Balls

Jarret Bowen lays out for the disc at UNC-Wilmington in October, 2007. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Speaking strictly in the metaphorical sense, of course.

During the last game of Ultimate that I played, I discovered something. Sometimes, it can be incredibly important to have some balls, and stand by what you think. You can’t be ashamed of what you want to say. In Ultimate, everything is self-officiated. And for the most part, this works well. Players call their own fouls and violations, and life is good. Usually.

However, in this particular game, it seemed that the other team just didn’t know the rules at all. And at first, we weren’t willing to call them out on this. They kept breaking rules, and we just kept letting them do it. Finally, I realized that this was no way to play a game at all. I began to call them on their violations.

At first, they seemed slightly confused when I was constantly calling “Travel” on them, especially on their best thrower. This soon escalated to all out anger, and I became the most hated person on the field. Regardless of this, it still worked. We forced them to be accountable and to actually follow the rules.

All of this was accomplished because I was actually willing to hold my ground and explain to them that they were wrong. Had I not been willing to defend my position, they would have continued to walk all over us. Because I wasn’t afraid of saying something and speaking my mind, the entire game changed.

This type of mentality is true, not just for when playing Ultimate. In our day to day lives, we all have a lot of things that we believe, things that we think, and things that we want to say: “I think that’s a bad idea”, “You look really nice”, “I love you”.

But if we keep them to ourselves, nothing will be accomplished. I realized, after that day, that I should be free to speak my mind. Even if I am worried about what people think, that shouldn’t dictate 100% what I say. Because, in most cases, it is worse to say nothing at all.

Related articles

• Team Sports (boilingpenguin.wordpress.com)
• Disk Jockeys find ‘Spirit of the Game’ in Ultimate Frisbee (kicksmag.com)

Team Sports

Some of the most frustrating things that I’ve encountered in my life have been while I was playing Ultimate. While a lot of your team’s success does depend on your ability to perform as an individual, even more of it actually depends on the team’s ability to work together.

If the person marking the thrower doesn’t do his job properly, and gets broken, then the entire defense downfield is screwed over.

Which is what one of the most frustrating things ever is – being screwed over by something that you had no control over.

 

Welcome to the real world, bitches.