UOA banned from UPA Sanctioned Events
Peter Jacobs
professional tone in their on-line discussions, and the UPA is smart
to distance themselves until they do.
The tone and language of their posts kill their credibility.
Here's how the UOA should have handled this, and let the public rip
the UPA apart.
********************************************
"Fellow Players: We are disappointed and disturbed to learn today
that the UPA (Ultimate Players Association) has banned UOA (Ultimate
Observers Association) observers from officiating UPA sanctioned
events. Since 200x, the UOA has worked diligently with the UPA to
increase awareness of the observer program and move it forward through
innovative techniques and aggressive scheduling of observer clinics.
In the past, the UPA has heralded the UOA for our advancement of
Observers in Ultimate. We are committed to reminding them of this and
working through any issues to accredit the UOA program for UPA
sanctioned events.
We need your help! Please e-mail your disappointment to the UPA board
at upa_board at upa.org. "
**********************************************
Pete
Greg Jarred
brien
don't see the unprofessionalism or anything inappropriate (well, in
their immediate reaction....i wish "this is ultimate" would stop
antagonizing). mike and jason are nothing but business at the
clinics, so i don't really understand why they need to learn some code
of conduct for the wild west that is the internet (esp rec sport)
right now. but you put it all nice and concise up top so that's why
open sourcing is the bomb.
bil
Well, that would be wrong because from my reading of Jason's post, UOA
observers have NOT been _banned_ - of course Jason should correct me
if I've misread.
It sounds like the UPA just wants to ensure that the sanctioned games
(which I think count for something going forward) are reasonably
"officiated."
As a result, going forward a reasonable explanation of the UOA
observers within the sanctioning request would hopefully be approved.
Again, it sounds like the general rule is:
1. if you have observers, they should be UPA certified
But there's also a 2nd rule that potentially makes this a non-issue
where the observer set is a good one:
2. If your observers are not UPA certified, please reassure us that
they are still reasonably within range, and we'll sanction even though
they are not UPA certified.
There's an extra paperwork burden, but one that makes sense process
wise in terms of assuring a consistent experience for participants. If
ONLY this type of process were applied to the other aspects of the
tournament (like food, fields, predictability, etc.).
Jason Weddle
I hope that we never come to that.
We were told that all applications for sanctioning going forward would
have to get pre-approval for "experimental rules" and "non-UPA
Certified Observers". The experimental rules is really a non issue
with us, because we are not using any rules that are not already
rules.
We are however using and training officials that are not UPA
Certified.
That is and could be a problem for us if we are not allowed
sanctioning because of that. I guess even more so it is a problem
because the UPA has even hosted Mike in Boulder and adopted alot of
what the UOA is already doing as far as mechanics and techniques.
Some of these techniques would have never come about if we were not
DOING them in the first place.
Now the UPA wants to implement a full scale UPA Certified Observer
ONLY program on all sanctioned events. There are numerous flaws in
this. One they don't even have the sanctioning application up to date
prior to enlightening me to this. Two, they don't have enough
observers. Three, no one knows if and when there are going to be UPA
Observer Training Camps.
THE UOA IS HOSTING OBSERVER TRAINING CAMPS AND ARE ON THE CUTTING EDGE
OF THE SPORT WITH OBSERVERS. THE UPA IS BY PROCESS OF ELIMINATION
SLOWING THIS PROGRESSION DOWN. I could see UPA Certified ONLY in the
future when they have the means of doing it, but now kind of seems ill
considering the work that we have been doing for that aspect of the
sport and the fact that there are not even close to enough UPA
Certified observers to cover all sanctioned events. The UPA is saying
that the college players are better off making their own calls than
having a professionally trained UOA Observer calling the game. IT
AIN'T RIGHT AT THIS POINT IN THE GAME.
Here's what should happen. The UPA should have the UOA run their
training camps. You should have to be UOA certified to observe in the
UPA Sanctioned Regular Season and the UPA Championship Series. Of the
20 or so observers that were at club and college nationals, I would
say only a hand full of them wouldn't get the shit critiqued out of
them at a UOA training camp. At this point in the game the UOA
Observers are far better than the UPA Observers. Why can't the UPA
recognize and embrace instead of taking and excluding.
Sooooo.... at this point we are not banned and we are waiting on more
communication from the UPA about the new sanctioning process with
experimental rules and UPA Certified Observers.
Oh, the first that I heard about this was yesterday, which is after
what I would consider the start of the regular season. We've been
planning the UOA Tournaments since last year and no word about these
new rules until yesterday. Oh and ALL UOA Events have been UPA
Sanctioned thus far with no problems.
All this seems ill and weird.
Jason
UOA Founder-co
Harbrah
UOA Bump.
-The only thing i have to offer is that, after reading mostly all of
the posts on RSD about advancing the game of ultimate, there is now a
necessity for observers to further and better our sport. As a
seemingly anonymous Wilmington 8's attendee, my team and I felt that
it was one of the best-run tournaments by far, including regionals,
where we sometimes had an observer if they weren't too busy. I
believe the awesome field that Weddle and Gerics are putting together
of TRAINED observers is amazing. Sure it is still primarily east-
coast, but any team west of the Mississippi River that made it to a
UOA event would be damn impressed and want to play all of their games
like that. Give love a chance.
Thats my 2cents
Reggie Fanelli
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
---none of that is how it is.....why would i handle anything like
that?
Reggie Fanelli
> training camps.
---yes, and we've offered to train the UPA Trainers.
online rules test at home.......UOA on field training ANYWHERE at
ANYTIME.
we'll go to tournaments EVERY SINGLE WEEKEND and train as many folks
as you got!