How Important Is UC Ultimate To You?

The following is a UC Message Board post from Akira Yamaguchi: Machine officer, CHC Tournament Director and erstwhile league gadfly-cum-Socratic cynic. While I may disagree with him on several points, I respect how much thought he’s put into this and his emphasis on personal initiative — he played a small but influential role in the birth of this site. Due to the general unreliability of the message boards I have reposted his comments in their entirety.

Provacative title.. get ready for the long-winded setup…

I’ve had some thoughts in my head for a little while (hard to believe, I know..). They weren’t fully formed and they could be mildly inflammatory so I’ve been sitting on them.

I went to the UC Town Hall meeting a couple weeks ago. I’ve been sporadically beating poor Ben up with some of these ideas for a little while, and he actually gave voice to them in passing at one point in the meeting.

(Random Aside: Would be great if slides/notes/minutes could find their way online).

Ben said something to the effect of trying to develop the organization and board in such a way that the board is not perpetually stuck in ‘the doing’.

By this, as I’ve been pushing it to him, the board needs to get out of the business of running leagues and making ultimate happen on a day to day basis. The board needs to be providing management structure and frameworks, advice, long-term planning and resourcing, etc.

Maybe I got this wrong. And Ben did just mention it in passing. And the topic of the meeting was more specific. But I was totally struck by how it flew by the room and seemed to elicit no comment or discussion.

Being the town hall meeting, being on a Saturday afternoon with nary a disc in sight, and being the room was so full that some folks had to stand the whole time… presumably these are some of the most motivated and interested of the membership and community. I just thought it was odd.

Connecting the dots it should have occurred to someone that if the board wasn’t going to run the leagues then someone else had to, and so that meant someone would be hired (and so fees would go up) or that members of the community OTHER THAN the board would have to step up and be the ‘doers’. Right? Like what else is there..?

Separate tangent that ends up in the same place..

I’ve been mulling for a bit as to how long / when / what year before some part of our community, wanting to play Ultimate, will be unable to b/c of some outright obstacle, like, say, fields.

This question crossed my mind at the Town Hall meeting, to ask of the folks assembled and to see what they thought or if they cared. I asked this question of Ben a couple weeks ago at pickup. I think he thought we were close but maybe a couple-few years away. I guessed this year, and if not next year definitely.

Now it looks like a UC league that happened last year (Women’s League for those interested) may not happen this year b/c of an outright obstacle — fields. Well, fields with lights on a weeknight to be specific.

So I guess I win a prize. Or something.

So then– do you care?

Is this important to you? Is getting to play Ultimate important to you? Is the community being able to play all of its Ultimate potential important to you?

Consider some of the flaws with the current model:
-we all need fields to play
-fields and field relationships are scarce
-the community and desire to play is growing

b/c of this you get:
-the knowledge base on field possibilities is small and very, very unevenly distributed

Why?
-it is not in the best interests of individuals and teams to share their field contacts
-there is competition within the community for a fixed, scarce, resource (fields)

Even though:
-we are all joined at the hip in that a bad experience with one ultimate group can poison a site for all ultimate there

Bill Finn and I co-run a weeknight open league under lights in the Spring. Last year, the organizers (including my girlfriend) of the UC Women’s League, were up sh*t creek as far as fields and lights. So I gave Angela one of my other contacts, a site she didn’t even know existed, and they got 2 fields under lights at a good rate blahblahblah. Gave them. For free. Transfer of value.

This year that site apparently isn’t working out. Alternative sites they have dug up might not be working out either. I have the fields I need at my site for my league already (I think).. But I know now that the Women’s League organizers are in the same queue a bit behind me somewhere.

Conculsion: It is not in one’s best interest to be sharing field info. The incentives are all wrong. We are competing within the circle against each other, rather than trying to discover, cultivate, and manage relationships across the landscape. Why aren’t we organized to compete for fields against, soccer, rugby, cricket, football, lacrosse, etc.? (Well, that takes work.)

Why should you care?

We may have just banged up against the (current) hard ceiling — the most Ultimate that we can support with our current resource base is being tapped. Potential play will be left untapped or the base must expand.

So then, for discussion..

What’s it to you?

Do you care?

What, if anything, are you willing to do about it?

Really?