From: jpj@hutcs.cs.hut.fi (Juha Jalovaara)
Subject: Re: FCU! ICU! -- What does this mean???
Followup-To: rec.sport.disc
Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 09:56:19 GMT

In article <QeNLrki00WBO81blIO@andrew.cmu.edu> Jeffrey Hrkach <jh00+@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:

>to do.  In my eyes, their is one main purpose for this cheer, and maybe
>one minor one.  The major one is for NY to psyche themselves up, and
>this cheer works very well for them.  The potential minor point is
>intimidation.  One may say that their is no place for intimidation in
>ultimate, but when your at the top level of anything, whether it be
>sports or a profession, intimidation is a part of the game (in my
>opinion).  This point could be a whole other thread, however.  Back to

I would like to pick up this thread for a second.  I think you are right
in a sense: psychology is important in sports and making the opposition
doubt their own abilities is often part of a victorious campaign.  I would
like to point out, however, that in many sports such as tennis, badminton,
and even many martial arts, this intimidation can be and is done on purely
the level of the game/sport.  I think we should try and give more kudos
in the Ultimate community to victors who emerge without bullying their
opposition and sometimes even (hard as it may be) showing their respect
to the losers.  On the other hand, we should give credit to the losers
who lose gracefully without losing their composure, although winning
might be the only thing for them.  I grant you that the level of play
in American Ultimate is on a totally different level than in Europe and
to achieve this level must have required more determination and mental
psyche than we have yet put into the sport.  But it would make Ultimate
all the more elegant and attractive, if we could strip away the nasty
side effects such as taunting the opposition etc.  I mean, what is more
appealing to the audience (= other players, also) than a winner who
performs well and does it in the style of a true sportsman.


>    BUT, as was stated earlier, every team, no matter what level they
>are on, has nice players and nasty players.  Yes, it is easy to point
>fingers at NY as all being a bunch of jerks, because 1) they are the
>best team in the world and 2)they get so much exposure.  At every big
>tourney, you're gonna see NY beating (oops, I mean playing) whoever in
>the finals.  This is the game that most people will watch, and being the
>championship, it will be the most competitive game for the players. So,
>everybody has at least one story when they saw kenny do this, or pat
>king spike on someone (i.e. me at fools 2 years ago :)) and NY's bad rep
>grows.  Now you could say that if they didn't do anything, there
>wouldn't be a bad rep at all.  That's true, but unfortunately its not
>the case.

From playing with New York at Boulder and knowing many of the players on
the team for quite a few years now, I must second your view.  I think there
are a lot of "nice guys" on the New York team also and if I were to name
a few they would include Walter Vanderschaff, Dan Weiss, Amos Himmelstein,
and Dave Blau among others.  These guys all know the true meaning of the
SOTG and I believe that New York sometimes gets a bad rap, not because they
make bad calls, but because they know the rules and game so well that they
will not let their opponents take anything from them.

I have watched the Toronto final game on video a few times (5) now, and
from looking at the slow motion I have been able to pick only one bad call
made by the New York team.  This ended up being overruled by an observer.
On the other hand, at the end of the game Mike Nevins lets a foul call
slide, because the play made by the defender was athletically so awesome
(but still a foul).  And early in the game the observer system turns out
to be fallible as a Boston score is mitigated by an observer OB call, when
slow motion shows that the catch was made clearly (at least 3 frames) before
the foot left the ground and the receiver crashed OB.

>stepping down from his high horse,
>
>jeff

off my soapbox, also

-- Juha