I couldn't agree more with Cath's below e-mail. The level of time and commitment it takes to be involved and train a team is a lot. Her suggestion about a junior rep for every open / adult team is fantastic. I know that when juniors are incorporated into an adult practise or team, or at least feel they are linked to the ultimate community through a larger more experienced team it helps them out a hell of a lot.
It is so true that to increase junior ultimate to a good level which will consistently produce a number of players for Tour A / B and at best GB then the organisation and support base needs to be there. This requires a lot more people involved in this project. Tom Coach - Hippies On The Hill ( National Indoor Champions - average age 15 ) On Cath's points about tournys, this years National Indoor was the 1st since 2001. ( I don't know when the last Outdoor Nationals was before this year ). A Stourbridge team won the event back then as well, yet I know that none of the then juniors currently play Tour A, with the exception of 1. I'm not suggesting that they were good enough individually to progress further than they perhaps have, but I do know that there was virtually no recognition outside of the event. The gap between a good, competitive club junior team and a Uni / Open team is quite large. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Cath Moore Sent: 02 September 2004 16:10 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [BD] The Future of UK ultimate [juniors] 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) ___________________________________________________________ALL-NEW Yahoo! 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