Youth Club Champs 2007

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Youth Club Champs 2007

So let's hear it -- What do you have to say about the upcoming Youth Club Champs?

Comment away!

98 comments:

The Pulse said...: If you know the roster for a YCC team that already hasn't been posted, please post it here.; 7/24/2007 10:55 AM
Kyle Weisbrod said...: Atlanta Mixed:

Alisha Kramer
Paula Seville
Lane Siedor
Sophie Darch
India Stubbs
Kalli Perano
Charlie Herrig
Allen Jarvis
Grant Lindsley
Oliver Honderd
George Stubbs
Cameron Macke
John Terry
Michael Terry
Shelby Jones
Jack Barrow
Chris Kocher
Caleb Edwards
Mariel Franklin
Jenny Brickman; 7/24/2007 2:11 PM
Eastern Europe 2005 said...: Hey Kyle,

Any chance you could post which schools each of those players are from?; 7/24/2007 2:29 PM
Anonymous said...: now that we have seen rosters for Atlanta and Seattle, and seen that all the main players from each are playing, its ridiculously obvious who will win mixed and open...might as well not even play the tournament; 7/24/2007 3:52 PM
Anonymous said...: I disagree.; 7/24/2007 4:53 PM
The Pulse said...: From John Terry:

"everyone plays/played for Paideia Gruel/Groove except:

Jon Carter Heritage High School (Conyers, GA)
Cameron Macke Heritage High School (Conyers, GA)
Caleb Edwards Heritage High School (Conyers, GA)
Shelby Jones The Galloway School (Atlanta, GA)"; 7/24/2007 5:15 PM
Anonymous said...: 1 Ozone
2 Chain
3 JW; 7/24/2007 6:16 PM
Anonymous said...: where's the seattle roster?; 7/24/2007 7:35 PM
Anonymous said...: don't leave out teams like New England and Jersey, both have a lot of players from top teams, and will be able to give seattle a run for their money; 7/24/2007 7:35 PM
Anonymous said...: those are top easterns teams and this year except for paideia the east was pretty weak, while the west experienced a peak year i doubt either of the easterns finalists would have made semi-finals at westerns; 7/24/2007 11:22 PM
Anonymous said...: ....just not true; 7/24/2007 11:47 PM
Anonymous said...: Very few teams competed on both sides of the divide. Consider Hopkins. Came in 8/8 at Paideia Cup (losing to the quarters and semis teams at Easterns by substantial margins, and Paideia 15-3 and SJR 15-8.) and 9/16 at Westerns (losing to South Eugene 15-8). This is about the only evidence we have about East and West talent and it doesn't really prove anything due to the tournaments being at different points in the season. But the numbers look fancy.

However, what I think is that many players on the West coast are riding the coat-tails of a legitimately incredibly Northwest School and mocking everyone who hasn't been beaten 15-4 (Westerns finals, for example) as clearly inferior.

Hell, Queens Kingston managed to score a few points with 3 players against Cornell at College Sectionals.; 7/25/2007 12:05 AM
Anonymous said...: Not only are seeds vital to this tournament, misseedings are equally important to the results. Predicting the guesswork seedings that organizers will make and resulting pools.

Open Seedings

1. Seattle DiscNW
2. New England BUDA
3. Pittsburgh PHUL
4. New Jersey NJHSUL
5. Denver
6. Minnesota
7. Cincinatti YUC
8. Madison

Cincinatti having a larger youth league will influence their seeding above Madison (finished 7th last year).

Pool A
1. Seattle
4. New Jersey
5. Minnesota
8. Madison

Holds.

Pool B
2. New England
3. Pittsburgh
6. Minnesota
7. Cincinatti

New England v. Seattle final.

Women's Seedings

1. Oregon
2. Seattle
3. New England
4. Denver
5. Minnesota
6. Pittsburgh
7. Cincinatti
8. Madison

Pool A
1. Oregon
4. Denver
5. Minnesota
8. Madison

Pool B
2. New England
3. Seattle
6. Pittsburgh
7. Cincinatti

Will event organizers put Eastern/Western champion states over returning YCC champion state? I think so.

Minnesota is misseeded too high, but luck has it that they'll end up 3rd in their pool anyway.

Pittsburgh has no problem with Cincinatti. Faces Denver and breaks seed.

2v3 game is very tough. Looking for New England to win this provided they bring the Andover/Amherst roster I haven't seen yet.

New England v. Oregon final.

Mixed

1. Atlanta
2. Philadelphia
3. Seattle
4. New England BUDA
5. New York
6. Denver
7. Minnesota
8. New England NEPSUL

Pool A
1. Atlanta
4. New England
5. New York
8. NEPSUL

Pool B
2. Philadelphia
3. Seattle
6. Denver
7. Minnesota

Pool B much more competitive than Pool A. Atlanta trounces their pool. Seattle, Denver, Minnesota battle. Atlanta v. Philly final.; 7/25/2007 12:08 PM
Anonymous said...: Personally. I see the girls seeding as ridiculous.
Seattle should be at the top. I know that NWS was beat by oregon by a lot at westerns, but please, be reasonable.
Almost all of the oregon girls go to the same school. NWS makes up only a small chunk to the seattle ycc team.
The seattle ycc team won by landslides last year and have lost only a few players and picked up more.

oh yeah. new england will probably pack a pretty good punch too. dont they always win?

Women's Seedings

1. Seattle
2. New England
3. Oregon
4. Denver
5. Minnesota
6. Pittsburgh
7. Cincinatti
8. Madison

Pool A
1. Seattle
4. Denver
5. Minnesota
8. Madison

Pool B
2. New England
3. Oregon
6. Pittsburgh
7. Cincinatti

hard to say how these teams will come together, or who will be in the finals or break seed and such, but this seeding seems a little more appropriate.; 7/25/2007 12:53 PM
Anonymous said...: I meant to put New England girls as 2, given my "put Eastern/Western champion states over returning YCC champion state" comment and my Pool B.
My mistake there.

Other than that, switching Seattle and Oregon, not the biggest deal. I just haven't seen the roster for Seattle yet, and based on Westerns results (not just the finals) it seemed obvious. That, and seedings for this tournament are mostly guesswork, I think that organizer will put more weight into high Westerns/Eastern composition teams than YCC champions (like they did with Open last year New England-2 seed). And even more wieght on Eastern/Western championship teams.

I see your point about Seattle's roster being more diverse and potentially more dangerous. If you could post the Seattle rosters, I can't seem to find them.; 7/25/2007 1:13 PM
The Pulse said...: It appears that the Seattle rosters have been removed from the DiscNW website - they were all up earlier in the month.

There are also still tournaments left to be played - NJ has Nucci's Cup next weekend and NE is on the waitlist.; 7/25/2007 1:49 PM
Anonymous said...: i dont think that seattle is potentially dangerous. in fact, i think that new england girls, the oregon girls, and heck, probably even the denver girls are better.

why does everyone always talk about seattle? who do they got whos good other than drew johnson?; 7/25/2007 4:34 PM
Anonymous said...: um you are completely and totally wrong. Seattle will win the girls final by no less than 8 points.; 7/25/2007 8:13 PM
Anonymous said...: errrm do people not remember how dominate seattle girls were last year? it wasn't even fair...
and besides drew jhonsan, they have 2 other junior worlds players, anna snyder, and fiona mckibben. plus they have tons of tallent from other schools around seattle...im not about to say that they will win by at least 8 in the finals, but they will be a force to be reckond with.; 7/25/2007 11:13 PM
Anonymous said...: Just throwing it out there... completely different competition this year. Last year they had 5 teams with Denver. This year they have 8, the top 3 programs in the nation.

That 2nd seed is the all important one, considering the 1 seed has to beat the 3 seed to get to finals... Seattle Open found out that road is tough last year. Hopefully the tournament won't be as mis seeded.; 7/25/2007 11:36 PM
Anonymous said...: The reason Seattle open lost last year was not because of any team but themselves. They had the best most athletic most talented players and the best team there, they just were not able to come together. Not to mention they were dismaly coached which was a significant reason for their loss.; 7/25/2007 11:50 PM
Anonymous said...: I have problems with YCC because they don't seek to represent the best of youth ultimate, but rather seek to reward the cities large enough to provide league play. I understand that expandin youth ultimate is a major goal of the UPA, but I don't think that it should be at the expense of an opportunity to gather the country's best high school ultimate players. I just graduated from South Eugene HS, and Oregon has been denied an open bid every year of my high school career. With South losing in the finals, and Churchill making it to the semifinals at Westerns, it's obvious that an open team out of Oregon would be very competetive. We have not been able to compete at YCC because we don't have a UPA sanctioned league. The problem with getting a sanctioned league is that Oregon is home to only three competetive teams, with only five teams overall. South, Churchill, and Crescent Valley HS are all within 45 minutes of each other, but to get other teams, drives of at least 2-3 hours would be required. The UPA expects that by denying us bids to YCC that it will set a flame to our feet to expand youth ultimate in our state, but Oregon simply doesn't have the population to support a large youth ultimate community. YCC should be a tournament to represent the best young talent in the country, rather than some sort of prize awarded to those lucky enough to live in large, supportive communities.

Johnny Bloch
#8 Axe Ultimate; 7/26/2007 4:16 AM
Unknown said...: A similar problem exists with established leagues that are big enough to have their own sanctioning body, and thus have no reason (except YCC) to be UPA sponsored.

They should really stop calling it the Youth "Club" Championships, when it is really the Youth "League" Championships. All players at the YCC must play for the league that was used to gain sponsorship unless you are an "at large" team (with at-large bids being impossible). This is incongruent with the the Club championships where you need only have 50% of your roster from within a section, 75% from within a region, and are allowed 5 out of region players on your roster.

Imagine if you could only form club teams from people who played in your local summer league, and only sections with UPA sponsored summer leagues got to play in the series.; 7/26/2007 9:02 AM
Anonymous said...: where is YCC this year?

blaine, mine-f*cking-sota?

woohoo!
national sports center.
woohoo!

nnnnnnnnnnnnnaaaaaaaaaaaaational sports centerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.; 7/26/2007 10:42 AM
Kyle Weisbrod said...: Alex and Johnny,

I've spoken to these concerns before, but I'm happy doing it again. Anybody can go out and host a tournament where they seek to bring in the best teams around the country and battle it out.

The UPA has a larger mission and part of that is to foster growth in the sport. Part of the way that is acheived is through its competetive structure.

Johnny, all of the players are already UPA members because they have to be for states, right? So, why not simply create a spring or fall league in Eugene or with all of the teams in Oregon and sanction it? Have the same players play and you are set. It doesn't have to be huge like Minnesota or Seattle, but that structure will help new teams join in and participate.

Philly is a little bit tougher because there are so many teams and many of those players are not UPA members. What you could do is create a summer or fall youth league and sanction it. Once again it doesn't have to be big - I beleive the UPA's current plan is to expand the field to include all of the UPA sanctioned leagues out there regardless of size. The top players will play because they'll be able to go on to the YCC (and playing is fun). Others will join because they will want an opportunity to play with and against these top players. Players that don't have a high school team will have an opportunity to participate in a league as well and it could help them go back and recruit enough to form a team for the spring hs season.

Listen, Atlanta is in the same boat - we are now creating a fall league (whether it will be sanctioned or not is still up in the air) to provide more opportunities to play and hopefully secure a YCC bid in whatever divisions we want.

Alex, as for your point about Club Ultimate - one of the reasons the Youth structure was designed the way it is was because of the clear limitations of the adult structure. The way it is set up creates a lack of parity at the local level as all of the best players play on one team. If I were a new player in club, it would
a. be hard for me to join a team to compete in the fall series
b. not be worth it because if I did make a team, I would pay my membership for only one tournament (my team would get eliminated easily) instead of getting a whole league of play and
c. not be worth it because my team would get blown out by all of the other teams by ridiculous scores.

Four 1/2 years after first this structure (which was designed by a lot of youth players and organizers of the time) was first approved and implemented by the board, I think it is clearly superior to the adult structure in it's capacity for growth and participation and will soon be equal to it in it's ability to get the best teams in each division competing against each other. In fact, if I believed it were doable, I would advocate that the adult structure be changed to be more like the youth structure.

At the rate that Ultimate is growing every "generation" of youth players will always look forward and see how much better it could/will be or look back and think how much better players have it now. When I was in high school, there was one, non-UPA high school tournament in the country and my team had to fly 1200 miles to play another high school team. That was only 10 years ago. Look at where we are now. This structure has worked and will continue to work. This is not to say that it can't or shouldn't be tweaked, but that it's important to look beyond a limited perspective of this year and one's own experience and understand that this is still a new event and communities are still adjusting to the structure of the YCC. These growing pains (for Atlanta, Philly, and Eugene) aren't ideal, but they can be figured out by communities without too much difficulty and the overall structure will be successful at meeting the goals that Johnny stated as well as the other goals for the sport in the long term.

-Kyle; 7/26/2007 2:37 PM
Mike Mullen said...: Hey all,

I agree with both Alex and Johnny. (If Eugene had sent an open team any of the past three years with Luke coaching, they would have done well).

Kyle does a nice job clarifying some issues. I'm glad to see that all sanctioned leagues will hopefully get bids and that the tourney will grow to be more than 8 teams per division.

Here are some other questions that I would like to hear opinions on:

Should coed continue to be part of YCC? Or should we ask CUPA to let our coed teams particpate in their youth coed championships?

How many areas are ready to field U-17 (16 years old and younger) teams for YCC? Seattle could have had an open and girls U-17 team this year.

-Mike; 7/26/2007 7:14 PM
The Pulse said...: I think that a trend will develop where teams play summer or fall youth club leagues in order to qualify for YCC's and then play high school competitions in the spring, much like the club/high school soccer scene developed.

And teams won't need to be limited by state/city league definitions for club teams either - there's talk of PHUEL and NJHSU combining for a youth club league in the fall.; 7/26/2007 7:48 PM
Eastern Europe 2005 said...: The NYC mixed team just dropped from the tournament. It is doubtful a replacement team will be found in time for the tournament. This is sad because I know of at least one mixed team (Bluerey from Rochester, NY) that really wanted to attend. The upshot of this is that the mixed division will most likely start off with round robin play between all 7 teams. I think this is fantastic. This leads me to:

1) No one has a clue how to rank YCC teams. Yes, it is really easy to make anecdotal judgments on the relative strength of some of the teams…. but ranking 8 of them in each division in some meaningful way… there’s no way. YCC teams are pretty much brand new every year. Even if one given team isn’t brand new, there’s no way to know for sure to know how strong a brand new YCC team is compared to a returning team. Coaches change, team chemistry changes. Not only that, these teams only play a few games, if any, before the YCCs, and very, very few of them actually get to play each other before the tournament. In my opinion there is so little data to base ranking off of, rankings shouldn’t be attempted. This leads me to:

2) I think the UPA should throw last year’s tournament schedule out the window and play an 8 team (7 in the mixed division) round robin. Most likely there will be a clear winner, and if there’s not…. so what. This way everyone would get 7 (or more) solid games and have a chance at playing everyone else, something that hasn’t been the case in past years. The way the schedule was set last year the NE Open team I coached played 5 games, two against the same team. I would have LOVED to have had the chance to play the 3 other open teams at the event.

Moving on:

3) I think if every sanctioned league, regardless of if they were high school or youth based, was guaranteed a bid to every division at YCCs, then that would fix a whole slew of problems. I really hope that happens. As it stands right now, only sanctioned YOUTH leagues are guaranteed a slot in each division. Sanctioned high school leagues are pretty likely to get a bid accepted in each division at this point (since there is only one sanctioned youth league in the US), but…. it’s not 100% guaranteed. (Someone correct me on this if I’m wrong.)

Blaine is the largest soccer sports complex in the world – I’d imagine the UPA would have no difficulty getting enough fields for every sanctioned youth or hs league to have a spot in each division. (I'm not sure why they didn't do that this year.) At least bump up the number of teams in each division to 16 next year.

4) Mike: I think asking CUPA if US coed youth teams could compete in their championships is a FANTASRIC idea. I’m totally for it. Has this ever been discussed with Sheilah or anyone else at CUPA? I was really looking forward to playing MOFO this year….. but alas, CUC is the same weekend as YCCs. As for U-17 teams, BUDA could definitely put together an open team and most likely a girls team. Heck, a coed team would prolly be possible.

5) Here’s another issue that hasn’t been brought up – Junior Worlds. Every two years this tournament is going to conflict with YCCs. It doesn’t matter that if the two tournaments are separated by a couple weeks or more – As long as they are in the same season there is no way more than a couple players are going to play in both, especially if it continues to cost $1,500+ for US players to participate on the team. So you’re essentially guaranteeing that the top 20 US junior girls and boys won’t be playing in YCCs every two years. In my opinion that’s a HUGE impact on the tournament. Kyle brings up the point that youth leagues and playing in the YCCs is a great way for newer players to get some good play time with more experienced players. Well, if you cut out the top 20 girls and boys, not only do you lose those players, you lose everyone they would have come with them. (These kids definitely travel in packs.) Is this something that the UPA has decided to just roll with as unavoidable? I don’t really have any clever way around this conflict – I’m just bringing it up because in my opinion it definitely has a large impact on the YCCs.

Well, I guess I have one idea: If the UPA was able to greatly reduce the player fee for Worlds then more kids would be able to play in both YCCs and Worlds. Then you’d just have to convince the Worlds coaches that their players are tough enough to play in summer tournaments in addition to Worlds. (I heard something once about US Worlds players being told they shouldn’t play in any other summer events, but alas, I might have heard wrong.) Almost all worlds kids already have to pay for plane tickets out to tryouts… adding in a $1,500 player fee on top of that completely kills almost every youth player’s ability to attend both YCCs and Worlds.

All that being said I LOVE the YCCs and can’t wait to head back to Blaine. I think the event is top notch and a hell of a lot of fun for a huge range of players.

Now if I could just get a National Sports Complex built in St. Johnsbury. :); 7/26/2007 10:41 PM
Mike Mullen said...: Josh,

Great post. I like your ideas.

How about this for YCC vs Worlds conflict? Get WFDF to run worlds more like the little league world series. The US could enter regional teams instead of a national team. The team that wins the US bracket plays the winner of the non-US bracket. With the added year for World's eligibility you could actually have the same team together for YCC and then worlds. YCC would be he qualifier.

Canada could enter multiple teams too.

Or maybe have junior worlds be junior club worlds. Do it like they do adult club worlds, just as long as it is not in Australia.

I attended Worlds in Boston last year. It was a great event. (I should have stayed in Boston instead of at the tourney hotel in the middle of nowhere - doahh!) The only thing that bummed me out was that I felt all four teams that made semi's at Westerns (probably true of Easterns too) seemed to be stronger than the teams in the 3rd/4th place game at worlds. In other words the US and Canada could enter multiple teams that could compete.

-Mike; 7/26/2007 11:03 PM
Unknown said...: NYC dropped? That's crap. I suggest banned for life from all future YCCs.; 7/26/2007 11:18 PM
Unknown said...: Philly's YCC team last year could have challenged for the bronze at 06 Junior Worlds.; 7/26/2007 11:23 PM
Anonymous said...: Mike, I like the idea about the "little league world series". However, I'm a bit unclear: A bunch of US teams could compete (that would not be cheap....)then the winner would be the "US TEAM" at the event that year?; 7/27/2007 12:14 AM
Mike Mullen said...: Anon 12:14

No, the LL world series model would be a 16 team tournament with 8 teams from the US on one side of the bracket and 8 teams not from the US on the other side of the bracket. The major flaw in this is that US teams wouldn't get to play the international teams except in the final and in placement games.

I would probably argue more for the current club worlds format where you can have more than one entry from each country. The top 6-8 teams from the prior YCC would get bids. YCC would happen every other year. US teams would get to play teams from around the world in pool play and elimination.

Frankly, this would be much easier to run because the UPA wouldn't have to throw all the resources and time towards organizing tryouts for a national team. BUDA, DiscNW, PHUEL, etc, would each organize their own tryouts.

Sure you would not have a National Team but more US kids would be at worlds and it would be way more competitive. And competition is what our society is built on.

-Mike; 7/27/2007 2:37 AM
Kyle Weisbrod said...: Wow, lots of interesting and well thought out ideas since I posted.

I'm going to try and respond to a lot of them:

US Mixed teams at CUPA Championships: Interesting, but I don't know if they have the capacity to handle it. What would be the reason for droping the division from YCC?

U-17 at YCC: Can't wait until we get there. Sounds like we aren't far away if Seattle, Boston and I would guess Minneapolis and Pittsburgh are ready for it. I think a lot of the leagues sending three teams are using the mixed division for their younger/less experienced players.

Summer/Fall leagues as sanctioned leagues qualifying teams for YCC: Yep, that was the original vision of the task force that developed this structure. High School leagues are more restrictive by their definition. Youth leagues have more flexibility in terms of who can play, how teams are organized, and geographic range. They are more easily split or combined if size becomes an issue. They also allow for greater parity during play and the opportunity to break down the competetive barriers between HS players.

Ranking YCC teams: Definitely hard. Wait until the tournament expands and it gets harder. Don't know the solution to this one, but luckily we've got Adam Tarr on hand to give us brilliant formats.

Round Robin: I prefer this with 8 or fewer teams, but the issue comes when you have three teams that tie at the top and one team gets eliminated from the finals with only 1 loss (with 7 or 8 teams there are not enough rounds to have a semifinals - I think). Once we expand the tournament, pools will be necessary.

Sanctioned leagues being gauranteed entry: The plan is the expand the tournament to gaurantee entry to sanctioned youth leagues (Denver currently). I'm not sure what the plan is with sanctioned high school leagues (Seattle, Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, Cincinnati currently). The model is intended to encourage youth leagues for two reasons: 1. Because high school leagues are restrictive (as talked about above) and 2. Because in the long run, it is possible that other organizing bodies (like state interscholastic athletic associations) will run high school play. So the UPA is trying to develop a robust structure to support youth Ultimate whatever the future of the sport is. So, I tend to think that only sanctioned youth leagues should be gauranteed spots to incentivize the growth of those leagues as much as possible.

Junior Worlds conflicting with YCC every other year: Yeah, this is an issue. The coaches (to my knowledge) did not ask the kids not to play at YCC last summer - in fact, a handful did. I don't think that because the top 20 or so boys and girls may not be at the event it will cause the next tier of players not to attend - at least that's not what we saw last year.

Top youth club team representing US at Junior Worlds: I think that having a world championship with national teams is incredible and having a national team itself is great. I like that players from non-elite teams or players from cities without high caliber play have the opportunity to play on the national team and win the world championship and I think it encourages that competitiveness (although individually and not team based). I know that the adult players would love to have this opportunity instead of the current structure. I think since we have the resources to run the try-outs with youth we should do it. Anybody whose been a part of the team or the try-outs knows how exciting it is to be a part of the try-outs and now that it's hooked in with YCC (with the coaches scouting there) and the try-out process for the YCC teams the number of people who are participating in the US National team selection process is huge - including all of the players that even try-out for YCC teams and their coaches.

Chaning Junior Worlds to a Club Junior Worlds: Part of my resistance to a lot of this stuff is my waryness towards WFDF. WFDF has no full-time employees and operates on a budget of less than 1/20th of the UPAs (currently). In my experience with several WFDF tourneys the costs are high and the quality is inconsistent. Of course I've always enjoyed them because they are international tournaments and the opportunity to compete against international teams (and the travel itself) is fun. I think as an alternative to trying to change WFDFs Juniors format is have the YCC become an international event. I'm not sure how non-North American teams would qualify for the event, but it would be awesome to bring that international flavor to the YCC.

OK, if you've made it this far, you should reward yourself.

-Kyle; 7/27/2007 8:45 AM
Eastern Europe 2005 said...: More thoughts:

1) I’ve got to get a real forum system installed on this site. Having long drawn out conversations in the comments of a post is not optimal. How about a vBulletin license? Hrmmm...

2) I think running Junior Worlds in a LLWS format is another great idea. I know that this idea was brought up before. Someone brought up something similar to it right before Junior Worlds last summer. One thing to consider though – This would only be for the open and girls divisions, correct? Oooo, but then what you could do is every other year have our girls and open YCC teams compete at worlds (yes, given they are not in Australia!) and the mixed team compete in the CUC. In the years in between run the YCCs as normal, bringing in international teams if possible. Having the every-other year YCCs be the qualifier for competing in worlds is another strong idea. I love it.

3) Mike: Isn’t it nice being a teacher and having summers free? I too was out at Junior Worlds for the entire time and noticed the same thing. I think any country that thinks they can send more then one competitive team in a given division should be able to do so. I would have loved to have seen more games at Junior Worlds. Heck, maybe that way the girls teams won’t have to play a round robin twice in order to fill their schedule.

4) Yup, the NYC mixed team dropped a couple days ago and it’s definitely not cool. Oh well.

5) Alex: I would have loved to have seen teams like the Philly YCC team take on the Junior Worlds team.

6) Mike: If the format was 8 US teams and 8 International teams, couldn’t non-tournament cross over games be arranged after/during regular tournament play? I dunno, after the tournament is done and the US winner plays the International winner, lots and lots of expo games are setup in the days afterwards.

7) Why not have a true National Team AND several YCC teams compete at Worlds? Even without the Worlds players the YCC teams are still dang strong and could certainly take on lots of the international teams. Yah, the US National Teams would probably win, but those YCC teams would do very well and take some of the higher seeds. I agree that more US kids should get the chance to compete against international teams.

8) Kyle: I see the reason for meshing the CUC champs and the Mixed YCC division as being it would be a better, more competitive event. Because of the CUC/YCC conflict this year, MOFO, the defending mixed YCC champs, won’t be at YCCs, something that definitely cheapens the event. I really wanted to play them and I’m sure you did too. Also, by combining with the CUC we’d be assuring LOTS of great games, and cushion ourselves against last minute team drops. Also, playing against Canadian mixed teams would be a GREAT draw for US mixed teams. As it is the mixed division is probably the hardest division to recruit players for.

9) Kyle: So when you’re referring to Summer/Fall leagues you’re referring to non-HS leagues correct? If so, then I totally understand what you’re saying and see how those leagues would guarantee a league’s bid into each of the YCC divisions. BUT…. are Fall leagues definitely going to be youth leagues and not High School based? From what I have been reading of these comments, the leagues that people have been discussing (whether they be fall, winter, spring, or summer) are all high school based. At this point High School based leagues are NOT guaranteed bids into YCC, correct? So, I guess my question is for all of you thinking about starting leagues: Is your league going to be high school based or non-high school (youth) based?

10) My opinion is that it’s not hard to rank YCC teams, it’s impossible. It’s hard enough ranking teams at Easterns and Westerns, and with those teams lots of them have played each other and lots of them have had common opponents. Still, even with all that data the ranking is not completely straight forward. Unless the YCC teams play a significant number of games against each other or common opponents, there is flat out no way to rank these teams except by anecdotal evidence. I mean that’s how it’s been done in the past two years at YCC, hasn’t it? Will emails all the teams asking for their opinion on how strong they are compared to last year and then ranks the teams. I totally understand that’s the best way for him to create the rankings given he has very little, if not NO other data on the teams…. but the only reason he has to take that flawed path is that he’s operating under the assumption that he HAS to rank the teams.

With 8 un-rankable teams I think we should play an 8-team round robin (like they did at the Boston Invite this year) and leave it at that. Yes, I know there could be a three way tie for first, but as I said before…. so what? Having the top three teams be slightly disgruntled over who actually is #1 seems like a small price to pay for having every team play every team.

If the UPA is going to go with a ranked tournament format, a proper ranking is so, soooo important and in my opinion there is no way good enough to assure that the rankings are valid enough. Here’s something to think about: In last year’s open division one pool finished 1,2,4,5 and the other finished 3,6,7,8.

11) Kyle: I was operating under the assumption that it was already the case that sanctioned youth leagues were already guaranteed a spot in each division. I guess I was wrong and that no form of sanctioned league is guaranteed a spot in each division?

12) Kyle: I totally understand the advantages of youth leagues over high school leagues, but as far as I can tell almost everyone who has talked about starting a league is talking about starting a high school league. Everyone out there planning on starting a league please chime in here. Are you planning on starting a youth league or a high school league?

13) Kyle: Yes, a handful of players did play in both tournaments, but only a small handful. As far as I can remember it was only 2 US boys (one was an alternate) and 2 US girls, but I could be wrong.

14) Kyle: There is most definitely an effect on the next tier of players playing at YCCs last due to worlds players not playing at YCCs. Here is one example: Two years ago with no worlds conflict 17 Amherst boys and 10 Amherst girls played at YCCs. Last year when the tournaments were in conflict 5 Amherst boys played and 0 Amherst girls played. This year during a non-conflict year 9 Amherst boys are playing and 10 Amherst girls are playing. There is definitely fallout from the “I’ll go if she/he is going” attitude, whether it’s conscious or unconscious. The thing is that you have to look at the opposite migration – When lots of Worlds capable players play YCCs, lots of players see that as a great reason to play in YCCs. The competition is greater and they get the chance to play with those players. Anyway, that’s just my personal observation.

15) Kyle: Yes, having a true national team is super cool. I love it. Yes, it’s awesome that “non-elite teams or players from cities without high caliber play have the opportunity to play on the national team and win the world championship”. Yes, it’s a grand, rewarding experience to be involved in the process. I know that all of the players who attend the tryouts who don’t make the team absolutely LOVED the process. But here’s my issues with it: A) Only the top 20 girls and boys actually get to play the games against the international teams B) The cost of actually playing on the team is SUPER expensive for youth players. Most players have to pay at least $500 to attend tryouts and then there is a $1,500 player fee on top of that? You say “I think since we have the resources to run the try-outs with youth we should do it.” The only reason you have the resources to run the team is that you’re lucky enough to have 20 AMAZING girls and boys who can pony up two grand a piece. Then again I don’t know if the UPA offers financial aid – Does it?

Yes, “the try-out process for the YCC teams the number of people who are participating in the US National team selection process is huge” but the end game is that only 40 players get to play against the international teams.

If these 40 players were the only youth US players who could do well on the international scene, I would really have no big problem with the process, other than the HUGE player fee… but that’s NOT the case. We have HUNDREDS of US junior player who could give the international teams great competition. Shutting them out of the tournament just doesn’t seem right. If it was up to me, this is what I would do:

A) Significantly lower the player fee for the US Worlds Team. I’m still all in favor of having players pay their way to tryouts, but that’s where I think the major payments should stop. The UPA has a bunch of money currently, right? How about we put a lot (more) of it towards alleviating the $1,500 (or more) junior worlds player fee?

B) Set up Junior Worlds so that the US National team AND several (6-8?) YCC teams get to participate. Even if the top 20 US boys and girls are playing on the National teams the US YCC teams will still be dang strong.

C) In the years between Junior Worlds competitions run the YCC tournament as it’s run now with every sanctioned league, youth OR high school, being guaranteed a bid in each division. Expand each division to at least 16 teams. Award the top 6-8 finishers in the open and girls division a spot at Worlds. Award the top 6-8 mixed finishers a spot at the CUC.

16) Kyle: Inviting non-US teams to YCCs is a great idea…. But I doubt we’d get many non-US teams. Look at what happened with Junior worlds when it happened in the US, and that event happens every two years. If we opened up YCCs to non-US teams we’d get some Canadian teams, and maybe a couple more from outside North American, but I seriously doubt we’d get more than that as long as Junior Worlds was still running in it’s current form.

17) Here’s another reason for expanding the number of US junior teams at Worlds – It creates a whole bunch of junior-level international coaching positions. Right now there are what, 2 international junior-level international head coaching positions (Head US girls and boys positions) and four or 5 assistant level positions? I am sure there are MANY US juniors coaches that would LOVE the chance to coach at the international level. Right now there are only a precious few of those positions.

18) One of the big reasons the Easterns/Westerns split occurred was to allow for more teams to experience high level competition. This was at the expense of having a true national high school tournament, but the payoff has been huge. So many more high school teams now have the chance to play high level high school Ultimate and I think that’s utterly fantastic. The Easterns/Westerns split has gone a long way towards promoting the growth of youth Ultimate I believe. We’re now at the same point with international juniors play. It used to be 10 years ago that we had just enough junior players who were strong enough and could afford to play in international competition to form one boys and one girls team. Now we have WAY more than that. For that reason alone the UPA should push towards having more than one US team in each division at Junior Worlds.

Okay, now I’m done. Time to get packed for NUTC.

- Josh; 7/27/2007 12:27 PM
Kyle Weisbrod said...: I don't have much time, I'm leaving for a tourney in 10 minutes.

Josh, I wish I could sit down and talk to you about this but here's a few major points.

- World Championships should be for National Teams. This is my opinion, but I think the prestige of playing for a World Championship should be given to the best team.

- The National Team should be determined by try-outs (not a team that wins a tournament). Once again, my opinion, but I think the 20 most deserving boys and 20 most deserving girls should get to go, not the best 20 in a city (or at a school) that are lucky enough to be at that city or school.

- Anything to do with WFDF events and how they are run are the responsibility of WFDF, not the UPA. Their website is www.wfdf.org if you want to lobby them.

- If youth club teams want to participate in International competition they can travel to international tournaments on their own.

- Subsidizing National teams (youth or adults) is certainly on the table, but it needs to be weighed against other priorities of the UPA. Currently the UPA has committed to pay for the coach expenses.

- $1,500 is how much it cost for Finland. I think for Boston it was $700 (+ try-outs). Vancouver will probably be in more in the range of Boston.

- I think there are too many factors in play to say the only reason Amherst players didn't go to YCC was because of WJUC. I think next year will give us a bigger picture.

- There were more National team players than you counted. At least 2 boys on Seattle were there, a bunch of girls on Seattle, and one on Denver. I can't remember off the top of my head, but I would guess there were others. Did the two minnesota girls play as well? Atlanta did not attend and I'm pretty sure their national team boys and girls would have gone as well had they had teams.

- Atlanta is adding a fall "youth" league in addition to its spring HS league. Denver has a summer youth league as well. Maybe I've just got to move to more cities to help things get started ;-)

- Josh, I don't think your reason for the Easterns/Westerns split is completely correct. At the time we split we were having difficulty getting 16 boys HS teams at the tournament every time (and we still can't get 16 girls teams at those tourneys). The biggest reason for the split was the travel issue - to make it possible for teams to get to the event. The other big reason is because national (or even regional level) HS play isn't really appropriate. With the travel and the wide range of school schedules it was important to deemphasize the national competition (in HS play) and put the focus on developing quality state championships - a goal we are still working toward.

That's all for now - off to Baton Rouge!

-Kyle; 7/27/2007 1:14 PM
The Pulse said...: The more I think about it, the more I support the idea of modeling the juniors scene on how youth soccer runs. Fall youth club leagues, youth club tournaments, maybe even advancing to regional youth club championships. And in the spring, we continue with high school leagues, run they way they are currently until there are enough high-level teams that out of state travel and competition becomes more of a tune-up than a goal.

A fall youth league can easily be established around a high school league or a summer league or local disc organization. Teams could be draft-based, location-based, tryout-based, whatever. A couple practices a week, then games on the weekend.

I'm excited for the possibility of setting up a PHUEL/NJHSU youth league based on the MCUDL fields in NJ - while I doubt there will be anything like a Pennsbury/Columbia sr/jr youth club team in the fall, it will succeed in growing youth ultimate in several ways.

Players do not need to have six other players from their high school to join. You can get interested students from around the area who don't have high school teams. The implication is that you can teach them enough in order for them to try and start one in the spring, and even if that doesn't work, maybe they bring out more friends next fall.

Also, there can be youth club tournaments hosted in the fall, and youth club teams can attend the "regular" juniors tournaments offered. A tournament like Fall Brawl could attract Mercer youth league teams, as well as high school teams from the area or PHUL youth club teams. Eventually this could transition to a complete youth club season, where even if your high school team competes in a fall league, it's competing in a youth club league against youth club teams.

As far as international competition and YCC's go, I can see a few possible routes. I do think that junior worlds should offer players the opportunity to play international competition even if they're the best player in their youth league by far. I support the tryout process there, but I also like the idea of a world youth club championships.

However, the drawback here is that players are constrained by age, and if there are YCC's in the summer, plus WYCC and WJUC alternating years, that's a lot to ask. So I think that maybe YCC's would eventually become a fall event, capping a fall youth club season, with possible regional qualifiers for youth club teams, and the "youth all-star" teams that we see now would only make an appearance for the WYCC.

Because, and here I'm imagining huge amounts of growth, eventually a youth league system will be able to support several tiers of teams. Perhaps the top 8 teams in the league play each other, travel, and play at regionals. The next 8 teams play each other, scrimmage the teams above and below them, and sometimes travel out of league to play similar-level teams from other leagues in tournaments. And the bottom 8 teams would just play each other, learn about ultimate, etc.

But we've got a long way to go until we reach that point. Off to Wildwood?; 7/27/2007 1:59 PM
Mike Mullen said...: Hey all,

A couple more comments.

Josh - Yep, nice to have summers off so I can actually be busier than I am during the school year. But a nice change of pace anyway. Good comments by the way. I like the hybrid idea of a national team as well as YCC teams attending but like Kyle says, it is a WFDF event so they would have to be convinced. I am against putting more UPA resources aimed at the National team. It serves too few people and there is not enough payoff.

Kyle - I agree with you for the most part but I think the UPA is making a mistake in only awarding guarenteed bids to the Denver style league. Not sure where that came from but I think there should be a variety. Of course all that is moot if we go to affiliate programs which would also get bids. I'll start a new thread for that topic.

Ryan - I absolutely agree with you that we should be trying to mimic soccer. I grew up with youth soccer and watched how it exploded. Ultimate has some of the same great simple aspects as soccer for kids. However, I think it would be a big mistake to put YCC in the fall (Soccer club nationals is in the summer btw) because some HS leagues will invariably go to the fall. (Seattle HS open may go to fall and if we do we will try to bring the whole west coast).

Alex - You made a great point about bigger more established areas not needing the UPA. Check out my post about affliates when it goes up. It addresses that issue that we also have in Seattle.

-Mike; 7/27/2007 4:28 PM
Eastern Europe 2005 said...: Kyle: Yes, I totally agree – Talking this out in person would be so much more effective. Are you leading the ATL YCC team? If so I’ll make sure to catch up with you in Blaine.

Yes, I think World Championships should be for National Teams, but why JUST national teams? There is such an imbalance between US Little League baseball and the rest of the world the tournament is run as US vs. The Rest of The World. I’d argue that’s we’re at a similar place with juniors Ultimate in the US.

I agree that the National team should be determined by try-outs. Again, I’m just saying that in ADDITION to a national team we send some of our YCC teams.

Yes, I agree that since the WUGC is a WFDF event that the WFDF needs to be lobbied… but if that lobbying comes from the UPA it’ll have more weight than any other program in well, prolly the whole planet. Oh, and don’t worry, I’ve already started the process on a weird idea I have. ;)

Yes, of course if a youth club teams wants to compete in an international tournament they can just ‘go’, just like how if a program wants to run a US national tournament, they can just ‘run one’. But there is an issue with that, just like there is with running a domestic national tournament – There are already people doing just that. With Easterns, Westerms, AI, and the Paideia Cup, there is very little, correction, NO room for another ‘Nationals’ caliber tournament. Due to Worlds being every two years, and the tournament itself having issues drawing lots of teams, I doubt there is any way someone else could run a separate international juniors Ultimate tournament…. And get teams to attend. So yah, I could take a youth club team to Europe to play a bunch of EU teams, or to Singapore, or to Japan, but none of those events would be world tournaments.

Ah, well $700 plus tryouts isn’t that bad, but it’s still pretty steep. And Worlds won’t always be in North America – Once they kick back to Europe the player fee will spike way high again. So let’s start lobbying the UPA to start subsidizing the junior worlds team player fees. Where should those emails be sent? To you? : )

I never said the WJUC/YCC conflict was the ONLY reason for the sever dip in Amherst players last year – Tiina decided she wasn’t going to coach, there wasn’t much support from BUDA, and lots of other things were in play. I was just trying to make the point that I think it sure didn’t help things having the WJUC be on top of the YCCs. Yes, next year will tell us more.

Okay… then at most 10 of 40 US junior worlds players played in both YCCs and the WJUC? That means 30 junior players who would have almost certainly played at the YCCs weren’t there.

That’s great to hear that ATL is starting a fall youth league. If you ever want to move up to Northern VT, lemme know. Maybe that other half of yours wants to practice medicine up here? : )

My outlines reasoning for the Easterns/Westerns split was in no way meant to be all encapsulating. I’ve read through the UPA’s explanation of the reason for the split many times. I was just trying to point out that the Easterns/Westerns split has made it possible for many more kids to play juniors Ultimate at a high level – There are more spots at the tournament AND the tournaments are easier to get to. With so many kids who are capable of playing junior worlds level Ultimate, I think the UPA should make the effort to help bring more US teams to the tournament.

Pulse: Good stuff on creating new youth leagues. I love to movement. One thing though: I don’t think YCCs should be in the Fall. Too many Ultimate players participate in other sports during the fall.

Mike: “Josh - Yep, nice to have summers off so I can actually be busier than I am during the school year.” You too eh? : ) I do see your point about not wanting the UPA to expend more resources towards Worlds since it only benefits a few players. That is a good point. Hrmmm….

Are bids guaranteed to sanctioned youth leagues? I’m not a little confused on if they are given what Kyle has said?

Ooo, that would be quite interesting if the whole west coach juniors Ultimate scene moved to a fall season. Very interesting idea….; 7/27/2007 5:46 PM
Anonymous said...: can we talk about THIS years YCC??; 7/28/2007 4:27 PM
Anonymous said...: As for the seedings which are posted way up there...(I know this is like 20 posts back...my b). Denver #5? Did anyone watch YCC last year? Seattle beating themselves because of coaching? God forbid another team LEGITIMATELY beat Seattle right? Wow; 7/29/2007 3:21 AM
Anonymous said...: It's ALL about Seattle this year; 7/29/2007 2:39 PM
Anonymous said...: So, I tried to post earlier, but it didn't work and broke my heart.

Addressing talk about the National team issue, I think that the best part of the experience was getting to play with people who came from all across the country-- had different playing styles and experience to contribute, and forming those relationships that will carry as we all move into college and club. I don't have strong feelings about sending YCC teams in addition to a National team (I do think that it'll weaken all of the US teams as there are kids who will forego a National team spot to play with friends on YCC, and vice versa)... but I do think that the current system is great. Expensive (even Boston was a stretch, and I did YCC too), but worth it.

Switching gears: Those YCC seeds are a little whack. This tournament is nearly impossible to seed, and I think (and hope) that the first look is at last years standings, (if possible) seeing who graduated and who picked up (NE will benefit from this, and rightly so), and then Eastern/Western success. I'd say top 4 girls teams are (in order): Seattle, Oregon, Denver, NE. No matter what, the competition will be way beyond what it was last year.

See you all in Blaine! Best,
Brenna Hokanson
Colorado Whiteout/Cutthroat '06/'07
Team USA '06; 7/30/2007 4:01 PM
Eastern Europe 2005 said...: Hey Brenna,

Yes, there is no doubt the national team experience is amazing. Playing with the best of the best from all over the place must be unreal. The only issue I have with the team is that it only serves 40 kids, when there are lots, lots more that are capable of playing at the international level. If there were other high quality international youth tournaments out there, this wouldn't be that big of a deal because as Kyle said, teams could just go to those. But here's the thing -- Are there any other high quality international youth Ultimate tournaments out there?

I think it's grand that so many kids are involved in the tryout process -- So many in fact that some kids aren't even invited to tryout camps. But that's where it ends for most of the kids.

YCCs already happen at the same time as worlds, so that conflict of one weakening the other is already an issue.

I think just creating an avenue for YCC teams to play at Worlds would go along way towards having more kids than ever have that spectacular experience.

Yah, I can't wait to see how the rankings pan out this year. Should be entertaining.; 7/30/2007 5:22 PM
Anonymous said...: does anyone know where i could find pictures from YCC 2005?

thanks; 8/01/2007 12:58 AM
Anonymous said...: WIth this whole little league style format....why should the US be guarrenteed a spot in the finals? I always thought that was unfair with the LLWS...; 8/01/2007 11:11 AM
Eastern Europe 2005 said...: Pictures from the 2005 YCCs are online here: http://youth2005.upa.org/ and in the gallery at www.acultimate.com.

Anon 11:11: That is a very good point, one that I hadn't really considered until now. At this point I do think I agree with you that the US shouldn't be guaranteed a spot in the finals. I'd have to think about it some more, but I dunno -- Hrmm.... All I know is that I'd like to see more US youth players get a chance at serious International play.

Back to thinking I go...; 8/01/2007 5:27 PM
Anonymous said...: it wouldnt be so much that they are guaranteed a spot in the finals. it would pretty much be two separate tournaments, the US and the World, and then the winners get a chance at a crossover type thing. but then again, its also hard to say its fair for more US players to get a chance to play over players from other countries. The point is to have the best, just like other countries also have to make cuts, so does the US, and eventually, like in Basketball, the US may lose its dominance; 8/01/2007 6:01 PM
Anonymous said...: does anyone have any idea when the seedings will be posted?; 8/01/2007 6:18 PM
Eastern Europe 2005 said...: Anon 6:18: Seedings should be posted by the UPA tomorrow -- I guess they're not going to round robin open and girls, which is too bad given that whatever rankings are determined aren't going to mean much... and they are going to have a substantial impact on the tournament. Mixed is going to start with a 7 team round robin, although I'm not sure what the format is going to be after that. Maybe 2-7 will play 3 play-in games for the semis. Hrmmm... but if they did that the two teams in the finals would play 9 games over the whole tournament. Hrmmm, but if they just take the top 4 after pool play for the semis and finals, then that would mean there could be teams bumped out of the semis by point diff alone. Hrmm... who knows.

Anon 6:01: Yah, having a US tournament and then having the winner play the winner of the 'Every other country' tournament seems like it could work. And yes, a point is to have the best play the best, but another bigger goal is to strengthen the broadest spectrum of players. One great way to do that would be to have more than 40 US kids play high level International Ultimate. Overall it's not that huge of an issue -- I'd just like to see more US youths playing International Ultimate.

Also, keep in mind we could still have a true US national team AND really good youth club teams at the same time, playing in the same tournaments. I mean how cool would it be to have the US national teams (open and girls) along with 5-8 US open and 5-8 US girls teams competing at Worlds in Vancouver?

As for the issue of more players from the US getting the chance than other countries.... why not let every country send more than one team?

With more than one team from every country you'd have a much more competative tournament. Teams would get more games against more even competition. I mean, look at last summer's Junior Worlds -- You had 8 open teams and only 4 girls teams. A super strong US open team and a very strong CA open team dominated play and pretty much the same thing happened on the girls side except for the girls finals. Open up the bid process to more than one team per country and you could get up to 16 teams in each division (most likely). That would be fantastic.; 8/01/2007 7:06 PM
Anonymous said...: Top four ycc womens team (in order)

1 Seattle
2 Oregon
3 New England
4 Denver; 8/02/2007 12:13 AM
Mike Mullen said...: Josh et al,

I like the idea that there could be a world championship with both a national team and club teams. The LLWS was more of an example if there was no national team. Otherwise it wouldn't really work. I think the better idea would be just to seed it like they seed adult club worlds.

In the end the format of the tournament would have to have input from the other countries. Maybe they would like the LLWS format maybe the club worlds format. Who knows.

-Mike; 8/02/2007 3:28 AM
NJ State Youth Coordinator said...: why not the "best of both worlds"?

juniors worlds

and

juniors club worlds.

rotating on an annual basis.

problems? yes.

1) conflicts with annual yccs.
2) players spending more money for at least one international tournament in their respective high school careers.
3) scheduling.

solutions? to quote josh seamon, "hrmmm."

1) rotate ycc and juniors worlds so that ycc top finishers gain entry to juniors club worlds the following year. something like this:

2008: WUGC (Vancouver, CA) & YCC
2009: juniors club worlds
2010: WUGC & YCC
2011: juniors club worlds
2012: WUGC & YCC

and so on and so forth...

is this too much frequent international competition? well, it follows the old adult club system until they moved to every four years. i would hate to disrupt the current format of juniors worlds every two years. for me, it's a matter of somehow introducing an international jrs club tournament without upsetting the current format.

another idea is this:

2008: WUGC & YCC
2009: juniors club worlds
2010: WUGC & YCC
2011: YCC
2012: WUGC & YCC
2013: juniors club worlds
2014: WUGC & YCC

and so on and so forth. so instead, maintain juniors worlds on its current every-two-years format and introduce juniors club worlds on an every-four-years basis.

2) money. a high school playing career is four years. in those four years, how often will that special kind of player play (and spend big money) at an international level? there's a select few who have had the privilege to play at worlds at least twice while in high school (isaiah, darden, etc). by introducing more international tournaments, this select group will obviously increase. but by how much? i'm not convinced that the playing opportunities will increase so much as to make the financial demands greater.

3) scheduling. this was somewhat addressed above, but my greater concern is how potential new tournaments (with different formats) will fit with the current wfdf model.

2007: (a regional year*)
2008: WUGC
2009 World Games
2010: WUCC (club)
2011: (a regional year)
2012: WUGC
2013: World Games
2014: WUCC

(*this is an "off" year where different regions of the world are encouraged to host their own tournaments: Europeans, Pan-American Games, etc).

so my question is, how would potentially new juniors tournaments (LLWS, juniors club, etc) fit in with wfdf's adult system? is it a priority to host the juniors division at the same site as adult divisions? should we adopt the adult system altogether? that is, hold juniors worlds every four years with WUGC and juniors club worlds with WUCC?

i dunno.

discussion here is good. but to get any serious movement on these ideas, one needs to reach out to:

Anne Marie Carey (WFDF Executive Director) annemarie.carey@wfdf.org

or

the WFDF Board: http://www.wfdf.org/index.php?page=structure/board/index.html

ps. go Garden State!; 8/02/2007 2:43 PM
Anonymous said...: I feel bad for whoever has to seed YCC; 8/03/2007 12:16 AM
Anonymous said...: word; 8/03/2007 2:49 AM
Anonymous said...: seeding for this summer's YCC is being done by some very smart people who are trying to take into account as much information as possible.
they have contacted each coach or contact for each team and asked what they think...
they have looked at the few games that have been played this summer already...
they have looked at the rosters and individual players...
they have even been looking on this site and have been thinking about what many of you have been talking about...; 8/03/2007 3:57 AM
Eastern Europe 2005 said...: It still doesn't make it an easy process :); 8/03/2007 10:32 AM
Anonymous said...: question... weren't seeding supposed to be up yesterday?? i checked this morning and there wasn't anything... any help?; 8/03/2007 2:39 PM
Eastern Europe 2005 said...: Yah, I thought they were supposed to be up yesterday too.... hrmm.... maybe they've determined the seedings but are a bit lagged in getting them online?; 8/03/2007 5:58 PM
Eastern Europe 2005 said...: They're now online right here: http://youth2007.upa.org/schedules/competition; 8/03/2007 6:39 PM
Anonymous said...: seedings look right. If Seattle plays well both in open and girls, they should win it pretty easily....... nobody will even come close to the girls.; 8/03/2007 8:33 PM
Anonymous said...: random question, i am about to order vapor td's and i wear a 12.5 in the speed tds. the speed td's have a little room. just wondering if anyone knows whether i should order a 12.5 or 12 in the vapors; 8/04/2007 12:16 PM
Unknown said...: The mixed seedings are a little messed up (Didn't Buda beat Nepsul 15-3 in a scrimmage?) but I guess that doesn't matter since it's round robin.

In other news, apparently the Pittsburgh girls team has like 6 total girls going and they are in a desperate search for more players. From what I gather from their RSD post, they were granted some kind of exemption so they can be an at-large team (and thus draw players from anywhere in the MA region). Is this fair? We (SEPDA) have had our own problems with injuries and people dropping out due to the expense, and we would have loved to have been an at-large team that could draw players from NJ, VA or NC.

This goes back to my earlier comments about the player eligibility being tied to the league structure, which I think is messed up for a "club" championship.; 8/04/2007 9:43 PM
Unknown said...: Sidebar: huge props to Pittsburgh girls for not bailing like those punks from NYC mixed.; 8/04/2007 9:44 PM
Will D said...: The Girls Division is the only division in which "at-large" teams received bids. Any at-large Open or Mixed teams would have dropped to the bottom of the priority list when bids were initially awarded.; 8/06/2007 1:47 PM
Unknown said...: Yes, two teams recieved at large bids, but Pittsburgh's Women's bid was a UPA sponsored league bid (from the PHUL women's league) and was listed as such on the YCC website, until they just now changed it to an at-large bid. So given the fact that there is now an opening in the mixed division, is SEPDA allowed to switch it's bid to at-large, or is this concession only granted to Pittsburgh?; 8/06/2007 1:55 PM
Anonymous said...: alex. yeah Pittsburght is getting to draw more players and become an "at-large-team" but keep in mind that they have extremely low numbers and would potentially have to drop out otherwise. while SEPDA may have lost some players, they really dont seem to be in the same situation.
"is this concession only granted to Pittsburgh".
you sound upset that they are getting enough players to come. thats not cool. if someone should upset, its the other girls teams. not you.

besides, there are other at large girls teams. there are no other at large mixed teams.; 8/06/2007 4:38 PM
Anonymous said...: Nike sizes run true for all their football cleats. If there is a littel room, stick with 12.5. If you think their is enough room to drop a size, go for it, but bear in mind that the vapor sizing is the same as the speed's.; 8/06/2007 4:50 PM
Lukester said...: the only other 'at large' girls team is Oregon (mis-listed as Eugene)... It does give us an unfair advantage in that we can pull girls from anywhere in Oregon.
Too bad that we don't have the talent numbers that Seattle or other areas have. If we did, we first of all wouldn't be an at large bid since we would have had a upa sanctioned league just like those cities with the numbers that necessitate it.

That arguments aside, I would like to announce that we pulled off an official upa sanctioned non-school based league this summer to hopefully secure us some sort of bid at the ycc table.

-luke johnson
flood coach (oregon ladies ycc team); 8/06/2007 4:52 PM
Eastern Europe 2005 said...: Luke: Congrats on the summer youth league. That's great stuff.

Anon 8/3@8:33pm: Yup, the Seattle girls team is sure going to be strong, but keep in mind:

1) The Denver girls pack a good punch.
2) The MN girls have improved tremendously from last summer.
3) The New England girls team is completely different from last summer. This summer they are bringing 9 Amherst girls and 5 other power players from other MA schools.

Question: What do people think of the mixed and girls divisions using a 7-team round robin format that goes straight into the finals? I for one am a huge fan of the 7 team round robin format... but am completely against going straight to the finals. I think there should at least be a semis round. Bumping the game totals up from 7 to 8 doesn't seem like too big of a deal to me.; 8/06/2007 6:51 PM
Anonymous said...: seattle is definitly the team to beat. that been said, there are good things about having a more well rounded team.seattle is a team of players who are each superstars at their own respective schools. sometimes that makes it hard to pull together as a single unit,(they pulled it off great last year though.) whereas a team that pulls more from only several schools has clearer stars, and more players to fulfill certain roles.

and you forgot about oregon. those girls are SICK!; 8/06/2007 7:29 PM
Eastern Europe 2005 said...: Oh, I'm sure the Oregon girls have game as well. I was only speaking to the teams I have personal experience coaching against or that I have seen play.

5 days to go to YCCs! Yay :); 8/06/2007 9:20 PM
Anonymous said...: If you want to know how sick the oregon girls can be, check out churchill westerns highlight video. Half of its the guys, the girls start at about 8 minutes or so. Most of the team is Churchill, so that video should be a pretty good approximation of their skills, which extended to winning Westerns this year.; 8/07/2007 1:05 AM
Anonymous said...: oregon girls are tools. especially abby dubey!

-knoodles
DIRT FOR LIFE; 8/07/2007 2:42 AM
Anonymous said...: yeah, going straight to finals is lame. The girls division would have two, probably actually just one, really exciting semi game, and THEN an awesome final.

Part of winning YCC is about who's team can gel the best in two days. New England vs. Oregon at 8:30 on Saturday might have a completely different outcome than that same match up in a Sunday semi.

This is why semis are so important; rematches showcase who can adapt and gel the fastest. Plus the competition will just be filthy.; 8/07/2007 4:06 AM
Eastern Europe 2005 said...: Anon 4:06: Yah, and on top of that there are always surprise teams at YCCs -- Ones that gel much faster and much stronger than other teams.; 8/07/2007 12:48 PM
Anonymous said...: personally i would prefer pool play, but with only 7 teams you cannot hope to have fair pools play. and if you go from round robin to finals AND semis, that is pushing it at 8 games for the finals teams.

it just sucks all around.; 8/07/2007 12:52 PM
Eastern Europe 2005 said...: Personally I think 8 games in a weekend is totally reasonable.; 8/07/2007 4:08 PM
Anonymous said...: NOBODY WILL GET MORE THAN 8 ON SEATTLE GIRLS. Churchill and south vs. the best from Nathan Hale, Northwest, Lakeside, and Saas. No way.; 8/07/2007 4:17 PM
Anonymous said...: Yeah this is tough. I say shorter games played to 11 or 13, and play semis.

(assuming teams hold seed) I like that the big games, that act as semis are towards the ed of the tournament when semis would happen anyways.

Games before finals:

5v6 Minnesota - Cincinnati
2v3 New England - Colorado
1v4 Seattle - Oregon

and Oregon plays New England right before that.

However I still think semis are a must have for this tourney. Teams need to gel through a bunch of games on Saturday then play the ones that count as their last two games, Sunday.; 8/07/2007 5:14 PM
Eastern Europe 2005 said...: Anon 8/7@4:17pm: JUST BECAUSE YOU SHOUT THINGS DOESN'T MAKE THEM MORE TRUE. ;)

Anon 8/7/@5:14pm: Good point there -- Why not shorten games a bit? Hrmmm...; 8/07/2007 5:24 PM
Anonymous said...: I think you guys need to stop focusing on 'star players' and start thinking about a TEAM. As we all saw in college nationals, it was not the all star packed team that won, it was the deep team, with dedication and heart, that dominated everyone. you cannot win a tournament with names, you have to have a team. my .02; 8/07/2007 7:34 PM
Eastern Europe 2005 said...: Anon 8/7@7:34pm: You're totally correct that it's the team and not just the star players that powers a team to a major championship... but... you seem to imply that Wisconsin wasn't star packed? ;)

Also, it's important to note that it's really hard to predict which YCC teams are going to be able to come together effectively as a team since most of the YCC teams have very little time to play together before the event.; 8/07/2007 8:17 PM
JHaus said...: Just out of curiousity, i'd like to hear how far (travel time) players have to go to get to a practice/tryout for their ycc team?

It seems that is the main issue why teams aren't practicing more in the summer before YCCs.; 8/07/2007 9:04 PM
The Pulse said...: NJ is an hour max, for the CHS kids.; 8/07/2007 9:53 PM
Anonymous said...: seattle kids are all very spread out, but usually nobody has to drive for over 30 minutes.; 8/07/2007 11:24 PM
Anonymous said...: the reason that teams dont practice more often is because people have jobs and lives.; 8/08/2007 12:08 AM
Anonymous said...: it is very hard for 18-22 teenage ultimate players to commit to drive(sometimes quite far) to an ultimate practice. in addition, fields must be paid for, coaches must be paid/or give up their own time, and some of these players cant even drive yet.

and yes, some of the players have lives outside of frisbee. =]; 8/08/2007 2:58 AM
Anonymous said...: Many SEPDA players drive well over an hour to get to practice. A bunch of them drive another hour or so after practice to get to a summer league game... .

Some coaches get paid? Sheesh! I need to renegotiate my contract.

-Rob Olson; 8/08/2007 9:35 AM
Eastern Europe 2005 said...: jhaus: That's a great question to bring up. In my case I'm coaching the BUDA Mixed YCC team and the team is made up of 20 kids from 12 schools, spanning 4 states... So, there is no one good central location. So, while it's not entirely optimal, I've resorted to bringing the team to as many weekend tournaments as possible instead of lots of regular practices, which would be impossible to schedule.

I'm lucky enough to be a teacher, so I have summers off, so I have some pretty good freedom with my summer schedule (when I'm not getting beaten over the head with grad school), but my players have some pretty busy schedules -- Family travel, work, and some summer class -- all things I would imagine every other team is battling with.

Anyway, in my three summers with YCCs, my two big organizational suggestions are:

(I'd imagine these must seem really obvious.)

1) Get the team announced really early, preferably right at the beginning of the spring season. This way kids can plan their summer to include the event. My goal next year is to get the summer '08 plan announced over winter break.

2) Go to tournaments. Go to as many as possible. I know this is prolly more work than practices, but it's a big draw for kids on your roster.

3) Sanction your practices with the UPA so you can get insurance coverage there more field access?; 8/08/2007 9:56 AM
Anonymous said...: since NE open is made from 13 western MA players, and 6 eastern, the guys from the east have to travel about 2 hours each way, sometimes more depending on traffic; 8/08/2007 2:03 PM
Anonymous said...: so what are everyone's thoughts about the final seedings??; 8/08/2007 9:25 PM
The Pulse said...: Mixed and girls seedings effectively don't matter. Open seedings ... well, I disagree with them but I'm not unhappy with how the pools have turned out.; 8/08/2007 10:12 PM
Anonymous said...: whay exactly do uou have a problem with?; 8/09/2007 2:11 AM
JHaus said...: Ryan plays for New Jersey.
The 6 seed.
A very competitive 6 seed.; 8/09/2007 4:32 PM
Anonymous said...: The NYC mixed team was never going to go. I was never part of it, but I was a captain on a NYC team this past year so I know about it. Too bad too, NYC would have a really good mixed team. Unfortunately, it was coached and therefore primarily manned by Beacon HS school which somehow managed to get an astounding 1.8 out of 5 for Spirit at NY States (the 2nd lowest ranked spirit team was about double that) and the 5 teams who played just below Beacon averaged out to about a 4 out of 5. No one was interested in playing for that team. In fact, interest was so low and the coach so incompetent that they held only one practice/try out day at the beginning of the fall.; 8/09/2007 11:58 PM
Anonymous said...: pictures? got any until the mechlerz get out?; 8/13/2007 11:20 PM
Unknown said...: Where are yours?; 8/14/2007 8:48 PM

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Youth Club Champs 2007

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