In honor of Thanksgiving, my favorite secular holiday, here are some things we as Ultimate players should be thankful for.

Thanksgiving is a time for stuffing our faces full of some absolutely incredible food, with the occasional pause to celebrate things you’re thankful for. I’m going to take a moment to express my appreciation for these things on Thanksgiving Eve Eve Eve, in order to leave myself as much eating time as possible.

The International Olympic Committee

Recently, the IOC proposed a few reforms that would help Ultimate along in becoming an Olympic sport. As it so happens, I was able to attend these meetings.

“These reforms are not only helpful, but they are necessary for the growth of Ultimate in the future. With our help, we can prove to the world that Ultimate players are faster, stronger, and more attractive than all other members of our already existing Olympic Sports.” – Count Jacques Rogge of Belgium

With an attitude like this, it is almost a guarantee that Ultimate will be played in the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, England.

Ultiworld and Skyd 

Let’s get one thing straight, without these two we would have to be using USA Ultimate as our sole source of information. So let’s be thankful that we can avoid that. I encourage all eight of you reading this to contribute to the Skyd fund, because a competitive energy in the ever growing market of Ultimate media is only going to make us all better. In the same way that Brock Osweiler and Peyton Manning duke it out every year for the starting job.

The Beau Kittredge Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade Balloon

I’m just making the very safe assumption that this is the year Macy’s gives in and finally gives us our Big Beau Balloon. Look for him just in front of Santa Clause. However, now that I think about it, he’s not real good at showing up on Thursdays.

Five Ultimate

This year, Five Ultimate is making it easier for my grandparents to be ashamed of the sport I play. Tis’ the season for the snarky half-racist remarks about collegiate athletics from Grandpa. And we’ll join that season in style, with a pair of Five Ultimate compression shorts on our heads. Look good, feel good, play good, eat good. Five Ultimate.

Brodie Smith’s Ability to Continue to Exist

Brodie has won another Club National Title, leaving the only thing left to achieve blah blah blah youtube here blah blah something about twitter blah blah pro league stuff. #darkhorse

Foam Rollers

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” – Every Ultimate Player on the Subject of their Foam Roller

Innova Pulsar

The MLU’s recent contract with Innova extended their deal for another three years. Ensuring for at least another half decade their relentless indifference towards success. And to quote the great Mr. Gump, “Thats all I have to say about that.”

The New Rookies

These darn kids are doing a wonderful job reminding us that the better generation of Ultimate is coming. They remind us that while we grow into the ESPN scene, the youth of our sport continues to outdo itself in all corners of the world. Always remember: If you’re over 30, you might not have made your college team in the 2010’s. And if you’re under 20, keep kicking our butts.

Mike Gerics Taking His Talents to Reddit

This year Mr. Gerics so graciously joined us fine folks at Reddit, and changed things forever. Never will we forget the dramatic re-telling of his daughter Nina’s first soccer goal. A story that can only be topped by the incredible wordsmith u/thefucksgoingon with his comment: “Well thanks for keeping us informed I guess.” Lord knows what he’ll come up with next, but I can only assume that Mr. Gerics will be on the 2015 USA Ultimate hall of fame ticket. That is, if the new board of directors have been chosen by then.

The Probably Non-Existent MLU Hacker

Very recently, MLU claimed to have a Hacker break into their online store and make surprisingly appropriate jokes at the expense of an upstanding organization. Conveniently, DiscStore.com had been working tirelessly over the past month to prepare themselves for this very situation. Interesting PR stunt? Or actual hacker? I’ll let you make the very obvious decision.

USA Ultimate’s Strange Club Decisions

Earlier this month, USA Ultimate announced that they will be adding a club team in Colorado named the Boulder Banana Kush. To accompany the Kush’s, they’ve also added the Denver Danky Doodles. Rumors tell the FD organization that Stanley Peterson will be donating an appendage to all four Colorado teams (immediately making them all National’s contenders). On top of all this, USA Ultimate managed to misspell their own name on their twitter profile. They’ll have a hard time recovering from such a blow.

Rhino Beating Sockeye

Hey guys with writing talent and more than eight page views, somebody needs to talk about this. God I wish the Chasing Sarasota crew had covered Portland this year, because the story of the little brother enacting their revenge on their neighbors to the north is just too good. Easily the best moment of our sport in 2014.

***

Always remember, be thankful for what you have.

Stay Classy,

FD

There’s a Place for the Mixed Division, but it’s not where you think it is.

Hows that for click bait? Pretty good right? Hey i’ll take what I can get, and it obviously worked at least a little to get you here. So we’re rollin’ now. 

Moving away from home is hard, lets make it a bit easier.

Hold on to your brownies folks.

Don’t worry, this won’t be a high horsed diatribe about how the attitude of the mixed division is summed up by the actions of a few idiots. But yes, they are idiots. Their stupidity really just gives me an excuse to talk about the place of the mixed division in our game.

However, if you do in fact want the opinion of a stranger on the internet, here you go. Their attitude was warranted. Seattle Mixed (RIP Ghetto Birds) had just defied all odds and wanted to celebrate the moment. The problem is they turned what should have been a simple celebration into full blown Buffalo Soldier in the presence of a crowd of middle schoolers. The feeling was warranted, the actions were just plain dumb.

Now, moving on.

The New World

So you’re moving into college. Packing will be tight, and you don’t want to bring anything that will make you look more young than you already will in your prison cell of a dorm. Laptop? That’s gotta come with you. That priceless thing you carry will make you some money after you graduate, and you’ll be grateful you figured out how to work it during the transition. A desk? Well, if you’re a guy you might just want to have everything laying out in piles. But this is about looking good to people you’re going to invite over. It’s about looking like your organized and sane enough to be worth taking out to the most expensive of free dining halls. Now, about that N64. You have to bring it right? It’s part of the break you get from the real world. After a long day of systematic breakdowns in the form of MLA citations you really will need to make some funny noises on the Ocarina of Time. So of course, that comes along for the ride.

Now that you’re packed for college, let’s get back to some Ultimate. Right now we sit in what hopefully is a transition period. A transition between score reporter and ESPN highlights. This transition will be strenuous, trying, and tough. Let’s call the transition, “College.”

Theres a point in going to College, and as much as you don’t want to believe it, it’s to get a good job. The “job” in the sense of Ultimate’s transformation has to do with our legitimacy on an international level as one of the worlds best sports. Just like in real life, getting that job is hard. So we better work our butts off.

The Laptop we bring with us is the Men’s division. We need that to be successful. It has the finest athletes we have to offer and offers the best showcase of our talents as a community. The desk we bring with us is the Women’s division. Some people may think you could “get by” without it, but in reality you need it. Because if somebody in the working world see’s you without a desk they’re going to ask some questions. We need it. It completes the room.

You guessed it, the N64 is the Mixed Division. Boy do we love playing it, and we sometimes feel like we need it. But very rarely will the employers let you bring it to work. As much as we’ll fight it, it’s just not for the big boys. So we’ll have to get rid of it in the transition.

Are you kidding me!? How are you eight readers not outraged!? It’s an N64! We’re not throwing that away! It’s super fun, we’re really good at it, and it relaxes us. We need that, because going to work and having to worry about finances, business models, and professionalism can sometimes be a drag and we’ll need some us time.

But that doesn’t change the fact that we can’t bring it to work with us. It’ll just sit at home in the basement waiting for the rare friday night when your college buddies come over for your bi-annual Super Smash Bros. tournament. The “basements” in this case are the summer leagues, the pick-up tournaments, and even the club level as it sat in 2011.

N64, it’s not that we don’t love you. Believe me, we would love to take you to work with us and accomplish such great and amazing things with you by our side. But it’s just the attitude that comes with you. When the game is played as a social activity for the majority of those who play it, we can’t play it at work.

The Olympics aren’t going to help.

There was only one team at Mixed Nationals that had a starting seven line that could have made all the women’s or men’s team that were also in Frisco, TX. And that team won the whole thing.

If the Olympics decide to take on Mixed Ultimate instead of Men’s or Women’s, it will completely revive the entire division in that the worlds best players will switch to a Mixed team for a whole three measly weeks every four years. Don’t believe me? Look at how crazy teams’ rosters get during worlds years. Can you imagine what will happen when those teams mean something? Woah nelly. So long Boston Wild Card you just got taken over by Boston Ironside and Boston Brute Squad.

Apologies

There are none. Sorry, Mixed.

For the record I play Mixed quite a lot. But in the way it was meant to be played, as a compromise between having both a Men’s and a Women’s division in summer league.

Stay Classy,

FD

Capitalism Takes All Victims, With No Exceptions: A Response to Skyd Fund 2015

It’s a simple principle that every student learns in AP Economics, Econ 110, or even their basket weaving electives. If a market can support something, it will exist. If it can’t, so sorry, not our fault.

Econ 110

Capitalism is in its simplest form, a self regulating system. So when Elliot Trotter makes the claim “maybe the skyd readers would be willing to pay for it through a donation to keep us afloat” (paraphrasing) in his new piece A World Without Skyd, he’s giving basic economics the old college try. Because why don’t people want to pay for something they use and enjoy? Simple. They already get it for free.

Yes Ultiworld.com, i’m looking at you. The little brother that wanted to give big bro a run at backyard ball, and finally won (If you don’t think won is the right word, we’ll make you feel a little better).

Both these websites exist in the same Ultimate community, with the same cultural ideas, and the same thinning wallets. Neither exist in an environment that supports a full-time reporter of Ultimate Frisbee. The reason Ultiworld will survive and Skyd will not, is not a difference of content, morality, and financial sense. But the main reason is that Ultiworld is willing to grit it out until it works. Granted there are some strategical differences (we’ll get there), but the put the ultimate career on the backburner to contribute solid reporting attitude at Ultiworld may last just a bit longer.

So theres your daily lesson in common sense. People collectively are willing to pay something what they are worth. So no more complaining about Lebron James’ 42.1 million dollar contract or President Obama’s 400,000 dollar salary. News flash from a place where you really shouldn’t be getting news flashed from: That’s what they’re worth. To us as consumers.

So if Skyd deserves to exist they will. Advertisers don’t come to Skyd because there aren’t enough hits on the site, and if there aren’t enough hits on the site, do they deserve the kind of money that comes along with high profile advertisements? Thats for the people with the marketing degrees to judgeOH WAIT THEY DID. And Skyd sadly, just wasn’t worth it.

The Quantity, Quality Debate

Skyd recently turned towards a “name” heavy site, while almost simultaneously Ultiworld pushed more and more content like coverage and game analysis. So which one worked? Well let’s look at our present situation. Skyd requires an indiegogo campaign of 32,000 in order to function in 2015. Ultiworld requires an undisclosed amount, but we’ll say for now it’s something similar. Ultiworld reaches this goal by selling video, low level Ultimate brand advertisements, and selling sponsored stories. And while it can’t be called “making money,” they sure do save some money on columnists that don’t appear to be demanding much for the medium quality content they shove out the window.

Skyd needs a donation to exist. And of course, I encourage all eight of you reading this to donate because they make Ultimate more fun. But I can’t in good faith ask you to donate something you feel is above the risk of knowing what you’ll get back. Skyd has obviously stepped away from coverage and is moving towards high quality pieces written by high quality people. And not to throw out a major speculation but to throw it out anyway, you have to think that those columnists i’m referring to (Beau and others) demand some more pennies. And only time will tell if that makes any cents. *BA dum tis

Econ 111

This class is easy, trust me. ESPN and others can afford to take the risk of covering us plebes. Because eventually, it may pay off. Skyd, Ultiworld, and Blockbuster Video, can’t. They need money.

Got it? Great! You get a B+. Not an A because if I gave the eight of you A’s it might seem like I was going easy on you. But hey, as a college Ultimate player rocking a steady 3.01 in an enginerding degree don’t complain. Just go practice your throws.

Theory Time

Theory 1: Ultiworld will succeed because they’re not good enough players.

This is not meant to offend any of the writers for the little brothers, but it’s mainly an observation. Elliot Trotter and Ian Toner are well recognized Ultimate players in their own right, and long term have large aspirations for their playing careers that could at some point be slight less than mildly realistic. No telling how good Charlie Eisenhood and Keith Raynor could have been (ok some telling), but it doesn’t matter. They’re willing to not try in order to report.

Theory 2: Skyd raises the money.

Jimmy Valvano would have a hard time giving an inspirational enough speech to raise 32 grand for a frisbee website, but if his 1983 team showed us anything, it’s that anything is possible if you want badly enough to write such an enticing real life March Madness story that not even Steven Spielberg could correctly cinemate (new word alert).  It could happen. But heres the part deux. What happens this time next year? Ponder.

Theory 3: No one will ever read this.

This one is probably the most likely of the three. In the very likely scenario that no ones reading this except for that girl that I saw at Starbucks once, hi Kara. I know your names Kara because of the name on the pumpkin spice latte (#basic) that you bought . . . even though it was spelled Karay (what the hell did that woman at the counter hear?). I’m not great at talking to girls, so if you could find me on craigslist lost connections that would be just super.

Hope to stare at you from across the 8 by 10 foot room again soon.

Creepily,

FD

Epilogue

Go donate to Skyd. Because if your’e weird enough to be reading this, you obviously read a little bit of their stuff.

And go support Ultiworld with a video package.

As professor FD taught today, I don’t get to decide whether these great sites fail or succeed (mainly because I have no money [mom please help {dad too}]), but we as a consumers do.

Stay Classy,

FD