11 Things I’m Looking for in 2011

New year, new season. Just a couple stories I’m looking at for this upcoming season:

1. Can Oregon repeat?
They say the only thing harder than winning a championship is repeating. With a 43-1 record en route to the championship last year, it seemed like Oregon didn’t have too much trouble bringing home the hardware. If I’m recalling correctly, I feel like I read somewhere that there were a few fifth year players on Fugue last season. I might have just made that up (as I am wont to do, actually), but I’m curious to see if that will affect their team and their repeat bid. Can’t wait to see if their absolute domination continues into this season, or if they’ll hit a couple more bumps in the road this time around.

2. Will Santa Barbara’s finals reign continue?
Color me ignorant, but will Kaela Jorgenson and Carolyn Finney be back with the Skirts or are they out of eligibility? UCSB has shown up in the finals for the past four years now, even when people didn’t expect them to; case in point: last season, when they were without Steve Dugan (until Nationals?) and Jorgenson for some of the spring, out with an injury. Still made it to the ‘ship, though. I think it’s pretty great, and speaks volumes to the strength of their program. Will we get to see another UCSB/Oregon showdown in the finals, or will the UCSB Finals Spot be relinquished to another team this year?

3. How will the Southwest region play out?
Of all the new regions, I’m especially excited about this one. I don’t how this is even fair, really, but the state of California alone had five Nationals qualifiers last year in Stanford, Cal, UCSB, UCLA, and USC. Not that it wasn’t tough already when California was split between the Northwest and Southwest regions in the past, but dang! We’re talking five Nationals qualifiers in one state, not even taking into account good teams that will challenge them from the other five (if you count Western Mexico) states in their conference. Surely one region won’t be allotted five bids to Nationals, so it looks like one (or more?) of these teams won’t be making a repeat trip. Unbelievable, considering all five teams made it as far as pre-quarters at Nationals.

4. What new and intriguing conference match-ups will arise with the new boundaries?
Although some rivalries will remain intact (most notably Wisconsin/Carleton), it’ll be fun to see what new clashes might come up. All the California teams in one region. Colorado into the South. Maryland into AC (Man, first they had Pitt and Penn and Ottawa in the Metro East, now they’ve got UNC and UNC-W. Doesn’t get easier for ’em!). As I’ve mentioned, Pitt and Penn are both pretty strong teams, is it even conceivable that no team from Ohio will qualify for Nationals from the Ohio Valley region? (Case Western might, though.)

5. How will the women’s division continue to develop?
In the last couple seasons, we’ve seen some pretty impressive strides in the development of the women’s division. We’ve seen Centex kind of split off from the men, and there have been a few tournaments (Midwest Warmup/Throwdown, Philly Classic) that are also running independent of a men’s division. Although it’s also a lot of fun to attend a tournament with your men’s team, it’s also very cool to see that women’s tournaments can stand on their own as well. Despite the competition, it’s also been refreshing to see organizations like Without Limits promoting events and activities, such as mixers, skills clinics, dance-offs, and showcase games, to help women’s teams network and get to know each other off the field. I’m excited to see how this trend continues, and what new competitive, high-profile tournaments will arise.

6. Will USAUltimate take a serious look at UOA’s model?
After a whole lot of, let’s say, “talk” about it and its success on RSD, will USAUltimate give serious thought to adopting or at least experimenting with the UOA’s model of in-game officiating? It seems as though there was a lot of positive feedback from the UOA’s tournaments, and they drew a few big name teams. If they continue to experience this kind of success and positive reception with college teams, will USAUltimate hear what Gerics has to say (and will they take him seriously)?

7. Will this spring witness an even bigger upswing in interest in ultimate frisbee?
I might be a little late on this, but after a summer in which ultimate was featured on ESPN.com, SportsCenter, and other sports-related websites, will more and more non-ultimate playing athletes (and non-athletes too) be drawn to ultimate? I’m always curious to know the numbers in which kids go out for college teams every year, and how that number changes from year to year. Are there gonna be more kids interested in playing ultimate after seeing it on national television, and are there gonna be more people in general interested in the game?

8. On a related note, how will the media coverage of ultimate grow in 2011?
As I’ve mentioned, ultimate found itself in the national media spotlight this summer, if only for a brief moment before we all started wondering about whether or not Brett Favre was bluffing again, with his bluffin’ ass. Rob and Ultivillage do a great job of getting and sharing ultimate footage, and whoever came up with Leaguevine is a genius and a lifesaver for those of us sitting at home, trying to get score updates. We’re also seeing more and more ultimate bloggers popping up, and Without Limits is even starting a blogroll of writers covering the women’s game. So in some respects, the way we cover and share ultimate has seen a lot of improvement. Surprisingly, I found myself agreeing with the RSD trolls on one thing — while the spread of ultimate coverage via alternative forms of media is great, how will USAUltimate reach out to more mainstream media (i.e. print, television), and to what degree of success? Will we see more ultimate on SportsCenter, and will I be able to read about high profile tournies in local newspapers?

9. On ANOTHER related note, how much closer to “legitimacy” will ultimate move? And perhaps also as importantly, do ultimate players want so-called “legitimacy”?
That second question is one I can’t answer for the ultimate population as a whole, I guess I’m just posing that question as a query to all my readers. And on that first question, I guess I should clarify — what I mean by “legitimacy” is established youth leagues (akin to football’s Pop Warner or Little League for baseball), varsity status on the high school and NCAA levels, and eventually something like a national league and Olympic status. Of course, Rome wasn’t built in a day and none of those things will be accomplished in a year, but I’m talking about taking steps towards those goals. I guess I don’t have to tell you that personally, I’d love to see all of that happen. I may be in the minority here, but I think that’d be awesome. I like that USAUltimate has a position dedicated to the education and development of youth ultimate. I think that’s definitely a huge step in not just legitimating the sport, but making it better, too.

10. What new personalities will we see in the college game?
Let’s face it — one reason why college sports are so fun is because there are characters to cheer and jeer for. I mean, players who are just emblematic of their teams, like J.J. Redick when he was at Duke and Adam Morrison when he was at Gonzaga (Sorry, I’m tired. There are definitely better examples of emblematic players in college hoops history, but I’m just going with whoever popped into my mind first. And I’ll always remembering hating on J.J.’s fine, fine ass at Duke — sorry I’m not sorry for a. hating Duke and b. loving/hating J.J. Redick), or Brittany Griner with Baylor and Maya Moore with UConn. It might be the case that you’ve never seen them play, but you know who they play for and you know who they are, whether the connotations invoked are good or bad.

The last few seasons in college ultimate, we’ve had guys like Brodie Smith, who everybody (well, everybody but a small, small subset of the ultimate population) seems to hate, and there were players like Shannon O’Malley and Georgia Bosscher, who everyone always seems to recognize, probably for their game just as much as their respective hairstyles. They were the players that made you stop and take notice, the players who made you stick around and watch the game. I’m sure a lot of people tuned into Florida/Carleton to see “that douchebag”, and got to see him make plays for his team. In that same vein, I’m sure spectators stopped while walking past Washington or Wisconsin fields, and took a moment to check out the girl with dreads (although she doesn’t have them anymore) or the girl with the crazy dyed hair, only to see them and their teammates ball out.

So who will it be this year? Who are the players who elevate the game with their play and their personality? Who are the players we’re gonna love to hate, and who are the players we’re all gonna be rooting for?

11. Most importantly, who will pick up the slack for College Ultimate’s Least Athletic Player, now that yours truly isn’t around to defend the title?
No, but seriously. This is as important to me as who will win The MaryKim Award, an award I’ve won more times than the person the award is named for, so… y’know.

What are you excited for this season?