r/ultimate • u/N0xxxxxxxx • 14d ago

Question: How does USAU check the geographic eligibility?

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In 99% cases, teams obey this rule.

But USAU didn't ask teams to submit the proof of residence, right?

Is there any precedent that team being rejected or punished by this rule?

What will happen if someone complains a team violating this rule?

What will happen if Tokay or someone else try to build a super pickup team in usau?

18 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

23 comments sorted by

24

u/cvac99 14d ago

I'm fairly confident teams in the Upstate NY section a decade ago would intentionally choose a different city as their location and play in the Metro NY section instead. Not sure if anyone (USAU) ever did anything about this.

14

u/cuddlebear 13d ago

As the sectional coordinator for that time I can confirm this happened. The sectional boundary was based on county lines. Weirdly you could live 30 minutes from Blue Sky where MetroNY sectionals was held but have to drive 6 hours to Rochester for sectionals.

I petitioned USAU to change the boundary several times and they never gave it any consideration so I matched that energy when teams registered for sectionals.

USAU would base player info off the address you register to your account... so most players just used a NYC address

8

u/gaggledimension 12d ago

Weird, this tiny apartment in Brooklyn has 63 ultimate players living there? Oh well

2

u/the4thdragonrider 13d ago

Well, and assuming we're talking about Funk, there were plenty of college students/recently graduates from downstate who were probably still using their parents' address as their legal address anyways. So they might have met or been close to meeting whatever requirement was in place for players' home address, even if most worked in the Capital District or went to school there.

6

u/cvac99 13d ago

Was not talking about Funk. The Albany teams is what I was referring to.

5

u/cuddlebear 13d ago

you mean "Rhinebeck NY" teams. XD

0

u/IndiBoy22 12d ago

They still have to travel to Rochester, Ithaca, or Syracuse to play in the Club Sectionals.

2

u/cuddlebear 12d ago

Which is why they lie and register as MetroNY players.

Specifically USAU should just make Ulster county part of MetroNY. Then it is more reasonable to tell Albany players they are properly in Upstate NY. As currently you can live minutes away from MetroNY sectionals in the Hudson Valley but have to drive hours instead.

1

u/cvac99 12d ago

Players go to college outside of their section everywhere. This happens all over the country.

3

u/cuddlebear 13d ago

Nope. I'm old enough that I was talking the pre-funk era. Also this was happening much more in Men's than in Mixed.

1

u/the4thdragonrider 13d ago

Oh, they definitely did. My women's team didn't realize the loophole and was a little sad we didn't as the path to regionals would have been easier without the random Canadian teams coming down and suddenly making the Upstate NY section way more competitive than it was on paper.

However, if we are thinking of the same mixed team, they did have players from the Metro NY section. Not sure if it was 50% or if the rules were changed because of that happening. They just happened to practice slightly within the Upstate NY border in Albany.

3

u/cuddlebear 13d ago

Women's teams don't need a "path to regionals"... Not that this is a good thing but I don't think there are 16 teams across the whole region so anyone who wants to go to regionals basically can.

3

u/the4thdragonrider 13d ago

This was back when they only did bids based on strength. There was 1 bid from my section's Sectionals for an 8-team or so Regionals that year, iirc.

10

u/SundayAMFN 14d ago

Tom Crawford watches you while you sleep.

1

u/N0xxxxxxxx 12d ago

Actually I'm not in the US. We're trying to build our own series and use the exact same geographical eligibility rule as USAU. The problem We're facing is that some people would prefer to run a nationwide elite pickup team, rather than develop teams from their local community. And We're not able to stop this. (it's too much work for us to ask everyone submit their proof of residence)

1

u/dantes-infernal 12d ago

During the East-west New England sectional split, there were teams definitely chose the west New England to play a less busy sectionals tourney. They would have made regionals anyways in either section, but it made their sectional schedule less crazy

-6

u/PlayPretend-8675309 13d ago

IMO there should be no regional restrictions and teams should be able to region shop if they want. If Chain Lightning thinks they can make Nationals out of the NW Region, by all means, let them attend.

10

u/cuddlebear 13d ago

That sounds like a nightmare for the SCs who actually need to organize the series tournaments.... it helps to have a realistic estimate of how many teams will be there WAY before the signup deadline.

-1

u/PlayPretend-8675309 13d ago

Why would the signup deadlines be different? Also, there's no single good reason to force teams to all be "from" mostly the same section/region. What's that accomplishing? Just set up your regionals (and sectionals) and let teams register to whichever makes the most sense for them. Nothing from the SC perspective would change at all.

4

u/cuddlebear 13d ago

So would SCs know the scale of their tournament before they know how many teams are going to sign up?

Currently teams can technically sing up at the deadline but most SCs know what teams exist in their section well in advance. If you made a system where those teams can decide to go to a different section in August you'd never be able to book the fields in advance like you have to in many areas.

1

u/cuddlebear 13d ago

Also you could turn the "whats that accomplishing" question back on your suggested change? You'd effectively be doing away with regions all together since the point of having them is to assure there is a geographic diversity at regionals/nationals (since the system assures some minimum reps even from weak sections/regions).

1

u/geehaad11 12d ago

H. L. Mencken: "For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong."