At the beginning of this month, Green Means Go had the opportunity to participate in the All-Star Ultimate tour, an awesome project to improve the visibility of women’s ultimate. We had a great game that we’ll write more about later, but first we want to speak about the spiking debates that ensued (see articles here, here, and the reddit thread here).

Among all the issues involved, one point that many people made in these various forums regarding spiking and spirit is that a lot of it hinges on the interpretation made by the other team, the context. This is why, even with this slight delay, it’s worth talking about how our team felt during this game.

In case you missed it, the All-Stars utilized a lot of different field celebrations and “spikes” during their game against us, and these were noted by some on-lookers to be excessive and unspirited. We surveyed our players and found that overall, our team did not notice these spikes during the game. While the All-Stars were rushing the field to perform their celebrations, we were celebrating each other or talking and planning for the next point. The resounding feeling can be summed up by something Meg Wadlinger said, “I swear I didn’t know it happened until I watched the YouTube vid. That’s how absorbed I was with our team.” On the field, we were focused on our own game and celebrating our scores, not with what the All-Stars were doing.

Does this mean that their celebrations are automatically spirited? In a game that doesn’t involve spectators, the point is moot. If no one notices, no one can ding your spirit score for excessive celebration. But this was an All-Star game with a specific mission, and people were watching. That changes things. One of our rookies, Danielle Walsh, who was unable to attend and watched the livestream, made some good points relating Ultimate to other sports : “In the NFL, you get fined; in college football, you get flagged for it; in basketball, you get scored on. I just think that if Ultimate wants to become a bigger ‘real’ sport, it should reconsider celebrations like that.”

If people are going to watch ultimate at large, we need to consider how spikes and celebrations look to them. One notable spike in the game involved an All-Star taking the disc to the cameraman and letting him spike it. This was the one spike our players noticed on the field, as it delayed the game and was generally confusing. It made more sense when you watched the stream, and was clearly planned with the broadcast viewers in mind, but even considering that, it felt out-of-place. The other celebrations were big enough to be appreciated by the livestream audience and the people in the stands. The cameraman spike in particular was cited as unspirited by our players because it was the one that interrupted the game the most.

There were definitely some great celebrations going on in all areas of the stadium that day: Jesse Shofner leaping into Jaclyn Verzuh’s arms after a score (we clearly agree that this is a good way to celebrate that handler-receiver connection – Captain Vicki Chen jumping into D-line handler Nikki “Tucker” Ross’ arms below), the fans chanting “GREEN MEANS GO” to support the hometown team, both teams rushing the field to high five their teammates after a score. These are all great examples of the spirit and excitement of ultimate, and they should be elements we seek in a fun, spirited matchup with or without fans.

The All-Stars had a great discussion amongst themselves about spirit and spiking, and we hope other teams think about doing this too. For the All-Stars it was particularly important, as their purpose is to exhibit women’s ultimate, and the spikes and celebrations they use need to uphold and contribute to that mission. Our team by and large does not spike, although we do have a call-and-response cheer and rush the field when the play warrants it. Unlike the All-Stars, our celebrations can be just for us, since we don’t generally have a livestream and lots of fans to worry about. Hopefully someday more ultimate teams will have this issue to consider when thinking about how they celebrate.

In this debate where we’re all on the same side, we want to wholeheartedly commend the All-Stars for what they’ve done with this unique, novel opportunity they had, especially in regards to taking ownership over their responsibilities as representatives on this tour, addressing and analyzing criticism to make mid-tour changes and being true to themselves throughout.