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Whether or not you know it, this election is extremely important. For you college players out there....imagine if you had 4 years of eligibility, but you could play it in 5 years. All 5th year seniors are now ineligible, and massive amounts of time and energy go into deciding which injuries deserve a 'red-shirt' year. College captains frequently hold their most promising rookies out of the Series to save a year of eligibility. NCAA red tape without the payoff. Think that sounds fun? That proposal was voted down by Board by a single vote. UPA Board decisions affect us all.

After careful research, including talking to knowledgeable, confidential sources (players and organizers around the country), the Editorial Board of the Huddle has chosen endorsements in each race. We offer these endorsements as a synopsis of our research and our best judgement of the potential for each candidate. While it would be optimal to have an independent, unbiased entity gathering this research, we submit that, without professional journalism, the best research is going to come from those that are invested in the sport and it's development. We hope that The Huddle can continue to act as, first and foremost, a provider of useful information about the sport.

Our biases are many. We know three of the candidates personally (David Janinis, Jamie Nuwer, and Gwen Ambler) and have interacted with or played against several others on occasion (Ben Feldman, Seth Grossinger, Frank Huguenard, and Todd Leber). Gwen Ambler and Jamie Nuwer have submitted articles for The Huddle in the past.

Our personal biases lead us to, in general, support candidates that offer specific, fiscally-responsive proposals.

We support continued investment in Youth organizations, increased focus on the College Division, future experimentation with rules systems and new competition models (like Elite leagues) where these proposals are financially good risks.

We are strongly in favor of promotion of diversity among the growing membership, efforts to educate the membership about the rules, independent oversight/publicity for the UPA, an improved online UPA presense, and stratified membership rates for league players.

We believe that the UPA is our best bet for organized growth of the sport, but believe that true innovation is more likely to come from the membership, and that the UPA's role is to support those innovators when the investment is likely to give returns for the growth of the sport.

As these are our personal beliefs, they are likely to influence which candidates we endorse.

If the combined ability and passion of these candidates is any indication, this next Board term will be thoughtful, aware, open and productive. We intend to do our part to hold them to that.