And the award goes to...

I had the poll last week on what is the Callahan awarded for at the UPA College Championships, because I have always been a little cloudy on the meaning of the award. My research immediately landed upon the hosts of the Callahan award. My next stop was to the right sidebar on an article about "Who was Harry Callahan?". Very quickly I got a feel for what the award was for.

The most clear statement from the 2008 Callahan Award site is,
"The Callahan Award has been established to recognize the valuable players in college ultimate. Each year the Callahan trophy is presented to the man and woman who combine superior athleticism with outstanding sportsmanship, leadership and dedication to the sport of ultimate."
If you've been following the banter on rec.sport.disc or you can catch a review of this years award and the banter at Process of Illumination, then you know that there seems to be a little controversy up in the air about the award. For once, I have no opinion on the candidates or the winners. I watched the Open Wisconsin advertisement video for their nominee, but that's all I really put into the award.

But that's the interesting part. I might have missed it last year, but I don't remember all of these video "vote for me" last year. If I had a vote, then I would have voted for Matt Rebholz because I saw the video. I would expect next years batch of candidates to get fancier similar to kid's at school putting on a professional campaign for class president versus the other kid's photocopied posters or worse yet, done in marker. Professional athletes are doing similar promotions, such as Chris Bosh's video for the 2008 all star game.



After reading Henry Callahan's story it sounds like the promoting side might fit into Henry's philosophies for pushing our game (though I'm not sure of this one). The sport is progressing in front of our eyes. With each passing season there is more structure and policies as our sport grows up.

I still like the Callahan award. Among reasons for appreciating the legend behind the name, I also like it because one of my career highlights is making a great move on a former Callahan winner (unknown to me at the time)when he underestimated me, and I finished off to assist for the point. That's a story I'll tell you when we meet at an Ultimate party in the future.

PJ