Officials in Ultimate

As many of you know, the UPA has been experimenting with the role of Observers at several college and club tournaments (http://upa.org/ultimate/rules/experimental_events) as part of its strategic plan. The role of Observers, or more generally, of any type of “officials” in our sport, has long been a contentious one. There are people on either side of the issue that believe either that full-on referees are the only way to legitimize our sport, or that any movement towards taking control of the game out of the players’ hands will be the downfall of what makes our sport special and unique. There are certainly merits to both sides of the argument. On the one hand, as a player, I have certainly been frustrated on occasion, when playing in unobserved games, when I felt like other players were playing with poor spirit or abusing the responsibility of self-officiating. On the other hand, I have also heard school administrators say that SOTG and self-officiating are the reasons that they have brought Ultimate into their schools. As our sport grows, we need to decide whether we want to market ourselves as a sport just like any other sport, or whether what sets Ultimate apart from other sports can be part of our ticket to success.

I have been playing elite women’s Ultimate for 8 years now. As a player, one of the things that I love most about the sport of Ultimate is the fact that good-sportsmanship is valued even at the highest level of competition. When I played basketball in high school, I never thought about sportsmanship. I thought about playing my best and doing whatever it would take to win. As an Ultimate player, I have come to value what the way I play says about me as a person. I value not only the challenge of playing my hardest, but the added challenge of being honest in the heat of the moment- even in a critical point at Nationals- and upholding my core values of what is right and wrong even when the rest of me wants to win more than anything else.

As a player, I really appreciate having the freedom and responsibility to control the game myself by making my own calls. However, with that comes the frustration of seeing other people make calls that I disagree with. Only a small fraction of those people are deliberately cheating. A larger fraction of them do not know the rules correctly. The majority of them, however, simply believe that their version of what transpired is correct (and statistically, about 50% of the time, they’ll be right!). This is where Observers come in. I appreciate the fact that I have the ability to ask a third party, neutral arbiter to make a ruling on the call. However, I personally wouldn’t want to give up my right to make my own call in the first place. Giving up this right would, in my mind, take away a lot of what makes Ultimate so much fun- that blend of intense competition and sportsmanship that tests you as a player and as a person- the “Ultimate test”, if you will ☺. Having Observers still allows me to play the game the way I want to, but mitigates the effect that players who don’t know the rules or choose not to abide by them can have on the course of a game.

I believe that another major benefit of self-officiation is the fact that multiple points of view can be harnessed to come to a decision about what occurred. For example, currently if I call a foul, my defender can weigh in on whether she agrees with my call or not, my teammates can let me know whether, from their perspective, my call was valid or not, and as a last resort, an objective Observer can be asked to decide the call. Under a referee system, there would only be one person in charge of making that decision, increasing the likelihood of an incorrect outcome.

Furthermore, if responsibility for obtaining the correct outcome is completely shifted from the players to a referee, experience with other sports shows that many players will no longer be guided by what they believe is right, but by what they think they can get away with. This is not because they will all of a sudden become cheaters, but simply because the emphasis will be shifted away from personal accountability, and towards evading repercussions. Under the current system there are numerous examples of times when players have ruled against their own interests at the highest levels of play and in the heat of competition. Even at Club Nationals, players often take back calls, don’t contest fouls, and help their teammates make the correct call. (An example of this was the 2005 semis line call by a Jam player who overruled the Observer to call his opponent inbounds after the Observer had ruled him out.) Once players are no longer personally accountable for making their own calls, and no longer in control of their calls, there will no longer be instances of players ruling against their own interest when they know that’s the correct outcome.

The UPA Observer program, while having made great strides in the last several years, is still in early stages. It needs to accumulate a larger pool of qualified and experienced Observers. I personally believe that a lot of the criticism that players currently have about self-officiating, such as excessive calls and stoppages, conduct violations, etc, can be addressed within the current Observing system as that system matures. There are mechanisms, such as team misconduct fouls, already in place (and continually evolving) to address these issues. In addition, a large fraction of on-field disputes could be eliminated simply by increasing players’ knowledge of the rules, another area in which the UPA is investing resources and will be implementing changes. However, I also believe that there is still plenty of room for improvement within the Observer system. That is part of the rationale for the ongoing experiments that the UPA is conducting. (You can learn more about the results from these experiments by checking out the following webpage: http://www.upa.org/ultimate/rules/experimental_events/2009_spring and weigh in on the discussion at our new blog devoted this issue: http://upaobserverexp09.blogspot.com/)

As a player, my personal preference would be to have the minimal amount of Observer intervention that is necessary to keep the game moving and keep control over conduct issues. I believe that the experimental rule that gets us closest to that ideal is the immediate referral system for often-contested calls that the Observer often has a better perspective on (ie- travels and up/down calls). In this system, players still make their own travel and up/down calls, but the Observer immediately and automatically rules on them if they’re contested rather than only ruling if requested. My hesitation with fully active travel calls is due to the fact that this would empower the Observer to stop play even if no calls are made by the players- something that would be a fairly dramatic departure from the way the game is currently played (currently Observer calls don’t stop play), and something which I feel is too intrusive for my tastes as a player. I personally would prefer to retain the right to decide when to call a travel or not, much as I like the option of when to call a marking foul and when not to. That being said, having the Observer rule on such calls immediately would get rid of the problem of people arguing about the call, and since the Observer is empowered to issue TMFs for gratuitous calls, that should take care of that issue as well. As for other calls such as fouls, I like the current system that allows for limited player discussion (about 20 sec), if the players want it, before the Observer steps in to make the ruling. I believe this is the right amount of time since it is long enough to allow for people to think about their call and potentially take it back/not contest, but still short enough that the game doesn’t get bogged down with lengthy stoppages. Currently, players can go to the Observer immediately if they want anyway, so in games where it’s clear that calls won’t be resolved amicably, Observers end up ruling much more quickly anyway.

Setting aside my personal opinion about where the line should be drawn with regards to officiating, I think that it’s important that we come up with a philosophical standard by which we measure what is and isn’t appropriate for player and non-player officiating. The current UPA policy rests on the standard that “objective” calls (such as in/out-of-bounds and time limits) are called by Observers while “subjective” calls are made by the players. While the definition of which calls are objective/subjective might in and of itself be subjective, at least there’s an attempt to have a philosophical rationale that policy can be based on. Going forward I think it’s important that we reach some decision about what the standard is (one example of such a standard could be that the power to stop play is reserved for players rather than officials, other than in cases of misconduct), and then make decisions about specific calls based on that standard.

I believe that achieving the highest level of competition is not mutually exclusive with maintaining the self-officiated nature of the sport, and in fact, that this combination could be one of the selling points that has fueled the recent growth of the sport. Player control of the sport is a large part of what I believe makes this sport both unique and attractive to new players, and I personally believe we should strive to retain this quality while at the same time striving to make the game more fun, fair and watchable. Through the continued improvement of the Observer system, which includes refining the specific role of the Observer as well as increasing overall performance, I think we will be able to break through to the next level of legitimacy while maintaining the elements that make our sport unique.

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You can post a message to the entire board by commenting here (comments will not be publicly viewable, but will be read by the board), or feel free to send me an email about this or anything else at peri.kurshan@upa.org.