Mandy Eckhoff

of Somerville, Massachusetts

1 .What specific initiatives would you spearhead to simultaneously promote competitive Ultimate and recreational Ultimate throughout the country?

Competitive players need tournaments and schedules designed to bring them into contact with other top level teams. I would consider either endorsing or organizing two to three tournaments throughout the season that several top level teams commit to attending so that they have an opportunity to play other top level teams. I think UPA could encourage teams to attend by offering cash prizes and/or other incentives to the winners of these tournaments. I also think that competitive ultimate needs more observers for objective officiating and there could be more efforts directed at training observers and mandating them for games. At some point, all major sports abandoned self-officiating because the leaders of the sport realized that competitive players have a difficult time being truly objective. Observers allow players to focus on the game and their own play while allowing someone who is objective to enforce the rules.

For recreational ultimate, I think that it's important to remember that often recreational players are learning the sport, and for some, ultimate is one of the first organized team sports they've played. I would like to either revise the rulebook or create an addendum to add sections after the most frequently debated rules which describes specific applications of those rules during play. That way, a new player could read the revised rulebook or addendum and understand how the rules are applied in certain situations. I think this would clarify many of the on field debates that occur during games, even among experienced players, and help bring everyone up to the same level of understanding of the rules. This information should be distributed out to all new players.

I would also like to help the UPA put together a toolbox with information on how to start a recreational league. This toolbox would contain best practices from other leagues and help guide league formation in places where there is no current ultimate community but there are people who would like to try to create one.

2. What sort of considerations need to be made to effectively balance these two diametrically opposed ideas?

I don't think that competitive ultimate and recreational ultimate are diametrically opposed. I think recreational ultimate can feed into the competitive system and the competitive system can attract more people to play recreationally. Many of the best ultimate players I know started their ultimate careers by playing ultimate recreationally and many of the best players I know choose only to play recreationally. I do think that we need to recognize that competitive and recreational ultimate serves different types of players that have some different needs. I think that the types of players, their skill level, and what they want to get out of playing ultimate need to be taken into consideration when trying to improve both recreational and competitive ultimate.

3. How much money, in terms of UPA membership dues and total staff time, do you think can be appropriately used to promote competitive Ultimate? What returns do you expect for this effort for the average UPA member?

In order to answer the question accurately, I think I need to define the terms "competitive ultimate" and "average UPA player." I do not draw a distinction between competitive ultimate and the average UPA player. I define competitive ultimate as utlimate in which individuals are involved in tournaments play. My definition is broad and would include people at all skill levels and ages from high school tournments, to UPA series tournaments, smaller regional or local organized tournaments, to tournaments held by local leagues. I would not limit the definition to national level teams or tournaments. Given my definition of competitive ultimate, the definition of "average UPA player" would be a competitive player. Again, this does not mean a national level player per se, but someone who competes in UPA tournaments at least once a year who as a result of playing in these tournaments, is a UPA member. Thus, I believe that the 50% allocation directly goes to benefit the average UPA player as it would directly go to promote events and address issues that are directly related to them.

I would like to see at least 50% of the UPA dues and total staff time used to promote competitive ultimate. I think that promoting competitive ultimate benefits the average UPA member in three main ways. First, it raises the visibility of the sport which will attract more people to play ultimate and join the ultimate community. Second, the greater the number of people that play ultimate, the more opportunities there are for people to play at all skill and competition levels. Third, increasing the visibility and focus on competitive ultimate helps the average UPA member by helping to create a standard by which to measure their own skills and skill development and a way to learn new strategies and tactics for playing the game.

The Huddle's Take: We like Ms. Eckhoff's focus on rules knowledge and competitive Ultimate, though we fear that 50% of the UPA's time would be a massive undertaking that would hinder other aims.