New UPA Managing Director of Business Development and Communications

The UPA is pleased to welcome Chuck Menke to the newly created position of Managing Director, Business Development and Communication. Chuck brings with him more than 13 years of experience in high-level marketing and communications in the sports industry.

Chuck joins the UPA from Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn., where he served as Director of Athletic Communications for three years. Prior to joining Quinnipiac, Menke was Director of Broadcasting and Communications with the National Hockey League’s St. Louis Blues. From 1995 to 2004 Menke served as Director of Media & Public Relations at USA Hockey, Inc.—one the largest and most successful NGBs in the Olympic Movement. His staff appointments for U.S. National and Olympic Teams included the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City, the 2004 World Cup of Hockey and numerous IIHF World Championships. During his nine years with USA Hockey Menke developed benchmark television agreements with national and regional networks such as ESPN2 and FOX Sports Net, served as editor-in-chief of American Hockey Magazine—the world’s most widely circulated hockey publication, and was instrumental in the start-up of the organization’s official web site.

Chuck is very excited to begin his work at the UPA. Please join me in welcoming him.

To read more, please visit http://upa.org/announcements/managingdirector
-Peri Kurshan

UPA looking for Director of Communications

Now that our new CEO, Dr. Tom Crawford, is settling in, we've re-opened our search for a new Director of Communications.

Position Overview: The Director of Communications directs and implements activities designed to enhance communications between the UPA and its members, volunteers, local disc organizations, tournaments and event participants as well as to expand the visibility of and participation in the sport of Ultimate at all levels. The position requires hands-on technical skills as well as the ability to direct program and manage multiple-projects simultaneously in a busy office environment.

The ideal candidate will be a strong communicator who strives to understand the membership’s wants and needs and determine how best to inform them of UPA services and programs. Candidate should be able to develop and maintain an overarching coherent look and feel for the UPA brand in all aspects of communication. This individual should be a creative and strategic thinker as well as someone who has the technical expertise to take on new internet-based projects. In the next five years, the Director of Communications will be an integral part of implementing several new marketing components of the strategic plan. Examples include overseeing a new website design and information architecture overhaul, an image management system and the production of a youth promotional video.

Please visit www.upa.org for more information, or to apply for the position. Please also help us by spreading the word to anyone you know that might be interested.

Thanks!
-Peri

UPA hires new CEO- Dr. Tom Crawford

The UPA would like to extend a warm welcome to its new Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Thomas Crawford. Tom began his new role as leader of the UPA’s full-time staff at Headquarters in Boulder, CO on August 3rd. Tom brings to the UPA not only deep skills as a manager and extensive experience starting and growing organizations, but also an insider’s knowledge of sports organizations and market dynamics. We are extremely pleased to be able to introduce Tom to the Ultimate community, as we believe that he is highly qualified to lead our organization into the next phase of our evolution, and to help push the sport of Ultimate to new heights. Click here for more information about Tom and the hiring process.
Thanks,
-Peri

Summer Board meeting recap

Last weekend the UPA Board of Directors met in Boulder for our annual summer meeting. This meeting is shorter than our winter meeting, and has only recently become a regular event for the Board. The meeting lasted one and a half days, and was a chance for the board to review proposals, get updates from the staff, touch base on committee work and carefully review the financials. In addition, an extra day was used to conduct in-person interviews for the finalist candidates for the UPA Executive Director position that is currently vacant.

The Board discussed and offered input on several areas of ongoing discussion, including eligibility questions (college and youth), sanctioning guidelines for roster violations, the current UPA policy on Observers, and the ongoing college restructuring initiative. These topics were discussed at length, and each one requires a post of its own, so look for more communication about these topics in the near future.

In addition to receiving updates on ongoing initiatives, the Board passed a couple of proposals at this meeting.
• A proposal was passed that covers how the Junior National team is to be selected. This proposal stipulates various priorities that the Junior National team coach should use in selecting the team, but does not make any explicit requirements on the composition of the team, leaving that up to the coach’s discretion.

• A proposal was passed that allows for the appointment of board members in addition to the regular elections. Please see my article in the upcoming magazine for an in depth treatment of this topic.

The Executive Director search is still underway, but is on schedule to be wrapped up by the end of the month. We are hoping that the new ED will begin by the end of July. Stay tuned for more information once the search is concluded.

Complete details regarding the summer Board meeting will be posted in the Board minutes, which will be available as soon as possible, but no later than the end of July.

-Peri

Using "Instructional Observers" During League Play

Right now, the longest active thread on rec.sport.disc is about the use of lined fields and observers in league play. Rather than create the 100th post to that thread, I figured I could add to the conversation by highlighting a proposal the UPA board passed earlier this year.

The proposal was entitled "Develop Instructional Observer Role," and it fits in nicely with the discussion of having observers at ultimate leagues. From the text of the January board meeting's minutes:

PROPOSAL 2009.22 – DEVELOP INSTRUCTIONAL OBSERVER ROLE
Submitted by Will Deaver in cooperation with Youth Advisory Council and Greg Connelly, observer chair.
Proposal wording: In order to realize the benefits of Observers in non-competitive and/or learning environments, the UPA will incorporate “instructional” training into its Observer Program. Instructional Observers will be authorized and encouraged to provide rules clarifications during competition, but will not serve as arbitrators or make active calls. Instructional Observers will be trained to help players continue play on contested calls within the rules of Ultimate and may also serve to announce time limits, keep score, and monitor conduct issues.

In beginner leagues (or at least leagues with many relatively new players), this type of observer would primarily be tasked with helping players learn the rules to the game. Leagues are the venue for many players' first exposure to ultimate, yet adult league teams rarely have coaches and practice time to help pass on rules knowledge to new players. In this setting, having people trained to help disseminate the rules during games makes a lot of sense.

In fact, one of the 11 strategies outlined in the UPA's current strategic plan is to "Improve Player Knowledge of the Rules of Ultimate so that SOTG and Self-officiated Play can Thrive at all Levels," which has a tactic to implement rules knowledge quizzes and certification for teams. I wonder if the two concepts of Instructional Observers and one certified "rules guru" per team could find common ground. So essentially, teams that wanted to participate in the UPA Series could have at least one player pass an Instructional Observing test online. This merger of rules quizzes and Instructional Observing would certainly help augment the numbers of people around the country available to help observe league games and learn the rules correctly. Perhaps, if this role were combined with the role of a linesperson to help settle "in/out" disputes, it could cover the needs of most recreational games.

Another strategic plan priority is to improve the observer system with "well-trained, highly regarded" observers for high-level competition. The role of Instructional Observers could also help provide training ground for observers looking to gain extra practice. Even without having to arbitrate calls, Instructional Observers would have to practice their positioning, get their rules knowledge tested in game situations, and be exposed to a wide range of plays and calls that they could evaluate for themselves--gaining confidence and proficiency at observing.

For the record, I think it makes sense to have different levels and types of observing for different levels and types of play. Players competing at the UPA College Championships voted for an increased role of observers at the recent event. However, it is not apparent that such involved, active observing is necessary or even desired at lower levels of competition.

--Gwen Ambler

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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 gwen.ambler@upa.org.

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.

What is Player Control?

I've been weighing blog posts about a couple of issues that have come up recently. In response to the article in the UPA's most recent magazine regarding the UPA's policy on observers and the upcoming vote on rule changes for the UPA College Championships I had been mulling over my philosophy for the role of officials in Ultimate. And in response to the Oregon open team's actions at sectionals, their response, and the impact it has had in the press I have considered addressing that as well. Both topics certainly deserve some attention since they affect the way that the sport is perceived both internally and externally.

What I think is at the root of both of these issues is the way that the UPA currently defines the sport: "Player defined and controlled non-contact team sport played with a flying disc on a playing surface with end zones in which all actions are governed by the 'Spirit of the Game™.'" The phrase "Player defined and controlled...sport" seems open to a broad interpretation. Who are the players defining and controlling the sport? Is it the 14 players on the field at any given time? Is it some larger community of players based on the venue; a league of players for a league game, the UPA's full membership for series play, or the whole community of Ultimate players both in and outside of the sport? And how do you deal with situations where player control by the larger group of players comes into conflict with the player control of the 14 people on the field?

The Oregon "incident" brings this conflict into stark relief. The Oregon open A and B team chose to play a point at sectionals without being fully clothed. This resulted in their suspension by their University and the resulting widespread press, which ranged from the Seattle Times to the Yahoo front page, put the sport in what many consider a negative light. For me personally this has been difficult because I have spent so much time and effort over the past 8 years working to grow the sport at the youth level. A huge part of that has been communicating to parents, teachers, school administrators and others whose support is needed that Ultimate is a legitimate sport played by responsible athletes and that the misconceptions about the sport are just that, misconceptions. Don't get me wrong, I know how serious the Oregon Ultimate program is and the type of athletes those guys are, I've interacted with a number of them and have respect for them as players. But their actions have no doubt had a serious effect on many people's perception of Ultimate in a way that most Ultimate players (themselves included) are not happy with. A strict reading of "player control" might be that what the U of Oregon did was not something that the UPA should penalize or legislate against as it would impede player control on the field. A more broad interpretation where the players that have true "control" of the Oregon game at sectionals is the larger competitive Ultimate community represented by the UPA might be that the UPA should take corrective action to deter such incidences from happening again.

This same issue of "player control" is at the heart of the role of officials in Ultimate with one more additional element in play: the question of control over in-game actions. When we makes decisions about officials, what they call actively on the field and the extent of their use, who should be making those decisions? And is there a philosophical limit to those decisions, meaning can players in the broader sense (the larger community) have control over the decision only up to the extent that it does not encroach on the control of players in the narrow sense (the players on the field in a game)? If players want active travel and stall calls or full on referees does that reduce player control on the field too much? And what if the larger Ultimate community wants to see a game at a showcase event with more extensive third party officiating while the players playing in that game or event don't want that? Or what if the players in that game want more extensive third party officiating while the larger community doesn't because of concerns about how it will impact the sport as a whole?

I think these are difficult but central questions for us to answer as the sport moves forward.

Of course, in some cases, the UPA has already made decisions that have reduced on-field player control in some respects in order to meet the goals of the organization's membership. These decisions include:
- Uniform requirements at championship events
- Active line calls and time calls in games with observers
- Access to TV crews that some players feel is invasive

In order to start addressing these issues I suggest that the UPA and its players create a more robust framework for player-controlled decision making in different Ultimate venues. This framework should be in-line with the purpose of each event such that showcase events (like College and Club Nationals) that represent all of us that play to the broader world should be controlled by a larger body of players than just the participants - for example the series participants or the full membership. Here's my initial thoughts on how it should breakdown:

Event/Venue/Program.......Players with Control
Club Championships...................Full UPA Membership
College Championships...............Full UPA Membership
College Series..............................All Series Participants (by division)
Club Series.................................All Series Participants (by division)
UPA Sanctioned Leagues.............League Participants
UPA Sanctioned Tournies............Event Participants
UPA HS State Championships......All state youth Players (by division)
UPA YCC/Easterns/Westerns.......All UPA Youth Members (by division)
Official Rules...............................Full UPA Membership

This is only a partial list and a very rough draft at that but the idea would be that the UPA would help empower the groups responsible for the decision making to make the decisions through direct votes or a system of elected representation. Each group would also have representative conduct committee's (these could be ad hoc or standing) to deal with conduct issues that arise in that group and resolve them. The defined group of players would then be able to make decisions that are binding for the competition venue thereby meeting the broader definition of "player control." This would completely override the narrow definition of "player control" and leave open the option of greater third party arbitration if that's what the larger group of players decided. Of course, this could also potentially mean less third party arbitration at the showcase levels than what the participants at that level want if that is what the larger group of players that have a stake in the event wants. This would be a significant clarification in philosophy for the UPA and one that I think would allow the UPA to more easily make decisions on critical issues.

I will say openly that these solutions are not fleshed out and I would love feedback on both the concepts discussed in this post as well as the suggested solutions to these challenges. Because this would be a significant clarification I want to get more feedback before I would formalize any type of official proposal to the Board. Please comment on this blog for the entire Board to read (even though it won't appear on the blog for the public to see) or e-mail me directly at kyle.weisbrod@upa.org.

Thanks!

Kyle