Revolver (San Francisco) takes on Johnny Bravo (Denver) in the men's division final at the 2014 U.S. Open Ultimate Championships in Blaine, MN. Footage by ESPN.
Rewatching this and just now noticing and enjoying the argument between the Bravo coach and the camera man at 52:20. Hilarious. Right around the 53:00 mark you hear the camera man mutter “never doing this again”… lol. 😂😂😂
At 25:30. You get a perfect example of the stall count at high levels. Stopwatched it, and it came out just a hair over 6 seconds to get from 1 to 10 and yelling "Stall!".
I love playing ultimate, but because fouls and violations are self-officiated it creates a bad culture of animosity between opposing players. Player disputes are a waste of everyone's time and I personally hate them. I know that the being self-officiated is part of the game, but in my opinion real referees making all the calls would improve the sport as a whole.
it is asking a lot of players to know all the rules and make those judgments in real time,without a bias. Take 51:35 for example- I think thrower was arguing because the marker fell down, he couldn't continue stall count. Just switching the argument like that (he initially said marker was too far away) shows that a lot of players can't really articulate what during crucial moments, but oh well. The observer set it straight :)
I have to say, I think the complete opposite. Rather than creating animosity, self-officiating really demands that players are honest and willing to admit their mistakes. The whole idea of Spirit is a real foundation of the game, and I think it'd be a real shame to see Ultimate leave it beyond. However, I am all for the introduction of observers who can lend their viewpoint when necessary. Just my two cents.
Animosity? Someone made a shitty call then ;) At "our" level self-officiating is ideal. Spirit, schmirit, I just like that it keeps the cost of an ultimate tournament reasonable. Soccer? Lacrosse? Basketball? All that shit at the club level requires hundreds if not thousands a day in referee expenses. As a lil' fledgling sport it behooves us to keep it approachable. But MLU is purely officiated by refs. It makes the game more viewer friendly that's for sure
+ProRockSearch Because the call had been made. If a player could just take back their call what would happen if someone called pick and everyone stopped but the person pursuing the disc in the endzone? Then because his team scored he took back his call...
Ultimate will not become a nation wide sport until some contact is completely allowed. The current rules say that no physical contact is allowed which is somewhat ignorant. When I play, the game becomes infinitely more fun when the defender or offender embraces contact. I don't call foul and he doesn't call foul. Now if it becomes too much then a foul is called but contact makes the game better.
I played college ultimate for 5 years and played 3 years in competitive open play (went to Open Nationals back in 2005). The sport hasn't changed and it will never change unless referees are added. I don't see that happening anytime soon as it's still a very niche community. It's a great sport as is but anyone who plays it can honestly tell you it will never go mainstream for a number a reasons, one being self officiating. What's crazy is this game showcases even with observers (which do allow for some better objectivity) that as long as the players are making the calls it will always appear slow on film. I'll have to disagree with the contact though. This isn't American football or lacrosse or rugby or even soccer, it's just a different game. Contact (though unavoidable) should not be an intentional strategy, because it would just devolve into tackling / strong-arming / abusive marks. To your point, for players who don't have any gear on to protect themselves, it's not ignorant to protect yourself with rules like no contact when you are playing a sport that relies on skill and speed, more than brute strength. You see that kind of play with people who generally don't play ultimate (players that just play pickup) and are used to other contact sports, and just end up hurting other people instead of relying on their skills.
That pick call at 19:05 was interesting. JB gained so much yardage despite a pick call against them. Really surprised Beau stopped defending his mark before the play stopped.
