thing in my life. It's hard for nonjugglers to understand that and it's a big joke to many people. It's frustrating for me when I teach someone who says, "OK, now I can do 3 balls. Let's put it in the closet and do something else."

I love to teach other people, though, because they're so surprised when they find that they can actually do it. People are overwhelmed when all of a sudden they find they're no so uncoordinated as they thought!

JW: When did you first plunge into the whirlpool of the competitions?

Greeley: Greg Moss talked to me about judging at the Amherst mini-convention in 1981, and I judged at the Cleveland Convention that year. The following year I judged in Santa Barbara. In New York I didn't judge because I entered the competition with Arsene.

Then in Las Vegas I judged the qualifying rounds for the U.S. Nationals and served as go-fer for Greg. After Greg said he was resigning, Rich Chamberlin pinned me in the elevator at the Showboat Hotel and said, "So are you going to be championships director or what?"

JW: What are your qualifications for the job of championships director? What special qualities do you bring to the task?

Greeley: Never having run an event by myself yet, I can't tell you if I'm qualified or not! (laughs.) But the one thing that has helped me in the past and will help me this year is that I have been involved in just about every aspect of the championships.

I've been a competitor, a judge, assistant championships director and have helped Greg Moss write the rules. I've seen the championships from many different perspectives - from sitting in the audience to being up there on stage to sitting behind the judges table. That experience was the only reason I decided I could take the job and do it.

JW: What's the toughest thing in judging?

Greeley: Being consistent through 20-odd competitors. It's gotten better with the qualifying round in the U.S. Nationals, though this year in Atlanta I think the qualifying round is going to be much tougher because there are going to be many more people in it.

JW: Have you ever had anyone challenge your judging decision after the competition?

Greeley: No, not really. The Cleveland championships were the worst I've judged as far as the audience was concerned. Generally, though, people are pretty reasonable. There is nothing wrong with the audience making their feelings known in response to scores. If the judges aren't prepared for it, they shouldn't be judging.

JW: What are some of the things you're looking for in that "10" champion? Are you watching patterns, counting tricks or counting drops?

Greeley: I've never given a 10, but the guidelines for scoring are pretty well spelled out in the rules that Greg drew up. But there's something that can't be written down that makes a person a great competitor, a great juggler and a great performer all in one. I think that's what it takes to really nail this competition.

Usually when I judge I have a work sheet with all the categories set up so I can make notes to myself on what the person did. I count drops, but if there is a great recovery I could care less if there was a drop. The way the rules are set up, deductions for drops are optional, and I think that's good because dropping is almost an inherent part of juggling and is awfully hard to get around.

JW: When you are looking at Juniors versus U.S. Nationals, do you temper the scale upon which you judge?

Greeley: I would judge Juniors and U.S. Nationals on the same scale if we were using 1/10th-point increments. But with halfpoint intervals like we have, I don't think there is any way you can put them on one scale. I consider that each category has its own 10-point scale, and I would give a Junior a ten if I thought that was the best technical performance and competitive edge that someone that age could achieve.

JW: Is there a disadvantage to going first in the championships? Is it possible to get a ten if you go first?

Greeley: As a judge I would never give a 10 to the first person up there, but I think that is helped by having a qualifying round. If you only have 10 competitors, it is a little bit easier to be consistent. As long as the judges are consistent it really doesn't matter so much whether the first competitor gets a 10 or not. I would say that it is a disadvantage to go first, but how can we possibly change that without fixing the results? Somebody has to go first, and the fairest way to do it is with a hat draw, which is what we do.

JW: One of the highlights of the Las Vegas convention was the Women's Forum, where many women got together to raise questions about women in the IJA and in the sport of juggling. Are there "'women's issues" in juggling? Do you think there's sexism in the IJA?

Greeley: Yeah, I think there is all that, and I think it is a problem that's not likely to be resolved in the near future. I'd like to think that "jugglers are jugglers are jugglers," but for some reason women aren't "jugglers" very often. The attitude is, "Women don't juggle, men do." .

JW: Why is that? Is it the men's attitude, or is it because of a lack of self-confidence on women's part? That we lack that blinding macho flash?

Greeley: In terms of the competitions, I think that women are terribly intimidated. Women tend to have a feminine style in their performance. For some reason that is not regarded as competitive. .It's not something that you can put up there and expect to win with.