USAU College Nationals 2013

(2012 USAU College Nationals Logo)

Many collegiate ultimate programs strive to reach USAU College Nationals year and year again. However, there are only twenty teams that actually get a chance to compete at nationals. Teams from all over the U.S. compete at tournaments spanning from all over the country to earn a strength bid* for their region*. However, the strength bids are not always won by the teams that earns them. Each team must compete in the championship series. Which entails playing at sectionals against teams that are in your section. There are only a certain number of bids given to each section for teams to attend regionals. It is at regionals that those teams compete for those strength bids that were awarded to the region. The teams that place highly enough at regionals get the chance to attend nationals.

Ohio University just recently qualified and attended nationals in 2012. This was after not attending nationals since 1984, the first year of college nationals. The program was on the verge of breaking nationals years before that; winning the section against their big time rival Ohio State two years prior and placing within the top five at regionals all years prior to qualifying.  It was last year that the team planned their season around tournaments that would get them that second strength bid for their region.

This gets me to my final point. If a team wishes to attend nationals, it must have players with great disc skills to compete at the national level. As well as, compete at high level tournaments and do well at them (place high or beat teams that are ranked higher or lower than you). Even though you win a strength bid for your region, your team still has to place at sectionals and regionals and win that strength bid and the chance to compete at nationals.

Thank you for reading and I hope everyone had a great weekend.

Fun Fact: College Nationals this year will be in Madison, WI.


*strength bids - bids to Nationals given to each region based solely on the final rankings before the Championship series which are determined by how the teams compete throughout their season at sanctioned tournaments 
*regions - the U.S. is split into ten regions which is what teams are associated with in rankings

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What Makes an Ultimate Expert?

First of all sorry for the late post. I was out of town at a Ultimate Frisbee tournament in Charlotte, NC and I did not have time to create a post. If you're interested here is a link to the scores from the weekend and I have attached a picture of OU Ultimate from this weekend.

(OU Ultimate at Queen City Tune- Up 2013 in Charlotte, NC)

The main objective of this post is to show What separates or defines me as an Ultimate Frisbee expert?

This will be my fourth year playing for OU Ultimate at the collegiate level. We recently attended College Nationals last year in Boulder, Colorado. I have also played at the Club level with A-block, a team based out of Athens, OH and Matador, a team based out of Columbus, OH. During the summer I occasionally attend pick up games and/or play for a summer league team which are both recreational forms of Ultimate Frisbee.

As with any sport, the more years you play, the more you learn about the sport. This is no different with Ultimate Frisbee. Most of my knowledge stems from playing with Ohio Ultimate where I learned about the game through older college players and from our team coaches, Kent Butler and Todd Grace. However, College Ultimate is limited to the Fall, Winter and Spring seasons. During the summer many players, like myself, play for Club teams which help broaden your knowledge of Ultimate Frisbee and allows you to play with different players which ultimately shows you how to adapt to different players abilities. Todd Grace, one of our coaches for OU Ultimate once said, "You learn more by attending tournaments...". This is very true because you play other teams and learn even more about the sport and how to adapt and play to other team's playing styles.

My experience with College, Club, and recreational Ultimate has allowed me to become more knowledgeable about the sport. One thing that separates me from other players with the same level of experience as myself would be my devotion outside of the sport. I like to stay up to date on a lot of the information within the Ultimate community. There are many sites devoted to Ultimate Frisbee:

1. RSD No Spam (which is forum based)
2. Sky'd Magazine (Articles about the sport, teams, and tips)
3. Score Reporter (Scores of recent tournaments, Team rosters, Team wins/losses)
4. UltiWorld (Articles based around the sport, teams, tips, and tournaments; similar to Sky'd magazine)

(This is only a small list compared to how many sites there actually are)

These sites give me even more knowledge into the sport beyond what you learn on the field and allows me to keep up to date with current events happening in the Ultimate World. The knowledge I acquire off  the field as well as on the field makes me an expert on Ultimate Frisbee compared to someone who only plays the sport and doesn't reach out to acquire new information.

Thank you for reading and have a great week!

Introductions

Hello! My name is Christopher Page. I am currently a senior at Ohio University. I have played Ultimate Frisbee for 4 years now for Ohio University. However, the program is not known very well since it is through club sports and is not a major varsity sport like Basketball, Football or Baseball.

I started this blog to give more insight about Ultimate Frisbee to people who might not know too much about this up and coming sport. Ultimate Frisbee is a fast pace sport that involves quick decision making, endurance and athleticism. It is also referred to as Ultimate rather than Ultimate Frisbee since the word frisbee is trademarked by Wham-O, a company that distributes and sells discs found in many stores Nationwide. I will be doing weekly post on this blog with more information about the team I play for along with other interesting facts about Ultimate Frisbee. If you have any questions about the sport feel free to ask them through the comments on this post and I will do my best to give an answer for them.