Scobel Wiggins Photography

How will you seek to grow Youth Ultimate in areas where teams, leagues, and organizations are not thoroughly established, such as the Prairie States, the American Southwest, and the Big Sky?

As a new arrival in the West, I anticipate that I before long I will be getting involved with a variety of projects to get kids playing Ultimate, whether it's after-school Ultimate for local middle school kids, helping my daughter start a team at her high school, organizing a clinic or even a summer day camp for high school players, perhaps attending the state convention for PE teachers as a UPA volunteer, and supporting the work of the local State Youth Coordinator however I can. Note that these are things that I would do completely aside from any status I might have as a member of the board of directors of the UPA.

Aside from what I might do as an individual, the questions then are:

• What can the UPA do to get youth ultimate on a solid footing in 50 states,
• What can the UPA do to encourage and support motivated individuals who are working to develop youth ultimate , and
• As a member of the Board of Directors, how could I drive and assist those actions of the UPA?

In the interests of brevity, I've tried to boil down my answers to these questions into bullet points. For areas where Youth Ultimate is just getting underway, I think the following actions are needed:

• Aggressive recruitment of State Youth Coordinators in all 50 states (20 states held official, UPA-sponsored championships in 2008).
• A graduated approach to UPA sponsorship of state championships, whereby membership requirements (which can have a real dampening effect on new teams) would be waived for the first two years to help get the organizations off the ground
• A more useful, easier to use website (this can't be overstated enough! The present website is a serious barrier to participation!!)
• Expansion of the role of the State Youth Coordinators beyond just running the state championships into more grassroots approaches, such as coordination of participation in the state convention for PE teachers.
• Incentives for greater participation of UPA members to lead and develop local youth Ultimate (stipends, free lifetime or 5-year memberships, for example)

As far as supporting individuals, the UPA should be looking for and helping out people like Matthew Frayer, the person who is single-handedly trying to get youth Ultimate started in Michigan. Help such as publicity on the UPA website for his cause, low-cost or free materials he can distribute in schools, and logistical support (perhaps from the nearest Sectional coordinator?) are ways the UPA can work with him to develop the sport in Michigan, and help other individuals who might be trying to do the same in their own states.

How could I help as a board member? As you can see, I have no shortage of ideas. My job as I see it is to ask a lot of questions of the UPA, advocate for my special areas of interest, to poke, prod and maybe even nag a little to make sure as many of these things can happen as possible. One issue that came up in the discussions I was involved in around the Strategic Initiative was funding—glossy materials, instructional DVDs, subsidized discs, etc. cost money, and the UPA cannot and should not spend all of its money on this area (however important it is). The idea of seeking grant money to support intitiatives to get kids playing was floated, and I think this is an area where the Board of Directors could be very helpful.

What steps can be taken outside of the normal channels of Youth Development (established players coaching schools, outreach and communication with local orgs) to get young people playing Ultimate?

Many people may not be aware that millions of kids across the country are playing Ultimate—in PE classes! If these kids have a good experience in the class, they could be naturally motivated to start playing with their friends after school and possibly to start a club or team. The BUDA (Boston Ultimate Disc Alliance) Youth Program, which I worked with for a year, seeks to go out to local schools in a systematic fashion and help teachers put on a successful Ultimate unit. It was very gratifying to me to see how excited the kids and teachers would get about Ultimate, and it felt very important to point the way to the next step if they wanted to play more seriously. I think this would be a great model for the UPA to use to try to introduce Ultimate to areas where organized youth Ultimate does not exist. Perhaps the UPA should maintain a list of certified trainers (just as it certifies coaches) who would be available to work with schools. If nothing else, I think it is particularly important for the UPA to develop and distribute better educational materials such as a better PE curriculum (the one they have now is pretty unworkable), instructional DVDs geared to educators, clear rules, and information about what is going on in the world of competitive Ultimate (this really catches the interest of PE educators, many of whom run a unit on "Ultimate" in some form but have no awareness of the competitive scene). Providing access to low-cost discs could also be huge for many cash-strapped PE programs -- I encountered some really nasty "discs" while running clinics, which had to be a deterrent to enjoying the game.

The Huddle's Take: Mrs. Hartley-Greenwald is excellent candidate. We love the focus on an improved website and, as a general strategy, of the UPA as a supporter of grass roots efforts by individuals (via small grants and in kind assistant).