2009 National College Ultimate Signing Day

For the past three years (2008, 2007, 2006) PlayUltimate has compiled a list of high school seniors and their college choices. It has grown into the National College Ultimate Signing Day. Now everyone will be able to see which colleges have the best recruiting classes and maybe even begin to look into the crystal ball a bit.

This year we will announce the list on Wednesday, May 27th, at 5 p.m. so the deadline to submit college choices will be May 26th. The form is a little bit more detailed and in depth, but it will provide a very interesting picture of the coming college season.

Please forward the link to friends, fellow teammates, your league message boards etc. Post it on facebook (link below every post) or MySpace or whatever you use.

There are only a few weeks left to submit your choices, you should have gotten some letters by now right?

So, without further ado, you can start submitting information here.

If you have any suggestions on other information we should gather leave it in the comments.

Open Thread - New #1 in Tennessee?

Time has been tight here, sorry for the lack of updates.

How about a general open thread to move things along? From the RRI, Montgomery Bell Academy is holding tight to the top spot remaining undefeated against high school teams. Their only two losses come at the hands of Tennessee and Delta State.

Might USN finally have some competition in state? Paideia, Pennsbury and North Hills maybe have to worry about Easterns?

I have no idea, you might though. Let's see some comments.

**More updates on the College Ultimate Signing Day coming soon. Working on some prizes for random entrants. Discs and the like. There is also a facebook event up now, let your friends know you plan to tune in.**

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Breaking: Major changes for Youth ultimate in the U.S. - No more Easterns/Westerns

No more nationals. No more easterns. No more westerns.

This is the gist of the plan announced by the UPA today. The plan advocates a move towards state championships only.

Effective Spring 2012 easterns and westerns will disappear and will be replaced by 4 regional championships.

Read the whole plan here, and we would love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Right idea? Wrong idea? How does this change the map of competition? If the effects did take place this year, who would win each region?

The UPA also announced changes in YCC bid allocation, and Team USA selection process. Perhaps most disappointing about all of these announcements is the fact that the site set up to announce them is called, "The Ultimate Change". Really? I mean really? This is the last change ever for youth ultimate?

The changes are pretty sweeping. Thoughts and comments?



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New Contributor Introduction

Name: Bryan R. Gordon

Age: 20

Lives In: Columbus, OH

High School Team: Although my school (Olentangy Liberty in Powell, OH) only had a club, I was largely responsible for the transition to a proper team after my graduation.

College Team: Ohio State's great B-team "Big Buckin' Chicken", two years

Years Playing the Game: I've been playing, outside of those bizarre gym class rules, for about five years.

Notable Accomplishments Playing: Let's be frank: My team won a game at club regionals last year. I will take that for now.

Notable Accomplishments Coaching: Placing 4th last season at our high school team's state tournament (their first games against other schools); founding the open A team in 2007 and a girls and an open B team in 2009.

Current Status: Head coach/GM/proverbial packmule, Olentangy Liberty High School Ultimate

Ultimate mentors and role models: Some people for whom I have much respect include Tiina Booth, Ben Van Heuvelen, and Josh Seamon... but I'm more a humble fan of these people than anything more. Some Ohioans I have learned a lot from are Joel Houmes, Kevin Kula, Drew Wood, Craig Poeppelman, and Josh Botti.

Favorite Ultimate Quote: "Play Hard, Have Fun"

I'm really excited to get started, so if you would like to know anything about ultimate here in the buckeye state or you have a story idea, get in touch with me. Thanks!

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Site update! New author!

Hey all,

We are proud to welcome a new author to the PlayUltimate, Bryan Gordon will begin reporting on the Ohio ultimate scene. Bryan is a sophomore playing Ohio State, and also coaches Olentangy Liberty High School Ultimate in Columbus.

He'll have a bio page up soon, but feel free to leave welcome notes here.

A side note, if you would like to report on the ultimate scene in your area, drop a line to playultimateblog@gmail.com

More exciting things coming from PlayUltimate in the near future, as always thanks for reading!

Become a fan on Facebook! - Help spread the word about high school ultimate.

2009 National College Ultimate Signing Day

For the past three years (2008, 2007, 2006) PlayUltimate has compiled a list of high school seniors and their college choices. It has grown into the National College Ultimate Signing Day. Now everyone will be able to see which colleges have the best recruiting classes and maybe even begin to look into the crystal ball a bit.

This year we will announce the list on Wednesday, May 27th, at 5 p.m. so the deadline to submit college choices will be May 26th. The form is a little bit more detailed and in depth, but it will provide a very interesting picture of the coming college season.

Please forward the link to friends, fellow teammates, your league message boards etc. Post it on facebook (link below every post) or MySpace or whatever you use.

I know many (most, if not all) have not finished applying for school at this point, let alone heard back or picked one. But we want to get an early start this year and have a very comprehensive list.

So, without further ado, you can start submitting information here.

If you have any suggestions on other information we should gather leave it in the comments.

Become a fan on Facebook! - Help spread the word about high school ultimate.

Open Thread - what does your team do during the winter?

Do most the players on your team play a winter sport (basketball, indoor track, swimming etc) or do you maintain a team atmosphere - practices, workouts etc.

Or do you just completely forget you have an ultimate team and come at it fresh some time in February.

Post your experience, or what you think is best in the comments.

Become a fan on Facebook! - Help spread the word about high school ultimate.

Where to promote ultimate

I had been thinking about this a little bit over the past few days. It seems the track for ultimate has been to start in high school (Columbia) move to college with their graduation and then trickle down from there. From the formation of club teams, to the formation of a serious college competition, and then finally back down to the high school level where we are now.

There is an emerging middle school scene now, as the high school competition becomes more developed. We are a long way off from Ultimate Little Leagues where parents take their kids in their small town to the local park and every child gets a different solid color jersey with the name of a local orthodontist on it. But we are gradually moving that way.

While we have this organic growth, the formation of leagues and training camps and travel teams etc we also have the publicity aspect of ultimate. We have blogs (aggregated at places like PlayUltimate.us), we have message boards like RSD, and we have the multimedia coverage of intrepid individuals and the more established folks like UltiVillage. Aside from the niche media mentioned there is very very little established coverage of ultimate. We see it every time the local newspaper runs a feature on "those crazy kids playing that game with the frisbees", usually with the title "The Ultimate game"... because originality is at a premium.

The UPA does some outreach to media, they have started to post press releases online, but they are only beginning to tap the growth potential of media relations.

But where should they focus the energy - the crux of this matter. You can spend all day yelling at the Wall Street Journal, telling them they should cover Easterns or Westerns... spoiler alert: they aren't. (until someone starts measurably profitting from the sport)

We have to face certain realities of ultimate press coverage, daily ESPN highlight reels - not going to happen. NYTimes sports pages - maybe once a year, more likely to find it in the arts section though. The work required to place or pitch a story to major outlets like this vastly outweighs the profit of one story. What the UPA should focus on now is what i call High Value Exposures.

Right now the UPA and ultimate as a sport is focused on growth, High Value Exposures are media blips that will actively help this cause and aid in the development of leagues and teams. An ESPN clip is a novelty, something that is sandwiched between an NHL highlight and an NFL off-field scandal. Ok, some examples of what I mean -

Sports Illustrated for Kids - it has a circulation of 8.1 million with the target demographic as 8-15 year olds - a two page spread on the rules of the game with some pictures from WJUC showing Team USA victorious is good for a few thousand new players. They usually put a "find out how to play in your area" starburst somewhere on the page, maybe the UPA could come up with a more attractive (read: not so text heavy) website geared towards teaching the rules to kids?

Nickelodeon and Disney Channel often have shorts between shows and commercials that show kids doing "interesting things". The on camera person will explain why they play sport stacking and what the rules are, or why they skateboard or play basketball. This is the PERFECT medium for ultimate. The game can be explained in 5 minutes or less and looks interesting and appealing when filmed and cut correctly.

At a minimum every single press release from the UPA should be CC-ed to these three venues (and the hundreds like them). When you get younger kids to see your product (ultimate) and identify with it positively that is a high value exposure, the more frequent the better.

To make this happen you need to make ultimate more accesible - take the Facebook publicity model. They have an online press room where you can find headshots of company personnell, stock footage of people using facebook (b-roll), all their latest press releases and more. The UPA needs to have these resources available and promote them. They have made great strides in recent years but there is more that we can do.

My point with all of this though is that it doesn't come naturally. ESPN is not out looking at ultimate tournaments just waiting to pick one to cover and the NYtimes does not have a beat reporter trailing Wisconsin's college season. To make these things happen you need pressure from a unified body - one would say the UPA. At the same time you need companies like discraft pushing the envelope as well - they need to see that they gain from increased coverage (as if this were hard to see). They need to push for product placement in stores like Sports Authority and Modell's to make the sport more readily accesible for the kid who just saw a clip on Disney Channel, picked up their SIforKIDS and read an article on the game.

We are a long way off from the bulk made monocolor jerseys of large scale little league in every town, but these are a few of the venues where the UPA and you can push for more publicity to push ultimate into the forefront of the larger consciousness.

So what do you think, is the UPA doing enough to promote ultimate in the press? What would you do differently?

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How do you read PlayUltimate?

~ flexiPoll: free online web poll ~

If you are trying to find a more convenient way to read the site, check out any of the options in the center column. You can subscribe to the RSS feed or you can just enter your email address and have the latest posts delivered to your inbox.

Do you have any suggestions as to ways we could make the site more accessible? Other formats we should offer it in? Leave em in the comments

Become a fan on Facebook! - Help spread the word about high school ultimate.

2009 National College Ultimate Signing Day

For the past three years (2008, 2007, 2006) PlayUltimate has compiled a list of high school seniors and their college choices. It has grown into the National College Ultimate Signing Day. Now everyone will be able to see which colleges have the best recruiting classes and maybe even begin to look into the crystal ball a bit.

This year we will announce the list on Wednesday, May 27th, at 5 p.m. so the deadline to submit college choices will be May 26th. The form is a little bit more detailed and in depth, but it will provide a very interesting picture of the coming college season.

Please forward the link to friends, fellow teammates, your league message boards etc. Post it on facebook (link below every post) or MySpace or whatever you use.

More than 10 players have already submitted their information (early action/decision?) Will you be in the first 100?

Without further ado, you can start submitting information here.

If you have any suggestions on other information we should gather leave it in the comments. Feel free to discuss your prospective colleges, I am sure there are some people out there who would LOVE to hear your ideas and influence your choice.

Best practices: How does your team keep in touch?

This is going to be an ongoing feature on the site, called "Best Practices" where we ask the readers to submit their ideas, thoughts on a given topic and then report back. There is a ton of knowledge out there and we'd like to consolidate it and make it accessible for newer teams and players. This is based off of the Lifehacker feature "Hive Five".

So the first question - How does your team keep in touch?

Some use google groups, email chains, BBoards, blogspot accounts, facebook groups?

What works best for your team and why?

A side note, you should now have to sign up to comment. You can sign up with a fake name, fake email address or whatever you would like to keep your anonymity should you desire. But we are trying to cut down on spam, and inanity. Once you log in you will be able to rank comments as well so you will be able to tell who you should pay attention to in the threads, fun.

Holiday gift ideas for ultimate players?

Need holiday gift ideas for the ultimate players in your life?

Want to make sure mom and dad don't end up getting you a dog frisbee or something similar?

Direct them here - the PlayUltimate store powered by Amazon

there is also a link at the top of every page of the site.

Consider this an open thread - what are you asking for this christmas, Hanukkah, holiday?

The UltiVerse Episode 13: Brian, Jumpi, and Mike

In this episode I talk to Brian Calle, Jumpi, and Mike Adlis, the tournament directors for Lei Out, Paganello, and Wildwood. We talk about what it's like to run three of the largest beach Ultimate tournaments in the world, who they are, the history of their events, and the future of their tournaments.

www.theultiverse.com

Enjoy!

2009 SJA Invitational

I am happy to announce that the date for the 2009 St. Johnsbury Academy Invitational has been set and bids are now being accepted!

The tournament will take place on May 16th and 17th at St. Johnsbury Academy and Lyndon Institute. There will be 16 girls teams and 24 open teams. The tournament will be UPA sanctioned, cost $325, and all teams will be guaranteed at least 6 games. There will be a dinner/dance/trade night on Saturday evening, lots of gear for sale, and lined fields.

For complete tournament information please visit the website located at www.sjainvite.org.

The UltiVerse Episode 12: Andrew, Zahlen, and Edward -- Plus my Board of Directors Endorsements

In this episode I talk to Andrew Shen in Beijing, Zahlen Titcomb in Seattle, and Edward Wong in Tian Jin about the Chinese Ultimate community. We talk about the history of the sport in China, why it’s gaining popularity, the Chinese style of play, and their thoughts on the future of the sport.

www.theultiverse.com

A short note about two upcoming elections:

If you’re an American citizen aged 18 or over, make sure you get out and vote in the presidential election. In most states you can vote right now. The polls close on Tuesday night, November 4th. Don’t miss your chance. Vote now.

If you’re a UPA member or any age or nationality, make sure you vote in the Board of Directors elections. You can vote right now by logging into your upa.org account. The UPA polls close at 3pm US mountain time on Monday, November 3. Again, don’t miss your chance. Go vote now.

Of all the people running for the UPA Board, two candidates stand out for me: Henry Thorne and Catherine Greenwald. Both candidates have a brilliant track record inside the world of Ultimate and they know how to get things done. They are fantastic leaders and like everyone else running for the board, are passionate about the sport. What sets them apart for me is their deep connection to youth Ultimate. They both have children who play the sport and they have proven time and again their commitment to the advancement of youth Ultimate. In my time working with Henry on the Board, and with Catherine inside the Boston Ultimate Disc Alliance, I have come to respect them as two of the most professional Ultimate leaders I have ever met. They are the kind of people you want representing you on the UPA’s Board of Directors.


Upcoming Interview: Ultimate in Tibet


While tracking down people to talk to about Ultimate in China, I connected with someone who is working with Ultimate teams inside Tibet. I wasn’t able to patch him into this most recent interview, but hope to be able to catch up with him soon. In the mean time, if you’re interested in sponsoring an Ultimate team in Tibet, contact Happyrat at fly335cm at hotmail dot com.


- Josh