Thoughts on Ultimate Line Officials

So if I can offer 2c on the debate currently underway on the aus-ultimate yahoogroup list (and no doubt in various other forums) on WFDF’s (via the hardworking Rubes and Pottsy monster), interest in introducing line assistants.

One point is that it helps spectators a lot, particularly at a really big and noisy event, and moreso when there are lots of people who aren’t familiar with the game, and/or don’t have a deep insight into a particular player's body language (“He's breathing, so he’s called a foul”). But as John Greenfield points out (amongst no doubt others), you don’t need an official to do that. A sideline commentator or boundary rider could do that. So file that away in your “list of things to do when we have a big game”, along with ice-cream and matching shorts and socks.

One concern is whether the Ultimate culture is strong enough to develop a completely unique view of what an on-field official is, and withstand the wider community understanding of what a sporting official does. An Ultimate line assistant is established as something completely different to the officials you see in other sports (referees, linesmen, umpires, etc). To someone who does nothing but play Ultimate, this might be workable. But to anyone who does anything else (such as coming from another sport where they do have referees, or being a spectator of a sport that has referees (ie practically the rest of the sporting universe), you’re going to import the concepts of what a sporting official does.

I think only the very elite of Ultimate, not in terms of the greatest athletes but in terms of people who have the most familiarity with the rules and the confidence and force of personality to apply them (as well as the respect of other members of the very elite), and possibly one who has an experience of playing very big games in front of big crowds and with the event being recorded etc etc, would be able to stick long term to the concept of just asking an Ultimate line official for an opinion. For the remaining 99.5% of the Ultimate community, it would be very very hard to overcome the cultural conditioning of having an official to appeal to.

By the way, if you’re going to turn around and ask an Ultimate line assistant if the disc landed in or out, why not ask the dozens of substitute players lining up and down the sidelines (at big games), or a nearby spectator? Has this approach been a real problem in the past (outside of say the World Games, where there are only a few subs and no knowledgeable spectators on the sideline)?

As an aside, I’m intrigued by the value of a single (or maybe 2 or 3) of trial games at Mixed Nats. Sure, you’ve got to start somewhere, but is this going to tell you anything? Presumably WFDF will need to trial it at least dozens of times before moving forward.

So leaving aside that this little black duck has very little say and even less likelihood of ever being involved in a game where an Ultimate line official was used, I really only see value in Ultimate line assistants if they are really only used in the biggest of games, and only if they completely don’t look like officials.

Maybe give them some other jobs to do like moving spectators a reasonable distance back, or clicking over the scoreboard, putting cones back into position, chasing discs that go out. Make them game helpers rather than officials.

Small aside: And to those who say that Ultimate line officials can help with the players not necessarily knowing the rules very well. There’s an absolute shitload that can be done to improve player’s knowledge of the rules, and really, the various managing bodies need to think about doing a whole lot more about this. At the least, despite the advantages at the top level of fixing the tiny problems that come up, I do wish WFDF would STOP releasing updated rules every year or two.