The Huddle is planning on doing some coverage of the UPA Board Elections.

We’ll be following the UPA information (both candidate statements and audio interviews) and we’ll be placing one question to each candidate; we’ll ask something that seems important based on what they say in their statements. We’ll try to craft questions that force candidates to be specific and to answer a tough question on a relevant issue.

This is obviously our first time covering an election, so it is a work in progress, and will also depend on the candidates willingness to answer a tough question publicly. Hopefully we will have something for you to read right around the start of the voting.

Lastly, The Huddle will be “endorsing” a candidate for each vote; we’ll tell you how we would vote and why for each race, and we’ll try to fully disclose our own inherent biases as well.

In the meantime, keep checking the site for new issues, weblog updates, and features!

The UPA Club Championship Series begins this weekend with Sectional tournaments being held all around the country. While we cannot cover every Section, or even every Region, we are looking to Sarasota at the end of October to bring our readers innovative coverage of Nationals. We have some really interesting ideas of how to present our coverage, but we need some help.

We are searching for 1-2 writers to help report on the four-day tournament.

The type of person we’re searching for has an enthusiasm for Ultimate first and foremost. Experience writing and an understanding of photography and video—be it professional, amateur, or personal—are the main criteria we are looking at for people we think would succeed working with us.

The Huddle is a volunteer effort; we can’t pay your way to Sarasota. We are looking for people willing to volunteer their time and efforts to help us present Ultimate coverage in unique and innovative ways. So if you are going to Nationals, or are thinking about going, (or perhaps this persuades you to go), and are interested in helping out, let us know. Email us info@the-huddle.org.

We look forward to hearing from you very soon. And if you do get in touch with us, we plan on getting back to you in three or four days.

Thanks.

Andy & Ben

This week’s issue on sub-calling got me thinking about the sideline.

In Ultimate, the sideline is a funny thing. It’s unlike any other team sport. In baseball, basketball, soccer, hockey, volleyball, cricket, softball, kickball, and field hockey, players on the sideline are required to stay in their dugouts or on their benches.

The only sport relatively close to Ultimate in this fashion is American football, where players and coaches can roam the sideline to either 25 yard line, and only on their designated side. (Though this might just be a response to the amount of space necessary to house such large rosters).

Ultimate is different. Players can be on either sideline at any time, from back endzone line to back endzone line. You see opponents standing side-by-side, yelling to their teammates as their words become muffled together.

I wonder what difference it would make if there was no sideline as we know it. If players and coaches were restricted to a bench, how would the tone of the game change?

It seems as though defensives get more help from sidelines with “up” calls and “strike” calls on the mark. Take away the sideline and I think it would be to the advantage of the offense. Then again, it would force players on the field to talk to one another even more, which in any rule set can only be a good thing.

When players intermingle there can be a fair share of jawing between rivals during heated moments (that can easily escalate), and I have been in my fair share of uncomfortable situations standing among a group of opposing players as they criticize your team, its methods, and your teammates (which can also escalate).

Of the many things that make Ultimate unique, free sidelines is on the list. But I’m not totally convinced that the free reign that players have is in the best interest of the sport or of sportsmanship.

· Transatlantic: From Prague, an article about Czech Ultimate.

· The Collegiate Nationals website has a handful of videos from the 2008 UPA College Championships.

· From Flickr, a great action shot from Marco Malaca in the Philippines.

· The Way-Back Machine: From 1988, the New York Times does a feature on the sport on its twentieth anniversary.

Dear Readers,

We are lucky to have a diverse, intelligent and helpful readership. Our inbox (info@the-huddle.org) is always full, and we try to respond to as many letters as we can. Here is some of what we are hearing, along with our thoughts in response. Thanks again to everyone taking the time to write to us.

One possibility for the Huddle is to trial something other than just essays. Analysis of where players are on a field in a photo, or how someone’s grip looks in a photo could be useful. — O, Australia

This is a great idea, O. As we develop useful technologies, we will absolutely be trying to bring out some new resources. While the essay format is the simplest and least time-consuming for our authors (which is a major consideration) we are working on several other methods of bringing out the best of Ultimate strategy and techniques. Stay tuned…we think we have a couple of really cool features in the works.

I think you guys should look into **** ***** as a potential author for you, from *****. He has a blog, which I think is quite good. — F, Hawaii

Thanks, F. We’ve seen the blog; it is very good. For our first 6 months, we are focusing on authors that do not already have their own websites or blogs…since their views are already available, we want to bring new views to the readers whereever possible. Ultimatetalk.com is a great example; there are very excellent authors working there, but since they are already publishing (and don’t need our help) we have not been recruiting them for The Huddle. This will change at some point, for sure.

I think for quality control purposes you’re very much in the right to restrict your content to elite players and to disallow comments. That said, I think you could, under controlled circumstances, tap your readers for input. Instead of soliciting e-mail feedback on articles, authors, and topics, why not poll your readership—”What would you like to see covered in the next issue?” Perhaps you draw ideas from e-mails and go from there with voting, so you still have some degree of control there. — M, Japan

We agree. Public comments (and the RSD-like mess that can come with them) are something that our authors do not want to deal with, so we will continue with that setup. As we develop new tools, we will definitely want to harness the ideas of our readers. Polls, especially, seem like they could be very useful. Simply put, we just aren’t that advanced yet…but we hope to be!

Since I’m a big proponent of mixed ultimate, I just wanted to voice an opinion that I thought it was strange that mixed tournaments were being excluded from the write-ups that happened for ECC and are happening for Labor Day. — J, Northwest Region

Remember how women play Ultimate? I was frustrated by this when you covered the Sockeye Invite in such detail, but that time I let it go. This time, however, you need to step up and cover women’s ultimate as well – and mixed and master’s and youth and everything else for that matter. — E, Central Region

We have yet to release a single Feature on a tournament that hasn’t immediately brought comments like these. If we cover the Women’s division, we hear about it from the Mixed. If we write a Mixed feature, folks from the Masters division feel underserved. If we cover 11 of the 12 teams at a tournament, then calls for coverage of that last team immediately fill our email box.

The reality is that The Huddle is free, and is being created and run with the volunteer time of two guys that have jobs, families, and teams of their own. Moreover, we can only cover those events that we have an author for, and for which we can deliver a really quality analysis. If we can’t cover a Division of the game well, we aren’t going to cover it at all…and this means that someone, inevitably, is going to receive less coverage than they deserve…which sucks.

Ultimately, we hope to increase staff, have some kind of compensation structure for authors, cover all divisions, and make sure that even when both Andy and Ben have a lot on their individual plates that coverage still happens. We aren’t there yet, but we hope to be.

In the first bio on the page, “than” should be “that.” — D, Metro East

At The Huddle, editing is never perfect, and comments/typos/errors are eliminated with the help of our readers. Thanks to everyone that writes in to correct us; our goal is to get it right, and your help makes that happen.

I think it would be great to have some college players inputs on this stuff. A lot of the stuff that I see is for the higher level club play, and the college game just seems to be different. It is much more difficult to instill the patience and focus into 17 year old freshman than seasoned ultimate veterans. I guess that could be a feature in itself, teaching new players. — V, UPA College Division

It’s coming…keep reading this fall for an upcoming series of features on “Teaching the Game to College Players”, which seems like an appropriate time to start addressing how college teams develop.

Just read through the weblog and gotta say I really enjoy what you guys are doing with The Huddle. Great stuff, and looking forward to more. Thanks. — B, Youth Division

Thank you, B; this is what keeps us going!