Process of Illumination

This morning I snuck a pinch of haterade in with the ground cardamon, cinnamon, and nutmeg I usually put into my hexsspresso. And as the caffeine kicked in, so did my annoyance with a nationwide habit that players across all levels of play indulge in: the yelling of violations and infractions from the sideline.

How many times from the sideline have I heard, "Billy, that's a double-team," or, "Johnny, that's a fast count," or, without question the most abused, "DOWN!!!"

"Double team", "fast count", and "down", within the context of a game of Ultimate, are not just words, or appropriate sideline communication; they are violations with prescribed consequences; in the case of "down", it's a stoppage of play where the defense is asserting that a turnover occurred. And as such, those specific words should be left to the 14 players currently on the field, and them alone, to use.

Here are some alternatives that I endorse to my team. Rather than say the words "fast count", say, "that's very quick!" Then, at the next stoppage of play, from the sideline you can talk to your teammate and tell him, "dude is fast counting you every time." Play has stopped so feel free to say it then. Instead of "double team", say, "they're too close," "they're crowding you," or "their cup is on top of you." Then, at the next stoppage of play, talk to your teammate and tell her she's being double-teamed, tell her when it's happening, and tell her when and how to punish it. In a stoppage of play, say whatever you'd like.

But keep the word "down" out of your mouth when you're on the sideline. Don't go there at all. It stops play, and anyone on the field who hears it and stops can send the disc back to its location at the time of the infraction, which you can bet they will if, in the moments afterwards, their team was roasted. "Down" requires a disc check to put the disc back into play, and that all players be set in position.

To complain further, aside from "down!" being abused by reactionary knee-jerkers walking the sideline, it's also routinely abused by defenders on the field to stop play, second only to the travel call. Violations in Ultimate are meant to be called when you believe, in your heart of hearts, that a violation has occurred. But the burden of proof for calling a disc down has fallen so low that defenders now call it with little perspective on the disc, without actually seeing it touch the ground, with no angle on the catch, merely because they think that, hey, maybe, right? Of course, if you call them out on their lack of position to see what actually transpired, they're adamant about their call, instantly looking for the nearest holy text to lay their hand on and swear they saw it touch this blade of grass, or that one.

All this is further exacerbated by the confusion as to what happens when a disc is called down. Few seem to know play stops and must be restarted with a check, and often after a side conversation or two the offense will just put it back into play and off we go, official procedures be damned. Ugh, so annoying.

Aside from monitoring what we say from the sidelines to strike a balance between communicating to our teammates and constricting on-field play, let's raise the bar on the certainty we require of ourselves to call a disc down. You should have an unobstructed view of the disc; you should be able to see the moment it touched the ground; you should know, and not just think, hope or, extrapolating a trajectory in your head, assume that it should have been down.

SMFH,

Hh

 

I'm incredibly glad that Degs wrote that throwback article harking back to the days when things as pedestrian as loose tournament organization were a treat, rather than an expectation. I distinctly remember going to Easterns back when Mike Gerics was at the helm, and wondering who this dude was patrolling all the fields in the morning yelling and threatening to start assessing points if the game didn't start that instant.

"Dude's got a stick up his ass" might have been along the lines of what I was thinking as I saw him get red-faced, but by tourney's end there was no doubt that he held everything down and that, compared to other tournaments being run at the time, he was worlds above the rest in organization and professionalism. By way of example as to what was happening elsewhere, nine Madison dudes once showed up to a Easy Coast tourney on our way back home from spring break and picked up, as a team, at the tourney, half an hour before it began. Those were the days, for better or worse.

Since then we as a group have gotten our shit together a bit better (with still room for improvement) and tournament games start on time and expectations are clearly stated.

So why the hell is it that, three days before Hoosier Hodown, there is zero information up on their website, or on the UPA's tourney page, about what teams are going and what the format is? It's Wednesday. They already have a skeletal page constructed for the tournament. It would literally take 5 minutes for someone to go and type in, at minimum, the names of the attending teams. Or 20 minutes to go to the UPA's tourney page and plug in the format without team names.

But, c'mon. It's 2009. We as a group should be beyond this. I know that organizing a tournament is hard work, and delegation, and many small details aside, but at minimum post online for the few who care what teams will be playing. It's similar to the tree falling in the woods; if there's nothing online to begin planning, hype, and talking points, why would anyone care what the hell happened?

I don't think that is too much to ask.

Rumor has it the treasurer has been kicked off the Florida team for being unable to explain the disappearance of team funds, or embezzlement in French. I am shocked, shocked I tell you, to hear it was an old acquaintance of mine. A significant handler on last year's championship team, he might fancy himself. A fellow writer of ultimate musings, though perhaps lacking editing skills and, it seems, any love for his teammates.

Seems the team found out about this a bit ago, and finally decided on their course of action. And now people are beginning to talk.

Yo, dog, you.
Yeah, you.

The one I'm talking about here. Remember when we were under the shelter at Potlatch during the dance party and you started getting all douchebag aggro with me regarding Wisconsin and Florida? I thought the whole thing might be a persona you take on, as many do, within this world of disc. It's weird to think it was actually real.

And, as to the team that has to deal with this: fuck. It's the last thing one needs to focus on as the Series gets underway, but I'm sure they're big enough to get past it, as other teams in the past have been.

This all reminds me of the other dodes in the Ultimate Hall of Infamy, the players on Minnesota and Santa Barbara that got their teams kicked out of the Series. Which makes me wonder: who is the bigger dode, the one who takes money from his team or the one who gets their team kicked out the series? I'm still not quite sure on this, but I'm leaning towards the DQ'ers.

Or is it actually my cock? Sockeye's hubris came crashing down at nationals this year the only way it could have: in an orgy of poor throws, drops and wind undoubtedly whipped up by the Creator herself.
Only a female god could hand out justice so severly.
As Furious gathered round each other for a well deserved circle jerk, my mind drifted to saturday night of club championships one year prior.

I sat on the beach chairs outside the Surf and Racquetball around 3am while all around me players ran pell-mell trying to coordinate hook-ups and debauchery as the security cracked down. Seems around this time Colorado Co-ed teams were forever banning anyone Colorado from the site and one nameless ePig player was reenacting Fists of Fury in his suite and pulling fire alarms.

It was then, during all this chaos, I ran into a lucid thought. I stood up, looked at the Canadian I was with, and proclaimed, "The thought of Sockeye winning the national championship makes me nauseous." I then face planted into the sand and released back into the wild ten car bombs. The next time I made a memory I was awake in bed, people were cleaning up, and a teammate was telling me to get my shit in order
so we could go watch finals.

So now it was 2005, a year later, and in that time the sockeye sycophants had landed with the ferocity of a Texas neocon, proclaiming an end to ultimate as we know it and demanding monuments to several sockeye players be erected using UPA dues. So it was with some relief I saw Furious punctuate a volatile season where no one really believed in them with a win, and not too many points after the entire spectator sideline gave one particular Sockeye player and earful for a blantant cheating maneuver.

I was thinking somewhat about one of my favorite aspects of the ultimate cultures: the stacked team, created specifically for a fun tourney and spanning members of teams from across the nation. It's a great time to build comraderie among those who are usually your rivals and, if you come together well, kick some ass. The names of these teams can be irreverent, or insightful, or none of the above. And sometimes, teams beg to be named for them.

Here I have a theoretical team I'd love to see at a tourney somewhere. However, I withhold naming them. I'd like some input. What would an appropriate name be for a team comprised of the following individuals?

Phil Burkhardt
Peter Washington
Stephen Poulos
Matt Guy
Hoowa
Dennis Karlinski (sp?)
Pfil
Ryan Seguine
Adam Goff

There's some talent there, to be sure. But there is also...something else. I invite suggestions.