[TFDA] Spring league format debate

Thomas Wicker thomas.a.wicker at gmail.com
Thu Feb 21 14:48:01 EST 2008


Hi, all,

(quick first notes:
1. Garrett - I've forwarded your piece to Carrboro Ulti and Forest Hills;
I'm assuming Zen folks are on TFDA, but that may be a too-broad assumption;
feel free to forward to Zen as well
2. I'm stripping out the quoted text just to keep this short; we're quite
rightly waxing philosopic, and it's going to get a bit long for folks, I'm
guession)

With that taken care of ...

I'll start by saying that, like Res, I'm figuring we try it out for a season
and see what people think. Unlike some of the other discussion, though, I
have my doubts about the system, mainly for the potential exacerbation of
cliquishness and what that means for developing beginner and lower-level
players.

Again: I'm willing to try it out for a season or two; I'm just taking a
wait-and-see attitude.

Coming in to Summer League 2006 as a beginner, I liked the fact that it was
a random squad, and I've enjoyed that aspect ever since. Sure, captains pick
their more-favored people, esp. when the folks who step up as captain
actually know the local players. But even then, people get distributed
about: no captain will sit back and let all the players from a single club
get onto a single team, mainly because they tend to be good players. Thus,
the clubs get distributed about -- and folks like me end up knowing Ring,
Backhoe, Sweet T, Los, Olio, etc. players.

As Mike pointed out, this can come with drawbacks: you can get put on a team
with someone you really don't like. If there was such a person that I didn't
like, I'd probably put that in my info section so that the captains could
take that into account (I believe this is already being done by some
players). But that danger is relatively low, no matter what.

Garrett paraphrases SNL and suggests that non-cores get to know the cores.
As I'm an introvert, I'll point out that, for those of us who are shy by
nature, it's easier said than done when there's an obvious bonded group
we're trying to penetrate. Also, human nature is to associate with those you
already know you like -- meaning the core group is likely to keep
associating with itself, not from any malevolent intent, but because we, as
humans, tend to enjoy talking to our friends (go figure).

So my ambivalence is probably as much because I'm not a club player and I'm
not a natural extrovert, thus I'm having more concern than some might. That
said, I'm definitely willing to give it a chance - and to try to keep
whatever team I'm on from being cliquish. Hopefully, now that Dusty has
prompted this discussion, everyone can make sure we work to include the
folks from outside our in-groups.

Dusty: many, many thanks for bringing up this topic.

yrs,
twicker
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