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Date: 08 Oct 98 13:30:52 +0100
From: Jonathan Schofield <jonathan.schofield@designmotive.co.uk>
Subject: Spirited
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Jon,
You wrote,
"Spirit is something that seems to be lacking in the higher positions: spirit changes from being "playing to enjoy the game" to "not getting arsey when someone calls a foul on you". "
and ended your mail,
"Where is your spirit 'top' teams??????"
I'm not going to enter in to the whole tour structure argument, but I do have to comment on the above. In your mails to date you seem to be implying:
1) That the top teams are lacking in spirit because they want to impose their wishes upon the rest of the Ultimate playing community. To this I would point out that there must be somewhere in the region of 100 individuals playing for the top eight teams, but so far I have only seen between 5 and 10 individuals from these teams posting comments on the issue of the tour structure PLEASE DON'T assume that these few individuals speak for the whole of their teams!
2) As I understand it, the core idea of "the Spirit of the Game" is more closely expressed in "not getting arsey when someone calls a foul on you", as you put it, rather than "playing to enjoy the game". You can, after all, play ANY game just for the enjoyment of it. The whole point of "the Spirit of the Game" is to play in a sportsmanlike manner - to make reasonable infringement calls as defined by the rules, and to respect the calls of others when they make them. One of the interesting things that I think has resulted from the Tour over the last couple of years is that individuals' Spirit is thrown into the spotlight - it is far harder to remain sportsmanlike in a hotly contested match than in a match where the outcome is a foregone conclusion.
Over the years I have heard many people express the opinion that the top teams lack Spirit. Your comments so far are somewhat ambiguous on this issue - please confirm Jon that you don't subscribe to this opinion as I find it objectionable. There are many, many players on the "top teams" who I regard not only as good athletes, but also good sportsmen in the heat of competition. I was unable to stick around at Nationals to watch the Final, but from what I have heard, it was a highly competitive AND very sportsmanlike match
Jonathan
Formerly ShotGONE
Now Catch 22