[Some soapbox thoughts on what I hope will be a watershed moment in our nation’s fight for equality.]
I couldn’t think of what to name this post, because I thought if I titled it “DELIRIOUS RAMBLINGS”, y’all wouldn’t have checked it out. So I decided to dedicate this post to my homies Hall y Oates. The first twenty minutes after my alarm goes off in the morning are the worst twenty minutes of my whole day. But then throw in Hall & Oates and it turns into the best twenty minutes of my day.
First, a random ultimate thought: Big Muckamuck? Or Joann’s Biggest Fangirl Fantasies Come to Life? Color me out of the loop, okay, and for that I’m sorry, but let’s put my lateness aside so I can exclaim: What an effing sweet idea! I mean, who hasn’t thought about stuff like this? I do it all the time with basketball — like, “What if Maya Moore had played on that ’01 UConn team?” or “Could you imagine having Kemba and Ray Allen on the same team?” I love that so many people love their college teams so much that they’re willing to do this, and to be honest I’d rather have *this* be on TV than College Nationals. Not only will it be a great display of athleticism and skill from players younger and older (I’m aware that isn’t the phrase, but without the -er’s it just made it sound like I was calling some of these cats old, which they’re not), it’s going to be an amazing display of the tradition, history, school/team pride, and community of our sport. Like, this isn’t just a fad. It’s a community and a sport that’s been growing for some time now, and it’s dang impressive! This is gonna be a veritable Who’s Who of ultimate all going head to head and I can only imagine how entertaining all these games are going to be. Bahhhhh I wish I could be there to watch all the games.
Some thoughts:
- Bloodthirsty gets points for quoting Mike Tyson, which I’m gonna go ahead and take credit for so uhhhhhhhhhhhh…
- I’m surprised Florida couldn’t get the numbers. Isn’t it usually just Kurt, Brodie, and some other dudes anyway? (Color me ignorant.)
- Looking at that UCLA roster really did take me back to 2007, watching their epic quarters game against Wisconsin, or “The Game I’ll Always Think About Whenever I Think About Games Important to My Ultimate Development”. They were the original fangirl team.
- I am literally squeeing my face off over here: So many women’s teams and players that I look up to are going to be playing this weekend. *squee* *squee* *squee* I hope Ultivillage produces a DVD that will include all the games, cause I’d buy that ish. I’d be first in line for it. *squee* *squee*
- Speaking of my fangirl teams, where’s Bella Donna on that list?
- UCSD: I’m sorry, but where is Katie “America’s Cutie” Kessler? You can’t talk about what’s happened in women’s ultimate in the last ten years without mentioning the all-important and incredibly distinguished _____ Cuties lists. (/sarcasm)
Anyway, if my internet didn’t run slower’n molasses I’d see if I could stream some of these games, but no can do. That’s okay. I’ll wait for the DVD, Rob.
Alright, onto what I really wanted to write about/set feelers out about. So feel completely free to tell me I’m an idiot for these following thoughts if you want to, but anyway:
So I was at the gym today and on the TVs, they were showing some sort of strange combine for a “sport” called “Sky Ball” (or some other such foolishness). It basically consisted of two people “dribbling” and passing this little brightly-colored ball (looked about the size of a softball) and then stopping at a line about a foot away from an elevated board (like a basketball backboard without a hoop) and jumping up and throwing said ball at three plate-sized flat targets on the aforementioned elevated board. Basically, it looked like one of the poor kid games my cousins and I played as children at my aunt’s house when playing “Cave” under the kitchen table got boring (which it did after like ten minutes). We put these huge obnoxious Super Mario decals all over the doors and cabinets in her house, and we’d throw random shit at ’em from a distance. That’s what this game looked like: ratchetness and chaos.
But these people were taking it super seriously, right? Like they were having a “combine”, which consisted of defense drills, 2 vs. 1, etc. etc. And these grown ass adults were participating, not four year old children. They were all in exercise clothes and running around looking like idiots, and when a bunch of them got “picked” for what I can only assume to be some sort of ridiculous Sky Ball League of Losers, they were all jumping around in a dog pile, throwing up signs (one man threw up the “LA”, but with the wrong hands… yikes), shouting about “Yeeeeeeah boy! Yeeeeeah!”
The only thing I gathered from that whole thing was: What a joke. It’s not a real sport, and it’s not even really a skill. Like, golf requires some degree of athleticism and a whole lot of skill. Cheerleading requires a lot of athleticism and skill. So the fact that all these amateur weirdos were playing the sport at a combine and getting picked up for a league didn’t make me think, “Hey, this looks like something I could get into!”, it made me think: What a waste of my life.
What I came away thinking was this: I’m not into the W/NBA, NFL, MLB, etc. etc. because I believe that I could possibly play at the level of some of those athletes. I’m into those leagues because I can’t do what they do, and I admire the talent, skill, work, and practice that goes into being able to perform at that level. But those sports have the benefit of being pretty developed and well-known in society.
Part of what makes ultimate accessible (and accessibility leads to growth) is that it seems pretty “learnable”, right? A great majority of players come into the sport of ultimate from another sport, like soccer or basketball. Playing youth ultimate definitely gives you a leg up against other players, but you’re generally not doomed to be a terrible player forever if you’ve never played ultimate before college, right? I don’t know about other schools, but we at Illinois have a no-cut team. Some years we have enough for a B-team, but most years we don’t, so it’s generally pretty inclusive. It’s a great way to meet people, stay active, and do some ridiculously fun things, so it’s not too hard to get people to join. We tell them, “I was terrible when I first started, but I got so much better!” We tell them that anyone can play and anyone can learn at any time, which is true.
I started wondering: What is it that a casual spectator, or someone who has never seen ultimate played before, think when they see ultimate? Do they think, “this is a joke” or “wow, they’re doing some incredible things”? Is that what’s so cool about our sport — that we can at once admire some of the greatest athletes in the game while still believing that we can reach those same levels ourselves? Do we need the same level of admiration people have for NFL/NBA/MLS/etc. athletes in order to be viewed as “legitimate”, or will that “learnability”/accessibility thing always necessarily imply “amateur status”?
Questions I’m genuinely curious about, and I’d like to hear your thoughts. Holler, plz.
