Ambush, NC State, and the UPA's quest for legitimacy

The latest controversy regarding Series eligibility and the UPA's new rostering rules surrounds Ambush, the NYC-based womens team that took the fourth bid to Nationals out of the Northeast Region. One player was inadvertently left off of the roster for Sectionals and included on the additional roster filled out for the Nationals program. The UPA acknowledged that it was a "clerical error" on behalf of one of Ambush's captains, and they declared that both the ineligible player and the captain in charge of rostering would not be allowed to play at Nationals.

The Championship Committee's decision spurred a furious email campaign and RSD discussion about whether or not the UPA's decision was "fair." Having seen Ambush practice at Prospect Park this summer and having watched some of their games at Boston Invite, I felt some pride when they qualified for Nationals over RRI-favored Storm. I recognize the difficulty of having a competitive team based in NYC and the lengths that a lot of the players went to in order to play this season and qualify for Nationals. I even got an invitation to their Girl Scouts Gone Wild fundraising party.

Last spring, NC State was one day late with its college rosters, due to the slow processing of the university registrar's office. My co-captain from high school and longtime teammate was on that team. He and his teammates cursed Will Deaver to high heaven and also appealed to the masses. NC State did not get to compete in the Series at all, minus a captain or not. There were stories circulating around RSD that one coach flew his team's roster into UPA headquarters personally in order to guarantee that it was received in time.

In all likelihood, had Ambush been "found out" at Sectionals, Regionals, or shortly thereafter, they would have been completely disqualified from the Series. The precedent has been set in the past, especially in college - UCSB in 2004 comes to mind. But with Nationals on a few days away, there is no way that Storm could have assembled their players and bought plane tickets to Sarasota in time. At the UPA Club Championships, an awkward 15-team format would have ruined their showcase event, specially designed to sprawl out over four days with 16 teams, along with making 16 players eat their plane tickets and reservations had they chosen to stay home instead of watch.

Instead, the UPA decided to suspend the two people who were most directly "responsible" for the situation - the player who was not on the roster and the captain in charge of rostering. There was absolutely no way that the UPA could allow a player who was not on the Sectionals and Regionals roster play at Nationals without being extremely hypocritical and inconsistent. In effect, Ambush would benefit by breaking the rules. And in order to discourage this from happening in the future, the UPA could not just stop there. If the message were sent that teams could play with unrostered players until they were caught, with no further repercussions, the UPA could not be taken seriously as a legitimate governing body for the sport. So they also DQ'ed the player responsible for making sure that everyone was supposed to be on the roster - not an unreasonable decision in my opinion, especially considering there was a precedent set for complete disqualification from Nationals.

As the UPA tries to set firmer roster guidelines and legitimize ultimate, it starts to move towards the realm of other amateur sport governing bodies, such as the NCAA. In 2006, after a former Ohio State assistant basketball coach accepted a head coaching job at Wright State, the NCAA declared that he would be prohibited from recruiting for 18 months because his former coach gave $6000 to an eventually ineligible foreign recruit. USADA is notorious for imposing suspensions on athletes despite their claims of not knowing anything about the seemingly innocent supplements or vitamins they've taken.

The important thing is that all of these rules are laid out in advance. There are deadlines in place for rostering, and if a team submits no roster or an incomplete roster, then the team cannot play or must play shorthanded. It is the responsibility of the captains and/or coaches to make sure that every player is accounted for, and if not, either petition the UPA for an exemption before play starts, or prohibit the excluded player(s) from participating in the Series in order to spare the entire team a disqualification. Yes, this sucks. Yes, I want Ambush to be full-strength at Nationals. But they screwed up, and now they have to play undermanned. I absolutely wanted Stephen and NC State to have a chance to qualify for Nationals and play against each other in Columbus. But if their late roster were accepted, then the UPA's legitimacy is tarnished. Hopefully every other team learns from this, and the situations will never come up again.