One of the things I will say from the beginning, and I hope its stressed throughout the post, is that I find SOTG extremely important. Especially in the development of the sport, I think that SOTG is a crucial and critical part of the game. For the most part I think that most people will agree with those statements. However, I think each person has a slightly different view of what SOTG actually is.
I find that too many times, more so in the women's college division, SOTG is a synonym for "being nice". I really don't like that idea. You can still not have the best spirit but be nice about it. Being nice is an added bonus that will add to the overall 'feel' of the game, but it doesn't necessarily constitute spirit. By all means I think being nice is awesome and I love when teams are nice. But being nice doesn't necessarily mean you have great spirit. Last year we played a team at Centex and lost miserably 2-13. Obviously we could not score and we didn't play well against this team. After the game, the team came over and sang us a song with one of the lyrics being "we couldn't stop your hucks, your defense was great". Clearly, those were wrong. They DID stop our hucks and our defense COULDN'T stop them. While this team may have been going for the 'nice' factor, I was not happy with this at all. It was just another way to reopen that wound. I had a bad feeling in my gut after being blown out by a team and when they sang lyrics that were obviously not true, I just honestly wanted to walk away.
Having good spirit is making the right calls. So when a girl travels for the fifth time in a point each time she hucks it, calling that travel each time is correct and spirited. What I don't consider spirited is when you are winning 13-1 against a developing team and you call a travel on a girl who took a TEENY tiny step that gained her no advantage. Instead, I like to go up to her after the point and let her know she was travelling.
Sometimes when a team makes a lot of calls, their opponent will deem them as unspirited. I hate this idea. Making the right calls is spirited (see previous paragraph). It is up to us as players to make calls since we don't have refs that will call fouls and violations. That is what spirit is about. You shouldn't not make a call because "you feel bad" during a competitive game. Make a call and stick to it. SOTG is there to encourage good and fair play.
I would say about 99.99% of this post relates to college women's ultimate. I don't necessarily see that is the college open division or the club women's division.
*One side note. There have been a few girls I've played against who make the right calls but do so in an ugly manner. What I mean by that is snapping at the other team when explaining the rule. You may be right, but there is no reason to do so in a mean or smart-ass tone. Just explain yourself in a respectable voice. That is all I'm asking for.
I've reread this post a few times and I really hope I'm not coming across as an asshole. I like SOTG. I think games should be played in a spirited way. I just really don't like when teams aren't spirited or don't necessarily know what spirit is. You may disagree with my post but each person is entitled to his/her own opinion. And since this is my blog, you are going to be reading my opinion.
Last year my team was ranked last in the spirit rankings at Natties. Since I was a captain, I definitely was a little bummed about it because this was MY team. Who knows exactly why we got that but I really hope it wasn't because of our calls. We have girls who are not afraid to make calls and sometimes (like I said earlier) it is deemed as unspirited. I'm definitely hoping for a better spirit ranking this year if we make it to Natties - although since we were at the bottom, we can only go up...
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