[Throwback Post] How to get local media attention for your high school team

wrote this a while ago (also 2006) - but I think it is as important now as ever. Ultimate's continued growth and publicity will continue to depend on grassroots efforts like high school teams pressuring local papers to cover them until/if/and when the UPA develops a comprehensive PR and marketing strategy for the future of the sport. And even then it is doubtful that their strategy could be so comprehensive as to extend to local leagues (though if I were developing it, it would do exactly that).

But I digress, if you are interested in getting your team some coverage here are a few tips for you...

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Hampton High school featured in Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

very cool for Hampton and the Pittsburgh High School Ultimate League.

Read more at www.post-gazette.com/pg...

im not sure exactly how they went about garnering this coverage, but may i present this advice to anyone out there who is looking for some recognition for all the hard work they do for their respective team - press releases.

news organizations rely on press releases in a very big way to report the news. how is a newspaper supposed to know you are having a game, tournament or otherwise without you telling them? the news industry doesn't work through magic, nor esp, nor mindreading. and many many many times papers and magazines are looking for something new, fresh, interesting and exciting to print - and if you think like me, ultimate is all of those.

never written a press release before? fear not, they are extremely easy.

heres a little tutorial to get you started - http://www.stetson.edu/~rhansen/prguide.html

basically what you want to remember though is to make it sound as much like an actual news story as possible. you want to make the story appealing and easy to read, and make sure to include easily accesibly contact information.

writing a poor press release - with spelling or simple grammer mistakes can often have the opposite effect, turning an editor or reporter off to the idea of covering your event because it is so frustrating to read.

also, concrete things are always better. if you can hand your release over personally to someone in the office (or fax it) it is always better than sending an email which can easily be removed with the click of a button.

the more professional things look the better your chances.one final note - if you are interested in this type of stuff, start out small, no doubt you have a high school newspaper, talk to the guys on their staff, give them a press release, and then move up from there.

good luck, and if (when) you have any success feel free to email the site - playultimateblog@gmail.com to let us know and we can feature the news on the site.

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[Throwback Post] History of WJUC performances

Originally posted waaay back in April of 2006, here's a rundown of the history of WJUC (World Juniors Ultimate Championship) performances...

WJUC Historical Rundown: Swedish Dominance

so while looking for the rosters of the other nations competing in WJUC this year i came upon this page from the UK Ultimate Association website, and also this page on the WFDF website.

there are a few very interesting things about the WJUC that you might want to know, and thus the following is a brief historical rundown of the Wordl Juniors Ultimate Championships. (feel free to add your own accounts in the comments)

from what i can gather the Juniors division of the World Ultimate Championships has been in existence since 1983

Finland won the first Championship (source), after that the championships switched to a two year format.

Sweden won the next 4 Championships according to the WFDF site - '84, '86, '88, and '90.

In 1992 there were only two Juniors teams competing, the games which were held in Japan only drew Chinese Taipei who won, and the host team Japan.

1994 saw an increase in competition with 5 teams competing in the games, held in Colchester, UK. 1994 also saw Sweden reclaim their title, which led to back to back championships in '94, and '96.

This brought the Swedes' total tally up to 6 out of the 8 world championships, quite a statement.

In 1998, though USA answered. The americans, who could have been consistently found within the top 3 for 4 of the previous championships, were now in the championship game against Sweden, a rematch of the 1994 world champs title game. The boys from the land of Lincoln came out on top.

However, the unseating was short lived, again in 2000 Sweden reclaimed their title against Canada in the finals.

In 2002 it was a grudge match - Canada vs. Sweden - again in the finals. This time Canada came out on top, remaining undefeated in the entire tournament - finishing 8-0.

The last games on record, 2004 in Turku, Finland witnessed the drop off of the Swedish dynasty. USA claimed victory in an all North American championship game, defeating Canada.

Final tallies tell a very interesting story: of the 12 world juniors ultimate championships Sweden has won 7, USA 2, Canada 1, Finland 1, Chinese Taipei 1.

Will Sweden return to dominance this year on american soil? Will Canada upset their North American rivals? Or will one of the other teams come from anonymity to infamy unseating all of the "favorites"?

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Throwback Post: Role models for young players?

Originally posted a tad over 3 years ago, wonder if anything's changed?

Sunday, December 18, 2005

Role Models for "Young" Players

So this issue has bugged me for a little bit, and since it is the "off-season" for most high school ultimate players, i figured i would bring it up.

first off a little exercise...

1. name five nba players
2. name five nfl players
3. name your top 5 sports role models from any sport

not too hard eh? ok now try this -

name five upa club players
name your top five ultimate role models

for most high school players, this is where the difficulty comes in. as a sport, we dont have, at least as far as i can see, those players that are universal. everyone that plays basketball has heard of michael jordan. everyone that plays soccer has heard of pele, for cycling - lance, etc.

as a sport i think this is something perhaps we are lacking. we have the local role models, the coaches, the alumni of your teams, perhaps local college players you've seen play, etc. but what we lack is the nearly idolized distant role model. the one you watch from afar, perhaps send for an autograph.

so - to the point of this long rambling post. if you disagree with me, who are the universal role models for ultimate? (name names) and if not, have you seen any players (lets keep it in club, which is undeniably the closest thing to pro for ultimate right now) who are worthy of such acolades?

i wanna hear names here. and if you cant answer either of the above questions, how about this one - do you think ultimate needs or wants a michael jordan?

Maybe even more interesting from that post was the discussion it engendered in the comments. - Check it out for yourself.


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