Score Reporter: the best thing since zone D

I wanted to write a little bit about how awesome the score reporter is. As far as I know this guy, Rodney Jacobsen, created this thing and I gotta say, it has revolutionized the archiving of ultimate. Hats off to you sir and thank you.

Now the cool thing about ultimate is that it is a fast evolving sport meaning that significant changes can be seen within 3-5 years of being involved with the sport. When I first started playing in 2002, the only way to look at who was good in the country was when the UPA released its top 25. Now this was ok, it let you know what people's records were, but you really didn't have a clue as to what their tournament performances were. Now this wasn't really a concern, at least not in my opinion, because the sport was much more about playing than following. If Stanford was 37-1 or Brown was 22-6, it didn't really matter because if you played against them, you knew they were good and a record really wasn't important and if you didn't play against them, then who cares, right? However, with the advent of the score reporter, data concerning the game completely changed. There was now a single popular database where anyone in the world could visit and check out who was doing what in ultimate. Up to date tournament results, schedules, records, everything you needed was right there in front of you. And it wasn't just college mens, it was everyone, open, mixed, juniors, womens, the works. How awesome is that?

Now this is kind of a chicken or the egg arguement. What came first, the interest in following ultimate, like you would baseball or football, or the score reporter that facilitated the delivery of information. I think the interest was there first because there were people that would go to tourneys just to watch before the score reporter came along. however, i find it to be an interesting arguement.

Back to the actual website though. The power that this thing has, is immense. I mean take a look at the most obvious thing, score reporting. Now instead of just having a record, you can track every game recorded. You can tell if it was a blow out or if it was close. And taken a step further, you can look at common opponents and see how your team would do given the oppurtunity to play. Taken further, there is a function where you can have a virtual score generated for every team in the country relative to a team of your chosing and you also get real life scores so you can determmine if in fact the algorithim is right. You can also predict when teams peak based on when they beat/lost to certain teams and you can also make predictions for tournaments, which I find fun. Above all, it makes ultimate more exciting and interesting. I was just in Japan but I could find out what the results for Canadian Nationals were right away. This really mattered to me cuz I love Furious and without the score reporter, I would have been clueless.

Another thing that makes this thing spectacular is that it is great for planning tournaments. if you are a TD all the potential algorithims for brackets and what not are laid out for you and all you have to do is plug in the teams. You also have the ability to make new formats if you want. This made planning a tournament so much easier for me and helped me break my TD cherry.

What is also really cool about this thing is that it allows you to look up teams and their websites. This can be fun if you are looking for pictures or video footage or merchandise, but it is also great because it can help you do research on teams that you might wanna play for, or are just interested in. You also have roster spots so you can see who is on the team, their number and how tall they are. my only criticism here is that for the most part teams are not up to date on the score reporter with their rosters and contact information. I think team captains should be encouraged to put their full rosters on line and have links to websites. Now this is a lot of work, I know, but I think it would be cool if you could somehow link the UPA roster information with the score reporter rosters, that would be cool.

And probably the coolest thing about the score reporter is that it is totally accesible to any UPA member. If you just played in a game you can report the score yourself even if you never come across the TD. This is awesome because it allows the TD to not always have to worry about running around and getting scores. I remember after saturday of yale cup I came home after the games to put the scores I had gotten and most of them were already up, BRILLIANT!!! What a fantastic invention!!!

This is all complimented with the fact that you can get up to date rankings based on a fairly good algorithim as opposed to having to wait for weeks at a time for the UPA or the NUMP to release some sort of hierarchy.

So if you take this post and my last post about ultivillage, I feel like the future of disc is within these two websites, as well as ultimate talk and RSD. You have the archiving of both technical data like scores and schedules, as well as video footage and interviews with ultivillage. Then you have the discussion with message boards and blogs. All of this new tech crap may seem over the top and unnescessary but it is the future of the game. In order to gain a larger auidence, it is important to make the sport look legit. This can be done by banning 3 digit numbers, getting numbers on shorts, observers etc... but it can also be done by establishing a very user friendly interactive network of documentation and discussion. I think the next few things that should be done for the score reporter are, like I said, better roster information, but also who took half in games and injuries.

This game is not just about your local team or summer league, its about every team. The world is getting smaller and it is important that anyone in the world is as up to date as possible with teams they are interested in. The few good tournaments like Flower Bowl that aren't on the score reporter need to get on board, not to mention fun tournaments like Potlatch, Paganello, Poultry Days, Kaimana, Wild Wood etc... I know for these tournies, the teams are not standard teams but thrown together ones, but that doesn't mean the information is not important. I mean I have been interested in teams like Nada Mooger, No Tsu OH, Voltron, Grey Tide, etc... for a long time but I don't know much about them and it is tough to get any information. The score reporter could be a good way to do this. I know that this puts a lot of work on the players themselves but I think that the interest is there. The cool thing about disc now, and people like Sholom and Rob are an example, is that its not just for playing anymore. There are people out there that wanna record disc and there are people out there that wanna discuss disc. On top of all of that, we all love to play it. So with that in mind, i think teams should really get on board with the score reporter, even more than they are now. I think websites like NUTC should also get involved. Consolidation is the best way to archive this sport and with more effort done to distill the information and make it public, who knows what will come out of it. I mean the score reporter was just a way of tracking games and spitting out a ranking system but it has sooo many more uses now. Just think if scobel and Rob consolidated their efforts, what if NUTC and DiscNW set something up, what if the Score-O-matic and the score reporter stopped competing. It would set the tone for an integrated sport across the country. This can potentially facilitate public access TV networks, international cooperation, etc... Maybe even some day there would be a singular "World's" tournament every year.

I am rambling as usual, but stuff like this gets me soo amped. Not to mention the club season is upon us and I am really looking forward to seeing what happens. In any event, I know I am probably preaching to the choir, but check out that score reporter, its sooo F-ing cool. Thanks a lot Rodney

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