My Turn - Part II of IV - There goes our second chance

How should ultimate grow? Well, in the last post I said that the sport will inevitably grow, and that growth should be at the grassroots level by ensuring the next generation is taught by people who want to maintain the best parts of Ultimate. Your comments were interesting. Now, in this post I'm going to talk about where I believe the sport belongs or at least a strong niche that we are potentially giving up.

I'm not sold on the concept that Ultimate should be brought into the junior levels at high school and even younger. I'm not even convinced that college is the right level, but I think it is. I know, I know; many of you are outraged by this concept, so I'll lighten this "non junior statement" later in this post, but for now, let me give some reasons why I believe this.

Pictured Above: More fun in the snow. We were doing some shots for a bid to a tournament.

I guess this is all linked to why I play the sport (and this might shed light in the errors of my thinking), but Ultimate came to me as a second sport. After I had peaked at basketball I lost touch with competitive sports for a few years. Then, Ultimate came along and offered a new game with new skills to learn and with fun people and good times. I caught the bug, and that bug took me deep into the sport.

There are very few sports that have this, as I call, second chance. In Canada, unless you live in a major metropolis (million and more) you can't learn a sport like hockey, basketball, or soccer as you get older. These sports do have competitive adult leagues, but they are competitive leagues for the aging athlete. Even if you live in a major city, it is very difficult to be taught the sport and then proceed into the competitive levels after the age of, arguably, sixteen.

As Ultimate, at the junior level becomes more and more entrenched in competition and focused development, this second chance accessibility slowly disappears from the sport.

Not only is one of the major strengths of Ultimate it's second chance nature, but the second key strength to the sport is its quality as a coed game. This is probably another point that many of us cringe at. Many of us, including myself, push the fact that Ultimate is great as a pure Women and Open game. Also, the thought that people just play Ultimate to meet that special other person is just simply wrong. But again, Ultimate, in my experience, is one of the only sports where I've seen women and men join forces in a team based sport and equally contribute to success (removing zone defenses would probably balance the sport even more).

These two aspects of the sport, older sport and coed meeting game, are two significant strengths that I believe have been a major impact on the present day game.

So, I'm saying that Ultimate should be grown as an older sport. I'm still for grassroot growth, but I feel that growth (if it is going to happen) should be made at the second chance older level. An adult sport, if you will.

Having stated this, as much as I wish Ultimate would remain a second chance sport, the decision has almost already been made. Junior's are there, and we're getting to the point where there is a clear advantage to playing high school ultimate and making it in higher levels of Ultimate. College teams are going to push for it, and high school kids are going to push for their inclusion in the sport. I just sense, that this will slowly push Ultimate into the realms of a young persons sport. Not that this is necessarily bad, but it probably means some other hobby or sport will fill in the "adult" niche currently filled by Ultimate. The loss of this second chance niche may actually hurt Ultimate as the sport will eventually be competing with every other sport, and as much as we all love the game and place it on a sporting throne, it sure has the flavour of get said object to said place by using said players - that most other team sports have.

Earlier, I stated that I would lighten my view that Ultimate shouldn't be in high schools. Well, I do understand that Ultimate as what I would call a counter-culture sport (in which people play for the sake of playing) is a fine sport for high school students who don't really fit into other ultra-competitive sports. Even as a second chance sport, Ultimate still has its counter-culture ties. For many, Ultimate is their first competitive sport started in College or at a later age. I, also, see the value in physical activity at all ages, and Ultimate fills this roll well. I guess my position is that we may be giving some of the strengths of the sport in growing it at the wrong level.

In the next post, I'll make my last few comments on Ultimate growth. This time I'll switch hats and put on my let's make some money hat.

PJ