Hey,
I think most people would agree that promoting and
supporting Junior Ultimate will have a very positive
impact on the future of the sport, but it will take
more than people just talking about it. What is needed
is a lot more volunteers to help get things going.
In terms of introducing Ultimate in schools, it is
easy to say contact schools and provide discs and
information, but most teachers won’t take on anything
new. As Matt suggested, running coaching sessions at
the weekend is a good option, as juniors can be taught
properly by “experts” – but only if these experts can
give up their time to do this. If there are enough
volunteers in every region, then it doesn’t have to be
a chore – if every capable player in the country gave
up one day to help out that would count for a lot of
training.
If we want the sport to be taken up in schools, then
teachers themselves would need training and support,
and one area for focus may be specialist sports
colleges, as they should have the funding, and indeed
the requirement, to introduce new sports to the
school. Another area for possible development is
through guides and scouts. I attended a Guides
sporting event over summer, where groups of girls
tried out a number of sports, including ultimate, and
every leader expressed an interest in introducing
ultimate to their group, but would need support from a
local team to get them started, to drop in now and
again to coach, and perhaps more importantly, to
encourage promising players to attend local geo team
practices and get to tournaments.
Junior ultimate is basically supported by a few
individuals who already have a lot on their plate.
Anyone who coaches a junior team will find it takes up
a fair chunk of time, and then to get the team to
tournaments is always a challenge – to arrange
transport and accommodation, consent forms from
parents, money etc etc. If it is a junior tournament
then this isn’t too bad, but for a team that wants to
play more than 1 or 2 tournaments a year (and there
were a couple years without a single junior tourney),
then it becomes a nightmare. An option would be to
organise mini-tournaments for local teams over 1 day,
to avoid the problems of accommodation. For example,
if a couple of junior teams from a region could play a
“friendly” match and in addition have a skills
coaching session from the local geo team. Any help
from adult teams in such events would I'm sure be very
appreciated.
What I would like to see is for every adult team in
the country have a junior rep, who can be contacted by
existing junior teams, local schools and guide/scout
groups. I realise this may well be an unpopular idea,
but it would mean that juniors would be able to watch
good quality ultimate being played and hopefully have
the opportunity to attend training if good enough, and
that the team or a few keen players could provide
occasional training where needed, or any other kind of
support. I know that the players on my school team
have benefited from being able to attend Phat Eds
training, and having Dave Sealy play with them at Mix
and Mingle meant a lot to them, bringing the average
height up by about a foot.
One last problem: raising the profile of ultimate
amongst young people is very reliant on raising its
profile overall in the media. Pupils at my school
won’t come to practices because they are scared of
getting teased – ultimate is not seen as cool, but the
more media coverage we can get, and possibly
exhibition games at schools by ultimate players, then
the better the take up will be.
It is clear that all this will require commitment on
the part of a number of players, and sadly many people
simply won’t give up their time for free, but it will
be worth it. GB Junior Women this year were made up of
approximately 95% of the eligible women who play in
the country. The US squad were selected from 300 high
school and college women’s teams! No surprise we lost
that game…
Catherine Moore
(Chunky Crayons
GB Junior Women coach)
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