Crap Formats #3

The latest addition to "creative" ways to deal with 15 teams.....

Read More...

Summary only...

Ulitmate Season...rant.....comments

I will be traveling with my family next week, so I will not be posting. Expect some info about UPA Series stuff come March 1.

Also, Mark M's rules blog has moved and become the UPA Rules Blog. I highly suggest that folks check it out. Reading the 11th is required for my Wellesley girls. We did a lot of work last week on ground checking the disc while putting a live disc into play.

Onto the topic of the week:

There was a call by Neva on RSD that results need to be posted on the SRT in order for ranking systems to work. Hear..hear! We seem to treat our tournaments as if they are in a vacuum. That they don't intersect with the concerns of others. That the data produced couldn't be of use somewhere down the line. While there seems to be a collective sense that a formal Ultimate season would be positive and exciting for the sport, we seem content in passively bleating about what we would like to happen and determined to resist the most primitive baby steps that could start us in this direction.

In my more extreme moments, I just find the fact that two of the lead posts on RSD this morning are players pleading for the most basic information about President's Day and Mardi Gras galling. This type of lack of information plus the derth of info from College Vegas is, to me, unacceptable. If we view things from this context, even asking why Ultimate is a not a big time sport is a joke.

If we want to take advantage of the small opportunities that are available to us in kick starting the development of a season for Ultimate, we need to be much more clear about what we expect from our tournaments as players, spectators, coordinators, and remote viewers. The concern of this post is not "which tournaments should be considered the "regular season" as that, in my opinion, puts the cart before the horse. Our "regular season"(events prior to the UPA Series) now is a mish-mash of "fun" tournaments, "serious" tournaments, lack of data, rumor on RSD, lack of communication, little documentation, and no standards in terms of formatting or accountability. The result is a "product" that has, in general, no continuity, few stories that draw us in, and little reliable data. Despite our best efforts to handicap ourselves, great rivalries and stories do manage to crawl out of the muck and, like some oasis in the desert, provide compelling drama and excitement.

Here is a summary of some things I would love to see.

For tournaments that want to be part of the Ultimate season:

1) The results and final standings should be clearly posted on the SRT within a day of the completion of the tournament.
2) The seedings and format should be locked down and published on the SRT by the Tues before the tournament.
3) Tournaments should have a bid/registration system with clear deadlines and defined policies toward teams dropping out. These policies should encourage teams to feel that they are making a serious commitment to attend when they submit their registration fee.
4) The format should be close to the standards defined by the UPA Formats Manual. If we are going to use the results of tournaments for such things as seeding, then the results need to be determined fairly. The format shouldn't change during the weekend.
5) Seeding should be done, as best as possible, in an order of relative strength. Pools shouldn't be built based upon "playing new teams", for example.
6) Teams need to understand that results will be used as data. No complaining after the fact that "we were at half strength"...or hungover...or whatever.
7) Results, if at all possible, should be updated on the SRT during the tournament.
8) The TD should be prepared with a variety of formats (very easy to do on the SRT) in the event that teams drop. The TD should publish the intended format ASAP, but also indicate that the format is not confirmed if they have teams that might drop. In this case, the TD should pro-actively communicate, on the SRT, how teams might be affected if the format were to change.

For tournaments that are not concerned with being part of the Ultimate season:

Ignore the above. Run whatever BS format you want...oops, I meant BCS format. Just keep it off the SRT. Leave your teams in the dark about seeding and the format. Or better yet...just make it up as you go along and seed things to favor your own team. We need to remember that teams are just there for the party.

Then we can let the market decide. Teams that want to be treated respectfully at an event with a modicum of "professional" standards will know where to go. They will know that their results will be derived fairly and that they will become part of a story larger than themselves...the Ultimate season. Perhaps we might even to get to the point where basic communication is an expected part of what teams are paying for.

This will also hold tournament TD's accountable to certain standards as well, and, possibly, mitigate the possibility of TD's influencing such things as Sectional and Regional seeding by creating seedings and formats at their own tournaments that are unfair and biased.

There will be many factors that will come together one day to give us an Ultimate season. Luckily, we have some things we can influence and control today that can start us in that direction. This post does not claim to offer an opinion or an outline of what an Ultimate season would look like. I just think there are some small things we can do today to raise the bar a bit higher.

Read More...

Summary only...

Quality as a Parameter for Policy

There has been lots of talk about quality on RSD these days. Most of the talk occurred after Nationals and was concerned with
whether or not the Mixed Div belongs, but there was also a more recent discussion about whether the glory teams of yesteryear could have competed with the teams of today.This second conversation is rather familiar and benign due largely to its speculative nature. Its an age-old argument in any sport and somewhat in the "glory days" category, but it does set up the general idea that quality is a dynamic and subjective entity. Not surprisingly this discussion is characterized by two age-based camps. The older folks who are adamant that Flying Circus and NYNY would have intimidated Sockeye, and the younger folks who swear by the athleticism of the current generation.

The conversation several weeks ago about whether Mixed belongs in the fall series is a different animal, though, as an assumed standard of quality is being presented as a means of defining policy. This is critical distinction, compared to the old vs new argument, as the highly subjective nature of quality is being asked to determine a course of action for an organization. Jim P succinctly breaks down the Mixed "issue" into two separate arguments: 1) the question of whether the inclusion of Mixed in the Fall Series limits the potential venues for Nationals, and 2) whether Mixed is high enough quality to warrant inclusion is the showcase event in our sport. This post seeks to deal with only the issue of quality.

I think before we consider the quality of Mixed Ultimate, we need to define parameters that define quality in general. There seems to be a general assumption that we all are in agreement about what quality Ultimate is, but I would argue that we are very far from all being on the same page as far as this is concerned. Part of this is the very nature of the shifting criteria that is quality. This point becomes very clear in the RSD discussion when Sam TH poses the question that if we consider that Mixed is lower quality than Open, then doesn't it follow that Women's is lower quality as well. Jim P's response is that "this is different because Women's is the best players of that gender". My point is not to say that I think Jim is defining a position as much as it is to point out that when we draw a line in the sand to define quality, we almost immediately need to start defining qualifiers.

There is a part of quality that can be supported by objective measures. Perhaps we could call this Absolute Quality. These are measures like speed, jumping ability, throwing distance, etc. For the most part, these measures need to take an athlete out of the context of the team experience and then measure their performance in isolation. This is basically the method of the NFL Combine and it does result in being able to say with some degree of certainty that "Person A is faster than Person B". Based on this standard,though, I might not consider # of turnovers as a measure of Absolute Quality as there are needed qualifiers (the teams were evenly matched and played real D). I think fewer unforced errors could be a measure of Absolute Quality, but, again, it involves subjective judgment in terms of defining events as unforced or not. While Absolute Quality might be of interest in terms of stats and playing cards, I think it is pretty obvious that it almost impossible to define a policy for a standard of inclusion based on Absolute Quality. As an analogy, Absolute Quality ignores "intangibles" (things like desire, work ethic, heart) and creates problems when dealing with player specialization (is a faster player "better" than a player who can throw farther?). Just as we don't expect team managers to make personnel decisions based solely on objective measures, I think concerning ourselves with trying to define policy in an internet newsgroup based on an assumed sense of Absolute Quality is at best a distraction.

I think an even more useless criteria could be called Relative Quality. Let's define this for the moment as quality defined by comparison(without objective measurement). To a certain extent, this measure is defined by the "Windy City vs Sockeye" argument. If we, for the moment, consider the 2002 Dog-FG semi as some kind of standard, could we therefore define a standard of inclusion based on that game? What do we do with games like the 2001 or 2005 turnover-laden Open Finals? Should the Open Division not be included at Nationals because the Ultimate played in 05 was not up to the Relative Quality of the Ultimate played in 02? Why is the Mixed Division the only Division that gets to be compared with Open? In the end, basing a standard of measure upon an opinion of Relative Quality looks a lot like any Dogma or Belief System. The definition of dogma actually works very well here ("A set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true") and certainly fits the standard means of communication of the RSD forum. Could there be a better example of this definition than the assertion that Open is the most compelling and most interesting Ultimate due to its quality?

I think one could argue that the above assertion is backed-up up by the bigger crowds that attend Open games. However, this makes the assumption that the number of spectators can somehow accurately determine quality. To me, this is a highly suspect means of measurement and it seems we have made a huge leap, in terms of defining quality, from objective criteria to the whims of spectators.

I think, when it comes to trying to determine policy, that we make sure we do not assume that the Ultimate that interests us as individuals is somehow what everyone should, or would, also find interesting. This discussion of quality seems to be an attempt to re-characterize what are essentially dogmatic assertions in some kind of objective cloak. Certainly, everyone is entitled to their opinion and will be drawn to whatever aspect of the sport that interests them. Quality, without the benefit of a defined set of measures and thus inherently subjective, is probably not a good parameter for defining a decision in regard to inclusion in the Fall Series.

Read More...

Summary only...

Same As It Ever Was.......

I feel like this really should be on my "Joke of the Day" calendar. Its like deja vu all over again

Read More...

Summary only...

Crap Formats #2

Very busy times these days.

I am working pretty hard on Nationals logistics. Seeding, observer rules, schedule, etc. It looks like I might be Head Scorekeeper....so that will be fun.

Bumpersticker I saw the other day:

"George W: Pull out like your father should have."

Brilliant.

Worked on the 2-handler set with the girls the other day. In my attempt to indoctrinate them in this set, I decided I wouldn't even teach the 3-handler set this year. My vets don't seem comfortable in the 2 set, though, so they fell back on the 3 set this past weekend at a Smith College tournament.

Speaking of tournaments, my girls have this format to look forward to this upcoming weekend:

http://www2.upa.org/scores/tourn.cgi?div=34&id=2773

I can't make any sense out of the seedings as I don't think that MIT and BU should be seeded behind us. Also, 16 teams in 3 pools??? I guess this is being driven by the 6 field issue, but 16 teams in 4 pools can be done on 6 fields in 4 rounds. The byes aren't any worse than the published plan.

Then there is the brackets. First, both A and C pools have their 1 and 2 seeds on the same side of the bracket. That's a big no-no. In terms of match-ups, A1(1) vs C3(8...9??) makes sense. B1(2) vs A2 (6). No problem, kind of. C1(3) v B3(8). Low seed plays a high seed. That's good. B2(5) v C2(4). Right on. What happened to 7??

I think 4 pools of 16 in 4 rounds followed by 2v3 pre-quarters makes a lot more sense.

Ok...that's the bitch for the week.......

Read More...

Summary only...

stuff.....

Luke says that nothing is going on in Boston. Last I checked I was still posting, but I guess my comment that I had heard OTHER people say that the West Coast Offense was a tacit agreement to neuter the meaning of a turnover really hit home.

In other news, the 11th edition draft is here. I have taken a cursory look at it. I like the new Cap language. I dipped my toe over in the 11th Edition discussion group and asked Peri if there had been discussion about raising the minimum number of players needed to start play (currently 2), and she, as usual, took a moment out of her day to inquire why I would ask (there had been no discussion on this topic apparently). Ultimate7, as usual, weighed in with the tact and finesse that we have come to expect from him, so I think I will write Peri directly as it seems like there won't be a conversation over in that group.....at least not when there is an "RSD voice" present.

So Sectionals is complete. I have been "on-call" for the past three weekends. I work sometimes on the weekends (lately I have been doing audio work for BC football games), so my colleagues don't know quite what to make of me stopping work to discuss the placement game rule in the 13th place bracket of a tournament 2000 miles away. While all the results are not quite in, I think things seem to be playing out as expected. Mischief beat Brass Monkey to win the NorCal tournament. All the talk this year has been around Brass picking up Griego, Casey, Coco, and Greenough, but Mischief must have done some serious recruiting as they are playing very consistently in a very tough Region. Moe beat the Carleton folks to win NWP. I will be watching to see if they can do it again in two weeks. Slow White went through ENE without much difficulty. They seem to be ramping up very effectively. There was talk on RSD about the Gendors "curse" and them not being able to beat a team twice in a weekend. We shall see this upcoming weekend when we have three Regional tournaments (anyone else notice that there is no RSD talk about the other divs for yet another year. Someone said it is because the results in the other Divs are probably set in stone. This goes back to my post last fall about upsets equaling excitement). I think Regional is the best time of the year.......

On the home front, practices at Wellesley started last week. As usual, we have many brand new players, but this year the new folks seem to be hanging in there a bit longer. I have been impressed with my returning players as they have been working very hard to teach the new players the basic fundamentals. I think we need to remain committed to working very hard to push the new players through this stage even though it feels like the vets are not able to focus on their skills and progression. This is going to require patience and I hope it will pay off in a few months as there is a great deal of energy and enthusiasm overall. Things did get off to a bit of a rough start at the first practice, however. There must have been forty people there and it was very exciting. We introduced ourselves, and then the team went for its usual jog warm-up. I made my way around the field putting down the eight cones. As the team passed me by, one of the girls toward the back of the pack said to me "What is this? The track team". Weird, but I could let it slide. We stretched out in a circle and went around and said names. We then did the NUTC throwing demo. Have you ever noticed that people from Canada and Minnesota manage to work in how great those places are into most every conversation? You can say something like "I saw this coffee mug I liked the other day", and the response will be "Yeah, I have this friend back home in the Twin Cities that is a potter, and she makes the BEST coffee mugs!". Etc, etc. I am like this about NUTC now, and my captains have pretty much had it with me. They will say "Let's do go-to today", and I will say "Great idea! Let's do the REALLY GREAT version we did at camp". So far no one has rolled their eyes at me (which was a big camp no-no), but I think we are close. Anyway. So we are doing the NUTC throwing demo. I have Jess, Angie, and Peter out there to demo the basic throws (Peter is a Wellesley employee and an Ultimate player. He has been at the school for a year now and is coming to pretty much every practice to help out with things. He is great with the girls and with so many girls right now we are able to split up the squad and be
much more efficient). We start with flat backhands. I am talking while they are throwing and I go through the basics of the motion. As I start to talk about body rotation for power, I hear giggling from the circle. I turn around and it is Track Girl. I walk over and ask if there id a problem. She says "I just think talking about this is so funny. I mean.....its just frisbee". Now, I think I have demonstrated that I maintain my sense of humor through most circumstances. I do have a problem, though, with disrespect. My first thought was to tell her to get the fuck off the field and don't come back. I did manage to have some self-restraint (which my captains thanked me for later) and I just walked away. Peter came up to me once we started to drill and said "We won't see her on Thursday", and, indeed, we did not. While I was quite taken aback by such of show of disrespect for a voluntary activity, I have to say that was far and away the only display of this sort that I have experienced so far at the school, and in all other respects, it has been a great start to the year.

Read More...

Summary only...

Let's Talk About the Money

The MLU debate on RSD has fractured into many different threads. There are discussions about specific rules, perspectives from players, concern from some, hard selling from others, etc. There is very little discussion, though, about what is driving the vision of MLU and, in the end, what will be considered an objective measure of its vision and success. This subject is lurking in the shadows, assumed by some to be the reward for the vision of this, potential, next step, and ignored by others, who, like high school students in health class, really don't want to talk about how to make babies. This subject is, of course, money.

There is no need to waste time placing perceived blame for the disconnect that has characterized the discussion on RSD. The result, though, is a polarized discussion in which the parties are talking about two distinct set of concerns. My opinion is that the conversation that MLU wants to have is not "Is the 2-point line good for Ultimate?", it is "Does the 2-point line create more excitement for the spectator? (and then, it follows, create the willingness on the spectators part to pay for witnessing said excitement)." While it is noble that folks are concerned for the integrity of Ultimate and I am glad to see folks write about their concerns, it is pretty obvious that MLU does not care about, nor wishes to discuss, the basic values of the sport as defined by the Spirit of the Game, etc. Toad's response to Ben Wiggin's comment that Ultimate and MLU are two different sports? MLU "puts the 'real sport' feel into ultimate". Ian said that "'Fairness' from the players perspective is obviously very important, but not more important than trying to make ultimate a better SHOW". I personally do not have a problem with MLU's lack of concern for the integrity of Ultimate as defined by the 10th edition when I am able, instead, to view MLU as a business proposition. Certainly, I don't love having to chew on Toad's disrespect every morning (he is certainly not alone in dishing this out), but as I have said before, one should expect that kind of tone when one dips their toe into the RSD waters.

So, if the MLU conversation on RSD is not about what is best for Ultimate, what are we talking about? Well, I think we are discussing MLU's business plan, but we are putting the cart before the horse in the sense that we are discussing the specifics of the plan before agreeing upon the premise that generated the plan. MLU has not publicly offered us their business plan, nor are they required to do so, but as they have been willing to engage in a discussion on RSD, there have been some quotes that do illuminate their priorities and assumptions. I think a pretty good quote is one from Ian, "To take ultimate to the prime time level that it could be at (someday), we need to start seriously reaching, attracting, and pleasing larger numbers of spectators. Spectators want to believe they are watching a well-officiated game". Toad has alluded to doing some "sports research" that has apparently informed MLU's business plan. Again, the concern is not whether refs, for example, are good for Ultimate. MLU has concluded, due to, it sounds like, personal experience and some research, that refs are "necessary" in order to make Ultimate attractive enough to entice spectators to part with their dollars. So, while the conclusion that Ultimate needs to be changed (in this case via the MLU rule set) in order to make money is an interesting possible discussion, MLU has already arrived at this conclusion, have built a business model around this conclusion, and, as any belief system cannot be refuted, this conclusion (read: business plan) will be validated (or invalidated) not by theory, but by revenue (or lack thereof).

The folks at MLU have been pretty clear about this conclusion and the resulting business plan, but I guess one could say they are guilty of not tattooing it on our foreheads so we can be reminded every morning of what exactly their priority is. I won't give lengthy quotes, but Toad and Ian have said over and over that they want to make MLU a "show", that they want to "maximize the entertainment value", and that they will do whatever it takes to "get spectators into the seats". In short, they want to make money.

So is all the froth on RSD due to some deep-seeded discomfort we have with folks making money off the sport? I don't think so. No one has a problem with VC, Gaia, or Ultivillage developing business models that profit off of Ultimate. In this day and age, any news is good publicity, so perhaps MLU has adopted a publicity strategy in the form of a caustic tone in order to maintain visibility, and, as an additional payoff, they get free market research from the resulting RSD firestorm and rule ideas.

While I don't have any specific issue with MLU's plan to derive profit from Ultimate, I would say that I am highly suspicious of "creating a show", "maximizing the entertainment value" and "improving the marketability" as motivations as they do not represent, for me, values that I am personally concerned with, but, being the contrarian that I am, that kind of language will always raise a red flag for me. I have found, when attending any spectacle like a sporting event, that I am negatively distracted by The Show's attempt to create excitement, and I find such attempts, frankly, a bit insulting. However, my personal feelings about being catered to are not the topic at hand and perhaps only serve to marginalize myself as a potential demographic sector.

While I may be suspicious, I don't think there is any reason to feel threatened by MLU's desire to experiment with marketing, exposure, and any pay out that might result. Ian said, on Thursday, in a reasonable and calm tone that MLU "seeks to be an option and will never be a replacement" for the UPA. On the other side, the attraction of the ethical challenge that is SOTG and the fact that SOTG could actually be a differentiating asset rang out clearly in my "MLU: Players Perspectives" post, and these were voiced by top-level, elite players. So, perhaps we have reached detente, and maybe the tone of RSD is correct, "Its all good"....even if we are talking about money.

Read More...

Summary only...

The Thing That No One Is Talking About.........

..........is Worlds.

(Just a quick note, this post is from the viewpoint of me an an Ultimate player and not as National Mixed Director. The opinions I voice on policies are not meant to represent official UPA policy or positions. I have gone through and corrected some facts that I may have misrepresented).

And I am talking about both Junior Worlds and WUCC's. Could 2006 be the benchmark for Worlds insignificance? The Aussie's printed an ad in the UPA newsletter which says "Aussie's win Worlds. (This could be the headline if you don't go)". I mean, could there be a better voicing of the deep seeded anxiety that no one will care who wins this thing if the good old US of A doesn't show up than this ad? OR.....is the word on the street that I am getting totally wrong and everyone is planning on heading Down Under, basically leaving the pickings of Nats to the second tier teams, and making 2006 the "asterix" year (as in: 2006 UPA Club Champions- Kaos* *Everyone else was at Worlds).

Now, it is certainly not cool to harsh on Junior Worlds, and that is not my intent. The kids are the future of the sport, but did WFDF want to eat its cake by deciding to adopt the 4-year rotation AND then, realizing that many Youth players would not get a shot to play, introducing the stand-alone Youth Worlds that so far (in 02, the US of A did not send teams to Latvia to compete...anyone know who won that event?) seems to be barely viable? I have good friends working very hard to make this event a success. I applaud their efforts and would muck right in, but working at NUTC for the three weeks prior just makes it impossible. The problem really isn't with the organizers, of course. The TD's and BUDA know how to put on a great show, and Devins will be a wonderful, if hot, location. It just seems that there are barely enough teams to make this a significant event. It kind of reminds of its infant sibling, the YCC's. There is no doubt in my mind that, in time, these are going to be great events, and it is probably appropriate that they are suffering with the always troubled transition between small and established. However, while it is great to have a vision of the future, this event is struggling right now with a lack of depth, and this was driven home by the recent letter I received asking for funds to get some extra teams to the event. Again, the Ultimate community has shown its generous nature by sponsoring players from South Africa when they attended NUTC. Their presence made camp better, and I sincerely hope that enough funds are raised to bring some extra teams to Boston this summer. I do look forward, though, to a time when there are more teams looking to get in than there are spots available.

If the purpose of WUCC's to have "established" club teams compete against one another, then is it somewhat disturbing to see that WFDF has approved two sets of roster rules for US teams in an effort to, I don't know, get more teams there? (In reading through the document sent by the UPA to its qualifying teams, there is the following language: "Please note that the World Flying Disc Federation significantly revised its Roster Eligibility Rules for the 2006 WUCC. Unfortunately, the changes implemented by WFDF do not translate well to the UPA’s competitive structure and definition of club teams. WFDF guidelines for team rosters were designed for a club system that is quite different from the UPA’s system. In order to meet the UPA and WFDF’s goals of sending true “club” teams to the WUCC, and in order to make the rostering process clearer to US teams making plans to attend, the UPA requested and received the following revised roster eligibility rules from WFDF." See my comments below for the revised rules. I guess it remains to be seen whether these specific rules will result in true club teams, or ringer teams, attending) Rule set A is what we have come to expect: basically everyone has to have played on the team plus you can add 3 ringers. Rule set B, otherwise known as the "come with whoever you want" rule set, says that 50% of the team must have played in 05-06, and then adds varying percentages of geograpically-based restrictions. Then there is the whole impediment of the tournament fees. First, WFDF opens up registration on March 5, and the early fee is due by March 31 ( I am pretty sure I haven't been left off the e-mail list, and, if that is the case, 6TM hasn't even begun to think about things like tryouts for this year). If you didn't qualify, but want to be waitlisted, you get to pay AU$500 for that. Then there is the AU$400 individual player fee. All of the above is in the context of what pretty much everybody is concerned about, which is, holding Worlds two weeks after Nats. Jim's posts back in November about "Are you ready for Worlds?" on the the day that WUCC's would start in 2006 clearly drove the point home. I am concerned that both of the events are going to be watered down.

So, what is going to happen? Well, I think there is going to be a big difference between the Mixed Division and Open/Women's. Most of the Open/Women's teams I have talked have said, "There will be some kind of team going to Austrailia". So, I think "Jam" will be there, but as to who is on the field is anyone's guess. I know of a few Mixed teams that are skipping Nats for WUCC's, and, in general, Mixed teams seem to be taking the WUCC opportunity somewhat seriously. Perhaps I am an alarmist or simply a worrywort, but if the top Mixed teams skip the UPA's then it does not bode well for 2006 as the division is still wrestling with credibility when it comes to quality. In general, though, I think that the tournament will be attended by a lot of folks who want to go on a big trip, and, as a diversion, play some Ultimate in Perth, and, as a result, it might be hard to make the case that the tournament placed "established" club teams from around the world in competition with each other.

Read More...

Summary only...

Checking Out Real Ultimate

I had a few minutes during the tournament to run over and check out some real Ultimate. Meaning Open. I decided to grace the Dog/Sockeye power pool game with my presence and root for my Boston blogmates. I had, up until then, not much chance to see Al and Jim work during "Jim's Tournament", as I believe he called it, so I was pleased to be rewarded with a big upwind backhand from Al to Jim for a goal.

As I arrived at the field, I took my usual spot at the back of the end zone on the opposite side from the Crow's Nest. The crowds are thin there, so it makes for good viewing. I sat down to see 14 players standing around discussing a call, and I was able to decipher that Sockeye had the disc very close to goal that I was sitting at. The next 5 minutes was a real treat. There was about 30 seconds of Ultimate and 4:30 of arguing about an all-you-can-eat buffet of foul calls. Certainly this bodes well for Ultimate on TV as there was plenty of time for instant replay for those football viewers that can't pay attention the first time through, and, additionally, PLENTY of potential for commercial breaks. I awoke from my nap in time to see Fun Boy make a great lay out block in the end zone, and I think he might have been able to complete a pass before a series of little touch fouls erupted from the clusterfuck of bodies trying to get out of the way or get a block. I remember thinking at the time that I thought only folks in the MIxed Division called fouls on so little contact.

Very late on Saturday evening, Jim showed up at our party, and I had a chance to mention to him how impressed I was by the "action" that I had seen. I was not dissapointed as he responded, "Well, at least we can complete forehands". I said, "Right...in between foul calls". There was a brief pause as he cracked a smile, then added" well....fuck you". We all laughed and I , of course, ceded the debate to the intellectual prowess of his final argument.

On a serious note, I was able to get around and check out very good Ultimate from pretty much all the divisions, and I do believe that Nationals is a gift. The wind on Sunday was very difficult and that made it hard to showcase the best that the sport has to offer.

Read More...

Summary only...