ultimate time
i was pretty sure ultimate time had been removed from the sport. it was probably on it's way out in my early playing days (mid-late 90's), but there were still remnants. like the first round of a tournament would be 15-30 minutes longer than the other rounds to account for the fact that they would be started a little later than the schedule said. well, at the davis tournament we ran into it, and it was rather perplexing. here's the scoop...
sunday morning, quarterfinals. we're supposed to play a team that finished 4th in their pool the day before. the team is one of those composed of decent players, with maybe even a few really good players (especially one who i battled with in college a bunch), but they probably don't practice and are really out there just to have a good time and try to have a few memorable moments over the course of the weekend.
condors do our typical warmup and as game time is approaching we notice that there's no opponent. well, it gets to 9am and one guy from their team sheepishly walks over to say he's the only one at the fields. poor guy. he thinks the rest of his team will show up, but they all live in the bay and have families and may have to mow their lawns or something on sunday. so he's not quite sure any of them will even make it. oh, wait...here comes one guy...nope it's two.
a few more minutes pass. i'm looking in my handy 10th edition to see what the formal rules are on assessing points. low-and-behold, i don't think that rule is codified, and it must just be a thing that is written at nationals. bummer. but if i didn't know that, i'm sure these guys didn't either. another car pulls up...maybe that's 6...no, one more running in from the parking lot.
the nice co-captain goes over to them to arrange for the start of the game. it's probably about 10 past nine, maybe even a quarter past. he comes back to tell us we'll start in 5 minutes. "how many points are we assessing?" i ask. turns out the nicer co-captain didn't bring this up. we'll iron this out. i approach and it goes something like this...
me: hey guys, so it's well after 9, and in fact, at 9 you only had 1 guy here, so i think we're going to assess points.
nice guy 1: well, we were at the other field, and the TD told us we played over there
me: really? because that's not in any schedule that was ever distributed, posted or discussed anywhere. why would you be at the other fields? and why wouldn't you tell this one guy who was here waiting for you?
nice guy 2: i really don't think you guys need points. and we just want to have a fun game with you all. and that's not cool. and it doesn't really seem right, you know, because, well...we're nice and all, and i'm smiling but inside i'm actually a little hurt that you would feel the need to assess points, especially since nobody on this team has ever scored more than 7 points against the condors in our lives.
okay, maybe i exaggerated that last part a little bit. but these guys were incredulous at the suggestion of penalizing them for having one person at the fields at the designated start time. furthermore, to have the gall to suggest that they just want to play against us seemed insincere at best given that they didn't really feel like playing that game at the designated time.
in the end we assessed zero points, more because i couldn't find it in the rules than because it was the 'right' thing to do. the threat of points maybe served to get them on the line a little quicker than they would have without that looming, but it probably didn't. the good news is that they can all continue to say they've never scored more than 7 against the condors.
sunday morning, quarterfinals. we're supposed to play a team that finished 4th in their pool the day before. the team is one of those composed of decent players, with maybe even a few really good players (especially one who i battled with in college a bunch), but they probably don't practice and are really out there just to have a good time and try to have a few memorable moments over the course of the weekend.
condors do our typical warmup and as game time is approaching we notice that there's no opponent. well, it gets to 9am and one guy from their team sheepishly walks over to say he's the only one at the fields. poor guy. he thinks the rest of his team will show up, but they all live in the bay and have families and may have to mow their lawns or something on sunday. so he's not quite sure any of them will even make it. oh, wait...here comes one guy...nope it's two.
a few more minutes pass. i'm looking in my handy 10th edition to see what the formal rules are on assessing points. low-and-behold, i don't think that rule is codified, and it must just be a thing that is written at nationals. bummer. but if i didn't know that, i'm sure these guys didn't either. another car pulls up...maybe that's 6...no, one more running in from the parking lot.
the nice co-captain goes over to them to arrange for the start of the game. it's probably about 10 past nine, maybe even a quarter past. he comes back to tell us we'll start in 5 minutes. "how many points are we assessing?" i ask. turns out the nicer co-captain didn't bring this up. we'll iron this out. i approach and it goes something like this...
me: hey guys, so it's well after 9, and in fact, at 9 you only had 1 guy here, so i think we're going to assess points.
nice guy 1: well, we were at the other field, and the TD told us we played over there
me: really? because that's not in any schedule that was ever distributed, posted or discussed anywhere. why would you be at the other fields? and why wouldn't you tell this one guy who was here waiting for you?
nice guy 2: i really don't think you guys need points. and we just want to have a fun game with you all. and that's not cool. and it doesn't really seem right, you know, because, well...we're nice and all, and i'm smiling but inside i'm actually a little hurt that you would feel the need to assess points, especially since nobody on this team has ever scored more than 7 points against the condors in our lives.
okay, maybe i exaggerated that last part a little bit. but these guys were incredulous at the suggestion of penalizing them for having one person at the fields at the designated start time. furthermore, to have the gall to suggest that they just want to play against us seemed insincere at best given that they didn't really feel like playing that game at the designated time.
in the end we assessed zero points, more because i couldn't find it in the rules than because it was the 'right' thing to do. the threat of points maybe served to get them on the line a little quicker than they would have without that looming, but it probably didn't. the good news is that they can all continue to say they've never scored more than 7 against the condors.
posted by greg at
10:30 AM
5 Comments:
Rules Guy - 1
Greg - 0
You might want to save a roster spot for a rules guy for Condors 2006.
By
Anonymous, at 4/28/2006 2:25 PM
damn! i wonder if that's in the pocket version that they gave out to all nationals participants a few years back. for the life of me i couldn't find it.
as an aside, i think we do have a need for a rules guy, now that our resident expert, who actually helped write the rules (or at least is listed as a contributor) is waffling on playing. he was also our team scorekeeper.
By
greg, at 4/28/2006 4:24 PM
I don't have my rulebook with me, but doesn't it also say that after 7-0 (35 minutes of assessing) that it is a forfeit?
-George
By
gcooke, at 4/28/2006 4:32 PM
George -
I don't think that there's such a rule, and searching the rules didn't turn one up. In fact, at Metro Boston Women's Sectionals, BC was assessed 7 points on Sunday against Tufts-B for being late, and did not forfeit the game.
sam th
By
Sam Tobin-Hochstadt, at 4/29/2006 5:24 AM
At College Terminus in 04, Yale agreed to play us (Minnesota) at 7:00 a.m. on Sunday morning for a play-in to the top 16 bracket. We were warmed up and ready to play by 6:55, despite our 45 minute drive to the fields in the morning. Yale first pulled up to the fields at 7:00. When they walked onto the fields at 7:05, we told them we were going to start assessing if they didn't get on the field right way, since it was in fact their idea to play at 7:00 a.m. We received the same incredulous "you're a bunch of jerks" response. In the end, similar to your story, we assessed no points, but our margin of victory was a slim 2 points.
By
Coach Lou, at 5/01/2006 2:25 AM
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