What kind of competition structure or opportunities should the UPA offer beyond or instead of UPA Club and College Championships, Youth Club Championships, and HS Eastern, Western and State Championships?
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The UPA needs to rehaul the college championship rostering structure. There is a huge paperjam the week prior to sectionals, probably the biggest weekend of ultimate in the world (as far as actual numbers of players involved). I dont expect this to happen overnight, or without cost, but so many individuals are willing to volunteer for UPA, and the amount of membership dollars that come in, realistically, just to play in sectionals, is immense. Please, please, please - Everyone deserves a chance to play in the championship series, and while I do completely understand having deadlines, lets try to make sure that the backside of these deadlines, UPA getting everything in order with some time to spare so TD's and SC's can act on the information provided is sufficient. It is, in many senses, the biggest weekend of the year for UPA, because the championship game is nice and exciting, but only about 500-1000 UPA memers are involved. On sectionals weekend, that number is likely 20 times that, if not greater. Lets work on streamlining the process, please!!!!
lidiscer -
How precisely would you want the structure to change? As someone who was a sectional coordinator 4 years ago, and again this year, the system is vastly simpler and easier with the online rostering system.
Do you think that we should know how many teams each section and region has earlier? If so, that would require teams to submit their rosters to the UPA even earlier.
Are you suggesting that the UPA should make an exception for teams that miss the late deadline?
I don't see any reason why I can't join in here ;).
I think the UPA should work with existing tournaments to create a structured season in both the college and club divisions that is before the series.
For the club division this could simply start with the top 8 UPA National finishers from the previous year being required to submit an earlier roster (June15th?) and attending a set of 3 existing tournaments (e.g. Club Easterns, Colorado Cup, and ECC). These events could be showcase events with a standardized format where the the 8 teams in each division play a round robin and final, the UPA assists with promotion, statkeeping, getting the finals in a stadium, and other logistics to showcase the sport (in a simple way that could lead to a bigger way). The showcased teams could get byes into either Regionals or Nationals in exchange for the extra requirements placed on them (earlier deadlines, required tournaments). I would suggest starting this with the Open and Women's division and then later adding Mixed and Master's.
For the college division it would be much more difficult, but I think it is time for some sort of tiering of the college division (Div I, B teams, Div II/Div III) with UPA championships run for each. The size of some college sections has become unwieldy and there needs to be a split. For Div I teams that are competing at the highest level we can ask more of these schools - rosters submitted earlier - like January, and pre-series events for Div I schools get roster reports and those games matter - sectionals seeding is presumed to be correct. I'm not sure of the level of affiliation between those events and the UPA. The process of splitting into multiple tiers in the college division is probably one that needs intermediate steps to get there.
Finally, I think the UPA should work with an existing early season (March-May) club event to create the "UPA Experimental Championships" where the UPA can experiment with rule changes to the sport, observer roles, and discs attempting to gain championship approval. This would be an ideal situation to experiment and get player feedback on potential changes to the sport. It would be an invite tournament with objective criteria like "top finishing teams at nationals" or "top finishing teams at regionals that didn't make nationals" so that the UPA wouldn't have to worry about running a whole series for it. This event would allow the UPA to more rapidly advance the sport and understand the consequences of rule changes before they are implemented in the official rules.
While these are all "competetive structure" questions I think they are also related to legitimizing the sport.
-Kyle
Kyle -
I think that your first and third suggestions are excellent.
As to your second suggestion, I don't think we need that level of stratification yet at the college level. In Womens, and even sometimes in Open, we don't get 16 teams at regionals, and the teams that are there show remarkable parity. The big exception is the Metro East, which is clearly too big. I think for regional that are so big, an additional level of competition between sectionals and regionals would be a good idea. Also, the D3 nationals that have started recently seem to be a great idea that's working, and perhaps the UPA could consider working with the guy doing that. But stratifying the series before Nationals would be a mistake, I think.
Sam, fair enough. The second one was certainly the one that I had considered the least and you are right.
How about a similar structure to the Club division where tournaments can gain "UPA Official College Season" status? All teams attending these tournaments must submit their rosters by the early deadline and must abide by those rosters at those events and the UPA series. This is a simpler change but could add legitimacy to these events who host the most organized teams (Centex, Stanford, etc.) and would spread out the deadlines for rosters to help prevent a backlog at UPA HQ. It would also almost gaurantee that the top teams wouldn't miss out on the series because of paperwork issues - if they missed the early deadline to play in the official season tournaments, they would surely get their stuff in for the series.
As more teams and tournaments get organized, more tournaments join the "Official College Season" and the spring gets more organized.
Kyle -
I think that's a great idea. In fact, I think it would likely work better in College than in Club. In College ultimate, everyone knows who's going to be on the team long in advance, while club teams often make roster changes quite late (many teams use Easterns, in late June, as a tryout tournament). And the college season already has a bunch of well-defined elite tournaments that people think of as "the season", moreso than in Club, I think.
Personally, I would like to see the way that bids are allocated structured differently. I understand that there are several loud commentators on the subject, so I understand that this suggestion will exist among many good ones.
What I'd like to see is greater consideration of the "regular season". In college, teams that play extremely well in season long tournaments are often not rewarded for this achievement. I believe this also encourages teams to compete more and therefore increases the visibility and participation in ultimate. This is true at both the collegiate and club level.
Despite the fact that "weaker" regions are awarded size bids ever year, I am still a strong supporter of this system. I think it really encourages players to get people to come out and play. So my suggestion would be to replace the current "strength bid" system, which rewards year-old (often irrellevant) performance at the championships with a new system rewarding regional teams with more bids based on season-long performance. This could either be done via algorithm or via voting panel.
Difficulties with this include how hard it is for some teams to travel, but I think even local tournaments often host interregional competition, which is all that you would need to have a basis for rewarding the bids.
Just a thought.
I just want to back up Sam's suggestion of another level of competition between sectionals and regionals in the regions with an unwieldy number of teams. At the moment the only region that definitely needs this is the open college Metro East, but it won't be long before several regions join them.
This is a good problem to have - in my opinion its a reflection of the hard work the UPA has put in developing teams at the juniors level. But it needs to be addressed, and it should be addressed soon, before teams start to feel that the series is not serving their needs (i.e. why play sectionals when you get eliminated in one day and have no realistic shot at regionals).
Once the system of sectionals -> subregionals -> regionals is up and running, we should look at giving the top teams a free pass to subregionals. This could be done by handing automatic subregional bids to the top six regional finishers from the previous year, for instance.
Deleted and reposted to fix a couple typos (though there may be more):
In response to Kyle's "experimental series" suggestion, I think it's great. As a current college player, I feel like the UPA is using me as an experiment, throwing a new set of rules at me that is changing all the way up through February/March, and announcing new uniform requirements AFTER most teams have purchased uniforms. There was no good reason for not waiting a year on these things, instead of turning the 2007 College Series into a big experiment.
Bid Allocation to Nationals. Size bids aren't working. Are we just rewarding large regions for the amount of revenue they bring in? Essentially letting them buy an extra bid to Nationals? 80% of those teams are completely unaffected by a bid to Nationals. Or is it a proxy for strength, where the likelihood of finding a team in a good Region seems higher? Well, once the Metro East or the current Northeast has established itself as weak, by placing it's size-bid team in the bottom 4 at Nationals for multiple years in a row, the "strength proxy" reasoning goes out the window. There should be a system for taking away this free ride to Nationals for mediocre teams in weak, big regions. If it's about revenue, why not have growth bids like in the Club division? Those are the regions bringing in new revenue.
College Eligibility Rules are a laughingstock. After graduating, I can purchase my 5th year of eligibility, just by enrolling for the spring semester in second bachelor's program. And there is another, cheaper way of doing it, that I won't mention for fear of undermining the system. But legitimate non-degree seeking students are turned away left and right. Those taking their final requirements before applying for graduate school, those accepted to graduate school and earning credits towards that degree before the program actually starts. Those players aren't eligible, yet the 5th year meathead who takes a semester of classes towards a second bachelor's in Phys Ed gets to play. It is not right for the UPA to state that it wants to be as fair as possible for all college players. The UPA has simply thrown up it's hands, recited some stuff about fraud and abuse, and maintained the status quo, which already allows fraud and abuse. It's like a security system that leaves the front door wide open, but insists on locking down every other door and window, never to be opened. I want to see the UPA get its minds working to improve the College Eligibility Rules instead of sticking with an admittedly unfair, ineffective system and saying "I'm very sorry that we screwed you over, but it's the best system we've come up with."
The Rules Revision process. We have a system that requires members to vote on the entire set of rules and then after it gets approved, we are sloppy in suggesting that the membership approved all of the rules. The members should be allowed to vote on each discrete change made, especially since the changes are made without any official survey of membership opinions. By allowing this more individualized vote, we would finally get a rule set that truly reflected what the voting membership wanted. Second point is that far too small a percentage of the membership is required to vote to change the rules for the whole group. We have no idea what the whole group wants, and the voting sample is so small that it is subject to fraud and abuse. I could easily buy that vote, as could anyone else. In summary, let the voters actually vote on the changes made and require more than 1.5% of the members to approve before making a change.
Last point. Speed up the turnaround time on Rosters and Eligibility appeals. Maybe this requires more volunteers. The eligibility appeals are just a rubber stamp "denied," so they shouldn't take three months to process. And faster turnaround on rosters at HQ means the tournament coordinators can be more on top of their stuff. When I was an SC for a couple of years, it was a mad dash before the tournament to figure things out. A team with an on-time roster shouldn't be told on the day of sectionals, "by the way, these five players are ineligible -- sorry for making them travel 5 hours for nothing."
Tarr and Sam TH,
Can you expand a bit on the idea of a sub-regionals, particularly the timing? It seems that if you were to push Sectionals earlier you would be shortening the season too much, but if you were to try and squeeze it in between sectionals and regionals you would give yourself no buffer in the case of weather issues.
(I'm not moderating this thread, I'm just curious).
-Kyle
I don't think adding an extra round to the series works at all for college, especially for northern teams.
Alternatively, I would suggest giving allowing regions flexibility in how the determine who competes at regionals. Metro East had 80 teams in five sections last year. How many times did those teams play each other? A bunch I bet.
Why not take the two teams in each section with the best intra-sectional record (min X. games, played against at least half the section, and so on), then bid/poll/formula the last 6 "at-large" teams?
Kyle,
Timing is obviously the main issue with this proposal, but I still think it is needed. The simplest solution in that regard, I think, is to put subregionals in the last sectional weekend. If you put sectionals on the first available weekend and regionals on the second weekend, there's a free weekend between each event in case of weather issues.
I would also be perfectly with allowing sectionals to be earlier (up to two weeks earlier) in regions with a subregional event. You say this makes the season shorter, but there's an extra UPA series event in there.
This leaves less time for tournaments in the Metro East between spring break and sectionals, sure. But in a sense, this is trading "preseason" for "regular season". Is that a bad thing? If so, why? Manzell's proposal essentially amounts to trying to use these preseason tournaments to effect regional advancement. Why not just formalize that process using another layer of tournaments?
Kyle -
Another possibility is to have regionals later. Right now, there's 3 weeks between that last regionals and Nationals. If the sectionals calendar stayed where it is (necessary for New England, at least) and subregionals and regionals were on later weekends, possibly including the current weekend after the last regionals, then I don't think there would be too many problems.
Sam,
I think the idea of the 3 week gap is to give teams ample time to get plane tickets. Anything shorter than three weeks could really make it tough to arganize the trip at a decent price.
Of course, you can always buy your plane tickets before regionals. Right, Kyle?
This thread is a bit all over the map, but
I'd like to add my support to thoughts about diversifying/expanding how open teams move through the fall series.
For the elite teams, sectionals is a waste of valuable time for the group and for its members. Elite players dedicate so much time to their teams and have very little left for personal and family events. This is especially true down the home stretch. Second, even the WA/BC section, its two days for one or two good games for both Furious and Sockeye where they can actually work on skills and strategies.
For such teams, I think the idea of shifting qualifying requirements elsewhere can benefit the players involved, other tournaments and play elsewhere. I like the thought already expressed of naming qualifying events.
Additionally, how about allowing teams to play the finals of sectionals prior to sectionals. Winning sectionals matters for seeding, but its not so big a deal that the top teams even bring full rosters. Instead, such a substitute game could be played in a high visibility time and location in a city where kids, parents, aspirants and local media can attend. I'm from the NW and don't know the stories elsewhere, but imagine a stadium game to 19 in Vancouver or Seattle in mid August for the sectionals title.
i would like to add my two cents in about the college series. I, as well as most of my teamates, think as it is, it is rediculous. obviously the size bids are bogus. i like strength bids, but they should not be assessed the prior year. teams change. it doesnt even make sense to say, that because two teams from a certain region made it to semis that the region deserves two strength bids because those teams will be completely different the next year. however, i understand the difficulties of a rating system for strength and a panel would be good, but there would still be disagreements. i think the best solution is: make nationals 24 teams. give each team 2 bids min. then 4 for size 4 for strength as is currently. the format could be like centex, except three days long. this way, more teams could go that have played at a high level and there can still be the rewards for size and strength. as it is, not even close to the top 16 teams are at nationals, this could fix that.
Interesting thoughts Morgan. I think it's inevitable that a subject this large will bring in lots of unconnected ideas, but what you're bringing up is certainly on-topic.
I know that sectionals is widely considered a useless chore by all the elite teams, and to a degree rightfully so. That said, I'm not sure there is a way to use the non-series events to effect qualification for regionals. I would be more comfortable with past year results. Since we're really only talking about the club division, this does offer some consistency from year to year.
This opens two questions:
1) How do we decide whether a team is the same team as last year?
2) What bar should a team have to clear to get a pass on sectionals for the next year?
On the former point, the obvious benchmark would be x% of last year's roster playing the next year. x% could be 75% or whatever else is considered appropriate. I think that it should also require approval from the SC/RC/ND, at least in the pilot stages of the program.
On the latter point, there are a few options:
- last year's sectional champ (only if no other team in the section had a pass to regionals, though)
- Top N teams in the region. N could be number of qualifying spots at nationals, or it could be a set number, say, 3.
As for the idea of playing the championship in advance... it's a bit presumptuous, isn't it? It also causes an issue if the game is not played, when the loser still has a game for second place.
Is it time for the UPA to reconsider years of college eligibility? Currently, a student has 5-years of college eligibility from when they became non-juniors members of the UPA.
The fundamental question is, how does having 5th-year players improve the sport at the collegiate level? One possible argument is that grad students help growth and promote the sport. That may be true, but are we also now seeing the large universities, which are often times perennially strong programs, benefit the most from having 5th year players? How does that promote the sport, when the "rich get richer"? Don't think it makes a difference? Recent history tells us it does (one assumption here is that a grad student is likely a 5th year eligible):
2007 Open Favorite Wisconsin: At least 2 super seniors/grads who are key players: Dan Heijman and Dan Miller (or at least listed themselves last year as seniors)
2006 Open Champs Florida: 4 of 18 Grads (notable Tim Gehret)
2006 Women's Champs Stanford: 6 of 22 Grads (notable Enessa Janes)
2005 Women's Finalist Washington: Notable: Miranda Roth (don't think she made a difference?)
2004 Women's Champ UC-Davis: 5 of 21 (notable Julie Baker)
2004 Open Runner's Up Cal-Berkeley: Notable: Bart Watson (think UGMO goes this far without him?)
I don't necessarily think that this is only a big school vs. small school thing, because there are some large schools who build their programs primarily through the undergrad players. (maybe out of necessity for more expensive schools?)
The numbers alone don't shock and awe, but in a sport where one or two studs can change the competitiveness of a team, it doesn't matter. What does the UPA or Ultimate gain by letting players have a 5th year of eligibility?
Ultimate isn't big enough, both in breadth and depth, to truly justify a second division...yet. The D-III championship currently excludes large schools with young programs. Make a commitment to a single division and level the playing field for all schools. Count on the investment in juniors to grow the sport at the college level. Otherwise consider the alternative, where a juniors player goes to college with dreams of making a difference, only to be squashed like an ant by a 5th year player.
I have talked about this before but everybody is fixed on what to do with the number of bids and wildcards with 8 regions.
My suggestion for changing the college bid allocation system is to change the number of regions. If you have 7 regions you can give 2 bids per region and then also allocate 2 widlcards based on whatever merits are deemed relevant by the administration. Obvious options are 2 strength, 1 strength/1size or 2 size.
Long term I would look to do the same thing in club and get rid of the growth bid but college has a more immediate need.
Greenough,
I agree with you. I also think that if the club and college regions are overlapping it would make things easier for the UPA administratively.
-Kyle
A couple of comments on wild cards.
1. A little while ago Tarr suggested that a region not be able to lose 2 strength bids in one year. Specifically he wrote: "I would suggest that if a region has two strength wild cards, and nationals results would suggest they lose both, then they
still retain one strength wild card. They would be removed from
consideration for size and growth wild cards the next year."
This would introduce more stability into the strength wild cards - as it is, the NW women lost the two strength wild cards, had Riot and Fury play each other in the finals, and still only earned one strength bid. It will be three long years before the NW has the possibility of getting four bids back.
2. Size and growth wild cards in club are really skewed by college teams competing at club Sectionals. It's not clear why the number of small schools in Pennsylvania should determine how many club teams go to Nationals. If you look at the actual number of club teams, i.e. teams not associated with a university that actually attend Regionals, the "size" numbers are very similar for the MA and NW regions.
I'd like to know the current reasoning behind growth and size wild cards for club.
Greenough/Kyle,
If we go to 6 or 7 regions, then the subregional idea becomes crucial in at least three regions. We can't eliminate an additional 32 teams short of regionals unless we add another layer to the series.
Obviously I agree with Neva's first point. Given the stability of the club division from year to year, we should really look critically at any bid allocation that results in a region gaining or losing two bids in a year.
My biggest problem with the growth wildcard is that it only measures growth from the previous season. It should measure growth since the last time the region won a growth wild card.
Tarr,
I think that it is completely impractical to add in another tournament weekend into 2 of the 3 regional areas that would be the largest by numbers. These sections/regions routinely need to cancel the first attempt at a tournament. The weather in these areas is really tough to deal with and adding a new tournament would increase the difficulty for TDs.
What is the goal of an additional regional tournament? If we want to get people more official tournaments for their UPA buck then we should talk about other avenues like local 2-4 team district play before sectionals that can be done with small field sites.
The other direction would be to increase the national bids to 20 but then there is pain on the available UPA sites to host nationals.
If we went to the club regions, there would be 163(!) college open teams in the NE and MA regions. If we went to the club sections, there would have been 34 teams at ENE sectionals.
To my knowledge, there has never been an occasion in either Club or College where anyone thought that even the second-best team in the country wasn't at nationals. However, this year the Metro NY Open section had at 15-team, 2-bid tournament. That meant that 3/5ths of the teams had no meaningful games after Saturday of Sectionals. That seems like a more significant problem than whether the number of college teams in PA prevents the NW from sending more teams to nationals.
Josh,
As Sam alluded to, the goal of the additional tournament is to more fairly advance the right teams and make sectionals actually worth it to attend for the bottom half of the teams. 15 team, 2 advance sectional events just don't serve the membership well. It is in the UPA's interest to make the championship series an appealing product for all the teams involved.
As fas as timing, I addressed two options in the ~12th post in this thread.
Sam,
I would definitely not suggest using the current club sectional borders for college. Sectional borders need to be set to assure that no section has too many teams. Both Central Plains and AC South need to be split, and the Metro East should probably go from five sections to six. (Assuming no regional redraws in both cases.)
Adam -
If we went to the club regionals borders for college, then if we kept the college sectionals borders (roughly), we'd have 6 sections in New England, leading to probably a 3-bid 20-team South NE sectional, for example. I'm not sure if that's better or worse than a 5-bid 34-team sectional. Both options are pretty bad.
One other thing -
If we went to the club regions, with 2 bids per region plus the 4 strength wild cards, we'd have the following teams at regionals (assuming RRI plus me guessing perfectly predicts performance):
Central: Wisconsin, Carleton, Minnesota
NW: Stanford, Oregon, UBC
South: Florida, Georgia, Texas, Kansas
SW: Colorado, UCSB
MA: NC, Delaware
NE: Brown, Cornell
So, now we have the same top 8 teams at nationals, plus 4 of the bottom 8. The change has been to replace the 12, 13, 35, and 51 RRI-ranked teams with the 9, 11, 14 and 33 ranked teams. And that's assuming there are no upsets
So we'd still be missing several top 16 teams, and still have 2 teams from outside the top 25.
Just thought it would be instructive to see what the actual repercussions for the Nationals field of such changes would be.
Adam,
I agree that the system needs to get the right teams to regionals but how do you contrast 15 teams in a section with 2 bids with 16 teams and 1 or 2 bids at the next level?
An interesting idea would be 20 team regional tournament which would help give us a few more years in the east. My initial thought to help increase by in for the series is setting up leagues where teams would play each other over the course of a few weekends to qualify for the next round and that once a geographically feasible section/region reached a certain point we would use that system.
I have never argued for 6 regions in college. My working thought would be to fold the Great Lakes into the regions around it because it is the only region that touches 5 other regions. This would also be a balance of the need to not making larger regions that much larger and not to make the old giant "west" region again.
We also need to consider the increasing role of Canada in the UPA tournaments. I am all for it but it does impact region size/growth/strength.
Either way I strongly agree that the current system is not very good but that we have been in status quo because nobody has anything better.
how do you contrast 15 teams in a section with 2 bids with 16 teams and 1 or 2 bids at the next level?
There are two related reasons why 16 teams, 2 advance at regionals doesn't bother me as much as the same format at sectionals.
1) Teams at regionals have already played sectionals, so they've already gotten more bang for their UPA buck than a team that didn't make regionals.
2) As the series progresses, we gradually shift our focus from inclusiveness, to crowning a champion. A "two and out" format is therefore more problematic at sectionals than at regionals.
An interesting idea would be 20 team regional tournament which would help give us a few more years in the east.
To my way of thinking, this is really a stopgap measure. It helps, sure, but those 4 extra bids don't fundamentally change things the way 20 extra bids (to subregional events) would.
My initial thought to help increase by in for the series is setting up leagues where teams would play each other over the course of a few weekends to qualify for the next round and that once a geographically feasible section/region reached a certain point we would use that system.
I like this idea. It is similar in many ways to the subregional idea, as you are taking what sectionals accomplishes and expanding it to take more than one weekend. I'd be interested in more details on this idea.
I have never argued for 6 regions in college. My working thought would be to fold the Great Lakes into the regions around it because it is the only region that touches 5 other regions. This would also be a balance of the need to not making larger regions that much larger and not to make the old giant "west" region again.
I don't think anyone is seriously arguing for the old giant West region. If we went to a 6-region system, it would probably look a lot like the current club regions. That said, I tend to agree that 7 regions might be better.
The Great Lakes only border 3 regions, though. Moreover I think any redraw should probably be more nuanced than just divvying up one region.
I have not talked that much about a pre-sectionals local league system or really fleshed that idea out but we can only sub-divide so many times. I could see a day in the Metro East when the region would have 16 one bid sections. I know that Kyle has talked a lot about an english soccer system where there are tiers so that people can play all the way up but get to play more games than just the couple at sectionals. I do not think that it would make sense in all regions and it would have to be implemented as specific regions/sections/divisions(m/w) got too large and needed the new system. Better serving all levels of the UPA series is a huge thing and this could have implications in club.
The Great Lakes actually touches 4 regions (S,ME,AC,C) so we can compromise on that. =) I do agree that a redraw needs to adjust things all over a bit but one region would have to go away so why not start there and then ripple out when making decisions. Either way it was a place to start the conversation.
Greetings,
The college division is very large, as was motioned in other posts. The UPA rankings from 2006 show over 400 different colleges playing ultimate in the Open division. More than 350 college teams competed in the Open College Series. There are simply far too many teams for one division.
A solution to the situation is for the UPA to introduce a Second Open Division (D-II) in the College Nationals Series.
In order to test the idea of a second division, the first ever D-III College Nationals was held in Versailles, OH last spring. Over sixty teams were very interested in the event. Qualifying was accomplished using the current UPA College Series. Invitations were sent out and nineteen college teams came to compete from all across the country. All regions were represented. Clearly, for a first year tournament to draw this type of response is a huge success by any measure. There is certainly an overwhelming desire for a Second Open Division for small colleges in the UPA College Series.
This year, D-III Nationals has 24 committed teams and once again all regions are represented.
As with other competitive college sports, large universities have a major advantage when it comes to being successful in ultimate. Telling the huge number of smaller colleges to just, “try harder” is not the answer. The rapid rise of the juniors division will continue to make the situation worse as the majority of these students head off to major state schools (like the rest of the population). There is a reason high school state sports associations and the NCAA have various divisions based (largely) on the populations of the institution. Similarly the UPA should institute another division in the College Series for smaller colleges and universities.
This Second Open Division (D-II) could be run similar to the current Master’s Division. Qualifying could be taken care of in the current college series. The details may be a little different than the Masters Division but the over all model could be very similar.
For more information see: http://www2.onu.edu/~wtheisen/2.%20D-III%20Nationals%20Pages/D-III%20Nationals-home.html
-Bill T
Greenough,
I agree that subdivision can only go so far. The Metro East as currently constituted needs to be six sections, not five, for logistical reasons, but at a point the dearth of regionals bids gets ridiculous.
I can get on board with some sort of "play-up, play-down" setup. Currently, I see this as working in the context of the subregional system, where top teams would get a pass directly to subregionals, skipping sectionals. If they don't do well at subregionals/regionals that year, then the next year they have to start from sectionals like everyone else.
I tend to start my re-draw thinking from the perspective of breaking up the Metro East, but if you start making second-order changes to other borders, it's all the same anyway.
Bill,
I see a conflict between these two statements. The first statement was:
More than 350 college teams competed in the Open College Series. There are simply far too many teams for one division.
... and the second was:
This Second Open Division (D-II) could be run similar to the current Master’s Division. Qualifying could be taken care of in the current college series. The details may be a little different than the Masters Division but the over all model could be very similar.
So... you think there are too many teams in this division, but you want the Div 2 series to start in the same division as the Div 1 series? I don't see how the solution fits the problem.
Also, I think it's premature to say "There is certainly an overwhelming desire for a Second Open Division for small colleges in the UPA College Series", based on a 19-team event. I'm not saying there's no chance of the success of such a series, but we may still be in an era where one division makes the most sense. Carleton and Brown are still regularly beating Minnesota and UMass. There are currently no varsity ultimate programs at any school. If/when these things start changing, then it will be obvious that it is time for a division split.
In the mean time, I'd like to see efforts toward a div 2 regionals in the larger regions. Once those are up and running, it gives a lot more momentum to a potential div 2 nationals.
Adam
There is no conflict. we are promoting a second division in the UPA College Nationals Series.
The reason that D-III Nationals has recieved so much interest is because all the other sports at our colleges compete against other D-III institutions for a national title. And thus so should we.
For 2006 there were over a 110 traditional (NCAA) D-III colleges in the UPA rankings, however, a look at the top 25 teams shows a clear domination by (NCAA) D-I universities. There was only one traditional D-III college in the UPA top 25 and there were only five traditional D-III colleges in the UPA top 50.
With over 350 teams competing in the UPA series. A second division based on size of college makes sense, which is why many sports associations have many divisions (NCAA, HS, etc).
-Bill T.
Bill,
If you are arguing that we should have separate sectionals for D-III and D-I teams, then I agree, your argument is consistent. But if the problem is the size of the series, then splitting the series AFTER sectionals solves little. Additionally, it introduces lots of thorny formats issues. I have to deal with this every fall, when there's a few sections where the breakpoint between teams advancing to regionals and not advancing gets muddied up by the presence of masters teams.
Fundamentally, I have a few questions/concerns about a divisional split:
* since Ultimate is not a scholarship sport anywhere, should we base our divisions on the Div I/II/III model, which is really more about funding and scholarships than it is about the size of the student bodies? UCSC is div 3, but they have around 15k students; contrast this to a div 1 school like, say, Dartmouth, which has about a third as many students to draw on. Both of these schools have been successful at Ultimate; my point is simply that I'm not sure the NCAA divisions are significant when the rationale for the divisions don't apply to Ultimate.
* Do you see this as a voluntary split, or a mandatory one? Do we force the Carletons of the game to give up their chance at the top title?
* When does the split occur? Do you want a parallel sectionals/regionals/nationals series? Same sectionals, but split regionals/nationals? Or just an invitational national event for small/Div 3 schools?
Adam,
The main idea of the proposal is to allow smaller universities to compete against similar universities for a national championship. (For example, Bluffton University does not have to play Michigan, OSU, or Illinios to get to the National Championship in basketball)
There are a number of ways to accomplish this. Part of the proposal I have submitted is:
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I. Team Eligibility for D-II Nationals (two examples: UPA decides which to follow)
A. Enrolment: All colleges with undergrad enrolments under 6,000 (or 8,500) are eligible for the Second Open Division. This will include most traditional D-III Colleges and leave out most large D-I universities, or
B. NCAA Divisions: All NCAA D-III (and maybe D-II and Community colleges) are eligible for the Second Open Division.
II. The College Series for the Second Open Division Nationals
OPEN SECTIONALS
a) All teams must compete in the UPA College Sectionals
b) Teams planning to compete in the Second Open Division (D-II) at Regionals must declare their intent one week before Sectionals
c) College sectionals are seeded and played out as usual. This is very similar to how Masters teams play at sectionals
d) Place amongst other D-II teams at sectionals determines qualification for D-II Regionals
OPEN D-II REGIONALS
a) D-II Regionals is played at the same time and place as D-I Regionals
b) 16 teams qualify for each D-II Regionals (out of sectionals)
c) Qualifying for Nationals: First year would be two teams each Region. Thereafter, same procedures as currently used in the college open division
OPEN D-II NATIONALS
a) D-II Nationals is played at the same time and place as D-I Nationals
b) 16 teams qualify for D-II Nationals
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SUMMARY: Sectionals runs the same as now and the rest is similar to the masters division, teams which qualify under the criteria can choose which division to play in.
Certainly as the number of teams grows D-II can host its own sectionals and regionals, which might help solve other issues.
-Bill T
Well, I strongly oppose anything that will create a second instance of the "masters teams at open sectionals" problems. So I wouldn't support the combined sectional event followed by a split.
I agree that voluntary entry into Div 2 is the way to go, if we have a parallel series.
As you know, the Open College Series is by far the largest division with over 350 teams competing for the National Championship.
If you or anyone else has another way of incorporating a second division for smaller colleges into the UPA College Nationals I would be very intersted in hearing about it.
It would seem the simplest method for starting the second division in the UPA College National Series is to somehow use the structure already in place (there are probably many ways to do this). The second division will then change over time to best meet the needs of the UPA and the players.
-Bill T.
Bill,
I think that you and Adam are arguing at opposite ends of the series.
You are right that college is the most likely place to be able to sustain a legitimate second tier national championship. This would be at the end of the series.
Adam is arguing that the current structure is bloated in some regions and not functional at the sectional level. In some sections there are 20+ teams going for very few bids and it is not a great experience for them. A masters style implementation gets teams to advance but does not alleviate this volume pressure.
The current structure suggests that large sections host an optional Div II tournament that would not allow teams to advance. This has not been a popular option for a variety of reasons.
Well said,
I have not run the numbers, but my guess would be that if the UPA College division is split into two divisions, the large sections would quickly split into two separate tournaments, thereby, solving both issues.
-Bill
Well said,
I have not run the numbers, but my guess would be that if the UPA College division is split into two divisions, the large sections would quickly split into two separate tournaments, thereby, solving both issues.
-Bill
ah but there is the issue. How do you create the split? The option to split voluntarily has been there for a few years and is not being adopted.
It is unheard of to "force" people into a Div II tournament because everybody wants to be in the main event.
Also the split is only sustainable in 2 or 3 regions because of size/distance. We would need some sort of hybrid model and criteria about when to switch a region from the standard process to the new split one.
The biggest issue is how to get critical mass in the second division because it is not happening voluntarily.
Bingo. I still think the answer is a gradual shift that starts with subregional events.
We begin by implementing subregional events in the larger regions that need the event to maintain the integrity and quality of the series. Once the subregional concept is well-established, we set up rules that allow top teams to proceed directly to subregionals (skipping sectionals) based on some measure of strength (top XX place at last year's subregionals/regionals, or some current year measure).
At some point, the system of free passes to subregionals could be expanded to such a degree that it becomes more of a play up - play down system. The big key is when you shift to "next year" qualifying - i.e. that teams in the lower division can't qualify for subregionals this year, only next year. Once that stage is reached, you have two formal divisions, and having the lower division have a seperate regionals (and, potentially, nationals) is a logical extension.
So, basically, it's a three step process. Start with having subregionals, then give prequalifying status to some teams, and finally expand the preqalifying status into a seperate tier.
but Adam you never addressed the fundamental issue that the weather/season can not support another weekend of tournaments.
Let alone all of the issues about being given passes through the first round based on last year's performance. People complain about wildcard, can you imagine what they would do if it was related to regionals?
but Adam you never addressed the fundamental issue that the weather/season can not support another weekend of tournaments.
Josh,
As I responded on May 12th, I already addressed these concerns, in a response to Kyle on April 30th.
To quote,
"Timing is obviously the main issue with this proposal, but I still think it is needed. The simplest solution in that regard, I think, is to put subregionals in the last sectional weekend. If you put sectionals on the first available weekend and regionals on the second weekend, there's a free weekend between each event in case of weather issues.
I would also be perfectly [fine] with allowing sectionals to be earlier (up to two weeks earlier) in regions with a subregional event. You [might] say this makes the season shorter, but there's an extra UPA series event in there.
This leaves less time for tournaments in the Metro East between spring break and sectionals, sure. But in a sense, this is trading "preseason" for "regular season". Is that a bad thing? If so, why?"
Let alone all of the issues about being given passes through the first round based on last year's performance. People complain about wildcard, can you imagine what they would do if it was related to regionals?
Frankly, I think there would be a little less complaining, for two reasons:
1) It would be a little lower profile. Nationals is the big prize and gets a lot of attention.
2) Rather than getting an extra bid for your region, you would be getting a pass for your team, based solely on your teams' play. Emotionally, I think this is easier for other teams to stomach.
Either way, I would NOT suggest going straight to a system that included direct qualification for subregionals. We should start with just implementing subregionals, and once this is well established, we can start to look at allowing top teams to skip sectionals. I see the "free pass" as a bridge to a separate div 2, while subregionals is crucial for other reasons.
I agree that there are differences between nationals bid and a pass through to a second level tournament.
If you look at the weekend that people chose I think that you would see that most people in the colder states picked weekends later. The main reason for this is weather (or Easter) and they will not be able to hold a sectional tournament the first weekend in March. I realize that this is repeating what I have already said but I am not as good with the links.
I would talk to the Central, NE and ME section coordinators to see what they say about moving their section events up two weeks. They already play them in snow a lot of the time.
I think they typically schedule them later because this reduces the risk of bad weather by an incremental amount. There are no guarantees, though, and the added nastiness incurred by moving sectionals up a week or two is actually not a whole lot. If this year proved anything, it was that.
A quick perusal of the college season reveals plenty of tournaments in the three weeks before sectionals in the northern parts of the country, from Big 10s to Spring Phling to Layout Pigout to Yale Cup. I've played at most of those events, and the weather is generally a crapshoot. Just like it is three weeks later.
And as I said before, even if the schedule is not expanded, you still have room for sectionals-buffer-subregionals-buffer-regionals. So a rained out event can be accounted for.
As someone who ran a Sectional in the NE this year, I have a bit of new perspective.
First, UMassacre, scheduled to be held the last non-sectionals weekend, was canceled for I believe the 5th year in a row. It's been held once, ever. Second, most sectionals in the NE were scheduled for the second sectionals weekend (Yale Cup was on the first sectionals weekend), and all of those were interrupted in the middle by weather, with most of the remaining games played the following weekend. Third, the ENE open *sectionals* was played on the first *regionals* weekend this year, because no fields in the section were playable before then.
So, this year, the NE region was one freak snowstorm away from postponing regionals. As it is, there are very few sites in the region that will host ultimate tournaments in May. There just isn't room in the calendar for any more tournaments if we want everything done 3 weeks before Memorial Day.
Sam, everything you say about weather this year is true. And yet, if the northeast had had to run three tournaments in a five week span, they would have succeeded. Yale Cup went off fine, and, as you correctly point out, it was the first sectional weekend. Subregionals would have been the weekend when most sectionals were, and would have been canceled or postponed in a few cases, but rescheduled and held/completed the weekend before regionals.
So, there you have it. One of the worst years in memory, in terms of canceled series events, and it still could have supported an extra layer. I'm not saying you would never have issues, but this year seems to suggest that even extremely difficult field situations can be worked around as long as we leave an open weekend after each event.
Adam -
That's not quite correct. For some sections (SNE, for example, where Yale is) this would have worked. For ENE, as I said, they were unable to play sectionals until April 28-29, a regionals weekend. If a new tournament had to fit between ENE sectionals and regionals, then regionals would have had to be pushed back at least a week, or ENE would have not been represented.
Also, you're effectively suggesting that no non-series tournaments be played in NE. This year, only one Sunday-at-regionals open team competed at any NE tournaments other than Yale cup. So your plan would drastically change the complexion of the NE ultimate season.
I think the right solution is Div II sectionals and regionals, or perhaps just Div II regionals (along the lines of the NIT). The UPA would need to provide assistance to make this happen, since there would need to be additional coordinators and probably assistance finding field sites. But it would give lots more teams meaningful games, without requiring new weeks in the schedule that we don't have.
This is fascinating.
I’d been taught that left-aligned labels are preferred, to support the prototypical F-shaped eye-tracking heatmap of web browsing. The idea is that it supports easy vertical scanning.
online learning
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