Illinois Men's Ultimate
Cole Richter
(crichter@uiuc.edu)
(ready to use)
Coauthors
EXPLORE
About the ethnographer
My name is Cole Richter, I am a freshmen. I have been playing ultimate frisbee since my freshmen year in high school, when i fell in love with the game. I chose to inquire about ultimate frisbee becuase it is my main activity at UofI. |
Unit Keywords
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kw ultimate, kw frisbee, kw disc |
Partner Projects
| Ethnography of the University |
INQUIRE
Rationale of the Unit
What subculture have you chosen to research and why? What do you know about this group and what do you want to know? List your intial research questions.
The subculture that i have chosen to research is the Men's Ultimate frisbee team. One reason i am researching this topic is because of my love for the sport. The other reason is so that I can find out if other people share this love. Currently I am in a position where I know both very much and very little about ultimate. I know much because I know all of the rules and how to do all of the throws that are normally involved in game play, and also a few that are not used in game situations. I have also been playing the game for about four years now which allows me to know many things about the game which cannot be taught to new players but must be learned with experience. But on the other hand I know very little because I am learning a new offensive system and I am also playing a new position at times.
-How do other players of ultimate frisbee feel about it?
-How do random people feel about ultimate?
-How does ultimate relate to venture capitalism if at all? |
Project diary
on one of my recent web searches i found a few articles that related ultimate frisbee to venture capitalists. this interests me because i would like to try to better understand how the two related. |
Research Plan
Discuss your initial research method. How will you begin to seek out answers to your research questions? Where will you begin taking field notes? Who are you considering as a possible informant?
I plan on using the internet to do most of my research. The other part of my research will be conducted through interviews/surveys of people both involved and not involved with ultimate. I will begin taking field notes at home but they will be based on what sorts of things we do at practice. I will try to note what kind of drills we do and how people react to them. Two people who i am considering using for infomants are the coaches of the men's ultimate team. I believe that the best way to get started would be to think of questons to ask people when i interview/survey them. |
Project diary
There are currently three people that i am planning on interviewing. One of them is the team captain, Bill Finn. He is a senior in electrical engineering, and has been playing ultimate frisbee here at U of I since he was a freshmen. I am going to interview him becuase he was the first person that i talked to about ultimate here at Illinois. Another person who i plan on interviewing is Xi Xia (pronounced sha she). He is one of the two coaches of the men's team. He is a grad student in leisure studies. He played ultimate here for five years and has been coaching for two years. I am interested in interviewing him because i have heard him called the most intense player in ultimate. The Third person who i plan on interviewing is Andy Zill, the other coach of the ultimate frisbee team. Andy is somewhat the opposite of Xi Xia. He is a dropout grad student, who lives off of a trust fund from his parent's mango farms. |
Readings, Keywords, and Constructs
Discuss what sources, other than your own field notes, that you consult for your project.
i think my field notes will be reasonably useful, but i think the most useful source will be the inteviews/surveys that i conduct. these will be useful because they will hopefully give me information on how other people feel about ultimate (which just happens to be my purpose). i also plan on using the website of the governing body of ultimate frisbee, the upa (ultimate players association) www.upa.org . i think that this webstie will give me some useful infomation. i also plan on looking for articles about ultimate and the illinois men's ultimate web page, www.illinoisultimate.com . i also plan to use infotrac and other similar websites to find articles related to ultimate. |
Project diary
November 4
Checking for signs of bias - It is possible that the author of this article has political or religious views, but he does not express them in this article. The author also does not mention a special interest group. In the article, the author does not really address the other possible view. Since this is mostly an informative article, the author does not use to many biased words or phrases.
Assessing an Argument - The author's central claim is that ultimate frisbee and venture capitalism can go hand in hand. He supports his claim by stating that many venture capitalists enjoy its 'free-flowing style, lack of referees and nonhierarchical nature.' The only statistic that he uses is that there are over 100,000 thousand people playing ultimate frisbee. I would assume this is accurate because he says that it is reported by the Ultimate Players Association, which is the governing body of North American ultimate. This statistic is only used as a statement, not to prove a point. I do not think that any of the assumptions that he makes in this article are quetsionable. He does not really consider opposing arguments, such as ultimate frisbee and venture capitalism are total opposites. I do not think that he commits any logial fallicies within the article.
http://web1.infotrac.galegroup.com/itw/infomark/843/408/40751998w1/purl=rc1_EAIM_0_A102272804&dyn=10!xrn_1_0_A102272804?sw_aep=uiuc_uc |
Field Notes
Use this space to discuss what interesting, significant, revealing, and/or strange information you've recorded in your field notes. What are you learning about your chosen subculture? You might also begin to synthesize the information you are getting from your observations and the other sources you consult.
i find it interesting that the only times that people really show disgust with what we are doing in practice is when the coach (Andy) tells us to do something that just doesnt make sense. people usually voice these opinions by suggesting a better way to do it or by commenting on the ridicularity of the suggested method or by just making fun of Andy. the team is a usually happy group that seems to enjoy itself the most when there is a close scrimmage going on. the scrimmages give the players to compete as well as have fun. occasionally individual players will have off days and be upset with their preformance but more often than not, the scrimmages are the most enjoyable part of practice. |
Project diary
Findings
Discuss your findings.
From the surveys that i have gotten back so far, i have found a few similarities. The two main questions that i am looking at are 1)What is your favorite aspect of ultimate? and 2) What is your least favorite aspect of ultimate?
The results for question two seem to follow two basic trends. The first common response it that players do not like how the game is self-refereed. They think that this allows a player's bias to affect the calls that he makes during the game. The other common response is that players do not like the stereotypes and reputation that the outside world has of the game. Many people who do not play ultimate think that it is not a real sport, or that only hippies and people who smoke pot play the game. While there are plenty of people who do smoke pot that play frisbee, they do not represent the majority of the players.
The results for question one are a little more scattered. The most common response was that players like the competition. Says one player, "I am competitive in almost everything I
do, and after not playing baseball in college I needed an outlet for that, and ultimate has provided that. If I didn't have ultimate I would go nuts." Other responses include the way the disc flies, the various strategies of the game, and "I'm good at it. I like being good at stuff."
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Project diary
November 11
The score is twelve to twelve. The game has been hard capped. The point starts with both teams on their respective endzone line. Each team raises a hand to signify readiness. One team pulls the disc. It glides down the field where one of the offense's handlers catches the disc and the point starts. The handlers work the disc around until all of a sudden one of the deeps make a hard long cut. The handler throws the disc as far as he can in the direction of the deep, his mark yells out "UP!" The deep and his defender sprint downfield after the disc, both of them trying to read its flight as best as possible. The endzone line is fast approaching. The disc is coming down quickly in the direction of the two players. Both players see that the disc is going to go past them if they do not try something. The deep lays out after the disc and so does his defender. The rest of the players on the field watch with baited breath waiting to see who comes away with the disc. Both players are now on the ground on their chests, arms extended above their heads. The deep roles over with the disc in his hand and puts his arms above his head signaling a score. The offensive team runs down to celebrate with their player as they have just one the game. This is a rundown of one of the most exciting plays that ever happens in this sport. What sport is it? Ultimate frisbee. You might wonder, what are a hard cap, a deep, a handler and a pull. We will get to them. I have been playing ultimate frisbee, or ultimate as it is more commonly referred to by those who play it, since i was a freshmen in high school. As soon as i started to play it, i fell in love with it. The sport quickly became a way for me to get in shape, relieve stress and get my mind off of things that trouble me. The goal of this research project is to find out what makes people play the sport of ultimate frisbee, and why the love it so much. |
Refer to other EOTU work
Project diary
Project diary
Project diary
Users' Comments on this Unit
- Cole elaborates on his sources. His sources include the three people he is interviewing. In this update he explains who they are and why he chose to interview them. It seems that the people he chose to interview were chosen because of his personal attraction to what they go to offer. He uses this paragraph to not only show who he is interviewing but also give a glimpse of the kind of people that make up this subculture. - by eltownse@uiuc.edu
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