Letter to the Editor
When I saw that The Reckoner posted an Ultimate Frisbee-centric post, I was elated. However, as a collegiate Ultimate player, I feel that the author has been misinformed about the issues that the frisbee world is facing and I want the more prominent issues to be brought to attention.
Firstly, I am not sure how being “too friendly” or a lack of fighting are common complaints; while there are certainly sports that are based on or include fights, there are many that don’t. This is not a significant issue as to why Ultimate is not considered a “real” sport. The author brings up points that people are unaware of the athleticism that goes into Ultimate; however, this is changing through the introduction of two professional Ultimate leagues (Major League Ultimate and American Ultimate Disc League) whose highlights have been featured on the SportsCenter Top 10. Ultimate is now working itself into mainstream media and more people are being introduced to the game and its demanding physical nature.
I believe that the author has missed some important issues that Ultimate is facing, especially when it comes to being recognized by worldwide organizations such as the International Olympic Committee (though they have recently granted the World Flying Disc Federation recognition). One would be the professionalism of Ultimate. Ultimate is known to many as a sport where players play hard and party harder. It is not uncommon for players to go to a tournament and say things like “we may have lost the tournament but we won the party”. While it’s certainly an attitude that many players love, it’s one that can be interpreted as unprofessional to outsiders. This lack of professionalism can also be seen at worldwide tournaments such as the World Ultimate Club Championships in July 2014 where stories of barren dorms and lack of hot water for players popped up online (there were some unforeseen circumstances at WUCC but many players were still disappointed with the accommodations). There has definitely been a bigger push to become a more professional sport overall, especially with the MLU and AUDL, but more needs to be done in order to become a more recognized sport internationally.
Another issue is the refereeing aspect of the game, especially on the international level. USA Ultimate now uses “Observers” in most of their club and college level games who provide arbitration for player disputes and make inactive calls (out-of-bounds, down calls, goals etc.). This lets players still make active calls on their own while eliminating long winded discussions since players can have the Observers make a ruling. However, WFDF hasn’t recognized Observers, and prefers to have players self-referee, which can lead to many heated arguments. This issue is even greater when we view it from an outsider’s perspective as nearly every other sport has a referee which dictates all calls. This lack of governing official leads some people to compare Ultimate to pick-up basketball instead of an NBA game. It is a hurdle that Ultimate needs to overcome in order to fully establish itself.
Overall, Ultimate is an amazing sport and I would encourage people to try it if they can. But to think that people don’t consider it a sport due to the lack of pain or because it uses a frisbee instead of a ball is not only demeaning to the athletes but to the “haters” as well.
