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You stated a desire to have more women on the board. We'll forego the normal political correctness and just ask straight-out: Why? Women's divisions are significantly smaller in terms of total players, and in open forums (like the UPA Strategic Planning forums, RSD, etc) women are significantly underrepresented. It has been said (only half-jokingly) before that if Gwen Ambler doesn't organize it for the Women's division, it won't happen. Do women really want more representation, or are the smaller women's divisions not yet ready?

Save for playing on a Master's level team, you have been involved in Ultimate at virtually every possible level of the game. As a BOD member, you need to find common interests of all these divisions and then, most likely, choose a few changes that you can try to push hard for. Where, specifically, do you think this push needs to be made to help the most possible divisions right now?

Asking if women want more representation on the board might imply that it would be a new thing to have multiple women on the UPA Board of Directors. In fact, the exact opposite is true. Looking back through 2003, this year has the fewest number of women on the board of any election cycle in that period. In 2005, there were six women representatives helping set UPA policies. I knew I would get some flack for "playing the gender card" by explicitly mentioning the current gender composition of the UPA board in my candidate statement, but I felt it was important situation to highlight for the membership. I also wanted to be completely honest about a big part of my motivation for running in this election.

Promoting women's ultimate has been a passion of mine for years, but I have not been alone in this quest. Far from it. Scores of coaches selflessly devote hours and hours to introducing women to ultimate and teaching them the intricacies of the game. As a result of the increased presence of skilled coaching, the level of play in the college and youth divisions has dramatically risen in recent years. Numerous dedicated organizers have helped youth leagues spring up across the country, providing opportunities for high school (and even middle and elementary school) girls to discover ultimate and fall in love with the sport. Thanks to these tireless efforts, female youth players were the fastest growing UPA membership group between 2005 and 2007 with a 42% increase in numbers! Countless team captains work all year long to build their school's programs: recruiting better athletes, traveling to more competitive tournaments, and pushing their teams to train harder (and smarter). The resulting depth and athleticism visible on the field at the College Championships these days is remarkable. The contributions of such champions of women's ultimate should be applauded.

The UPA has also been an ally in promoting women's ultimate and has supported women's outreach through a number of different programs including clinics, waivers for coaching certification fees, and new-team starter kits. As a board member, I intend to keep women's growth as a priority. Continuing to supporting women ultimate players is a necessity if women are to comprise more than a third of the total UPA membership (currently, 30% of all members are female).

Nonetheless, my candidacy is about much more than single-mindedly focusing on women ultimate players. As The Huddle's question alludes, I have been involved in many different levels of play in multiple divisions. I plan on bringing to the table the perspectives these experiences have afforded me, finding common ground in the priorities of different membership constituencies and working towards advancing the sport in a way that benefits most players. The board's five-year strategic plan has identified numerous strategies to develop and implement, and I think the most immediate push should be directed towards re-structuring both the college and club divisions.

A major issue is that the current structure can often serve to inhibit growth in some areas, especially for those teams that do not expect to attend Regionals. I support creating an official Division II in the college Series, something that would likely go hand-in-hand with redrawing sectional and regional boundaries. For the club division, taking advantage of the good weather during the summer for a sanctioned "regular season" before the Fall Series could also provide more opportunities for teams to play, and thus more incentives for teams to form. As an additional benefit, a regular season schedule could also be used to showcase and promote important games between high-level teams. The growth of the college and youth divisions in the past few years means that there is an ever growing population of players looking to play club ultimate, but the creation of new club teams has largely stagnated in both the women and open divisions. As teams become more and more established each year in the mixed division, the rapid increase in mixed teams could also level off unless new structures are put into place to help more teams find competitive outlets.

The Huddle's Take: Ms. Ambler has a shrewd view of how best to serve and support the current growth of the sport, and the breadth of her experience is uniquely suited for the Board of Directors. We expect Gwen to be key to the Board's perspective, fact-finding, and discussions, and we believe she is a top candidate.