Westerns High School Nationals
ee...@comcast.net
When did it become ok to not finish a round at a National
Championship?
Northwest (seattle) boys high school team played at the Westerns
Nationals in K.C. this past weekend (they are current 2 time champs).
They did not make the Championship bracket on sunday and decided not
to play at all that day. They had a 12:30 start time but decided as
there players put it " we are in the Consulation bracket so we decided
not to play".
When did this become OK? Play out your seed. School's travel 1000's
of miles to play other school's around the nation and because you
didn't make the Champoinship bracket you don't play thru?
I asked the coaches of Northwest why they did not play in the
consulation bracket. Here's what i was told.
1.It was to windy, someone might get hit in the face because of the
wind, to dangerous.
2. The fields were not good. Granted the fields were bad but everyone
had to play on the same fields all weekend. And if they were so
dangerous why did you play on them on saturday?
3. They said they didn't want to get sued. I assume you have the kids
sign a waiver excluding you from being sued by crazy Ultimate parents.
4. we have 12 ankle tweaks. The boys need to save themselves for YCC
and State Championships. Then don't come to Westerns and save
yourselves for State and YCC. All teams have players going to those
tournaments.
5. We asked the tournament director and she said it was ok. Where was
the UPA on this. It is unfair when teams do not finish there rounds.
It ended up our team playing a school from ou state again for the 3rd
time this year.
Granted the fields were very poor and would have caused an uproar if
college of Club teams had to play on them. But we were all in the
same boat. It was just a bunch of elitist crap cause they did not
make it to the upper braket. It was a poor example to lead kids in
that direction of not finishing a tournament no matter what the out
come. This is a National Championship and you need to play out the
games for spirit and the good of ultimate.
Jay Schulkin
1. well, it's not a national championship. it is "westerns."
2. it is not rare, let alone uncommon, for teams at various levels to
not play out consolation play. some people hate this fact, and others
aren't too worried about it. not sure it's something worth
complaining about every time it happens.
3. not really the point of your post, but it sure sucks that the field
site for an important tournament is so bad.
Piels
in high school ultimate they split up nationals into westerns and
easterns based on the mississippi after the 2004 season, since high
schoolers had a harder time being allowed to travel long distances for
a tournament. so yes, it was for a national championship.
rhb
> 3. not really the point of your post, but it sure sucks that the field
> site for an important tournament is so bad.
The sports complex was brand new. I heard that literally Westerns was
the first event ever to be held there from an Independence, MO
resident. I'm sure the complex's fields will become much better in a
couple of years.
chrism...@gmail.com
Thats pathetic. I went to Easterns in highschool in Pitsburgh PA
where
we were so excited to be there we would have played on concret. It
does
suck that the fields were no good but who hasnt played on bad fields?
Especially
in high school. The only thing that comes from a team deciding not to
play
on sunday because they think that are too good for the tournament is
hurt the chances for other less experienced teams to play good
competition.
It is extremely hard in high school to play other good high school
teams on a regular basis.
Coaches in high school should not only be concerned with the
development of there
team but the development of the sport. The more people playing in
high school means
better ultimate in college and beyond. And there has never been an
ultimate player
without an ankle tweak or two, or 12. Come on coach, better excuses
in the future.
richarda...@gmail.com
So what's the big deal about them wanting to save up for the state
championship? It's nationals for everyone within the borders of
Washington.
ric...@gmail.com
says that that is who was supposed to play
http://upa.org/scores/tourn.cgi?div=17&id=4880
all of this stuff im looking at comes from the westerns bracket, i
wasnt actually there so this could all be false
so you were angry that instead of playing the same exact game that you
had played the previous day in pool play the northwest boys team
decided to forgoe playing a rematch consolation game and instead cheer
on their girls in the semi finals, something that may have actually
caused their girls to win, as they won on double game point, and
having a ton of loud obnoxious teenage boys cheering for you can be
helpful in getting you pumped. so ill say that i think it was
perfectly fair if they didnt want to risk injury to replay a game from
the previous day and in doing so miss their schoolmates en route to
winning their first westerns. isnt rockhurst from relatively close to
independence so i dont know if you have the right to complain about
traveling 1000's of miles. but whatever just some thoughts.
ee...@comcast.net
The big deal is it's NATIONALS. Teams drive from all over to play
other teams from around the country. Don't go if you aren't going to
finish. This does not happen and is not excepted at other Nationals.
Why Here?
ee...@comcast.net
IT IS RARE at Nationals to not play out the seeds. Norhtwest did not
even play 1 game in the consulation round. They blew off the whole
day.
ee...@comcast.net
This is Eden Prairie MN Complaining. We would have played them for
the 9th place game if they played thru. We lost to them by a point
the 1st day and my boys wanted to play them again. But that's not
really the point. The Point is IT"S NATIONALS. the premier
tournament for the sport, not just any other tournament. They treated
it like any other weekend. Poor Judgement.
Jay Schulkin
whoa whoa whoa it's NOT nationals. It is Westerns. It is also the
highest level that your high school is allowed to play at. That doesnt
make it nationals.
http://upa.org/juniors/championships/index.html
http://hs-westerns2008.upa.org/
A little Control+F action looking for the word "nationals" reveals
that the UPA sure doesnt think that is what it is.
mcald...@gmail.com
> IT IS RARE at Nationals to not play out the seeds. Norhtwest did not
> even play 1 game in the consulation round. They blew off the whole
> day.
See, the weird thing about high school play is that westerns or
'nationals for west coast teams' isn't set up the same way as it is
for club and college. There isn't any sort of qualifying round like
regionals to get to westerns or easterns. As a high school that is
pretty good, you submit a bid to the tournament, and it is up to the
discretion of the tournament director to pick teams based on how well
they have done the past season, or even the past two seasons. This in
itself is not strange, but even after easterns or westerns, there is
still ANOTHER tournament (maybe). The dates for states are variable
depending on each state, so states may be before or after easterns or
westerns. I still think it's a little messed up that another upa-
sanctioned high school event is scheduled after easterns or westerns.
It changes the whole dynamic. College and club teams will play out all
of their games at nationals, because by golly, these are the last
games of the year, so to hell with resting up for the future, because
there is no damn future. The mindset is just not the same in high
school.
KRDo...@gmail.com
> A little Control+F action looking for the word "nationals" reveals
> that the UPA sure doesnt think that is what it is.
The kids consider it Nationals. They, as a school, will not play at
any higher level. You're arguing semantics and labels at this point.
Fact is, the tournament was IMPORTANT and took a lot of preparation.
The other teams got screwed out of games they came for, at a high
level tourney. That sucks a lot.
The TD didn't care? That's the most shocking part to me.
Is there something about the situation we're missing?
-Donnie
DFJ
needs to be some talk on how to improve the situation from here on
out. Here are some complaints and possible solutions:
UPA Western National Invitational Tournament (In intent if not name):
We had to apply, bids were sent in, accepted, and then only 14 boys
teams showed up (not to mention that there were only 11 girls teams).
14 boys teams? If this is an invitational tournament and you don't
have enough teams to fill out the bracket, then by all means START
INVITING TEAMS. I would rather have a full bracket of teams with less-
than-stellar records than a tourney where teams only play two 75-
minute games in a day (See: South Eugene*).
Not having UPA-Trained Observers: We asked for observers in a game
and were told that there weren't any available in the Midwest. So we
could have people in orange shirts who (supposedly) knew the rules,
but would not make active calls. I was OK with this, as most Juniors
Ultimate players react well to just having an adult on the field, will
clean up any sloppy play when countered with any sort of outside
accountability, which is exactly what I was looking for. But to hear
that there were no observers IN THE MIDWEST? Unbelievably poor
planning. My assistant coach is a UPA certified observer (from
Minnesota) and he didn't hear any outcry from the UPA looking for help
at this tourney.
I guess the point of this post is: UPA - If you need help, please
ask. I know my organization would do what we could to assist in
making this tournament a first class event. It's pretty rough to hang
out 8 hours on a bus to get 5 games in a weekend - 3 of them against
other MN teams - (and then to see that teams like South Eugene played
3 (THREE!) games on the weekend + 1 forfeit?!?!) would show a lack of
planning on your part. I feel that with your experience and
expectations for the teams to have so much organization to be at this
tournament, we, the teams, players, parents and coaches are allowed to
hold you to a standard.
Coach Jake
Hopkins Ultimate
*Note: The TD knew bad weather was coming, but opted to let them have
a bye in order to try to get them to play their A1/C1 crossover game
as a showcase game. This did not happen, nor did any makeup game
happen. They then played 1 game on Sunday and forfeited their next
game.
richarda...@gmail.com
division? The qualification system just seems a little bizarre.
These championships seem closer to Centex or other invite tournaments
than college nationals.
I know it's hard to coordinate things with high schoolers sometimes,
but all of the HS coaches I've met have been great organizers and were
eager and willing to do anything for their team. This guy from
Hopkins makes excellent points, even though the last time I played
Hopkins, he called a spirit foul against me for throwing my hat at the
disc. Then he got mad at one of my teammates for swearing (there were
parents present) while his team had a player named "Dildo".
DFJ
First off, is this Hopkins HS you're talking about? Wherel are you
from?
Second - in the 6 years of this program, we've never had a kid named
Dildo. The one I know is at Luther (All region, plays for Sub now, no
HS ultimate to speak of).
Third - Spirit fouls? Sorry, we don't call them: never have, never
will. We WILL call for observers, but spirit fouls? No. Not us.
Fourth - We have rules against swearing and we do our best to enforce
them. No swearing while there's another team around, no swearing when
there's parents around, and if you are going to swear, make sure it is
in context of what you mean to say. If you're swearing and I (or one
of our other coaches) talk to you, it's because we were asked to by a
parent or other concerned person.
Dildo... good story though. Wrong team.
jake
shwanyboy
I am really glad that someone has finally figured out that they way to
an improved Youth Nationals structure is character attacks on
individuals that are offering their well-informed, objective ideas and
opinions on the original topic. *Plblltlt*, Ricky (fart noise with
mouth). One of the foundations and reasons for the growth of youth
ultimate is positive collaboration and communication between coaches,
players, and parents. I bet extending that sentiment to this thread
could result in some constructive ideas. Let's see where that takes
us.
Oh, my ideas? Uh, what DFJ said.
Shawn
Manzell
My take, it's unprofessional and unsportsmanlike to forfeit a game,
certainly when the team is actually there. For the money and effort
that goes into getting a team to a national-level tournament, to rob
another team of a chance to play is about as bad as it gets. I'm of
the opinion, if you forfeit one game in a tournament, you forfeit the
entire tournament.
I think a formal apology from NWS to any opponent is absolutely in
order.
weez...@yahoo.com
Mike Mullen here. Former NWS HS boys coach. I replaced myself with our
current coach before last (spring 07) season. I wasn't at Westerns
this year but I was getting updates on the phone throughout the
weekend from a couple of sources including our coach.
Eden Prairie coach. I'm not sure you know this but Seattle youth
ultimate and Minnesota youth ultimate have a pretty tight
relationship. And I know that NWS has a great relationship with both
Hopkins and Cretin-Durham Hall. Also, at this past YCC Seattle and
Minnesota played in two very spirited and highly skilled games that
were great showcases for the high levels of talent and integrity in
those communities. I would hope in the future that you would make an
effort to e-mail the coach before calling him out on RSD. I appreciate
that Jake from Hopkins explained more of the background of the
situation. Thanks Jake!
As someone pointed out. Westerns is not Nationals. There are a lot of
great teams at Easterns too. I do think it is fair to call it Western
Nationals or Eastern Nationals. It is sure easier to use that term to
people not in the know rather than have to say "UPA Western - As in
west of the Mississippi HS Championships." The only true Nationals is
at YCC hosted so very well by the Minnesote ultimate community.
The NWS coach gave me his reasons for not playing right after he made
the decision. Not only do I 100% stand behind his decision, but it
showed me yet again that I picked a great replacement.
Reasons for not playing:
1. He felt the fields were not safe enough to risk further injuries
for games that weren't part of the elimination rounds. He sent me a
picture of the field conditions from before our first game of the
tournament and add to that what the weather did to the fields and I
think he made the abolute right call. We had a situation at the state
tourney about what we were concerned was a possible unsafe situation.
We were told by the UPA TD that it is always our option not to play if
we don't think it is safe. This is probably why the UPA TD at Westerns
didn't force people to play. They left it up to every coach to make
the decision based on their particular situation. (I'm not calling
anybody out on the quality of the fields here. I'm pretty sure it was
one of those things that just didn't work out as well as hoped... and
of course nobody can do anything about that crazy weather)
2. Our boys wanted to go support our girls who had to play a very
talented CDH team. Our girls coach even commented that the boys and
their coaches on the sidelines were a big inspiration for our girls.
And had our boys played that first game on Sunday they would have
never played the second game. They wanted to watch the finals and
support whoever was playing if our girls didn't make it through. Our
program has been lucky enough to have been in several finals and we
always appreciated the support from the crowd.
Lastly, I assume that your disappointment was partly because you
wanted to beat a program that has had a great run the past few years.
That could be seen as a big feather in the cap of a young program.
Well the good news is that there are some great programs in your area.
When we beat programs like Hopkins and CDH it was a big feather in our
cap because they were strong teams who were well coached and played
the game the right way. Good luck against those teams when you meet
them next.
And Manzell - You don't have the slightest clue what the situation
was and yet you are calling for a formal apology from NWS. That is
breathtakingly ignorant thing to say. Come on, be better than that.
What is that all about? You are supposed to be a Seattle guy. Way to
go against the family Fredo.
And by the way it was three time Westerns champions, not two times.
-Mike Mullen, Former NWS Boys Coach
Manzell
> was and yet you are calling for a formal apology from NWS. That is
> breathtakingly ignorant thing to say. Come on, be better than that.
> What is that all about? You are supposed to be a Seattle guy. Way to
> go against the family Fredo.
>
> And by the way it was three time Westerns champions, not two times.
>
> -Mike Mullen, Former NWS Boys Coach
I am a Seattle guy, but certainly I hold good sportsmanship, spirit
and the good of the game above my loyalty to any group of players
(anyways, I'm a SAAS guy so NWS can stuff it ;p).
1 - If the fields aren't safe, you don't play game one the first day.
You can't play a series of games and later decide or claim they aren't
safe in order to advance a second agenda. At worst, it should have
been clear the night before to opponents that you wouldn't be
continuing and formally withdraw. Apparently, the fields weren't too
unsafe for the girls games to continue, so I think the field safety
argument is clearly an excuse after the fact, even if the fields were
crap.
2 - Missing the girls game, which would have been unfortunate, is what
I call "the breaks". A consolation bracket game probably shouldn't
have been scheduled during the girls final, but hopefully that will be
taken into account next year.
3 - I'm running a much smaller youth league now, and as an organizer,
the thing I hate most is teams flaking out and not showing up. It's
always a tremendous disappointment to the other team to show up and
not have an opponent. And as the organizer, I'm the one who takes the
hit. If a team has a game yanked from them, they're that much less
likely to take the schedule seriously and show up on time (or at all)
when most of the kids who play have other stuff going on in their
lives. Our league suffers. Kids play less ultimate.
By NWS pulling out, they are essentially stating this is a one-day
tournament unless you are in the championship round. How many youth
teams would opt to go cross-country for a tournament that may last one
day? What about the growing youth ultimate communities (like, say,
Portland) who don't figure to be in the championship bracket? is the
$4000+ investment worth it for one day of ultimate? How seriously do
administrations take it when they fund their ultimate club for a two-
day nationals caliber tournament but see the competition simply
forfeit? Bailing on the tournament has important longer-term
ramifications that hurt teams outside of the two teams on the field
and beyond the 90 or so minutes the game takes.
- MRB
weez...@yahoo.com
I know SAAS people, I work with SAAS people, I am friends with a lot
of SAAS people, you are no SAAS person.
I don't think you understand that most of us who have coached HS in
Seattle work together to a great extent. YCC, camps, etc. A good deal
of my success as a coach was because other coaches in Seattle also
coached the NWS players and players from other programs at Moho.
And I love how you talk about spirit and sportmanship. I've taken HS
kids to a few adult coed tourneys in my day. I distinctly remember
playing your team and playing you. Your individual spirit was
terrible. Most adults are pretty cool playing against youth and really
wish they had the chance to play as a kid. It was so obvious that you
hated losing to a bunch of kids and a never-was-been player/coach.
That is what this is about. Admit it.
Spirit? You mean like your backhanded compliment to Monroe on the
youth blog. Got news for you. Monroe is in the fold to the extent that
they play at state, are in the league, have kids that have been
members of national champion Seattle teams at YCC. You are kind of
talking S about their coach. Their coach is admittedly not an ultimate
person but he puts in monsterous hours and effort to ensure kids who
otherwise wouldn't get a chance to play ultimate, actually get to
play. And they made it all the way to the finals at Westerns. An those
Monroe kids are awesome. I have been lucky enough to coach a few of
them myself. My disappointment at NWS not making quarters was
overshadowed by my happiness for those great kids.
Spirit? You mean calling for an apology and getting involved in
something that isn't your business and has no bearing on you. Did you
even read my post? You sure are spouting off about a lot of things
even though you are on the fringe at most of this situation. I really
like how you try to connect the situation at Westerns to your
situation as a league organizer...They don't even come close to
comparing. Are you saying that NWS HS teams aren't spirited? Go check
the spirit scores from the last few Westerns. Then come talk.
Are you saying as a league organizer that if a coach doesn't feel that
the situation at a certain point is prudent that you would still force
them to play? Nice. You do know that most waivers aren't worth the
paper they are written on. Each coach at Westerns had the opportunity
to make a decision based on the circumstances and they did. This has
nothing to do with your league or people being flaky.
-MIke
henry...@gmail.com
on his spirit on a public forum? Shouldn't you have sent him an email
first? A bit contradictory I'd say. Look, regardless of whether NWS
should've played the games, it's a low blow for the two of you to go
out on rec sport disc. Grow Up! You guys are supposed to be role
models for kids, not the ones getting in the arguments. Here's how I
see it: Kids do play thousands of dollars to travel to play in an
elite 2 day tourney, and expect to play two days worth of games. Many
teams go to Westerns/Easterns knowing that they wont make the
championship bracket at all! Obviously, the weather destroyed the
fields and apparently made them dangerous to play on.
I think the UPA needs to make a rule on this to prevent this from
happening in the future. Either the tourney TD/UPA decides whether the
games are played or not. If the TD/UPA decides that the games are to
be played (in which case they deem it safe) then teams must play their
games (or forfeit not only their games, but also a deposit of monetary
value).
How does this sound?
Let's get past this together and help grow youth ultimate!
ric...@gmail.com
play two full days of ultimate, one of those games against a team they
had played before as opposed to a team they had played the day before
but whatever, the only two teams that didnt play a full two days of
ultimate were nws and rockhurst (rockhurst winning the consolation
game vs nws by forfeit and then apparently playing in the 9th place
game) so if anyone should be complaining about not being able to get
there money's worth at westerns it should be one of them, and they
arent so whatever. what people should actually be talking about is the
bid allocation process for the field site. if a unproven site is to be
chosen it should be thuroughly researched which i dont know if it was,
but apparently people are saying that this was the first event on it.
that seems a little risky for this super important tournament where
everyone needs to absolutely play every game. also they should put
observer availability into the field bid process if it isnt allready
there. if people are that tussled about consolation games then they
should be very angry that the upa doesnt even make sure there are
observers so that at the end of the weekend there is zero doubt that
whoever won deserved it. im not saying anyone didnt, i wasnt there but
i feel that the underlying thought of this thread is that people are
taking westerns for granted and not treating it as the most important
tournament of the year for these youth. complaining about what
happened with a consolation game wont do anything but make grown men
angry at each other. instead people should be demanding that the upa
make sure observers are present and fields are thuroughly researched
so you wont ever have teams feeling that they got cheated by
circumstances at the end of the weekend.
DFJ
UPA detailing these thoughts (and hope other leaders in Youth Ultimate
do the same). The only other addendum I would like to add is that
forfeiting a game should have a penalty. I just think that games and
the tournament should be played out.
DFJ
richarda...@gmail.com
with Grinnell. I remember the guy from Luther, but I definitely heard
"Dildo" during our game with HURT more than I've ever heard it in 75
minutes before in my life. Maybe it was a coincidence. When I threw
my hat at that disc, I definitely heard a mess of yelling from your
sideline, with several "spirit foul"s thrown in. It was as if had I
hit the disc, I would have called it a legit D, and you were worried
about the possibility. As to swearing, I remember asking one of the
older players after the game if he was going to see us at the party.
He replied with a hearty "fuck yeah!" and I joked about letting the
cops know ahead of time. You also had a player you called "Hollywood"
who your line heckled relentlessly when he dropped a huck.
I remember the game very clearly, as it was the first high school team
I'd seen that trained and played like a varsity team, and I was a
little conflicted as to how I felt about that. Now I think it's
pretty great.
I'm sorry if
> all of the HS coaches I've met have been great organizers and were
> eager and willing to do anything for their team. This guy from
> Hopkins makes excellent points
came off as some kind of character attack, even though I went into a
dumb story after that. I definitely didn't mean for it to. I really
respect HS coaches and everything they're doing for the game. I think
the future of ultimate lies in HS ultimate reaching varsity level
respect and support, and I'm happy that you're doing what you're doing
to make that happen.
bindm...@gmail.com
On May 19, 8:44 am, "richardaustinw...@gmail.com"
<richardaustinw...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I remember the game clearly. Hopkins (HURT) at Exit 69, 2005. I was
> withGrinnell. I remember the guy from Luther, but I definitely heard
richarda...@gmail.com
> Two hands Hollywood! You owe us a D-block!
See, I didn't make that up. Dude can pretend all he wants.