right on.
i feel that "by any means necessary" type of competition takes that comment in the wrong direction. i hate it when players flagrantly foul because they are too out of shape or outskilled to play good d. but without any method of enforcement (and by this i mean penalizing the player who committed the foul) ulti is stuck in a very odd spot. i feel that sportsmanship has seemed to have gone to hell (from what I have read on the blogs) in upper level ultimate, and that is trickling down to lower levels.
the other problem i see is the "escalation effect" that this causes. for example, I was playing in a tournament, getting run over by a bigger, and slower player after catches. so, after about ten points of getting clobbered by this ogre, i see him about to do the same thing, and put an elbow into his stomach. is this wrong?
dear anon. if that is your real name. here's the 'big picture' of my experiences in play, w/ spirit... (this is worthy of an entry... but... oh... wait, I can cut and paste to the page)
(that said, i've had a couple beers, i'm feeling chatty, so your comment will now be the lead in to a longer post)
poor players are currently encouraged to foul.
sportsmanship has gone to hell at the highest levels and is trickling down.
i'm actually going to end up disagreeing with the points (AS I'VE STATED THEM), so if i'm innacurately restating my points in my effort to create a straw man for response... please chime in...
(that said, i've had a couple beers, i'm feeling chatty, so your comment will now be the lead in to a longer post)
1) first learning, in oregon in the early 90's 'physical play is encouraged, but more like, this guy was into me, but i made the play so i'm the man... (not, get into guys to stop them from making the play). my lesson, i'm (like aj, on another blog, OK w/ some physical, but it plays to my strengths...)
2) i moved to georgia, and played in 92-93 as a sort of athletic new player on a medium team (like quarters at easterns, qualified for nationals, but not particularly good)fair play was not discussed, but it was somehow ingrained. maybe it came from some sense of fair play, or that ultimate came from a background of sportsmanship as related in my previous post.
3) We got better, and my elligibillity got stressed. I (me) focused on the things i had learned in club play. The mark. Get the disc. Focus on these CAN lead to a win at all cost mentallity. I'd like to think that i remained a basically fair player, but I was certainly competetive. I perhaps 'got into it' on occasion.
4) OUt of elligibillity, my last year in atlanta, I played for chain. Fighting for everything, I developed into a 'marker'. A good one, but as a 6'2 guy, trying to stop everything, i sometimes caused contact. Was I cheating? I hope not. Unlike Jim and Alex though, I WAS trying to stop the play. When called for a foul, I tended to not contest. Does that make me 'pure?' Probably not, but, in keeping with my own personal ethos, I see it as 'letting the opposing player make the call when the ball is in their own court.'
5) Moved to seattle. Spent from March to September trying out w/ Sockeye. Was once chastised (by Jon G) for making nice w/ Kodiak after a scrimmage. Thought that weird. Got cut the day before Chicago. Ate the ticket.
6) 3 years of dallying w/ sockeye... getting cut/ not trying out. Became a solid mediocre player
7) Made Sockeye. Strength was the mark. Never minded getting called for a marking foul, BUT, never TRIED to foul...
8) Played for sockeye... AND then, and now, I have a very low tolerance for 'cheating.' To my discredit, I am a reacter(or). I have no problem screaming obscenities at someone who is cheating. I also always approached my team mates, the observers, and told them when I felt someone was out of line. Along the way, I never had a problem flipping off a crowd when I thought they were out of line, for I firmly believe, the only thing that lies more than the disc is the drunken side line.
9) Semi Retirement. Biggest pet peeve? Lack of understanding of rules AND... people who don't/can't see what happened...
Are poor players encouraged to foul?
My biggest issue w/ co-ed play (and league play) is that spirit of the game is misinterpreted to mean "let me win." This is hard to explain. If someone on a team calls themselves in, I'll let it go. If someone fouls a new team mate, and then tries to brow beat them into submission, well, it's on. They are not always new players BUT...
Has sportsmanship gone to hell at the highest levels and is trickling down?I actually feel it's trickling up. The willingness of older players to discuss an event DOES slow the game down. Does it result in the wrong call? I don't know. Does it result in a less televisable game? Obviously, yes.
Where am I going with this? good question.
What do we want the game to look like on TV? I just watched the 2000 mens final. Good game: but lots of calls. When I watched the 2005 finals of college, I took it upon myself to count the stoppages of play. 60 something, as I recall, and I think I won a bet. But as a player, I thought both were good games.
Certainly, compared to American Football, the flow was much more consistent. During my play w/ Sockeye, my mom and stepdad were there every year to watch every game: they thought it was great (but I mean, it's a mom) even w/ me yelling invective at those cheating fuckers from (insert here).
Do we want it to look like soccer? Then, yes, we have to have a whistle, and play continues until the whistle blows. I'm not actually sure that this makes a better game. It's better for the offense... but.
So the real question is, what SHOULD ultimate look like, and for whom?
Oh, and why do I think it's trickling up? I played sports in HS, but as we start to get more people accustomed to reffing, are they not accustomed to having their decisions made for them? I'm actually changing my mind in the past few days, and here is why: I'd like our sport to be more like Andy Roddick over ruling the chair and calling an opponents ball in. We can be a sport of gentlemen, AND have refs as well. No one should just cheat.
The people on the blogs (jim, alex, tim, idris) are by and large classy. Well except jim. No just kidding. I mean idris. No really. You're dealing w/ people who care enough about the sport to think, and write constantly. None of the aforementioned are cheaters. All are really talented, except me. I"m just lucky. So here's the rundown.
Jim: O player. Battled w/ Faust (read RSD for a discussion of this talented but aggressive player) then Enns of Furious (famous, at least from jim of spearing).
Alex: Bestest, slowest player ever. His throw to jim v. tully is the greatest I ever saw, and I don't remember it the same way he does (al, chime in w/ a link). I actually remember it as 10 players watching 4 players make a play. It was in the air for that long. Did he complain of anything other than some physicallity? Because I've seen alex do some cheap travels (96 nationals, step and drag pivot to set up for a flick goal).. so I don't think he's saying he's been hacked out of a title.
Idris: Famous for the dive and huck... not bad, but certainly, on occasion a poster child for the non continuation throw. But a true student of the game, and really, really coordinated.
Timmy: O/D player. And has no complaints. I suspect he was hacked the most...
That said, i'll wrap up the ramble with this.
I somehow got poison oak coaching this weekend.
The worst foul (most effective) is the light touch on the receivers arm as he's about to catch it.
I never did better than a bronze at world... but, w/ 6 club, 2 college, and 3 world appearances, most people are pretty classy. Let's figure out a way to make parties in the beer garden the norm, not, the MLB practice of no fraternizing after the game.
Unless you can pay me.
The eff you, eff face.
7 comments:
Bestest, slowest player ever. Could be the nicest thing anyone has ever said about me...
I'm trying to figure out who the he is you're talking about (complaining about physicality).
Probably my most egregious 'cheating' was earlier in my career against the zone when I pushed the envelope on catching the easy reset and doing a sort of shuffle travel forward. I didn't really think about it and no one usually called me on it, so I really didn't become aware of it until later. Now when I do it I manage it properly by putting my pivot foot where I want to end up. I'm contorted, but when I move my body to catch up to my pivot foot, they can't complain, although at this point it shows up more often in hot box/goaltimate then in ultimate. Other than that, I have tried to play as fairly as I can, and don't recall any really bad calls that I have made (and don't get me started with Worlds '00). The most dubious ones might be fouls on a long backhand where the contact occurs after the release, but the foul is made before you realize that. There was one of these against Bravo, but fortunately it was caught, so I didn't have to face the ethical dilemma.
Probably my biggest failing has been being very intense and competitive during games, which has usually meant that I argue a lot, and not always on my calls... I was unable to calmly make my points, especially when I couldn't believe somebody was making a particular call (or contesting one). I look back on some stuff now and I'm embarrassed, for instance, basically forcing a Doublewide guy to have a turnover on a layout D that he sort of put on the ground. I was the only one that really caught the nuance of it, and proceeded to lose my mind for probably 5 minutes on rules minutiae and getting the guy to admit. I was right, but in retrospect, not one of my prouder moments, especially because my team was leaving me out to dry. But I also say this because we were winning the game and probably in no fear of losing. If we had been down, would I feel as gracious now? I would have to imagine now. It is always easier to be generous against a lesser opponent.
Actually, there was a flare-up in the Sockeye semi with some young dude (probably not young, but everybody is young to me at this point). He and I had been 'good-naturedly' jawing for a lot of the game, and at some point, we were right near one of my teammates foul calls. As is my wont, I felt compelled to offer my opinion, and my guy said 'Can't you ever shut up?' pretty loudly. To which I naturally responded with something along the lines of 'Hey, I haven't up to this point in my career, why start now?' I think it was the same point, and after we scored (downwind), on his way back to the line, he dropped his shoulder into me as we walked by each other. Naturally, I didn't take that lying down and proceeded to get in his face, and there was a little bit of a hullabaloo on the field, with people holding us both back. Talking on the sideline to his teammates, once they learned that he had dropped his shoulder into me they were appalled. I didn't hear anything more of it until the handslaps after the game, he apologized as we walked by, I said no problem, but he really apologized again, wanted to make sure that I knew it. Again, from the whole generosity perspective, it would have been interesting to see if he had said the same thing if we had won.
Luke, how do you remember that throw to Jim? What do you remember differently from what I/Jim wrote (although I can't find mine right now). Basically, 5-holed on a bladey pull from Cribber out the back. Fortunately, walkup rules still in effect back then, so walk up to the right corner of the endzone. Long armed Andy Sheeman forcing me middle, but almost straight up. Jim 10 yards upfield with Tully covering him. NY had switched to force backhand on me with a deep poach this game. It had been working OK, but this time it wouldn't. Jim and I knew immediately he would go long. He jostled a few times, then sprinted deep. I waited a few seconds to freeze the deep poach, then jacked a long backhand. To get around Andy's arms, I pushed it WIDE left, and it went out of bounds less than half way up the field, and then careened down the far sideline before curving just enough so that Jim, who had been in full sprint from the instant of the release, was able to catch it barely dragging a foot inbound, and literally on the far goal line, definitely the longest non-windy throw I have ever made with a pivot foot (sqrt(40^2 + 70^2) = 80 yards, much less not for a goal.
It was SO far out of bounds... I was there, I didn't play for chain that year (i was for some inane reason, trying to improve my college team), but i remeber vividly watching the play. I remember it going out of bounds near mid field, so again, a really sharp out of bounds angle... and high in the air, and i'm watching it, with a group, and they turn away, to look at the other game, and i'm still watching, and i grab these people, and i'm yelling, 'dude check it out, i think it's coming back in...' so there's all this talk, and it just SEEMED like it was in the air forever, and that everyone was just... kind... of watching it. I mean, it was basically a GOOD pull, so you're telling me there was NO one on the field other than jim and tully who could run over there? maybe not, but it seems like there were other people, towards the back of the stack who might have headed over there to check it out... obviously, i wasn't in the game, but that was my impression at the time: the fans thought it was gone, the players thought it was gone, but jim kept running the play, and tully kept chasing jim...
The stack was really short at that point, precisely because they knew I was looking to make that throw. I'm sure they were all thinking the same thing you were when the throw went up, that there was no way it was coming back in.
You know, to this day I'm still unbelievable steamed that this game was NOT caught on video by ANYBODY. It was definitely one of the most intense and exciting games I have ever been a part of.
And are you sure it shouldn't be bestest slow player ever?
no, no, you're actually slower than some of the others...
I had another non-participant email me recently to mention this huck, and I've discussed it well after the fact with at least one other person. Maybe I should make an entry, "Tell me what you think about that one huck."
The throw was not a hanging pull. It was low the whole way, I was already close to full speed when it was thrown, and I had to keep at full speed (if not overdrive) to get there, so I really don't think anyone else on the field had a shot at it. The only reason Tully had a shot at it was because it was all the way on the other side of the field and he had an angle at it. And I suppose that others trailed the play, as I was able to come back to the line and throw a goal right away.
Al, it doesn't appear to me in real time that your little "handler hop" has your pivot foot where you want it to end up when you catch it.
I never had an issue with the way that Faust played defense. It's just a lot of little stuff, like beating me repeatedly at Connect Four at Worlds 1995, or claiming (he says jokingly) that Cornell had the best zone offense in the country, or trying to argue that a pull hitting a tree that was 10 yards OB should be played where it came back in, or for his pivots (my wife refers to him as "The Mad Pivoter").
I think I was probably referring to goaltimate/box instead. I don't really do the handler hop anymore in ultimate zones (I don't think), although I definitely used to do it.
As for Faust's D, I had an issue with it when he was covering me as a handler at Nationals (I think it was NY semis, but don't remember anymore), I totally roached him going up the line, and he stuck his knee out to get contact then called foul which was a totally bullshit call. Other than that, I enjoyed roaching his poaching when he covered me. I do believe he has some personal issues with me, which he expressed quite forcefully one nationals when he was with JAM, probably two or three years ago, when he said something during pool play along the lines of I shouldn't even be playing the game (the implication being physically, etc.). I guess the bitterness of never winning the big one had finally gotten to him.
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