MLU, refs, observers, and SOTG

So after reading a thread on RSD about MLU I thought I would drop my 2 cents of what I think about officiated ultimate.

First off, one of the few things that I really despise about ultimate (and there are really only a few), is that depending on how important the game is, different ways of officiating and making calls occur. I think that this sucks. You have a game at lets say some sectional tournament and you may or may not have obervers. I don't even think we had observers at NE regionals, at least not on saturday. Now some will say, "well those games don't matter as much so we don't want to put resources into them (ie observers) and we'll devote them more to games to go, finals, etc..." Now I understand about allocating resources and money and time but this sucks. it bascially means that unless your team is stellar or you are competing to go to nationals, or at nationals, you are playing in a less important game. I know that there are great programs out there that deserve the scrunity and rigidity of observers and well officiated games, but I think as ultimate players, as long as we all play for established teams at established tournaments, we all deserve observers and what not. Thats what makes ultimate weak. One game is not necessarily equivalent to others. In other main stream sports, it does not matter if its a league game, bracket play, the playoffs or the championships, you have a ref calling fouls, travel, pass interference, etc... Every game is the same, the implications might be different but the observation of the rules is completely the same. I like this about basketball, soccer, football, etc... You have skilled people watching the game and making calls where needed. Ultimate should be no different, I don't care if my consolation game at Southerns doesn't matter, I have a UPA ID and a jersey and I paid my dues just like Dan Heijman or Jacob Goldstein and I deserve the same amount of respect and attention as they do. Having observers at every game is more important than having observers/refs at important games. I think that the difference is pivotal. The finals at nationals should be well observed and watched carefully, but so should every other game, at least in the series, because every player deserves the same amount of devotion from the UPA.

Secondly, I don't like that players have to make their own calls. This sucks because not every game is the same. Depending on how bull headed or cheap or passive or quiet a player is, it implies a lot of things about what sort of calls they will make. You also have players (like myself) that are out there looking for specific calls like travels. maybe they don't matter, but a lot of players don't watch feet as much as others and lord knows they shouldn't have to. However, if you have a guy on your team or better yet the team you are playing against that loves to watch for travels, s/he'll call them all day long and potentially swing the game in his favor, all while completely staying within the confines of the rules. I want to follow this with 2 statements: 1) I do think that travel calls and picks and questionable foul calls should be made (not necessarily by the palyers) becasuse a rule is a rule no matter how minor it maybe and 2) I do think that they can have a profound impact on the game. I remember the 2005 finals between brown and colorado. In that game brown called a lot of legit travel calls and it obviously disrupted the colorado flow. I think beau got 3 called on him on 3 consecutive attempts at throws. However, no one can deny that there are some impure motives at play here. Brown wants to win and they are gonna take very oppurtunity they can get (not to say that they are playing cheap, just very intelligent, very DoG esk). However, perhaps Colorado plays more in your face, I am gonna beat you to the spot and doesn't worry not worry about calls (and I think this is true because if they were worried about calls, their players would not commit so many infractions). This gives the advantage to brown because they can upset the rhythm of the game and potentially swing it in their favor. not to say that this got them the championship, but it helped. So I guess my overall point is that people are different. Some are anal about the rules, some are really intense, some are very vigilent, some don't care about the rules. All these inconsistencies make the game weaker. Players are responsible for making their own calls instead of just playing the game. If they break the rules, blow the whistle, and let an impartial party decide the course of action.

I guess I observers and better yet refs in games because I don't like inconsistency. i am a very black or white person and the human factor in ultimate makes it weaker. This is not an arguement based on fan appeal or increased acceptance in the community at large. I think that refs are good to make ultimate a better sport, and this may or may not increase popular appeal. I mean come on, its not like the world needs electrifying play to get into a sport. i mean take cricket or baseball or even soccer, these sports have no where near the velocity and intensity that ultimate has (at least for a sustained amount of time) and they all trounce ultimate in appeal. They are all, however, extremely well observed and players are respected for their ability to play the game within the confines of the rules. No one knows about rule nazi athletes (except maybe doug flutie and that drop kick FG) and players that break the rules or bend them beyond where they should get kicked out of the sport or punished (Mike Tyson, Vinnie Jones, Mark McGuire, etc...).

I for one do not want to see ultimate hit the big time because then it will be taken away from people like me. I am no Michael Vick but I still get to play the game at a high level. Very few people out there get to play basketball, football, soccer or hockey outside of rec leagues and I don't want ultimate to head that way. i think it is fine where it is. However, I do think that refs would be helpful. Observers are good and I will conceed that but the weakness is that a player has to make a call and if they are too shy to make them or too much of a dick and make too many, observers can be misused (or not at all). I like the idea of an impartial party running things, not only because it will make the game move faster and smoother, but every game will theoretically be the same. From fall tournaments through the club season, every organized ultimate game, not unlike high school football, college lacrosse, pro basektball, or anyother main stream sport, will be judged the same.

I think parts of MLU are good and I appreciate all the work that people like Ian McClellan and Wiggins have put in, but I don't think that making the game look cooler should be the motive, it should be to make the game more pure and distilled. As much as I don't want major athletes to take the game way from me, I do want the game to be pure and unbiased, very clean cut and efficient, very cut and dry. A foul should always be called and their should not be any ambiguity in it. Maybe some refs are better than others (as can be seen with ref criticisms in the NBA, MLB, NFL etc...) but at least the calls are coming from an impartial party. Game importance, human emotion, fear, desire, all those things cloud the game. Every game should be the same and that is what it means to be a professional. A professional does not get rattled at the foul line (not a good one anyway), a professional doesn't let the importance of a game affect how he plays it (at least not negatively) and a professional plays his game (or at least should) the same way whether it is week 1 of the season or the super bowl and that is what ultimate as a sport should strive for.

Now there is a lot of debate with things like money and what not and for all intensive purposes, the UPA is doing a great job, i understand that you can only have so many observers. But people should be focusing on how to make the game played at a crisper level, not a more exciting one. This isn't the XFL. If the outside community likes our sport (which most do after getting into it) things like a 2 point line, a stall count at 7, throwing out a new disc if another one goes out of bounds should not be saving us. It should be the respect of the fans and the knowledge that every player out there is equal in the eyes of the game and the only thing that separates them is their passion and talent. If some one wants it more then fine, they win. But if someone likes to make calls or knows the rules better giving them an adavantage, that just makes our sport look imperfect.

In the future I would like to see observers at evey game, not unlike refs at little kids soccer, baseball, football games etc... This will take time and I think the biggest thing holding us back is that there are just not enough people who care enough about ultimate to watch it as closely to make the necessary impact that an observer can make. This will however change as the sport grows (like it has been the last 30 years) and more and more people get into it. Once observers are skilled in making calls and watching the game and there are enough of them, the reigns should be passed off to them to control the rules so that players can just be concerned with the game, not the way it is played. Basically a referee, not an observer. Its not unlike a captain passing off line calling to a coach. A coach should/is impartial about playing time, he just wants the best for his team and taking that responsibility away from the captain allows the captain to focus on his game and the game of his team mates, not admin stuff like points played and stats.

These are my thoughts. I have a lot of other opinions concerning MLU outside this debate that I think are important but I will get to those in another post.

match diesel