I don't want to be controversial or against the UPA, but I have to wonder about the current position being taken at Westerns and Easterns.
I'm not sure how many teams applied this year for either division at either Easterns or Westerns. But, it looks to be more than 16 at least in the open division for Westerns (two teams from Oregon applied and did not receive bids: Crescent Valley & Sheldon). This got me thinking... Why not open it up to more teams? Why not open it up to 20 or 32? Or who ever can make it? When does the growth of ultimate and number of teams interested in traveling to a national-level tournament, dictate the size and type of championship available? Is there value to limiting the number of teams who can attend? If so, what is that value? Does it raise the level of play? Maybe...
But, if the timing could be worked out, which I believe it could, when will it make sense to have a qualifying tournament before Westerns & Easterns (& eventually a Centrals)?
I've read what the UPA has had to say (click here for it), but would love to hear what others think about this?
Is it time to start thinking about having a sectional/regional qualifying tournament? If we are to consider Westerns and Easterns as the premiere Youth Tournament for Open & Womens teams, I believe we may be at that point...
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
More than 16 teams...
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13 comments:
I think that the UPA is doing a great job with Easterns and Westerns.
One of the major factors in moving to Easterns/Westerns was the cost for some teams. With the 28 teams they have (16 open/12 women's), You need about 12 fields, which is hard to find, but plenty of big soccer complexes have that many fields. If you open it up to 16 more teams or whatever number it is, you up the number of needed fields closer to 20, and the breaking point for most complexes is a bit less than 15. You have to start needing things like the Sarasota Polo Club and other giant tracks of land that are both hard to find and expensive to players, raising the cost which the UPA has worked to reduce.
Secondly, I think any talk about Sectionals/Regionals/Nationals is about 10 years premature. Many teams have to stretch their budget just to attend Nationals, and throwing in a regionals tournament 3 weeks before 500 miles away wouldn't help that out. It is definitely not feasible on the girls side, and only a little bit moreso on the boys side.
Not every teams goal, and not every teams goal should be, Nationals. California States last year was 10 teams, this year it is going to be 14+, and I think that number will rise next year. Their is growth in Ultimate, and the UPA is doing the right thing. They're keeping Easterns/Westerns and elite event for the top of the top to strive for. They are creating state tournaments that any team can attend and is a good goal for most teams, and they're certifying coaches to add legitimacy to the sport to parents who are often protective over what their kids are doing.
I want to second what Kevin said about field space. More teams = more fields. Venues that are willing to take a chance on ultimate (even if they are big enough) are hard to come by.
Also (I didn't look this up), I believe there were quite a few blowouts last year. By adding more teams, you are going to decrease the quality of the tournament by increasing the number of blowouts and therefore decrease the appeal of the tournament (at least to me).
hmm, you might be interested to read on RSD about people's complains with the college division. They have 8 regions with 8 automatic bids and 8 wildcard bids. A lot of people are unhappy with that system and believe one possible solution is a committee to select the best teams like Easterns and Westerns has. I wouldn't say that the committee version is perfect, but I'd have trouble arguing it is definitely better or worse than the sect/reg/nationals format.
Recent discussions:
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.sport.disc/browse_thread/thread/03db33fb83a145d0/0b926d2a4010dcb5#0b926d2a4010dcb5
and
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.sport.disc/browse_thread/thread/84c334fa6a06ab5e/908d11288b877cad#908d11288b877cad
-Brody
I think the time is right.
A Sectional or Regional (but only one) tournament would make the road to Westerns/Easterns more exciting, and would raise the level of competition at those tournaments, while eliminating teams who really didn't deserve to be there (i.e. Alameda 2004).
The only challenge is scheduling, and how to make it so that Sectionals/Regionals falls far enough away from Easterns/Westerns, while not so far that it sacrifices competition.
I, sitting at my computer while I should be at school, cannot think of a plausible solution to this now, but I will be thinking and wondering what other people would propose.
There is no fair 2 day format that can accommodate more than 16 teams. Stretching the tournament to 3 days is not a trivial increase in expenses and might make it too hard for those few extra teams that are bidding to attend.
First of all, I should mention that as a player on a team that did not get accepted to Westerns (Crescent Valley HS TRIBE), I am slightly biased on this issue. That being said, I do not believe that a change in the number of teams attending the regional competitions is the best way to elevate the level of competition or support the development of high school Ultimate. I do believe there are problems, however, which lie in the committee selection process.
The UPA has little way of determining the strength of any given HS Open team for a particular year. There are few Open tournaments prior to the decision date (at least where I'm from), and so bids must be evaluated on the basis of strength of the teams in years past. The Easterns & Westerns FAQ states that holding qualifying tournaments for these events would be unfair to teams whose seasons start well into spring. In my opinion, it is equally unfair to have a committee attempt to determine the strength of a team based solely on their performance in the Fall or previous year.
If Westerns & Easterns are to be truly elite events, the focus should be on objective selection of strong teams. The most effective method of doing this is to hold qualifying competitions in which teams can demonstrate their potential for the current season.
Finally, "contribution to the development of Youth Ultimate" is listed as one of the criteria for Easterns & Westerns selection. I do think developing Ultimate at the middle and elementary school levels is important, but it is a poor choice to use admittance to Championship events as an incentive for teams to participate in the building of primary school Ultimate programs. A Championship should a Championship, and other objectives of the UPA should be separate.
All in all, I realize the UPA has a tough job weighing pros and cons of different ways of structuring youth Ultimate, and I'm sure that this year's Westerns and Easterns will be exciting events.
-Jordan May
-TRIBE
First of all, let me say that I think this is an interesting dicussion. I feel that we've done a solid job thus far of developing HS Ultimate over the past four years and the fact that we are having this discussion is a good sign.
I would love to hear ideas on how a qualifier structure could be done. I don't think it is as easy as saying "copy what you do in college/club" becuase the fact is travelling and planning travel with HS kids is more difficult and if you have to a. wait until three weeks prior to the event to purchase plane tickets and b. have to travel to a regional event to qualify it will make that travel much more difficult. Already we have teams contacting us prior to when we announce bids asking if they can go ahead and purchase flights and reserve hotel rooms.
And then there is the issue of areas where Ultimate is still developing. At HS Westerns this year we have teams from New Mexico, Utah, Kansas, and Texas. Requiring these new teams to travel to another state to qualify for this event will just slow their growth even further. And while some might bemoan that these new teams will lower the level of play of the whole event, results seem to speak that allowing these teams to compete at these events is a long term investment in the future of HS Ultimate in those places. Thomas mentioned that Alameda didn't "deserve" to be at HS Nationals in 2004, but I would guess that that experience has helped his team become one of the best teams in the West and a leader in Northern California which has been growing very rapidly. They got the experience of a high quality, exciting Ultimate event while seeing great competition. Perhaps the teams attending from New Mexico, Utah, Kansas, and Texas will follow the same path over the next few years.
I would also like to point out that our track record of selecting teams has been pretty darn good. I can't remember a situation where a team we selected finished below a team that applied and wasn't selected at their state championships. Perhaps this will be the first year that happens.
If you like the idea of qualifiers, one thing that Minnesota has done to help us select teams is hold a round robin with the applying teams the weekend before we do our selection. When they've done that, we've used those results as our top indicator of which teams to select from Minnesota. Unfortunately, this year the round robin was cancelled becuase of snow. There is no reason, however, that all states cannot be proactive in setting events like this up (or if this is too difficult for a state, a smaller region like East PA or West PA) to help us make better decisions.
Overall, while I believe that HS Easterns and Westerns helps the UPA to acheive a lot of our goals right now, in the long run, I don't think that these types of regional events are appropriate for HS teams. The issue of qualifying is an obvious problem and as more teams develop, it will only become more difficult. Another issue is timing; With so many different school schedules there really is no time when you can get all of the best HS teams from the country or 1/2 the country together. HS Easterns/Nationals has conflicted with Paideia's graduation the last three years.
But the biggest issue to me is that Ultimate is an ideal sport for low income schools and making our "premier" HS events out of reach for many schools will counter our goal of growth. Ultimate should not be seen as a sport that you need money to play becuase it isn't - all you need is a disc and a field. But that travelling (and if you had qualifiers more travelling) will set up barriers that the schools that will most benefit from the sport will see as uncrossable. That (and the scheduling issue) is why other HS sports just have state championships.
And for those HS teams that can and will travel there can be events like the Amherst Invite, Paideia Cup, Spring Reign and others. And for players that want to and can travel the YCC will accomodate that (and since hopefully YCC teams will be made up of players from several high schools there will be an easier solution to the financial barriers of national travel).
I don't mean to sound as if I'm not open to new ideas, becuase I certainly am. I just want you all to know that we've made decisions on the structure for reasons, not just arbitrarily, and that we would need stronger reasons to change that structure (which has been working successfully to grow youth Ultimate here in the US); Stonger reasons than "we should change because college and club do it differently" (they are different) or "becuase the best teams aren't picked" (as Brody said check out the debate regarding the qualifying structure for college).
Ok, that was long and I probably shouldn't be responding here anyway (since this, like RSD, is not an official UPA forum) but rather reminding you that you can easily contact me at kyle.weisbrod at upa.org if you have any questions about the current structure for any of our youth events. But I like you guys and I hope that you like us too (or at least understand why we do what we do for you) and I like Ultimate (especially high school Ultimate) and I'm fired up about the Denver East tournament this weekend where my team of brand spanking new players will play their first tourney ever so rock on.
I tend to like the idea of having a regional qualifier. The problem is that there may be teams in strong regions who don't quite qualify over the other strong teams in their region, but would be better, and more deserving of a bid, than some teams in other regions that do qualify. I suppose there's nothing you can do about that, and at least everyone would have a chance the qualify in the regional tournament. It could be the same in other levels, but I get the feeling that there's a larger gaps between the different regions in youth than in other levels. This comes from the fact that the top 4 finishers at Westerns last year were from Oregon or Washington, and 5 of the top 6. All of those teams would be playing in the regional tournament, I would guess. Of course, you could weight the bids to give more to the northwest region, but then you need a "selection committee" to decide that, and if it's not done just right, deserving teams may still get left out. That said, a regional tournament would still give everyone a shot to earn a spot.
I do think that there needs to be more open/womens tournaments in the spring. That would help the selection committee make a more informed decision, not to mention providing good practice and experience for teams going to westerns.
The debate has moved, obviously, in the direction of "qualifier good or bad?". Why not look more at what qualifier could be..
Last year CO States fell the weekend after Westerns (meaning my team was a ton less focused, though we still only dropped 1 game on the weekend). This year it is the weekend before. This, in my opinion (and sorry Kyle, since I think you had something to do with it), is still too much proximity.
Why can't states be qualifiers. The one problem is the difficulty teams would have with travel. Which is why I think it may be a wise decision to have states in all states be on one weekend in may (as they seem to be aligned already), then have Easterns/Westerns on consecutive (or the same, that would be cool) weekend(s) in June (1st or 2nd weekend). Attempting to create a buffer between the two tournaments (3 weeks?) in order to allow travel planning.
Now states couldn't just be qualifiers, you would have to either a)assign bids based on size and strength (a la College Natties) or b)still have a selection committee, but base the decisions on 1)who applied (with previous knowledge of the weekend it would be played) and 2)Who did well in their state competitions.
I think the added benefit, other than guaranteeing the strongest field at the Championships (though, arguably, growth is a major factor, since last year and this year diversity seems to have been more important with 14-16 seeds than actual ability). I got lost after that long parentheses, so, what I was going to say is that I think the level of competition in each state would increase as a result, with each team knowing that States means they are vying for a spot at Westerns/Easterns.
end.
Kyle,
Thank you so much for taking the time to write your thoughts for us. You didn't have to, but it is great to have such a prominent member of the UPA willing to shoot the breeze with those of us regular guys...
And, are you a contributer here? You're not listed, but you should be.
I like the direction the UPA is headed with this.
Let's keep in mind that, at this rate of growth, it won't be too many years before HS eclipses college in terms of numbers of teams. A nation-wide series just doesn't make logistical sense. I think ultimate is better served by following the example of other high school sports, where the highest level of competition is at the state level.
YCC will fill the void at the national level. Eventually it will expand to a Youth Club Series, and have the qualifiers that some are calling for here.
What if the UPA would announce all the teams that put in bids for Easterns and Westerns (early as possible) and then allow those teams the opportunity to challenge eachother. This would not be required, but if a team wants to show that they deserve to be at the regional tournament, they should be able to show their stuff by playing teams closeby (or as close as possible).
To contrast what I said: Easterns and Westerns is a transition championship series between Youth Nationals and States, the system in place obviously works and since it is only temporary, there is no reason to change something that works quite well, as Kyle said.
So a couple of quick respsonses to the posts after mine:
To Harrison:
- Putting the events in the summer after school gets out would add another barrier to teams that want to attend as many families travel or kids go off to camps.
- Requiring all of the state championships on one weekend could never work. Every state has a different school schedule (and within that often different school districts have different schedules and independent schools have their own schedules) Right now we give states 6 weekends on which to hold the state championships and two of our events (NC Open and OR Open and Women) are outside of those six weeks.
- Finally, three weeks is simply not enough time to plan travelling for a group of high school aged players. We announce bids six weeks prior to events and already we have parents, players, and coaches contacting us asking if they can make their travel plans.
To Luke:
I am not a contributer and it would not be appropriate for me to be for a number of reasons. However, I would love to be if I weren't in my position at the UPA. BTW, I don't think that you need to qualify your post as trying "not to be controversial" or "against the UPA". Challenging our assumptions is worthwhile and either the UPA can respond and give you good reasons for how things are done or your ideas will prove to be better than the current structure. This kind of discussion allows us to continually evaluate whether or not the structure is appropriate and see challenges that may be coming. In the end it's better for all of us to have this discussion. The UPA gains as does the Ultimate community (and since the UPA is made up of the Ultimate community that just makes sense).
To Talle:
Your point about numbers is a very good one that I failed to mention. Qualifiers would quickly become overloaded at the rate that HS Ultimate is growing.
I think this discussion is interesting and hope that it doesn't die out. So, if you are interested in brainstorming ways that qualifiers could work let me give you a few parameters:
1. The championship events must occur in May (I think this parameter could be changed if enough teams said "June is fine")
2. If there are qualifiers they must occur at least 5 weeks prior to the championship events to allow enough time to plan travel
3. The qualifying structure must maintain or improve the growth that the UPA is experiencing currently at the HS levels (subparameter: this must be true for both places where HS Ultimate has already had 5-10+ years of development (e.g. Seattle, Massachusetts, Minnesota) and areas where it is just getting started (e.g. Utah, Texas, Southern California).
-Kyle
A couple of years ago I thought that in the future the end all for high school ultimate should be state tournaments. Now I have been convinced that reginal tournaments that are reachable by 6-8 hour drives at most, are the way to go. Getting on planes just makes everything so difficult and in my opinion hurts the growth of ultimate. Plus I agree that that is what YCC is all about and I feel YCC helps grow ultimate.
I'm thinking that in about 2010 we are going to be done with Westerns and we will instead have a Cascadia HS Championship with the winner getting the "Cascadia Cup." Cascadia is BC, WA, OR, and ID. Sorry California, your are not part of Cascadia.
Frankly I think we are really close right now to being able to have a great Cascadia Championship with 8 good girls teams and easily 16 good open teams. This kind of opportunity is what we need to get Vancouver, BC to start playing more single gender instead of all coed all the time.
-Mike
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