try to focus
i drove to and from vegas this past weekend (nearly 6 hours each way) with an ex-teammate who now plies his trade in the mixed division. as we were discussing things i realized that my posts cover way to much ground and that i should try to focus them a little more, or else i'll have touched on, but not discussed, nearly everything i think about in ultimate.
so one small thing that we talked about was how ultimate would be difficult to referree. one classic example was from the finals of worlds in finland two summers ago. one of our teammates went up for a deep huck and the disc wound up bouncing off his hand. he called foul. the crowd was incensed and let him know it. our opponents, even the guy that he called the foul on, also seemed pretty upset. his claim was that he got hit in the face as he was making the catch. upon watching the video, it becomes more clear that he did get hit in the face, but the only thing the crowd sees is that he seemed to drop the disc and this call was a make-up for his mistake.
one of the advantages of self-officiating is that you can't really get away with anything because the person who was wronged will call it. so maybe people should be thinking about ways they can foul where the person won't realize they are being fouled.
one thing that a lot of top players get away with is that when they go up for a high ball in a one-on-one situation, the off hand can find it's way on their opponents hip. this subtle move keeps the opponent from jumping so high, and also gives the offender a bit of a boost. yet because it is hard to realize what's happening below your shoulders when you're going up, it is frequently not called. i called this once at a very crucial point in a pre-season tourney against another top team, and the other team was irate, but my opponent had clearly gained an advantage by pushing down on me. i felt it was a good call, and a teammate of mine who had alerted me to this years before said it was a clear example of that move, making me feel quite justified (which is what it's really all about, right?).
back to my point, both of these are examples of calls which would be very difficult for observers to make as they're watching the disc come in to see if there's a foul on the hand or if a strip occurs or something like that. of course, hitting your opponent in the face (i believe this incident was an accident) is much less subtle than a hand on the hip.
so one small thing that we talked about was how ultimate would be difficult to referree. one classic example was from the finals of worlds in finland two summers ago. one of our teammates went up for a deep huck and the disc wound up bouncing off his hand. he called foul. the crowd was incensed and let him know it. our opponents, even the guy that he called the foul on, also seemed pretty upset. his claim was that he got hit in the face as he was making the catch. upon watching the video, it becomes more clear that he did get hit in the face, but the only thing the crowd sees is that he seemed to drop the disc and this call was a make-up for his mistake.
one of the advantages of self-officiating is that you can't really get away with anything because the person who was wronged will call it. so maybe people should be thinking about ways they can foul where the person won't realize they are being fouled.
one thing that a lot of top players get away with is that when they go up for a high ball in a one-on-one situation, the off hand can find it's way on their opponents hip. this subtle move keeps the opponent from jumping so high, and also gives the offender a bit of a boost. yet because it is hard to realize what's happening below your shoulders when you're going up, it is frequently not called. i called this once at a very crucial point in a pre-season tourney against another top team, and the other team was irate, but my opponent had clearly gained an advantage by pushing down on me. i felt it was a good call, and a teammate of mine who had alerted me to this years before said it was a clear example of that move, making me feel quite justified (which is what it's really all about, right?).
back to my point, both of these are examples of calls which would be very difficult for observers to make as they're watching the disc come in to see if there's a foul on the hand or if a strip occurs or something like that. of course, hitting your opponent in the face (i believe this incident was an accident) is much less subtle than a hand on the hip.
posted by greg at
9:49 AM
7 Comments:
The off-hand on the hip foul happens a lot in football as well. In your opinion, how much better are professional football referees at spotting this than casual bystanders?
By
Edward Lee, at 12/21/2005 11:04 AM
I wouldn't use crowd reaction as an indicator of the difficulty of making calls. To the crowd, all calls or contests are bad ones.
Refs (and even Observers) do not watch a game the same way that a fan does. You watch specifically for contact during the jump, you put yourself on the line and watch feet while keeping an eye on the disc with your peripheral vision, etc.
By
parinella, at 12/21/2005 12:11 PM
The off-hand on the hip foul happens a lot in football as well. In your opinion, how much better are professional football referees at spotting this than casual bystanders?
i'm constantly amazed at how often referees will make a call on something that i totally missed the first time through but catch on replay. i guess i notice this the most in basketball. i think a lot of the pass interference rules in football give too much advantage to the offense, so i guess i think the football refs let the receiver get away with too much.
as to jim's comments...yes, the crowd is usually lame in those situations. my feelings for the crowd, and the majority of the ultimate community, are a topic for a number of other posts. but i agree that their perception is generally not all that informed. i think that TRAINED refs could actually do a good job of reffing (catching the type of calls i mention), but it would take doing more than one or two tourneys each year to make them adequately trained. it is a difficult job, and i'm not sure i want to pay $200/person to play at nationals. having played in the NUA experiment, and the subsequent experiment at santa cruz (whatever year that was...1997?) i can say that it is very liberating to play with refs. there would be a number of positive effect if the sport were to go that way, but i'm not sure the observers are ready yet.
By
greg, at 12/21/2005 12:25 PM
but i'm not sure the observers are ready yet.
I agree that observers need more training and practice to really show the full potential of the system. However, club teams do themselves a disservice when they force the observers to stay off the field. Allowing observers to be in position to see the unobvious play would go a long way in helping them make the correct calls.
I know there is a different pool of observers to pull from for college and club nationals, but the way the observer system has been implemented in college has been working well.
By
Gambler, at 12/21/2005 12:35 PM
There's a pretty huge spread in skill of professional referees in all sports. Some NBA refs can't control the game; some NFL crews will let tons of holding calls go; some umpires have terribly inaccurate strike zones. I mention this not as an indictment of these leagues, but to point out that good refereeing is hard in all sports.
One of the keys I've found is that you have to constantly remind yourself of your assignment. We're all accustomed to watching the disc, which is exactly wrong. When tracking two players going for a huck, for instance, you have to watch their bodies the whole way, and only look up at their hands at the last moment.
The best thing about having observers is that it keeps the calls under control. You have a positive impact on the game simply because people avoid making terrible calls.
By
Tarr, at 12/21/2005 12:38 PM
Gambler said:
the way the observer system has been implemented in college has been working well.
I disagree. I think that the current system for college is good in theory, but its implementation is extremely flawed. Right now there are too many stoppages, and way too many calls sent to observers. The system allows for the use of TMFs to control the behavior of the players on the field, but it's currently ignored by observers.
TMFs should be handed out for eggregious fouls,reckless play, or consistent fouling. But they're not. They also should be handed out for consistently making calls that get overturned by an observer, and for sending calls too many calls to an observer. Most observers haven't even considered giving TMFs for this.
Over the past few years, I've seen more warnings to give TMFs than actual TMFs. This is funny, once you note that the first 2 TMFs _are_ warnings. They have no effect on the game, but giving them out would clean up the action on the field quickly. Especially for many of the younger participants that are still learning about their responsibilities and obligations in a self officiated game.
Warning without possible repercutions is like yelling at your child to 'Stop doing that!", without turning your head from the television. The first few times you might get a response, but eventually the child learns to ignore you. This year at nationals, one of our opponents, whenever one of their defenders was called for a foul, yelled to the player 'Nothing to lose." The intent it obvious, he's telling his teammate to send the call to the observer, without cosidering his guilt or innocence. The worst that can happen is that the disc goes back to the offense.
As another example, in the quarters in 2004, we had 6 (of 15) goals where a travel was called, and overturned by an observer. After 2 or 3, there should have been a TMF, and I think the bad calls would have stopped.
I think we need the self officiating to catch the obscured fouls and we need the observers to help mediate calls, as well as moderate the way calls are resolved.
By
Bob Krier, at 12/21/2005 2:04 PM
Gambler: As someone who observed club nationals this year, the only times I was asked not to be on the field (or saw any other observers working from the sidelines) was in women's games. Men's and mixed teams seem to be much more accepting of on-field observers.
Also, attempting to observe from off the field is much harder, and resulted, for me, in plenty of calls that went to me that I couldn't rule on, because the action was too far away.
By
Sam Tobin-Hochstadt, at 12/22/2005 12:38 PM
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