Did anyone else look at Ultivillage's most recent Clip of the Day?
A guy catches a goofy little o/i floater and immediately falls on his rump. From this position, his torso still falling toward the turf, he executes a deft little forehand to a teammate who stands there, comically stunned. A travel was called on the throw.
What do you think? You make the call.
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Butt-travel?
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13 comments:
Here's my two cents.
His momentum takes him two steps before he's mauled by two opposing players, at which time his rear foot drags a little (understandble, considering the collision AND his momentum) and he falls on his kiester. If you slow it down, you can see that, amazingly, up until the very moment he's about to throw, he has that pivot foot planted. His momentum from the fall is carrying his torso back, and this is why his legs come off the ground, ever so slightly.
In my opinion, this is an egregious spirit-foul. The Spirit of the rule is to stop people from making illegal pivots to break the mark. This guy was falling for God's sake. He wasn't stepping out on a backhand huck. He wasn't taking that extra step to make his mark run past him. He was falling, which, by the way, could maybe be considered as part of his second, momentum-driven step (?), thus rendering the throw perfectly legal.
I see this call as a perfect example of someone overinterpreting the rules to their own advantage, and not respecting the Spirit of the Game.
Shame. SHAME!
"I see this call as a perfect example of someone overinterpreting the rules to their own advantage"
More like misinterpreting the rules. It is perfectly legal to throw from your ass, that his legs come off the ground doesn't even matter because he never established a foot as a pivot. You are allowed "the fewest number of steps required to come to a stop and establish a pivot." Considering the hit he just took, I think it's perfectly reasonable that that was the fewest number of steps he could take. Stepping/getting hit/falling are all one motion here, so when he hits his ass and decides to throw, it is only NOW that he has established a pivot (his ass), and he then proceeds to make a perfectly legal throw.
No travel, horrible call.
i am by no means a rule junky, nor do i profess any sort of comprehensive control over them. i am still learning them as i go (perhaps not the best approach, but hey its working)
but i wanted to pass along the comments of jim parinella on the subject - "If you have to review a video frame by frame to see if a call is correct, then it's not a bad call. It might be incorrect, but it's a justifiable call if it's that close. Exception: if it's a non-contact violation (such as a travel) and you need that degree of granularity to show that the violation actually happened, then it's a pussy call. There is just no way that a player (who is, of course, also attempting to play ultimate besides being a ref) in real time can discern this.
That is all."
i agree.
it was a bad call.
Last year at western's my team made a similar call (though we retracted it in, rather explaining the call at the end of the point).
Basically, you have to have a pivot foot planted... right? Well, OUR opponent was on his knees, thus the call. In the video his feet actually sit still when he throws, but honestly, the call is made simply because College Ultimate really means eliminating spirit. Bad call, period. We don't "have to review a video frame by frame to see if a call is correct", but rather have only the video as a view of the play. I watched it once through and knew I would never make that call, ever. Even on universe point at nationals in my last year of eligibility.
"Basically, you have to have a pivot foot planted... right? Well, OUR opponent was on his knees, thus the call."
Wrong. You have to have a PIVOT. Not a pivot FOOT. Any body part can be your pivot. You can stand on your head and throw. Throwing from your knees is 100% legal, as is throwing from your ass.
I have to disagree with Jason when he says, "The Spirit of the rule is to stop people from making illegal pivots to break the mark." This implies that traveling should not be called as long as it doesn't allow the thrower to break the mark. This is just not true. A travel is a travel. It doesn't matter if there's no mark, and it doesn't matter if the thrower is making an awesome play. SotG means "adher[ing] to the agreed upon rules of the game."
I also disagree with Harrison's comment that college ultimate means "eliminating spirit." In four years of playing college ultimate I have seen numerous examples to the contrary.
Having said all that, from what I could see Goldstein didn't travel.
Au contraire, Talle. Unless you subscribe the the "butt-pivot" theory, it's clear that his feet are both off the ground when he releases the throw. They were on the ground when he began his throwing motion. Is this not a travel, according to the "agreed upon rules"?
You did expose a big whole in what I suggested earlier, about the spirit of the rule. Regardless, this seems a gross misapplication of the rule by any standard. Rather than getting hosed as he did, Goldstein might have actually had grounds to call a contact foul from what I can see (though it's mostly incidental, post-reception contact). Anyhow, it would have been a fairer call than the bogus travel.
Player is allowed as many steps as necessary to come to a complete stop. From what I saw, he never had a chance to stop before he was knocked over. As a result, the argument about the thrower losing his pivot foot is a non-issue.
Sometimes in the administration of any law or rule, someone does something so wrong it is not actually illegal as the law/rule is written. The reason for that is simply that the creators of the law/rule simply never envisioned a circumstance so far outside normal behavior in drafting the law/rule.
Here, clearly the drafters of the rule did not foresee the need to draft an exception to the travel rule where the thrower is knocked off his feet while trying to stop. True he changed direction, but anyone that think that results in a travel is missing the point entirely. sadly, there is no way to write a rule that can make up for a complete lack of common sense.
Let's be clear about what is a legal pivot. A good place to go for a definition is the official rules.
From the UPA 10th Edition:
II. I. A pivot is the particular part of the body in continuous contaact with a single spot on the field during a thrower's possession. When there is a definitive spot for putting the disc in play, the part of the body in contact with that spot is the pivot.
So, a butt, a knee, or a foot could all be legal pivots.
As far as my post goes about "eliminating spirit" in college ultimate. This comes solely from the experience I have had watching and listening to College teams from the Southwest. Admittedly, there are many spirited players, but often, the games escalate to a point where spirit seems all together lost.
e.g.: SW Regionals Last Year. I watched UCSB playing in the quarters. Every time their throwers got into a high stall count situation, they would "huck" the disc thus blatantly intentionally slamming their arms into their marks. Then they would call a foul and capitalize on their fresh stall count.
Back to the rules... we all seem to agree that it is not a travel. I was saying earlier in my post (maybe i didn't go far enough with the point) that we called a travel on a player who was on his knees, and we were wrong in the call (hence the retraction).
UPA:
I'll spare the cut and paste, but section XIII.D. Covers all the rules concerning a travel. A butt is a legal pivot (although unconventional). The player does not break any rule as set by the UPA's tenth edition rules. I think we pretty much all agree that there was no travel. And it WAS an unspirited call.
Indeed, Hank. Indeed.
I think it's impossible to say whether or not it was an unspirited call. That is a matter of intention, and I don't know what the Wisconsin player was thinking at the time, but I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.
While we have generally agreed that it wasn't a travel, it is by no means clear cut. Even the thrower points to his feet (and not his rear) after the call, and his feet definitely moved.
As far as intentionally getting yourself fouled, that is BS ultimate. While there are teams and players that play like this, they are in the minority in my experience.
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