September 25, 2012

• Massive Trumon quote / Trumon Guest Post

  My little brother is 15 years old this year and he’s quite an excellent writer for his age. We both play the same sport, Ultimate, and I thought his take on sportsmanship was articulate and relevant.

  “What does it mean to win?”

  Friday, August 24, 2012

  Back in July, I played in the Canadian Ultimate Championships 2012 regional tournament with my team, Pandamonium. Even though we lost all our games, having savaged (playing with no player substitutes) with 9 people for 6 hours straight on a weekend, it was absolutely thrilling. Excited, I went home to share the news with my best friend, also an Ultimate player. It’s interesting to see how even though we play the same sport with equal passion, our motives are completely different.

  I grew up playing Ultimate with my sister in her high school years, the good generation. For as long as I can remember, I was taught to play with sportsmanship. I was taught to play with integrity, to play your hardest, and to play for the enjoyment of yourself, as well as the opposing team. Win or lose. A good friend of mine, who I’ve been coached by and have played with on many occasions, has said many times what I will always remember. “Everyone gets a chance with the disc on the field”. I never questioned the ethics to sportsmanship or ever thought of any other way of playing a sport. Sadly, I recently realized there are people who play for a completely different philosophy: gamesmanship.

  From wikipedia, sportsmanship “is an aspiration or ethos that a sport or activity will be enjoyed with proper consideration for fairness, ethics, respect, and a sense of fellowship with one’s competitors.”
  “A sore loser refers to one who does take defeat well, whereas a good sport means being a “good winner” as well as being a “good loser”.

  Gamesmanship on the other hand, “is the use of dubious (although not technically illegal) methods to win or gain an advantage in a game or sport. It has been described as ‘Pushing the rules to the limit without getting caught, using whatever dubious methods possible to achieve the desired end’”.

  Taking a little detour here, my sister and my father had a similar dispute a while back. “What does it mean to be efficient?” If I recall correctly, the argument was about the usage of resources in environment and construction projects. Something along those lines, at least. My dad debated that being efficient is to achieve the goal in the shortest amount of time as possible. My sister, in return, said efficiency meant achieving the goal while being as frugal and respectful of the resources and the environment you have. One side argues the end justifies the means, and the other argues the means justifies the end.

  A little more in detail about the argument, in the beginning, we were talking about the other teams and how everyone did and whatnot. At one point, she asked “so who won?”. “you don’t know? What’s the point of a tournament then?”. “But you have to know if they did well or not. If you don’t know the standing you won’t know whether or not their strategies worked, or if their group dynamic worked.” And from there is where I put a foot down. During the time at the tournament, we did meet one team who played quite unfairly. They played dirty, they were disrespectful of our players (we had many new players), or to put it simply, they played by gamesmanship. What really had me furious at this point was her defending gamesmanship. “They huck* because they can. They play with their advantages. They use their strengths.”

  *(Alex’s note: “hucking” in Ultimate is where you score a point in one move using only two players. Instead of passing in between players to work the disc up the field, you simply bypass everyone by making one long pass across the field into the goal. This demonstrates poor sportsmanship because other players won’t get a chance to play. However, that is not to say that hucks are always successful – they can be intercepted. Hucks are more acceptable when the game is about to end and your team is losing.)

  I have a female friend who used to play the cutter position for her high school team (*the person trying to move the disc up the field). What did they teach her to do? Cut horizontally. What does that mean? Move to the side and make way for the guys to do the real cutting. Let the guys handle it, they’ll huck the point. The level of disrespect and disregard for your fellow teammates is unbearable. But hey, they won the game for their team, right? Even if they only used 3 of the 7 people on their team. It’s their strength, so they use it. It’s a no brainer, right?

  • 2:32 pm
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