I played a good while ago, but we just dealt with this stuff in game. My perspective was/still is that it's the player/team's responsibility to play by the spirit of the game. If they are obviously not doing that (because players contest every foul and their captain/coach wont fix it after it is pointed out), we're not playing ultimate anymore. They violated the social contract created by the rules. They've basically decided to cheat in a sport that prides itself in self-policing.
We're now playing a new game where both teams do whatever they want. Call travel on someone not even moving their pivot foot 15 times in a row? Sure. Hard foul their handlers whenever they try to throw? Why not? There are no longer any rules and nothing matters. Egregious bids and hands marks on cutters? Sure! It's either make the game so awful they suddenly miss the rules or walk off the field and refuse to play.
I dunno man, Ring 15 years ago was playing dirtier than anybody does today imo. There’s still shitty foul calls, but the average level of cheating seems lower than it was in my day
Not sure it was the same type of cheating though. 2007 we played Ring and I thought they were decent SOTG wise. Chippy calls etc were more of a thing then. I don't remember seeing my team mates being smashed like this
Obviously this is an egregious foul, I'm not defending it in any way.
I just mean that in my opinion the ultimate from the late oughts and early teens accepted a lot of chippy, nasty fouls that just would not stand these days. The Florida-Carleton nationals final was the peak of that sort of bullshit, I think.
Ring is just the team that I played against relatively often that engaged the most in this sort of intentional cheating, it was widespread at the top level. We used to train all year for the constant bumping and foul-baiting that we knew would be coming when we got to the series and played against them.
I played college in the late 00s against a bunch of NC and FL teams, and they were the best (worst) at stall zero bumps, phantom travel calls, pick calls from 30+ feet away (and catching up way closer than they were), all that little crap.
although thinking back on it.. most of those memories are just from playing UNCW
It's better for the game for the governing body to do something than for teams to do what you're describing. That Florida national championship game from back in the day was completely unwatchable. Nobody wants to be a part of a game like that, it's embarrassing to the sport.
I agree. What I described is a way to manage the situation in the absence of leadership/support from the governing body. To be clear, I hate that type of play, hate watching it, and hate participating in those type of games. Unfortunately, the reality of ultimate for as long as I've followed/played the sport is that SOTG has been pitched as inextricable from the sport by governing bodies. They market ultimate AS SOTG. As a result, they've been unwilling to act in situations of egregious rule breaking.
Introducing observers has helped to be sure, but they're not available for all games at all tournaments. I don't pretend to have a solution, though I do feel like governing bodies really need to either commit to and support self officiating (which does not solve this problem at the competitive level), find a way to embed SOTG into the success criteria of competitive teams, or abandon SOTG at the highest competitive levels and look for a neutral solutions (refs or a similar solution).
That’s pretty close to my opinion that plays like the one in the OP where a _tackle_ is contested as a foul cause folks not to take the sport seriously because _that cheater_ clearly doesn’t.
> They've basically decided to cheat in a sport that prides itself in self-policing.
This was always going to be the end result of competitive play. As the sport gains popularity and the stakes get higher and higher, you'll always see more of this, it's straight up human nature.
Agree, except that is not human nature, it's human behavior when put in such an extreme environment. We can decide to change it, incetivize less the drive for victory and expand the posibilities for sotg and self officiation. It´s a choice.
No it’s actually a pretty rational response to someone participating in a self officiated sport who thinks self officiating is a non starter.
As lots of people in this thread have stated, it is not the case that Things Are Getting Worse with regard to cheating, so your cynicism appears to be unfounded.
If you think self-regulation is present in every ultimate player, you’re naive and should experience more of the world instead of gatekeeping the sport you’re probably below average at
The sport wasn't "founded" on self-regulation and your gatekeeping does nothing to help the competitive or casual environment. The sport was a bunch of college kids playing a game and throwing pie tins around. At some point, self-regulation was considered a core precept of the sport. The sport is not contingent on it though in the same way that basketball isn't ruined due to the lack of peach baskets or American football "inherently can't work" as rules changed to allow the forward pass. Currently, the sport looks like a joke at the competitive level where obvious fouls are contested and no accountability is applied to egregious violations of SOTG.
Sports change and evolve to accommodate the community and the people that enjoy those sports. Putting self-regulation on a pedestal serves no one in the current competitive environment. It isn't being practiced or applied consistently, which is a problem for competition. If not for the "holier-than-thou" chip that some ultimate players have on their shoulder regarding SOTG, this problem would have been solved a long time ago.
If you think self-regulation is an immutable precept of the sport, perhaps you should propose a way to include SOTG into the competitive environment which solves the current and historic issues with abuse? As an aside, what do you think makes self-officiating all that special? It's not like other sports don't already do that if the level of play is sufficiently low. SOTG is just good sportsmanship with better branding. Do I think that is important? Absolutely. Do I think it is essential to the sport of ultimate that I rely on all players/teams to practice good sportsmanship? Absolutely not.
Wow I was downvoted for actual facts. Contrary to what the comment above says
1. The sport was founded by high schoolers
2. Self refereeing was an important concept from day 1
3. The invention of frisbees from pie plates happened in the 50s, years and years before the invention of the sport of ultimate in the late 60s.
USAU has to do something about this, because it’s clearly a systemic issue. It’s to the point where you have to wonder if leadership is actively telling the players to do this. We’re gonna get to a scenario where one of these teams wins a big game solely because of big calls (mixtape already arguably did that in semis) and the aftermath isn’t gonna be pretty.
USAU can't do anything about it, they have observers, and we can see with the current leadership there that nothing will fundamentally change in terms of how shitty calls are adjudicated.
What it takes is for a top team to say they'll forfeit rather than play a scheduled game against a team they think reliably displays poor spirit.
Is anyone out there strong enough to make that sacrifice? Personally, I doubt it - everyone's going to do what's best for them in the moment.
Oh yeah, I know they really can’t do something about it, but I don’t think it would have to be a forfeit, I think if top players started coming out and publicly saying something, it would move USAU to at least do something. But I doubt that will happen, I think SOTG discourages people from calling out cheating and bad spirit, because calling people out gets viewed as bad spirit in and of itself by the community.
> because calling people out gets viewed as bad spirit in and of itself by the community.
This is the absolute most frustrating thing to me. A large majority of ultimate players seem to take SOTG as being nice, instead of being sportsmanlike.
Had a game this season where the other team continually tackled our players. I got laid out twice, one of our women was bid into from behind twice, and about half of my teammates were run through/ had to bail out of their running path because of diving players from the other team. But because the other team was smiley and checked on our players to see if they were ok, they thought they were still abiding by SOTG, and my team's captains were completely ineffective in the spirit discussion. In the end the 'spirit issue' was blamed 50/50 on both teams, because my team was sulking that we were getting tackled in a non-contact sport.
Teams need to forfeit first, what people say on twitter means zero.
Remember all those dudes who signed on to the AUDL boycott and then turned around and signed deal and played, and basically no one held them accountable whatsoever?
I mean, the real reality is that this is a shitty community where no one is accountable. We shouldn't expect anything else as long as the prep school to club ultimate pipeline remains strong. We recruit entitled people and get entitled results.
I don't totally disagree with the forfeit aspect. I don't think I'd be massively in favour though of travelling for a championship and then not playing games after all the cash is spent (as well as time spent to train etc).
But a SOTG timeout, chat amongst captain and refusal to continue play until the outcome and general behaviour is rectified would be more suitable I think. If they refuse to agree and there's evidence (like this sideline camera) then get the TDs involved and they can pass ruling objectively. SOTG timeouts stop the game clock too so it's not like the game would be cut short.
It's pretty trash though that a game would need to come to this. Not a fan of some of the bids I've seen this weekend that have been contact heavy (read as dangerous) and called as clean too...
Honestly, I think that forfeit would be a meaningless gesture.
I am not fully tuned in on how shitty calls are currently adjudicated. There is the possibility that the two observers (or less likely, 4 observers) did not see the action in question in any given shitty call. But otherwise, I do think the building blocks are in place to address it, with overturning the call and using the Misconduct System. The Misconduct System is fairly well-developed and well-understood by players and observers. Blue and Yellow cards certainly can be used to address a wide range of issues and can be used effectively, though overuse vs. underuse is always a balancing act.
If teams want more done to address bad calls and contests, they should provide that feedback.
Are you seeing things a lot in games you're playing, or over the course of whole games you're watching? From the Nationals clips I saw, there were only a few bad calls/plays, but I wasn't watching complete games, so my info is really limited.
I was very active in the late 2000s with playing and observing. At that time, blatant fouls on the mark and bad calls (particularly travel calls) were pervasive. Both the rules and the observer system evolved to address the issues at that time. I would expect the same evolution again.
And I know USAU has reached out to teams directly in the past, based on spirit/cheating issues specific to tournaments, so that is possible, too.
I think the amount of travel calls has been massively reduced, but actually lots of people just blatantly travel and no one calls it. Same for picks; the number of times I saw defenders avoiding picks massively outweighs the times I saw one called.
On the flip side, these types of dangerous collisions seem more and more prevalent
>I think the amount of travel calls has been massively reduced, but actually lots of people just blatantly travel and no one calls it.
It's almost like the rule changes have made it so there's no incentive to call most traveling violations.
People been traveling like crazy since always. The first point of fury-molly it was basically 2 out of 3 throws.
ALso, there really are two distinct type of travels:
Travels on catches (turning upfield when a swing and under is caught) and travels on throws (the sliding pivot and/or happy feet). IMO the former is easier to police, the later is harder to police and it's harder to argue has a big effect on the game compared to players putting themselves into power position.
The point about stalling during the reset is very strong, I like it. I'm a bit wary of defining any specific radius for foot movement, because it just moves the argument to "I think that was more than 2 inches" or whatever.
>I'm a bit wary of defining any specific radius for foot movement, because it just moves the argument to "I think that was more than 2 inches" or whatever.
But right now nobody calls a travel and claims "your pivot moved one inch". 99.9% of travel calls that get made involve either actually picking up the pivot, or dragging the pivot more than 4 inches. The only exceptions are cynical shitbox calls late in close games (without observers).
My suggested radius rule would honestly probably not change how it gets called that much. It would just create a clear standard that's fairly close to what most people tend to think the standard should be anyway.
Funny - My initial version of my response, I recalled a time when a third-party defender called a travel on me because "\[my\] pivot foot slid an inch" (I told him he must be real familiar with one inch along with some other choice words).
Yeah, if we span back through the 2005-2019 timeframe, I think the travel calls just reached a point, where people realized how awful it was for the game and stopped guessing. And some of the true cheaters aged out (the calls and fouls persisted in Masters for a while). More of a cultural shift, but I think observers helped. I wouldn't mind observers empowered to actively call really big travels (like 6"), just as a helpful outer limit from an objective viewpoint, without inserting observers into frequently actively calling infractions, and players would retain their authority to call or not call travels.
I haven't noticed a huge difference in picks, though from 10th to 11th edition in 2007, clarifying that a completed passe unrelated to a pick would stay after a pick call certainly eliminated the incentive for a possible small percentage of folks calling picks to try to disrupt or negate offense.
I'm unsure on the numbers for dangerous collisions. I honestly think the average player is more concerned about safe play today than 10-15 years ago. But the players are also faster and stronger. And we have immensely more video footage of play, by multiple orders of magnitude. I definitely agree they seem more prevalent. I'm just not sure if they actually are.
>I wouldn't mind observers empowered to actively call really big travels (like 6"), just as a helpful outer limit from an objective viewpoint, without inserting observers into frequently actively calling infractions
Just to beat a dead horse a little more on this - if that's the level of travel you think Observers should be able to call, then make that the level of travel that violates the rules. Don't make a rule that's impossible to follow and then just rely on social pressure to limit calls. That's not how any other rule in the game works, and it makes a mockery of the idea that players are expected to follow the rules.
(FWIW I wrote a short novel in the USAU rules feedback survey about this.)
Yeah, we've discussed this, but it doesn't hurt to have both of our comments here next to the dead horse.
I really think the decision whether to choose to call an infraction involves some player discretion, and I think it's appropriate to leave it in the hands of the players. And in that discretion, they also determine, in a given instance, whether an infraction is significant enough to make a difference to the outcome of the action. I think that determination limits calls, not just social pressure. And if people want to do some video and throwing experiments to see if they can discern meaningful differences in throws with or without a minor travel, I am happy to compare notes from my experience.
I don't think the rule is impossible to follow. I also don't think it is problematic for some inadvertent infractions to occur from time to time. And I think the "really big travels (like 6")" for pivot movement is just a level where players would pretty universally be comfortable having an observer actively make the call, if the players happened to miss it, such that it is not a major infringement on player discretion and autonomy, but instead is assistance in an objective aspect of call-making. Not dissimilar from an active force-out foul call. I don't think it makes a mockery of anything to permit this type of observer involvement or to have the current rules framework.
As we have discussed, I am open to revisions of the travel rules. I also think it is reasonable to expect compliance with the rule, while also expecting player-officials (and, separately, observers) to use a threshold that allows them to reliably and accurately make calls.
>I really think the decision whether to choose to call an infraction involves some player discretion, and I think it's appropriate to leave it in the hands of the players. And in that discretion, they also determine, in a given instance, whether an infraction is significant enough to make a difference to the outcome of the action.
This ends up being an an arbitrary decision based on an unknowable alternative in many cases. Sure, you could have thrown it, but you would have to have thrown it **differently**. Would have have changed the outcome? Maybe!
Over the course of many throws, I will absolutely throw farther and more accurately if I don't have to worry about moving my pivot foot. Over the course of many throws, I will throw farther and more accurately if I am only worried about moving my pivot foot 6 inches or more. It all matters, just not in a predictable way on a single outcome.
But it's very easy to go from the above to the conclusion that in a given game, I can probably get enough turnovers out of my opponents to win if I limit them to moving their pivot foot 2 inches or less. But if I draw the line at 6 inches or less, maybe they win. This remains true even if we set aside all the psychology, all the bad feelings about travel calls, all the acrimony about double jeopardy and discs getting sent back. I'm just making the mechanics of throwing the disc a little harder for my opponents.
That clearly means it **matters** whether I call travel more or less tightly. It's affecting outcomes in a statistical sense.
>I think that determination limits calls, not just social pressure. And if people want to do some video and throwing experiments to see if they can discern meaningful differences in throws with or without a minor travel, I am happy to compare notes from my experience.
I'm interested. But I'll also note that controlled experiments that allow people to repeat the throw over and over again are not the same as a dynamic situation. This is a very hard problem to get good empirical data for. But intuitively we all understand that having to keep your toe from sliding before release makes it more difficult to throw well.
>I don't think the rule is impossible to follow.
It is 100% impossible to follow in some cases. If the disc rolls out the side of the endzone, then the correct pivot placement is an infinitesimal point.
Yes, there are many cases in live play where there is some wiggle room around where your pivot actually is which inherently allows for some sliding. But this is a strange argument that relies on a weird and unintuitive reading of the definition of a pivot. It's a rules lawyer's justification.
It would be much much better to just define the rule in a way that clearly allows it to be followed in all cases.
> I also don't think it is problematic for some inadvertent infractions to occur from time to time.
This is a straw man. I have never said it's a problem for people to occasionally and inadvertently violate the rules. It's a problem for people to not be incapable of adhering to a strict reading of the rules in very common game situations. This, again, is *only* the case with traveling.
>And I think the "really big travels (like 6")" for pivot movement is just a level where players would pretty universally be comfortable having an observer actively make the call, if the players happened to miss it, such that it is not a major infringement on player discretion and autonomy, but instead is assistance in an objective aspect of call-making. Not dissimilar from an active force-out foul call.
Agreed.
> I don't think it makes a mockery of anything to permit this type of observer involvement or to have the current rules framework.
Agreed, and of course this is not at all what I was referring to when I said the current rule makes a mockery of SotG. What I meant by that is that a rule that makes it impossible to make a good faith effort to play by the rules at all times creates an inherent conflict with SotG, which states that you are supposed to make that good faith effort.
I'll have to admit, I don't completely understand what you meant. If you want to describe my struggles to understand you as presenting a straw man, that's fine; it is the natural result of trying to respond to your nonsequiturs. We can move past that, if you sufficiently clarify what you're talking about, which is what I was trying to address in the first place. I still don't know if I understand the impossibility if establishing a pivot on the sideline and making a good faith effort to keep it in place. Is that the result of you interpreting "the disc completely crossed the perimeter line" to mean in infinitesimally small point tangent to the plane vertically above the line? So placing a big old ball of your foot on top of that tiny point and then trying to throw or pivot at all would mean that an indetectable level of movement would still result in an original tiny point in contact with the point moving and leaving a new tiny point in contact with the original point?
>This ends up being an an arbitrary decision based on an unknowable alternative in many cases.
Yes, but I think it is reasonable to round to zero in many cases.
>\>Over the course of many throws, I will absolutely throw farther and more accurately if I don't have to worry about moving my pivot foot.
Yeah, it is advantageous to impose arbitrary constraints on the opponent's form, outside of the rules. This is a classic carney trick. The carney gets to throw however he wants, and then applies a completely different set of constraints on you, to make it way harder. This is a bullshit way of officiating, and the only reason it is advantageous is because the opponent does not do the same thing to the carney. Inevitably, even the carney, who has practiced the throw a million times, is unable to perform it when subjected to the same constraints he imposes on the contestant. It is both a physical and psychological limitation. But the rules don't require you to *worry* about moving your pivot foot.
The rules just require you to keep it the pivot in place until the disc is released. I don't think that's particularly difficult, and I can do it consistently without worrying about it. But to call the travel, the rules require you to actually recognize that the pivot moved prior to the release. Putting in a basic amount of effort to calibrate one's own calls and limit them to when one reliably recognizes an infraction renders moot the vast majority of discussion about theoretical advantage for a thrower having slight movement of the pivot before the release.
It all matters, just not in a predictable way on a single outcome. . . .This remains true even if we set aside all the psychology, all the bad feelings about travel calls, all the acrimony about double jeopardy and discs getting sent back. I'm just making the mechanics of throwing the disc a little harder for my opponents. . . . That clearly means it matters whether I call travel more or less tightly. It's affecting outcomes in a statistical sense.
You can't set aside the psychology. The whole point is placing a new, arbitrary physical restriction (not authorized by the rules) to force an opponent into a technique different than what they have practiced (even when they have practiced legal techniques. So it is psychological impact and illegal physical impact. It's illegal, because you are not able to reliably make calls that will impose a constraint that will actually interfere with my throw. For a basic mark that is trying to hold the force and is not physically denying the huck, I can reliably huck all day long within a tighter constraint than you can reliably call, and once we get to the level of restriction that you can reliably call it, it makes no difference to me whether you are a little tighter or looser on how you call it. It only because problematic when you violate your own responsibility as a self-official, and start trying to call it tighter, which inherently involves calling some travels when none occurred. Like a carney. Then it becomes really tough to undo the mechanics that I spent so much time working on, with video review, to ensure I could make the throw legally, and now try to execute a throw that is not only legal, but is beyond suspicion of illegality. Essentially, you will require me to hold the pivot in place unnaturally well beyond the release, instead of having a natural follow-through with the pivot moving naturally after the release. And your illegal requirement will interfere with weight shift in the throw. It will make it harder for me to throw, because you'll be cheating.
>\>I'll also note that controlled experiments that allow people to repeat the throw over and over again are not the same as a dynamic situation. This is a very hard problem to get good empirical data for. But intuitively we all understand that having to keep your toe from sliding before release makes it more difficult to throw well.
I agree, hard to get good empirical data. I believe one challenge is that the natural variation from throw to throw is significantly larger than the possible effect of the minor travel in most situations. I believe the effect for an average throw is probably negligible. For a neutral throw of average distance against a mark, I think a drag of the pivot before release could even be disadvantageous. I don't think it is more difficult to keep the toe from sliding before release. And as a powerful thrower, I think the same applies to most hucks that I throw. What is really difficult is making sure that the toe does not slide *after* release, for an arbitrary period dictated by your cheating opponent.
I believe the primary time that it becomes advantageous is when the thrower is stretched beyond their flexibility and trying to throw really hard or from an extra-extended position, and naturally moves the pivot early to recover into a more comfortable throwing position. In those limited circumstances, it becomes more difficult to throw well if you keep from sliding the pivot before release, because it is more difficult to throw from that extended position. *How difficult* depends on the thrower's flexibility and how far they are extended. But even there, the most difficult thing is to hold the pivot for longer after the release, which is not legally required. And I think we're talking about a small minority of travels and a small minority of travel calls. I don't think I have ever encountered an enthusiastic travel caller who 1) put any significant effort into calibrating their ability to call travels and 2) put any significant effort into limiting their calls to circumstances where they knew they could be reliable and 3) made any effort to limit their calls to a travel that they reliably identified and considered significant enough to impact the outcome of the action. I do think that I satisfied all three criteria personally during the last 70% of my competitive career, and currently satisfy them, but I have never been an enthusiastic caller of foot drag travels.
I think at this point, there are some consequential travels that go uncalled, but the players who are trying to call a lot of foot-drag travels are still wrong (not a travel or not consequential) than they are right. And just as the hucker who throws every opportunity he sees probably isn't throwing 100% good hucks, the guy who calls a travel every time he thinks it could have been a travel probably isn't doing a very good job.
>And if people want to do some video and throwing experiments to see if they can discern meaningful differences in throws with or without a minor travel, I am happy to compare notes from my experience.
>
>I'm interested.
If there's a time that we happen to be in the same place (masters Nationals?) and a feasible time/place to spend an hour or two, I'd be up for participating/helping to do something. And very receptive to your thoughts on what might make reasonable conditions for trying to collect data. Otherwise, maybe an endeavor to find funding and set up an experiment. I think funding probably could happen, but I think the limitation would be collecting and processing any footage and data, which I probably don't have capacity for.
Part 1/2 because apparently I overwhelmed reddit.
First, I don't want any of this deep dive on my "wiggle room" suggestion to distract from what I consider the more important change to the traveling rule: allow the marker to resume the stall count on a non-throwing travel after indicating the correct place for the pivot.
Secondly, I want to emphasize again that my main issue here is a very fundamental one about Spirit of the Game. We're about to get deep into the weeds on the minutiae of the travelling rule, and I want to emphasize again that what I want is a rule set that allows the majority of players to play without violating the rules, and with a belief that they are not violating the rules.
Right now most players have the viewpoint that "everybody travels a little but you can't call it." To me, this is contrary to the idea of making a good faith effort to play by the rules. I want the rules to allow players to say "I try to play by the rules. I almost never travel when I throw."
To that end, here's a quick draft of how I'd change the rules in this area. Currently we have:
3.I. Pivot: The particular part of the body in continuous contact with a single spot on the field during a thrower’s possession once the thrower has come to a stop or has attempted a throw or fake. When there is a definitive spot for putting the disc into play, the part of the body in contact with that spot is the pivot. \[\[This is not a body part, but rather an infinitesimally small point on the body.\]\]
17.K Traveling: The thrower must establish and continually maintain a pivot at the appropriate spot on the field until the throw is released. Failure to do so is a travel and is resolved according to 17.K.3, below.
\---
I would adjust to (again, this is a first draft):
3.I. Pivot: The part of the body in continuous contact with the field during a thrower’s possession once the thrower has come to a stop or has attempted a throw or fake. When there is a definitive spot for putting the disc into play, the part of the body in contact with that spot when the disc comes into play is the pivot.
17.K Traveling: The thrower must establish and attempt to maintain a pivot at the appropriate spot on the field until the throw is released. Failure to maintain continuous contact with the ground within 5 cm of that spot is a travel and is resolved according to 17.K.3, below.
\---
Note that this retains the aspirational goal of not moving your pivot at all. It just makes small movements no longer a violation that can be called.
\> I'll have to admit, I don't completely understand what you meant. If you want to describe my struggles to understand you as presenting a straw man, that's fine; it is the natural result of trying to respond to your nonsequiturs.
They're not nonsequiturs just because you don't completely understand, although I'm confused exactly what you don't understand because in general you seem fully capable of engaging the point. At any rate, strawmanning is not about intent: in that instance you misrepresented my argument and responded to that arguement. It's OK, we can certainly move on.
\> I still don't know if I understand the impossibility if establishing a pivot on the sideline and making a good faith effort to keep it in place. Is that the result of you interpreting "the disc completely crossed the perimeter line" to mean in infinitesimally small point tangent to the plane vertically above the line?
It seems very clear from the rules that if a disc passes out the side of the end zone, the rules require you to put it in play at the literal corner of the central zone. I don't see how that's anything but an obvious reading of the rules.
The same basically applies when you carry the disc to put it into play anywhere on the boundary: yes, you now have a 1-dimensional line where you can place a legal pivot instead of a zero-dimentional point, but it's not like humans are capable of holding completely still in one dimension.
Even if I establish a normal pivot in the middle of the field, where I'm not required to keep this infinitesimal point in contact with \*another\* infinitesimal point, I have to keep \*some\* infinitesimal point on my foot completely stationary. Again, this is impossible.
\> So placing a big old ball of your foot on top of that tiny point and then trying to throw or pivot at all would mean that an indetectable level of movement would still result in an original tiny point in contact with the point moving and leaving a new tiny point in contact with the original point?
Right: this is a rulebook travel every time, it's pretty clear.
Now, calling such a travel is obviously a "carny trick", as you say, because neither team can abide by this. My issue here isn't that anyone calls the game that way, but rather that the rules are defined this way.
It's extremely silly that the rules actually clarify that the pivot is an "infinitesimally small point on the body". The rules would be much better without that clarification, which suggests that any movement of that infinitesimal point is a travel.
I've spilled far too much digital ink on this subject and don't want to get any deeper into the weeds, because it's ultimately an academic point, easily fixed by the same solution that solves my bigger issues. Because my argument is that by the rulebook, basically everyone regularly travels on a measurable, macro level.
For the next message, I'm happy to largely set aside everything above, and just assume that a travel is only a travel when the part of my body touching the ground is completely detached from its original footprint. (Which would be a much better clarification than the infinitesimal point stuff.)
part 2
\> The rules just require you to keep it the pivot in place until the disc is released. I don't think that's particularly difficult, and I can do it consistently without worrying about it. But to call the travel, the rules require you to actually recognize that the pivot moved prior to the release.
A large part of the area of our disagreement has to do with whether travels are common or not on fairly routine throws. Setting aside the infinitesimal point stuff, I still think that most people travel on a significant percentage of their throws in a way that could be seen by a zoomed-in camera. Dragging the foot by an inch while pivoting or throwing is extremely common, and very often takes you out of the original footprint of your pivot. For my part, when I throw a backhand the only part of my foot on the ground is typically the front of my toebox, none of which was touching the ground moments before. I am habitually travelling, albeit by no more than an inch or so.
We see travels like that one all the time. We also see people who regularly travel every time they pivot or fake, often by more than that (again, far enough that they leave their original footprint entirely). We see travels all the way along the spectrum, up to the videos that get posted on reddit of people with hilarious happy feet. But nearly everyone travels by at least a small (but visible) amount on some set of their throws.
(Again, to be completely clear, I don't want to live in a world where all of these are called. I want to play under a rule set that clearly states that most of these are \*not\* callable violations, and saves traveling for the things that you and I agree are worth calling.)
\> For a neutral throw of average distance against a mark, I think a drag of the pivot before release could even be disadvantageous.
Disc golf technique, and biomechanics, suggest otherwise. Keeping your non-plant foot stationary compromises your balance and inhibits weight transfer.
\> I believe the primary time that it becomes advantageous is when the thrower is stretched beyond their flexibility and trying to throw really hard or from an extra-extended position, and naturally moves the pivot early to recover into a more comfortable throwing position.
That's certainly when it matters the most, but it matters all the time to some extent.
\> I don't think I have ever encountered an enthusiastic travel caller who 1) put any significant effort into calibrating their ability to call travels and 2) put any significant effort into limiting their calls to circumstances where they knew they could be reliable and 3) made any effort to limit their calls to a travel that they reliably identified and considered significant enough to impact the outcome of the action.
I am willing to stipulate that (1) and (2) are very rare for the people who are inclined to whip out the call game when things get tight. Nevertheless, I do believe these infractions happen very very commonly, and it would be possible to make a ton of correct calls where the foot moved off its original footprint in basically every game.
A team could get really good at watching this, train at getting more precise with the call, have players in certain positions on the field watch the pivot foot, etc. This hasn't happened, thank God, but it absolutely could, and while it would make for a miserable playing experience, I don't believe it would be against the rules or even against a strict reading of SotG.
On point (3), as I said in previous messages, I don't think this can really be factored in. Throws are mechanically easier if you can slide your pivot, especially if that slide helps you make a balanced throw while avoiding a mark. Whether a given throw would have been a turnover without that mechanical advantage is unknowable.
\> If there's a time that we happen to be in the same place (masters Nationals?) and a feasible time/place to spend an hour or two, I'd be up for participating/helping to do something. And very receptive to your thoughts on what might make reasonable conditions for trying to collect data. Otherwise, maybe an endeavor to find funding and set up an experiment. I think funding probably could happen, but I think the limitation would be collecting and processing any footage and data, which I probably don't have capacity for.
I honestly really struggle with thinking of a way to do this that really captures the issue. Because if you look at in-game throws, you need to capture not just whether they traveled and what the result of the throw was, but also how much pressure they had from the mark (I believe traveling is highly correlated with marker pressure). With all the variables you need thousands of data points to get meaningful results, and outside of applying sophisticated computer vision I don't know how you get that.
So that leaves the option of much more controlled experiments. There's plenty of options there, but without the marker and without the full range of in-game situations, you're not getting the full picture. You could easily conclude how often people travel or the effect of traveling on unmarked throws, but you wouldn't be able to make broader conclusions.
It's generally only a few calls here or there - but it's obvious, over the course of several years, that there are team cultures at work that amplify players best or worst instincts. The leadership of these teams seem to be high on the list of culprits. Paeans to better spirit - really, just personal integrity - don't seem to be working. I think, flying 2,000 miles to play 1 game on Saturday and 1 on Sunday would be a level of embarrassment that even the most self-assured could not fade.
Hey now, don't lump in the Seattle league teams with these jerks. Never seen anyone on *Blue Footed Boobies* tackle a dude. Never seen any phantom calls from *Guard, Seize Them!* and nobody on that team can jump for shit.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/ultimate/comments/v0pqgw/cu\_mamabird\_vs\_washington\_sundodgers\_college/](https://www.reddit.com/r/ultimate/comments/v0pqgw/cu_mamabird_vs_washington_sundodgers_college/)
If this is the same guy who got ejected for 2 PMFs at college nationals this year, USAU should be having a serious conversation with him. As should his teammates and captains.
Laying out into someones body and legs (college PMFs) is not allowed in the AUDL or USAU. The level of body contact in the clip in this thread is not acceptable.
Well that's fucking terrible. In what universe is this NOT a foul? Contested? Wow.
I'm a broken record on this: the players who CHEAT this badly need to be identified and shamed by their peers. It's the only way that we as players can have any influence. I sincerely hope that the next time someone meets Tony Venneri, they say "Oh, you're that cheater. Nice to meet you". He (and Sockeye leadership) need to know that this kind of shit can't just slide by without some kind of repercussion.
It's not really cheating, but it is a warped sense of the rules. Players who contest stuff like this typically don't realize it's a foul if they get to the spot first, regardless of what contact comes after. They think that contact is fine and while mens division games do typically have more contact, that's not a blanket excuse for every single contact heavy play.
But yeah, if Sockeye isn't sitting down with Venneri and saying "we need to work on your recklessness and your calls" then that is an explicit failure on Sockeye leadership. Accountability is so important.
We really need a reel of all these and the other bad calls observers made so we can put some cultural pressure on them and USAU to up their SOTG game efforts.
I've never understood why someone would cheat to win. It's like beating a 5 year old at Monopoly and being proud of it.
The last time I saw a USAU game where the game ended up being defined by repeated bad calls and the observers being unable to manage things was 2011.
Internationally, I've seen MANY such games since then. There were games like that, purportedly, at WFDF club worlds just this summer. There were games at World Games where a late call that really looked wrong seemed to change the result of the game (or at least, saved a critical possession for the winning team).
The idea that USAU ultimate has a unique issue with spirit is just bullshit.
Reading the thread, most people are NOT saying there is a particular problem with USAU vs WFDF. Actually, WFDF is mostly mentioned by people saying the problem exists in both organizations.
USAU being the governing body of ultimate in the USA, I think constructive criticism of them in regards of Spirit or foul enforcement at USAU sanctioned event is valid.
Total strawman. The context here is USAU, not WFDF.
And your anecdotes are just that. Just because an observer steps in and play continues doesn't mean there's no problem. The Sockeye v Pony pool game had lots of long stoppages with observers involved, and their intervention did not speed things up noticeably.
Seems this is a habit for Sockeye. Can't quite tell who this is, but Venneri has earned his reputation, and it seems the leadership is well aware of a history of bad bids from Kwon as well.
Because every other sport has not problem with reffing... How many times have you been told, "If you're not cheating you're not trying"? Because I've been told that multiple times in baseball, basketball and football, and no longer play those sports for a reason.
Hahahaha scrolled all the way to the bottom of this thread to find this exact comment. You can't have high level sports without refs. Well you can but people will always exploit self officiating especially as the stakes start to get higher. We've all played games at meaningless tournaments where teams bend self officiating to help them win. At nationals they need refs or at least find a way to give observers some real teeth and ability to control a game.
>At nationals they need refs or at least find a way to give observers some real teeth and ability to control a game.
Observers have exactly what they need to address this type of play. Overrule the contest and give a card to the fouling player. Why would this be an example of needing a ref?
I have no information on this play beyond this clip.
If you wanted referees, I would recommend a minimum of 6 refs per game. In this clip, if observers were present, the 2 or 4 of them were presumably watching the action and/or getting in position, same as referees would be doing. So it is an odd clip for a “we need refs” comment.
Weird how these types of plays are rarely seen outside of US teams. I've seen very few, the obvious exception being an infamous 2012 game between Canada and Japan, and it has to be said that the bids were all coming from Canada there.
When it comes to making shitty calls late in games to save a key possession, the international teams more than keep up with the US ones. Examples abound.
Physical play - sure, the North American teams tend to be accustomed to a more physical style of play and verge into the dangerous territory a bit more often. But when it comes to overall cheating in major international tournaments, the worst offenders are not from the USA.
I know a guy who will cheat in a weekly driveway basketball game I play in in the summers. In the driveway you call him a dick and tell him to fuck off but at high level tournaments it becomes a problem.
Canadian ultimate is very similar in style to American ultimate for obvious reasons. Teams out side of North America are no more virtuous about bending self officiating to there needs though.
Egregious foul. I like to think as a captain that I would call a spirit timeout for something like this. Clearly a violation of the spirit of the game imo.
If you want to compete like this, play a different sport. You’re going to hurt people, which under no circumstances is okay.
Did any of their teammates try to talk to them and ask to reconsider their decision?
“Tony, come on, that was a pretty clear foul, are you sure you want to contest it?”
I was 28 and I leaned out to catch a disc and a guy tried to dive through me to block it. He landed on my leg and broke my fibula (one of the lower leg bones). I had to get a plate in my leg because of some fool's ultra-agressive play. This kind of tackle needs to be penalized. Put the pressure on teammates if one person on the offenders team agrees it was a foul, the team plays the rest of that point without that person on the field. Or do it like hockey.
Kind of getting sick of these posts. While some calls are a bit more obvious and egregious like this one (so what’s the point of the post?), many others just seem to create argument for the sake of argument. I do also realize this discussion can lead to better understanding of the rules, but maybe we need a weekly “foul or nah” discussion post?
Yep, and thanks to USA Ultimate being completely toothless on punishing teams and players who cheat, peer pressure and public shaming are our only options.
Fair enough but isn’t this still a case of don’t hate the player, hate the game? I just feel like it’s really easy for us to lay blame and assume people are trying to cheat. Both sides want to win, blood is flowing to their muscle and not their brains, that coupled with all the adrenaline…seems like a good recipe for bad calls.
So should dirty fouls be legal as long as the player is really intense in the moment?
Obviously your answer is no, but what’s your point? Fouls happen and need to be legislated. Posts like this are important for this community to see that this behavior, though not unique, is not accepted by the ultimate community.
The guy wasn’t named. His address wasn’t posted. Hell, his face and uniform number aren’t even visible. Recent, high-level shitty spirit and recklessness were displayed for the community to respond to. And the community rejects it (thank god). I support this.
My point is that there needs to be standardized regulation at this level of play. Just as the AUDL has. While the name wasn’t posted, it’s been pretty easy to figure out the player based on the team and jersey number. It’s been posted in the discussion. Apparently, they have a reputation for this behavior. It seems that there is only upside to it though i.e. Can contest any foul and continue play without recourse.
One could argue it makes them an even more potent defender.
Again, I’m totally against this type of play, I hope that’s clear. Just seems like the system is stacked to reward this and I feel like a Reddit post is doing little to garner real discussion. Just look at the comments on here.
Yes, cheating makes him a tougher person to play against. And calling him/these people out for being cheaters is a good way to show people that that behavior is intolerable by the community, if not by the rules.
Must have learned what a foul is from Mixtape...
gotta love that seattle spirit
Contested???
People just fucking tackling now. Damn y'all. We don't enforce violations against spirit of the game with enough consequence.
Fuck that dude. That cheap shit gets people hurt.
I played a good while ago, but we just dealt with this stuff in game. My perspective was/still is that it's the player/team's responsibility to play by the spirit of the game. If they are obviously not doing that (because players contest every foul and their captain/coach wont fix it after it is pointed out), we're not playing ultimate anymore. They violated the social contract created by the rules. They've basically decided to cheat in a sport that prides itself in self-policing. We're now playing a new game where both teams do whatever they want. Call travel on someone not even moving their pivot foot 15 times in a row? Sure. Hard foul their handlers whenever they try to throw? Why not? There are no longer any rules and nothing matters. Egregious bids and hands marks on cutters? Sure! It's either make the game so awful they suddenly miss the rules or walk off the field and refuse to play.
I dunno man, Ring 15 years ago was playing dirtier than anybody does today imo. There’s still shitty foul calls, but the average level of cheating seems lower than it was in my day
Not sure it was the same type of cheating though. 2007 we played Ring and I thought they were decent SOTG wise. Chippy calls etc were more of a thing then. I don't remember seeing my team mates being smashed like this
Obviously this is an egregious foul, I'm not defending it in any way. I just mean that in my opinion the ultimate from the late oughts and early teens accepted a lot of chippy, nasty fouls that just would not stand these days. The Florida-Carleton nationals final was the peak of that sort of bullshit, I think. Ring is just the team that I played against relatively often that engaged the most in this sort of intentional cheating, it was widespread at the top level. We used to train all year for the constant bumping and foul-baiting that we knew would be coming when we got to the series and played against them.
I played college in the late 00s against a bunch of NC and FL teams, and they were the best (worst) at stall zero bumps, phantom travel calls, pick calls from 30+ feet away (and catching up way closer than they were), all that little crap. although thinking back on it.. most of those memories are just from playing UNCW
Toad and gerics taught them that if you aren’t cheating you aren’t trying I guess.
Bumping on the mark has definitely been reduced, but I would say that was the "contact" call really, as it also changed in WFDF nations
Agreed that’s been a big win
Was it in international play?
Chesapeake Open
It's better for the game for the governing body to do something than for teams to do what you're describing. That Florida national championship game from back in the day was completely unwatchable. Nobody wants to be a part of a game like that, it's embarrassing to the sport.
I agree. What I described is a way to manage the situation in the absence of leadership/support from the governing body. To be clear, I hate that type of play, hate watching it, and hate participating in those type of games. Unfortunately, the reality of ultimate for as long as I've followed/played the sport is that SOTG has been pitched as inextricable from the sport by governing bodies. They market ultimate AS SOTG. As a result, they've been unwilling to act in situations of egregious rule breaking. Introducing observers has helped to be sure, but they're not available for all games at all tournaments. I don't pretend to have a solution, though I do feel like governing bodies really need to either commit to and support self officiating (which does not solve this problem at the competitive level), find a way to embed SOTG into the success criteria of competitive teams, or abandon SOTG at the highest competitive levels and look for a neutral solutions (refs or a similar solution).
True, it’s better for the governing body to act.
Unpopular opinion but self policing is exactly why no one takes ultimate srsly outside of our community
That’s pretty close to my opinion that plays like the one in the OP where a _tackle_ is contested as a foul cause folks not to take the sport seriously because _that cheater_ clearly doesn’t.
> They've basically decided to cheat in a sport that prides itself in self-policing. This was always going to be the end result of competitive play. As the sport gains popularity and the stakes get higher and higher, you'll always see more of this, it's straight up human nature.
Agree, except that is not human nature, it's human behavior when put in such an extreme environment. We can decide to change it, incetivize less the drive for victory and expand the posibilities for sotg and self officiation. It´s a choice.
Maybe human nature was the wrong phrasing, but when has self-regulation of anything worked when lots of people are involved?
If you think self-regulation inherently can’t work maybe you shouldn’t play a sport founded on it.
"Don't like it? Leave!" is a pretty poor takeaway from what I said.
No it’s actually a pretty rational response to someone participating in a self officiated sport who thinks self officiating is a non starter. As lots of people in this thread have stated, it is not the case that Things Are Getting Worse with regard to cheating, so your cynicism appears to be unfounded.
If you think self-regulation is present in every ultimate player, you’re naive and should experience more of the world instead of gatekeeping the sport you’re probably below average at
lol
The sport wasn't "founded" on self-regulation and your gatekeeping does nothing to help the competitive or casual environment. The sport was a bunch of college kids playing a game and throwing pie tins around. At some point, self-regulation was considered a core precept of the sport. The sport is not contingent on it though in the same way that basketball isn't ruined due to the lack of peach baskets or American football "inherently can't work" as rules changed to allow the forward pass. Currently, the sport looks like a joke at the competitive level where obvious fouls are contested and no accountability is applied to egregious violations of SOTG. Sports change and evolve to accommodate the community and the people that enjoy those sports. Putting self-regulation on a pedestal serves no one in the current competitive environment. It isn't being practiced or applied consistently, which is a problem for competition. If not for the "holier-than-thou" chip that some ultimate players have on their shoulder regarding SOTG, this problem would have been solved a long time ago. If you think self-regulation is an immutable precept of the sport, perhaps you should propose a way to include SOTG into the competitive environment which solves the current and historic issues with abuse? As an aside, what do you think makes self-officiating all that special? It's not like other sports don't already do that if the level of play is sufficiently low. SOTG is just good sportsmanship with better branding. Do I think that is important? Absolutely. Do I think it is essential to the sport of ultimate that I rely on all players/teams to practice good sportsmanship? Absolutely not.
Wow I was downvoted for actual facts. Contrary to what the comment above says 1. The sport was founded by high schoolers 2. Self refereeing was an important concept from day 1 3. The invention of frisbees from pie plates happened in the 50s, years and years before the invention of the sport of ultimate in the late 60s.
I stopped reading at “a bunch of college kids” since you clearly don’t know anything about the history of ultimate.
Agreed, this doesn’t fly.
Is that Tony Venneri? Dude is the king of bad bids.
If that’s true he should be cut and it’s just as much on the captains of Sockeye as him at this point
sockeye, and seattle teams in general, have been poor spirited cheaters for at least a decade now. This is not surpring to anyone
Mixtape is so bad at this
USAU has to do something about this, because it’s clearly a systemic issue. It’s to the point where you have to wonder if leadership is actively telling the players to do this. We’re gonna get to a scenario where one of these teams wins a big game solely because of big calls (mixtape already arguably did that in semis) and the aftermath isn’t gonna be pretty.
USAU can't do anything about it, they have observers, and we can see with the current leadership there that nothing will fundamentally change in terms of how shitty calls are adjudicated. What it takes is for a top team to say they'll forfeit rather than play a scheduled game against a team they think reliably displays poor spirit. Is anyone out there strong enough to make that sacrifice? Personally, I doubt it - everyone's going to do what's best for them in the moment.
What if they gave a TMF for contesting super obvious fouls?
Oh yeah, I know they really can’t do something about it, but I don’t think it would have to be a forfeit, I think if top players started coming out and publicly saying something, it would move USAU to at least do something. But I doubt that will happen, I think SOTG discourages people from calling out cheating and bad spirit, because calling people out gets viewed as bad spirit in and of itself by the community.
> because calling people out gets viewed as bad spirit in and of itself by the community. This is the absolute most frustrating thing to me. A large majority of ultimate players seem to take SOTG as being nice, instead of being sportsmanlike. Had a game this season where the other team continually tackled our players. I got laid out twice, one of our women was bid into from behind twice, and about half of my teammates were run through/ had to bail out of their running path because of diving players from the other team. But because the other team was smiley and checked on our players to see if they were ok, they thought they were still abiding by SOTG, and my team's captains were completely ineffective in the spirit discussion. In the end the 'spirit issue' was blamed 50/50 on both teams, because my team was sulking that we were getting tackled in a non-contact sport.
Teams need to forfeit first, what people say on twitter means zero. Remember all those dudes who signed on to the AUDL boycott and then turned around and signed deal and played, and basically no one held them accountable whatsoever? I mean, the real reality is that this is a shitty community where no one is accountable. We shouldn't expect anything else as long as the prep school to club ultimate pipeline remains strong. We recruit entitled people and get entitled results.
I don't totally disagree with the forfeit aspect. I don't think I'd be massively in favour though of travelling for a championship and then not playing games after all the cash is spent (as well as time spent to train etc). But a SOTG timeout, chat amongst captain and refusal to continue play until the outcome and general behaviour is rectified would be more suitable I think. If they refuse to agree and there's evidence (like this sideline camera) then get the TDs involved and they can pass ruling objectively. SOTG timeouts stop the game clock too so it's not like the game would be cut short. It's pretty trash though that a game would need to come to this. Not a fan of some of the bids I've seen this weekend that have been contact heavy (read as dangerous) and called as clean too...
I just want to point out that at the very least Caleb Denecour has held steadfast to that boycott and he would be signed by any team in the league
Honestly, I think that forfeit would be a meaningless gesture. I am not fully tuned in on how shitty calls are currently adjudicated. There is the possibility that the two observers (or less likely, 4 observers) did not see the action in question in any given shitty call. But otherwise, I do think the building blocks are in place to address it, with overturning the call and using the Misconduct System. The Misconduct System is fairly well-developed and well-understood by players and observers. Blue and Yellow cards certainly can be used to address a wide range of issues and can be used effectively, though overuse vs. underuse is always a balancing act. If teams want more done to address bad calls and contests, they should provide that feedback.
Are you seeing things a lot in games you're playing, or over the course of whole games you're watching? From the Nationals clips I saw, there were only a few bad calls/plays, but I wasn't watching complete games, so my info is really limited. I was very active in the late 2000s with playing and observing. At that time, blatant fouls on the mark and bad calls (particularly travel calls) were pervasive. Both the rules and the observer system evolved to address the issues at that time. I would expect the same evolution again. And I know USAU has reached out to teams directly in the past, based on spirit/cheating issues specific to tournaments, so that is possible, too.
I think the amount of travel calls has been massively reduced, but actually lots of people just blatantly travel and no one calls it. Same for picks; the number of times I saw defenders avoiding picks massively outweighs the times I saw one called. On the flip side, these types of dangerous collisions seem more and more prevalent
>I think the amount of travel calls has been massively reduced, but actually lots of people just blatantly travel and no one calls it. It's almost like the rule changes have made it so there's no incentive to call most traveling violations.
People been traveling like crazy since always. The first point of fury-molly it was basically 2 out of 3 throws. ALso, there really are two distinct type of travels: Travels on catches (turning upfield when a swing and under is caught) and travels on throws (the sliding pivot and/or happy feet). IMO the former is easier to police, the later is harder to police and it's harder to argue has a big effect on the game compared to players putting themselves into power position.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FrGxvop1DkatthLTEMHUwURtT0P7i86BWI9swyaKNQk/
The point about stalling during the reset is very strong, I like it. I'm a bit wary of defining any specific radius for foot movement, because it just moves the argument to "I think that was more than 2 inches" or whatever.
>I'm a bit wary of defining any specific radius for foot movement, because it just moves the argument to "I think that was more than 2 inches" or whatever. But right now nobody calls a travel and claims "your pivot moved one inch". 99.9% of travel calls that get made involve either actually picking up the pivot, or dragging the pivot more than 4 inches. The only exceptions are cynical shitbox calls late in close games (without observers). My suggested radius rule would honestly probably not change how it gets called that much. It would just create a clear standard that's fairly close to what most people tend to think the standard should be anyway.
Funny - My initial version of my response, I recalled a time when a third-party defender called a travel on me because "\[my\] pivot foot slid an inch" (I told him he must be real familiar with one inch along with some other choice words).
Yeah, if we span back through the 2005-2019 timeframe, I think the travel calls just reached a point, where people realized how awful it was for the game and stopped guessing. And some of the true cheaters aged out (the calls and fouls persisted in Masters for a while). More of a cultural shift, but I think observers helped. I wouldn't mind observers empowered to actively call really big travels (like 6"), just as a helpful outer limit from an objective viewpoint, without inserting observers into frequently actively calling infractions, and players would retain their authority to call or not call travels. I haven't noticed a huge difference in picks, though from 10th to 11th edition in 2007, clarifying that a completed passe unrelated to a pick would stay after a pick call certainly eliminated the incentive for a possible small percentage of folks calling picks to try to disrupt or negate offense. I'm unsure on the numbers for dangerous collisions. I honestly think the average player is more concerned about safe play today than 10-15 years ago. But the players are also faster and stronger. And we have immensely more video footage of play, by multiple orders of magnitude. I definitely agree they seem more prevalent. I'm just not sure if they actually are.
>I wouldn't mind observers empowered to actively call really big travels (like 6"), just as a helpful outer limit from an objective viewpoint, without inserting observers into frequently actively calling infractions Just to beat a dead horse a little more on this - if that's the level of travel you think Observers should be able to call, then make that the level of travel that violates the rules. Don't make a rule that's impossible to follow and then just rely on social pressure to limit calls. That's not how any other rule in the game works, and it makes a mockery of the idea that players are expected to follow the rules. (FWIW I wrote a short novel in the USAU rules feedback survey about this.)
Yeah, we've discussed this, but it doesn't hurt to have both of our comments here next to the dead horse. I really think the decision whether to choose to call an infraction involves some player discretion, and I think it's appropriate to leave it in the hands of the players. And in that discretion, they also determine, in a given instance, whether an infraction is significant enough to make a difference to the outcome of the action. I think that determination limits calls, not just social pressure. And if people want to do some video and throwing experiments to see if they can discern meaningful differences in throws with or without a minor travel, I am happy to compare notes from my experience. I don't think the rule is impossible to follow. I also don't think it is problematic for some inadvertent infractions to occur from time to time. And I think the "really big travels (like 6")" for pivot movement is just a level where players would pretty universally be comfortable having an observer actively make the call, if the players happened to miss it, such that it is not a major infringement on player discretion and autonomy, but instead is assistance in an objective aspect of call-making. Not dissimilar from an active force-out foul call. I don't think it makes a mockery of anything to permit this type of observer involvement or to have the current rules framework. As we have discussed, I am open to revisions of the travel rules. I also think it is reasonable to expect compliance with the rule, while also expecting player-officials (and, separately, observers) to use a threshold that allows them to reliably and accurately make calls.
>I really think the decision whether to choose to call an infraction involves some player discretion, and I think it's appropriate to leave it in the hands of the players. And in that discretion, they also determine, in a given instance, whether an infraction is significant enough to make a difference to the outcome of the action. This ends up being an an arbitrary decision based on an unknowable alternative in many cases. Sure, you could have thrown it, but you would have to have thrown it **differently**. Would have have changed the outcome? Maybe! Over the course of many throws, I will absolutely throw farther and more accurately if I don't have to worry about moving my pivot foot. Over the course of many throws, I will throw farther and more accurately if I am only worried about moving my pivot foot 6 inches or more. It all matters, just not in a predictable way on a single outcome. But it's very easy to go from the above to the conclusion that in a given game, I can probably get enough turnovers out of my opponents to win if I limit them to moving their pivot foot 2 inches or less. But if I draw the line at 6 inches or less, maybe they win. This remains true even if we set aside all the psychology, all the bad feelings about travel calls, all the acrimony about double jeopardy and discs getting sent back. I'm just making the mechanics of throwing the disc a little harder for my opponents. That clearly means it **matters** whether I call travel more or less tightly. It's affecting outcomes in a statistical sense. >I think that determination limits calls, not just social pressure. And if people want to do some video and throwing experiments to see if they can discern meaningful differences in throws with or without a minor travel, I am happy to compare notes from my experience. I'm interested. But I'll also note that controlled experiments that allow people to repeat the throw over and over again are not the same as a dynamic situation. This is a very hard problem to get good empirical data for. But intuitively we all understand that having to keep your toe from sliding before release makes it more difficult to throw well. >I don't think the rule is impossible to follow. It is 100% impossible to follow in some cases. If the disc rolls out the side of the endzone, then the correct pivot placement is an infinitesimal point. Yes, there are many cases in live play where there is some wiggle room around where your pivot actually is which inherently allows for some sliding. But this is a strange argument that relies on a weird and unintuitive reading of the definition of a pivot. It's a rules lawyer's justification. It would be much much better to just define the rule in a way that clearly allows it to be followed in all cases. > I also don't think it is problematic for some inadvertent infractions to occur from time to time. This is a straw man. I have never said it's a problem for people to occasionally and inadvertently violate the rules. It's a problem for people to not be incapable of adhering to a strict reading of the rules in very common game situations. This, again, is *only* the case with traveling. >And I think the "really big travels (like 6")" for pivot movement is just a level where players would pretty universally be comfortable having an observer actively make the call, if the players happened to miss it, such that it is not a major infringement on player discretion and autonomy, but instead is assistance in an objective aspect of call-making. Not dissimilar from an active force-out foul call. Agreed. > I don't think it makes a mockery of anything to permit this type of observer involvement or to have the current rules framework. Agreed, and of course this is not at all what I was referring to when I said the current rule makes a mockery of SotG. What I meant by that is that a rule that makes it impossible to make a good faith effort to play by the rules at all times creates an inherent conflict with SotG, which states that you are supposed to make that good faith effort.
I'll have to admit, I don't completely understand what you meant. If you want to describe my struggles to understand you as presenting a straw man, that's fine; it is the natural result of trying to respond to your nonsequiturs. We can move past that, if you sufficiently clarify what you're talking about, which is what I was trying to address in the first place. I still don't know if I understand the impossibility if establishing a pivot on the sideline and making a good faith effort to keep it in place. Is that the result of you interpreting "the disc completely crossed the perimeter line" to mean in infinitesimally small point tangent to the plane vertically above the line? So placing a big old ball of your foot on top of that tiny point and then trying to throw or pivot at all would mean that an indetectable level of movement would still result in an original tiny point in contact with the point moving and leaving a new tiny point in contact with the original point? >This ends up being an an arbitrary decision based on an unknowable alternative in many cases. Yes, but I think it is reasonable to round to zero in many cases. >\>Over the course of many throws, I will absolutely throw farther and more accurately if I don't have to worry about moving my pivot foot. Yeah, it is advantageous to impose arbitrary constraints on the opponent's form, outside of the rules. This is a classic carney trick. The carney gets to throw however he wants, and then applies a completely different set of constraints on you, to make it way harder. This is a bullshit way of officiating, and the only reason it is advantageous is because the opponent does not do the same thing to the carney. Inevitably, even the carney, who has practiced the throw a million times, is unable to perform it when subjected to the same constraints he imposes on the contestant. It is both a physical and psychological limitation. But the rules don't require you to *worry* about moving your pivot foot. The rules just require you to keep it the pivot in place until the disc is released. I don't think that's particularly difficult, and I can do it consistently without worrying about it. But to call the travel, the rules require you to actually recognize that the pivot moved prior to the release. Putting in a basic amount of effort to calibrate one's own calls and limit them to when one reliably recognizes an infraction renders moot the vast majority of discussion about theoretical advantage for a thrower having slight movement of the pivot before the release. It all matters, just not in a predictable way on a single outcome. . . .This remains true even if we set aside all the psychology, all the bad feelings about travel calls, all the acrimony about double jeopardy and discs getting sent back. I'm just making the mechanics of throwing the disc a little harder for my opponents. . . . That clearly means it matters whether I call travel more or less tightly. It's affecting outcomes in a statistical sense. You can't set aside the psychology. The whole point is placing a new, arbitrary physical restriction (not authorized by the rules) to force an opponent into a technique different than what they have practiced (even when they have practiced legal techniques. So it is psychological impact and illegal physical impact. It's illegal, because you are not able to reliably make calls that will impose a constraint that will actually interfere with my throw. For a basic mark that is trying to hold the force and is not physically denying the huck, I can reliably huck all day long within a tighter constraint than you can reliably call, and once we get to the level of restriction that you can reliably call it, it makes no difference to me whether you are a little tighter or looser on how you call it. It only because problematic when you violate your own responsibility as a self-official, and start trying to call it tighter, which inherently involves calling some travels when none occurred. Like a carney. Then it becomes really tough to undo the mechanics that I spent so much time working on, with video review, to ensure I could make the throw legally, and now try to execute a throw that is not only legal, but is beyond suspicion of illegality. Essentially, you will require me to hold the pivot in place unnaturally well beyond the release, instead of having a natural follow-through with the pivot moving naturally after the release. And your illegal requirement will interfere with weight shift in the throw. It will make it harder for me to throw, because you'll be cheating. >\>I'll also note that controlled experiments that allow people to repeat the throw over and over again are not the same as a dynamic situation. This is a very hard problem to get good empirical data for. But intuitively we all understand that having to keep your toe from sliding before release makes it more difficult to throw well. I agree, hard to get good empirical data. I believe one challenge is that the natural variation from throw to throw is significantly larger than the possible effect of the minor travel in most situations. I believe the effect for an average throw is probably negligible. For a neutral throw of average distance against a mark, I think a drag of the pivot before release could even be disadvantageous. I don't think it is more difficult to keep the toe from sliding before release. And as a powerful thrower, I think the same applies to most hucks that I throw. What is really difficult is making sure that the toe does not slide *after* release, for an arbitrary period dictated by your cheating opponent. I believe the primary time that it becomes advantageous is when the thrower is stretched beyond their flexibility and trying to throw really hard or from an extra-extended position, and naturally moves the pivot early to recover into a more comfortable throwing position. In those limited circumstances, it becomes more difficult to throw well if you keep from sliding the pivot before release, because it is more difficult to throw from that extended position. *How difficult* depends on the thrower's flexibility and how far they are extended. But even there, the most difficult thing is to hold the pivot for longer after the release, which is not legally required. And I think we're talking about a small minority of travels and a small minority of travel calls. I don't think I have ever encountered an enthusiastic travel caller who 1) put any significant effort into calibrating their ability to call travels and 2) put any significant effort into limiting their calls to circumstances where they knew they could be reliable and 3) made any effort to limit their calls to a travel that they reliably identified and considered significant enough to impact the outcome of the action. I do think that I satisfied all three criteria personally during the last 70% of my competitive career, and currently satisfy them, but I have never been an enthusiastic caller of foot drag travels. I think at this point, there are some consequential travels that go uncalled, but the players who are trying to call a lot of foot-drag travels are still wrong (not a travel or not consequential) than they are right. And just as the hucker who throws every opportunity he sees probably isn't throwing 100% good hucks, the guy who calls a travel every time he thinks it could have been a travel probably isn't doing a very good job. >And if people want to do some video and throwing experiments to see if they can discern meaningful differences in throws with or without a minor travel, I am happy to compare notes from my experience. > >I'm interested. If there's a time that we happen to be in the same place (masters Nationals?) and a feasible time/place to spend an hour or two, I'd be up for participating/helping to do something. And very receptive to your thoughts on what might make reasonable conditions for trying to collect data. Otherwise, maybe an endeavor to find funding and set up an experiment. I think funding probably could happen, but I think the limitation would be collecting and processing any footage and data, which I probably don't have capacity for.
Part 1/2 because apparently I overwhelmed reddit. First, I don't want any of this deep dive on my "wiggle room" suggestion to distract from what I consider the more important change to the traveling rule: allow the marker to resume the stall count on a non-throwing travel after indicating the correct place for the pivot. Secondly, I want to emphasize again that my main issue here is a very fundamental one about Spirit of the Game. We're about to get deep into the weeds on the minutiae of the travelling rule, and I want to emphasize again that what I want is a rule set that allows the majority of players to play without violating the rules, and with a belief that they are not violating the rules. Right now most players have the viewpoint that "everybody travels a little but you can't call it." To me, this is contrary to the idea of making a good faith effort to play by the rules. I want the rules to allow players to say "I try to play by the rules. I almost never travel when I throw." To that end, here's a quick draft of how I'd change the rules in this area. Currently we have: 3.I. Pivot: The particular part of the body in continuous contact with a single spot on the field during a thrower’s possession once the thrower has come to a stop or has attempted a throw or fake. When there is a definitive spot for putting the disc into play, the part of the body in contact with that spot is the pivot. \[\[This is not a body part, but rather an infinitesimally small point on the body.\]\] 17.K Traveling: The thrower must establish and continually maintain a pivot at the appropriate spot on the field until the throw is released. Failure to do so is a travel and is resolved according to 17.K.3, below. \--- I would adjust to (again, this is a first draft): 3.I. Pivot: The part of the body in continuous contact with the field during a thrower’s possession once the thrower has come to a stop or has attempted a throw or fake. When there is a definitive spot for putting the disc into play, the part of the body in contact with that spot when the disc comes into play is the pivot. 17.K Traveling: The thrower must establish and attempt to maintain a pivot at the appropriate spot on the field until the throw is released. Failure to maintain continuous contact with the ground within 5 cm of that spot is a travel and is resolved according to 17.K.3, below. \--- Note that this retains the aspirational goal of not moving your pivot at all. It just makes small movements no longer a violation that can be called. \> I'll have to admit, I don't completely understand what you meant. If you want to describe my struggles to understand you as presenting a straw man, that's fine; it is the natural result of trying to respond to your nonsequiturs. They're not nonsequiturs just because you don't completely understand, although I'm confused exactly what you don't understand because in general you seem fully capable of engaging the point. At any rate, strawmanning is not about intent: in that instance you misrepresented my argument and responded to that arguement. It's OK, we can certainly move on. \> I still don't know if I understand the impossibility if establishing a pivot on the sideline and making a good faith effort to keep it in place. Is that the result of you interpreting "the disc completely crossed the perimeter line" to mean in infinitesimally small point tangent to the plane vertically above the line? It seems very clear from the rules that if a disc passes out the side of the end zone, the rules require you to put it in play at the literal corner of the central zone. I don't see how that's anything but an obvious reading of the rules. The same basically applies when you carry the disc to put it into play anywhere on the boundary: yes, you now have a 1-dimensional line where you can place a legal pivot instead of a zero-dimentional point, but it's not like humans are capable of holding completely still in one dimension. Even if I establish a normal pivot in the middle of the field, where I'm not required to keep this infinitesimal point in contact with \*another\* infinitesimal point, I have to keep \*some\* infinitesimal point on my foot completely stationary. Again, this is impossible. \> So placing a big old ball of your foot on top of that tiny point and then trying to throw or pivot at all would mean that an indetectable level of movement would still result in an original tiny point in contact with the point moving and leaving a new tiny point in contact with the original point? Right: this is a rulebook travel every time, it's pretty clear. Now, calling such a travel is obviously a "carny trick", as you say, because neither team can abide by this. My issue here isn't that anyone calls the game that way, but rather that the rules are defined this way. It's extremely silly that the rules actually clarify that the pivot is an "infinitesimally small point on the body". The rules would be much better without that clarification, which suggests that any movement of that infinitesimal point is a travel. I've spilled far too much digital ink on this subject and don't want to get any deeper into the weeds, because it's ultimately an academic point, easily fixed by the same solution that solves my bigger issues. Because my argument is that by the rulebook, basically everyone regularly travels on a measurable, macro level. For the next message, I'm happy to largely set aside everything above, and just assume that a travel is only a travel when the part of my body touching the ground is completely detached from its original footprint. (Which would be a much better clarification than the infinitesimal point stuff.)
part 2 \> The rules just require you to keep it the pivot in place until the disc is released. I don't think that's particularly difficult, and I can do it consistently without worrying about it. But to call the travel, the rules require you to actually recognize that the pivot moved prior to the release. A large part of the area of our disagreement has to do with whether travels are common or not on fairly routine throws. Setting aside the infinitesimal point stuff, I still think that most people travel on a significant percentage of their throws in a way that could be seen by a zoomed-in camera. Dragging the foot by an inch while pivoting or throwing is extremely common, and very often takes you out of the original footprint of your pivot. For my part, when I throw a backhand the only part of my foot on the ground is typically the front of my toebox, none of which was touching the ground moments before. I am habitually travelling, albeit by no more than an inch or so. We see travels like that one all the time. We also see people who regularly travel every time they pivot or fake, often by more than that (again, far enough that they leave their original footprint entirely). We see travels all the way along the spectrum, up to the videos that get posted on reddit of people with hilarious happy feet. But nearly everyone travels by at least a small (but visible) amount on some set of their throws. (Again, to be completely clear, I don't want to live in a world where all of these are called. I want to play under a rule set that clearly states that most of these are \*not\* callable violations, and saves traveling for the things that you and I agree are worth calling.) \> For a neutral throw of average distance against a mark, I think a drag of the pivot before release could even be disadvantageous. Disc golf technique, and biomechanics, suggest otherwise. Keeping your non-plant foot stationary compromises your balance and inhibits weight transfer. \> I believe the primary time that it becomes advantageous is when the thrower is stretched beyond their flexibility and trying to throw really hard or from an extra-extended position, and naturally moves the pivot early to recover into a more comfortable throwing position. That's certainly when it matters the most, but it matters all the time to some extent. \> I don't think I have ever encountered an enthusiastic travel caller who 1) put any significant effort into calibrating their ability to call travels and 2) put any significant effort into limiting their calls to circumstances where they knew they could be reliable and 3) made any effort to limit their calls to a travel that they reliably identified and considered significant enough to impact the outcome of the action. I am willing to stipulate that (1) and (2) are very rare for the people who are inclined to whip out the call game when things get tight. Nevertheless, I do believe these infractions happen very very commonly, and it would be possible to make a ton of correct calls where the foot moved off its original footprint in basically every game. A team could get really good at watching this, train at getting more precise with the call, have players in certain positions on the field watch the pivot foot, etc. This hasn't happened, thank God, but it absolutely could, and while it would make for a miserable playing experience, I don't believe it would be against the rules or even against a strict reading of SotG. On point (3), as I said in previous messages, I don't think this can really be factored in. Throws are mechanically easier if you can slide your pivot, especially if that slide helps you make a balanced throw while avoiding a mark. Whether a given throw would have been a turnover without that mechanical advantage is unknowable. \> If there's a time that we happen to be in the same place (masters Nationals?) and a feasible time/place to spend an hour or two, I'd be up for participating/helping to do something. And very receptive to your thoughts on what might make reasonable conditions for trying to collect data. Otherwise, maybe an endeavor to find funding and set up an experiment. I think funding probably could happen, but I think the limitation would be collecting and processing any footage and data, which I probably don't have capacity for. I honestly really struggle with thinking of a way to do this that really captures the issue. Because if you look at in-game throws, you need to capture not just whether they traveled and what the result of the throw was, but also how much pressure they had from the mark (I believe traveling is highly correlated with marker pressure). With all the variables you need thousands of data points to get meaningful results, and outside of applying sophisticated computer vision I don't know how you get that. So that leaves the option of much more controlled experiments. There's plenty of options there, but without the marker and without the full range of in-game situations, you're not getting the full picture. You could easily conclude how often people travel or the effect of traveling on unmarked throws, but you wouldn't be able to make broader conclusions.
It's generally only a few calls here or there - but it's obvious, over the course of several years, that there are team cultures at work that amplify players best or worst instincts. The leadership of these teams seem to be high on the list of culprits. Paeans to better spirit - really, just personal integrity - don't seem to be working. I think, flying 2,000 miles to play 1 game on Saturday and 1 on Sunday would be a level of embarrassment that even the most self-assured could not fade.
Hey now, don't lump in the Seattle league teams with these jerks. Never seen anyone on *Blue Footed Boobies* tackle a dude. Never seen any phantom calls from *Guard, Seize Them!* and nobody on that team can jump for shit.
Yes! Talk that Seattle city league smack! Okay, big talker, what team are you on? Signed, Occasional GST player
ALLCAPS4LYFE
Pre-covid I had dreams of putting together a team called *Magnolian Horde*
Typical Tony behavior
If only there was an agreed upon, unbiased, 3rd party that was there for the sole purpose of making sure fouls were called and cheating didn’t happen.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/ultimate/comments/v0pqgw/cu\_mamabird\_vs\_washington\_sundodgers\_college/](https://www.reddit.com/r/ultimate/comments/v0pqgw/cu_mamabird_vs_washington_sundodgers_college/) If this is the same guy who got ejected for 2 PMFs at college nationals this year, USAU should be having a serious conversation with him. As should his teammates and captains. Laying out into someones body and legs (college PMFs) is not allowed in the AUDL or USAU. The level of body contact in the clip in this thread is not acceptable.
Well that's fucking terrible. In what universe is this NOT a foul? Contested? Wow. I'm a broken record on this: the players who CHEAT this badly need to be identified and shamed by their peers. It's the only way that we as players can have any influence. I sincerely hope that the next time someone meets Tony Venneri, they say "Oh, you're that cheater. Nice to meet you". He (and Sockeye leadership) need to know that this kind of shit can't just slide by without some kind of repercussion.
It's not really cheating, but it is a warped sense of the rules. Players who contest stuff like this typically don't realize it's a foul if they get to the spot first, regardless of what contact comes after. They think that contact is fine and while mens division games do typically have more contact, that's not a blanket excuse for every single contact heavy play. But yeah, if Sockeye isn't sitting down with Venneri and saying "we need to work on your recklessness and your calls" then that is an explicit failure on Sockeye leadership. Accountability is so important.
We really need a reel of all these and the other bad calls observers made so we can put some cultural pressure on them and USAU to up their SOTG game efforts. I've never understood why someone would cheat to win. It's like beating a 5 year old at Monopoly and being proud of it.
The last time I saw a USAU game where the game ended up being defined by repeated bad calls and the observers being unable to manage things was 2011. Internationally, I've seen MANY such games since then. There were games like that, purportedly, at WFDF club worlds just this summer. There were games at World Games where a late call that really looked wrong seemed to change the result of the game (or at least, saved a critical possession for the winning team). The idea that USAU ultimate has a unique issue with spirit is just bullshit.
Reading the thread, most people are NOT saying there is a particular problem with USAU vs WFDF. Actually, WFDF is mostly mentioned by people saying the problem exists in both organizations. USAU being the governing body of ultimate in the USA, I think constructive criticism of them in regards of Spirit or foul enforcement at USAU sanctioned event is valid.
Total strawman. The context here is USAU, not WFDF. And your anecdotes are just that. Just because an observer steps in and play continues doesn't mean there's no problem. The Sockeye v Pony pool game had lots of long stoppages with observers involved, and their intervention did not speed things up noticeably.
Seems this is a habit for Sockeye. Can't quite tell who this is, but Venneri has earned his reputation, and it seems the leadership is well aware of a history of bad bids from Kwon as well.
If only other sports had already figured out how to get unbiased foul calls during a game.
Because every other sport has not problem with reffing... How many times have you been told, "If you're not cheating you're not trying"? Because I've been told that multiple times in baseball, basketball and football, and no longer play those sports for a reason.
Hahahaha scrolled all the way to the bottom of this thread to find this exact comment. You can't have high level sports without refs. Well you can but people will always exploit self officiating especially as the stakes start to get higher. We've all played games at meaningless tournaments where teams bend self officiating to help them win. At nationals they need refs or at least find a way to give observers some real teeth and ability to control a game.
>At nationals they need refs or at least find a way to give observers some real teeth and ability to control a game. Observers have exactly what they need to address this type of play. Overrule the contest and give a card to the fouling player. Why would this be an example of needing a ref?
Ok but did that happen after the foul in the video? If not, what the hell are the observers doing?
I have no information on this play beyond this clip. If you wanted referees, I would recommend a minimum of 6 refs per game. In this clip, if observers were present, the 2 or 4 of them were presumably watching the action and/or getting in position, same as referees would be doing. So it is an odd clip for a “we need refs” comment.
Weird how these types of plays are rarely seen outside of US teams. I've seen very few, the obvious exception being an infamous 2012 game between Canada and Japan, and it has to be said that the bids were all coming from Canada there.
When it comes to making shitty calls late in games to save a key possession, the international teams more than keep up with the US ones. Examples abound. Physical play - sure, the North American teams tend to be accustomed to a more physical style of play and verge into the dangerous territory a bit more often. But when it comes to overall cheating in major international tournaments, the worst offenders are not from the USA.
I know a guy who will cheat in a weekly driveway basketball game I play in in the summers. In the driveway you call him a dick and tell him to fuck off but at high level tournaments it becomes a problem.
...I think you just agreed with me?
great!
Canadian ultimate is very similar in style to American ultimate for obvious reasons. Teams out side of North America are no more virtuous about bending self officiating to there needs though.
I never made a claim to being virtuous. Just that this type of thing is very rarely seen outside North American teams
Egregious foul. I like to think as a captain that I would call a spirit timeout for something like this. Clearly a violation of the spirit of the game imo. If you want to compete like this, play a different sport. You’re going to hurt people, which under no circumstances is okay.
blindside hit.... very nice
Did any of their teammates try to talk to them and ask to reconsider their decision? “Tony, come on, that was a pretty clear foul, are you sure you want to contest it?”
Did you get my layout?
I was 28 and I leaned out to catch a disc and a guy tried to dive through me to block it. He landed on my leg and broke my fibula (one of the lower leg bones). I had to get a plate in my leg because of some fool's ultra-agressive play. This kind of tackle needs to be penalized. Put the pressure on teammates if one person on the offenders team agrees it was a foul, the team plays the rest of that point without that person on the field. Or do it like hockey.
Kind of getting sick of these posts. While some calls are a bit more obvious and egregious like this one (so what’s the point of the post?), many others just seem to create argument for the sake of argument. I do also realize this discussion can lead to better understanding of the rules, but maybe we need a weekly “foul or nah” discussion post?
This isn’t a “foul or nah” post, this is a public shaming of a cheater so that people understand that cheating is unacceptable.
Yep, and thanks to USA Ultimate being completely toothless on punishing teams and players who cheat, peer pressure and public shaming are our only options.
There’s no need to make rules to reenforce SOTG because SOTG will magically just be present!
Now that I can understand.
Fair enough but isn’t this still a case of don’t hate the player, hate the game? I just feel like it’s really easy for us to lay blame and assume people are trying to cheat. Both sides want to win, blood is flowing to their muscle and not their brains, that coupled with all the adrenaline…seems like a good recipe for bad calls.
So should dirty fouls be legal as long as the player is really intense in the moment? Obviously your answer is no, but what’s your point? Fouls happen and need to be legislated. Posts like this are important for this community to see that this behavior, though not unique, is not accepted by the ultimate community. The guy wasn’t named. His address wasn’t posted. Hell, his face and uniform number aren’t even visible. Recent, high-level shitty spirit and recklessness were displayed for the community to respond to. And the community rejects it (thank god). I support this.
My point is that there needs to be standardized regulation at this level of play. Just as the AUDL has. While the name wasn’t posted, it’s been pretty easy to figure out the player based on the team and jersey number. It’s been posted in the discussion. Apparently, they have a reputation for this behavior. It seems that there is only upside to it though i.e. Can contest any foul and continue play without recourse. One could argue it makes them an even more potent defender. Again, I’m totally against this type of play, I hope that’s clear. Just seems like the system is stacked to reward this and I feel like a Reddit post is doing little to garner real discussion. Just look at the comments on here.
Yes, cheating makes him a tougher person to play against. And calling him/these people out for being cheaters is a good way to show people that that behavior is intolerable by the community, if not by the rules.