Guest Blogger Week: Spirit of the AJ

Guest Blogger Week is here, and we kick off in style with a visit from our great mate AJ!

Spirit in games is alive and well in Queensland Ultimate with all three northern teams taking out 1 (The Pass), 2 and 3 (Firestorm Zippo and Troopers) in the mens and Minx coming second in womens. This post is not about how to play with good spirit or how to improve, its more on the technical side- How do you award spirit points? Currently we award points for spirit out of ten. I have been asked many times, like the rest of you, what I thought the opposition deserved in spirit for the game? I was never told how exactly to judge spirit at first but slowly picked up the jist. Did the team play fairly? Were there foul calls that were touchy? Was there some unneeded physicality? How was there sideline? Still this doesn't give much information about how to judge. Experience counts for alot when awarding spirit points, the more experience you have the easier it becomes as you have seen the world, seen the funny, the stupid and the insane games. But what about for the rest of us, youngun's? How can we decide if a game should get 7 or 8 or 9?

Some people want to change the spirit score to be a simple 1 or 0. Yes this game was well spirited or no this game wasn't. This can take the guess work out of putting down a 6 or a 7. It can also define how we qualify a game to be spirited. By just have a yes or no system, it comes down to the team captain to choose one or two aspects of spirit and judge it based on that. Some captains may rank up highly that the game was competitive on both sides, and that all fouls were called (this points to good spirit in terms of the team knowing the rules and obeying them, as frisbee is self refereed we need to make sure even the newest member are up to date. There is nothing worse then watching some one at BPL getting fouled and not calling it. etc.) others may take a different view. I think will this may be simple and easy, there is another way.

I am of the view that there should be some accountability to the spirit scores that way a team can realise how it can improve. If the average spirit of the league increase, Im guessing the overall quality in the end will improve aswell. I thought of an idea which was being using the in Indian Premier League (not ultimate, cricket!). The umpires, not the players awarded each team a score out of 10 for fair play. There were 4 components to the score- respect, spirit, etc. I researched this idea and found this has been put forward in other leagues overseas (http://www.vul.bc.ca/v3/home/spirit/). The Vancouver league some it up nicely-

"One of the biggest limitations of the old SRS (Spirit Rating System) was the
variability (or subjectivity) of spirit evaluation. The key to the new SRS
is to NOT equate your score with the traditional notion of a grade. If you
are scored a 5, it is NOT because you failed. All teams will be rating your
spirit according to the same scale. The new SRS is intended to emphasize the
really important points that make up the 'SPIRIT OF THE GAME' and help
remind you of them every time you enter a team's spirit score."

That may not be the answer, maybe something different (more in the IPL vein), 4 scores- fair play (4), respect (4), competitive(2*) and general- safety, awareness, team being late without notice, (2) for a score out of ten.

The last point I would like to ask the readers is, If a game (specifically in BPL or NUFL, any high level league) is not competitive (where a team is fielding a full or close to full squad) get a lower spirit score? I ask this as we are discussing how the various leagues move forward and there are already players that have expressed their concern that BPL is becoming diluted. The question is if you are expecting a high level ultimate game and you get a game where it becomes 15-0, are you happy you played this game? Was this game spirited maybe? But isn't it the oppositions job (and note I am only talking about the high level leagues - top division in each state etc) to remain competitive in the league otherwise reform with new players or disband the team to allow for a new team/players instead of continuing on?

Thanks AJ - and dear readers, its not too late to recommend someone to post during guest blogger week, or even send something in yourself! Contact us a jjderooy at yahoo.co.uk