by Abbey Czekaj

Women’s ultimate in Cleveland has always been a topic for conversation. Conversations often involving a question mark:

Will there be a women’s club team this year? How many women are playing NCDC? Is spring league a thing this year? What will the summer/winter league gender ratio be?

The list goes on… Since the CDA now has a dedicated women’s coordinator (yes, me, Abbey Czekaj), I believe that a lot of the questioning and uncertainty that surrounds CLE women’s ultimate will be acknowledged and prioritized. We now have the ability to dedicate specific time and effort to womens’ focused events in Cleveland and I believe that this will help us build momentum and retain more women in these events.

There have been great efforts by so many people on the CDA exec team and in the Cleveland ultimate community that have spearheaded this movement. Abbey Geib and the leadership group of Notorious CLE were able to create something out of basically nothing for the 2018 season. The team had only five returning players, and had consistently struggled with low numbers at practice. With a lot of perseverance from this leadership core and the team of mostly new talent (and some help from past players) the team was able to qualify and compete at regionals. Things are looking up for the 2019 season as well with a new coach (s/o Austine Lin), 2 captains named Abbey (Abbey Geib, and hi, yes me again), the core of returning players from last year, and hopefully a truck load of bright-eyed new players to fill out their roster. This team knows how to dig deep and push through difficult times, and we’re hoping to see even more success this summer.

Abbey Geib and I were also able to hold an open forum before the winter league games to discuss women’s ultimate in Cleveland and get some differing views and opinions. In my personal opinion, it was very successful. We had ~12 people there in person and a few more listening in on the phones. We were able to discuss current happenings in winter league, player retention, and ideas for what we can be doing to promote a more welcoming environment. I was excited to see both women and men at this meeting and am looking forward to the changes we can implement from the ideas at this meeting. I also think holding 1-2 of these open forums throughout the year would be a great way to keep conversations going.

As far as upcoming events, I think that this is where the CDA has been able to excel in the past few months and push for more women’s/trans events. We will be hosting a women’s focused pickup event at the Northfield Force, Notorious will be hosting a club combine at CSU, Hxrd Cxre will be in early March and will hopefully draw participants from the surrounding areas as well as Cleveland, and Iris Javersak will be in charge of our women’s spring league this year! In the future, I personally want to hold college focused events to help bring these players together into the community, and hold more women’s focused events throughout the year.

With all of that being said, There are still many ways in which the CDA can improve and better women’s experiences in our events and leagues. Participation and retention have been trending downwards for the past few years and we are currently trying to figure out why. If you have any ideas, concerns, or thoughts on how to improve women’s involvement please don’t hesitate to reach out to either me, Abbey Czekaj, (Womenscoordinator@clevelandultimate.com) or Daniel Lynch (dlynch@clevelandultimate.com).

-Abbey Czekaj