University / College Ultimate Comparisons

Last weekend UK Open University Nationals took place in York. My team, Thrown (King's College London) were competing in the second division. To my dismay I couldn't play due to this shitty shoulder injury. However the team did fine (if not better) without me, finishing a respectable 8th, or 24th overall in the UK (a report by our very able president, Adnan can be found here http://www.thrownultimate.com/uno2008/) . The eventual champions were Cardiff 'No Frills' who beat Cambridge 'Strange Blue' in the final.

Thrown at UK Uni Nationals (Courtesy of Eric Dahl aka Fingers)

Most seasons we (Thrown) are lucky enough to get a couple of US college players over on exchange programs. This year was no exception and our two star additions, Eric and Jesse really embraced the club and helped out no end. One of things I'm always asking them is: "How do the good British teams compare with the US teams?". The feeling I get from the replies is that the British teams would probably do alright at regionals but would not be good enough to qualify for nationals. I suppose this isn't all that surprising considering the quality of UK ultimate in general.
But I do think that university / college ultimate could prove to be an area where British teams could raise their games and provide a level of ultimate closer to that of their American counterparts. Essentially the pool of talent available to a Uni team in the UK is comparable to that of a College team in the states. Therefore a uni with a really good program could, with a little bit of luck, potentially produce a US nationals standard side. From what I've heard some of the Japanese Uni teams are playing at a decent level too (taking several points of Sockeye at Dream cup is quite an achievement).
Obviously there are other factors to take into consideration: previous playing experience is a big one; There are about 15 British secondary schools with ultimate teams compared with a huge number of American high schools. Publicity / popularity is another factor; In the the UK virtually no one out-side of University and the ultimate scene itself actually knows what ultimate is. Obviously this can be a massive problem when recruiting players for teams.
I would love to see the UKUA and the UK ultimate community put more emphasis on the Uni scene. University ultimate get quite a lot of stick about how rubbish it is in the UK - It seems pretty self destructive if you ask me. University is the place where most people start playing, it is the future of the sport! Hopefully over the coming years some UK programmes will really get there acts together. It would be fantastic to see a UK Uni team play at one of the big US college tournaments like Centex and do well.

Thrown set off for another point at natties (Once again courtesy of Eric Dahl)

Ultimate Blogging and Tour 3

Okay, so I'm in the middle of my exams and thought I'd waste a bit of time setting up a blog. There are some really great ultimate blogs out there, and with ultimate being one of my primary focuses in life I thought it might be fun to have a go myself.

Being based in the UK, I suppose I'll mainly be blogging on topics relating to UK ultimate. Although I may explore my ignorance of ultimate scenes further afield, ie North America.

Right now tour 3 is taking place in Mansfield, and believe it or not the weather is fine! Unfortunately I'm unable to partake in this rare event, being stuck at home with a gamee shoulder and a Protein Structure and Function text book.
Once again this year the UK Open tour is quite tight at the top. But once again Clapham, the European champs do seem to have a fairly good edge over the competition. After an exciting clapham-less final at T1 the status-quo was resumed at T2 where a full strength Clapham 1 side pretty much rolled over Chevron in the final. Clapham have also done a pretty good job of securing future talent this season, hoovering up a host of young players from London, former BUF (Oxford Brooks uni) star Justin is a prime example. With a decent development program and consistent results, how long this dominance will continue I don't know, but I have a feeling that a changing of the guard would usher in a new chapter in UK ultimate. From a competitive ultimate fans point of view I'd like to see it all get mixed up, with more strength and depth overall!

My predictions for this weekend: Iceni will dominate Womens tour again, I doubt their blip at T1 will be repeated this year. Fire 2 will probably win B tour and complete their bouncy castle tour season. And Clapham 1 will wrap up a dominant T3 with a win over Fire 1 in the final (although I would great to see Fusion make resurgence).

Not groundbreaking stuff, but its a start. Hopefully I'll have some better insights when I next decide to ramble.