Topic of the Week: Rules Confusion

[matthewbourland]

Knowledge of the rules (http://www.usaultimate.org/resources/officiating/rules/11th_edition_rules.aspx) is extremely important in a self-officiated sport. Frustration can arise when your opponent is adament about what is an incorrect understanding of a rule, and embarrassing when the person in the wrong is you. Which rules did you misunderstand earlier in your career? What would you say are the most commonly misunderstood rules?

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Each Thursday usaultimate.org will feature a different topic of discussion on its message boards in order to engage USA Ultimate members and the Ultimate community around the world. The idea is to encourage discussion about some of the current events happening in the sport of Ultimate, and to collect opinions, ideas and feedback from our members and athletes across the globe. Interesting, exciting, controversial or informative, a featured topic will be chosen each week and representatives from USA Ultimate will provide their input in an effort to enhance its communications with the Ultimate world. Please send topics you’d like to see discussed to matthew@hq.usaultimate.org

[colinmci]

Good topic. Another issue is players establishing standards for how they make calls for rules that they do understand. A handful of commonly misunderstood rules/situations:

- Positioning after a call
- Principle of Verticality
- Tips/Bobbles/MACs. Intentional vs. Unintentional. to oneself vs. to a teammate.
- Marking violations. How to handle them. Is "disc space" a call? Yes.
- Stall count. "coming in at _____"
- What is a live disc? What is an in-play disc?
- The Check. So complicated that we need observers to do it for us?
- Continuation. When does play stop? What does "affected the play" have to do with anything?
- What is incidental contact? Accidental Contact? Irrelevant contact?
- Receiving Foul vs. General Foul.
- Delay of Game

[torre.hargett]

I have struggled misunderstanding some rules since i started playing 5 years ago both between myself and other teams, and even my own teammates. Midway through my first year playing, i started reading the rule book, and have read it over and over again frequently.

A few of the rules i've struggled with/i've seen others struggle with:
delay of game- how long the person has and who can initiate the delay of game warnings
is the person walking the disc to the playing field proper allowed to change speeds
determining if the cap is on, and what the game should be played to
whether a pick is "involved" or not

Over the years whenever I have had a rules dispute with someone I have returned home and looked up the rule online and sent the player(or team captain if the player's email isn't available) asking them to cite some rules to back up their call. I've even done this with my own team after practices where players disagreed about what the proper calls were during a scrimmage.

Discussing rules questions after the fact (so that both parties can calm down if need be) is something i would like to see more. If i make an incorrect call during a game, i would love for an opposing captain or player to later e-mail me and say hey, here's the rule blah blah blah. Or to walk over to me later in the day/the next day with a rule book and talk about it.

If you know the rules, and you see people not playing by them, let them know.

[stephenghubbard]

Less of a confusion, more of a subjective debate.

XVI.A. says:

"The player must immediately call "violation" or the name of the specific infraction loudly".

I would like to see some discussion on what this "immediately" means. Obviously it is an subjective word but there are plenty of subjective words that the USAU can take a stance on.


Particular problems arise with regard to the late call. With marking fouls, defenses seem to get mad when a foul gets called when the disc is in the air for a second. Personally I don't have a problem with this as I know that I have a much clearer perception of what happened if I reflect on what just happened for a second as opposed to self-officiating purely based on immediate sensation. I would prefer late but well thought-out calls.

A tougher case is the very late double receiving foul in the end-zone. 2 players go up for a disc, offense comes down with it after some contact. The offensive player immediately signals goal. A moment passes and after the defender gets up, he says: "I am going to call an offensive receiving foul". The guy with the disc is in disbelief for a second as he felt the contact was not "foul worthy". Then he considers that If my defender percieved that contact as foul-worthy, then he is a fault too, if not more so than me given my recollection of the facts. Using HIS definition of foul, I Am Going To Call Foul . In this example, "Immediately" is 10 seconds after the actual event but only a second after he realized the contact constitued a foul given the OTHER player's definition of a foul.

[commitch]

i think one thing that further greys the situation of the double foul stephen has described is the receiver has no real reason to call foul if s/he caught the disc in the endzone right away because it doesn't change the outcome. Foul or not, it's a goal. Once the defender calls foul, then all of a sudden there is a reason to call the foul s/he perceived. obviously, if they have to think back to determine if it was a foul, that's outside of immediately.

but in general, i'd say "immediately" is determined by whether the player just kept playing or made the call (though they may keep playing under the continuation rule). if a marker is fouled, but continues to count without a call, i'd say "immediately" has passed. if a thrower waits to see if their throw was completed, again, "immediately" has passed, etc.

[joe.bowbeer]

How are double fouls resolved?

A recent scenario I witnessed is similar to the one below, though it was not in the end-zone: the defense player intercepts the disc and then the offense player runs into the defender, fouling the defender. The defender does not immediately call a foul (because he is holding the disc), but after some thought, the offense calls a foul, at which point the defender contemplates calling a foul.

Once all the fouls have been called, how is the outcome decided?


Less of a confusion, more of a subjective debate.

XVI.A. says:

"The player must immediately call "violation" or the name of the specific infraction loudly".

I would like to see some discussion on what this "immediately" means. Obviously it is an subjective word but there are plenty of subjective words that the USAU can take a stance on.


Particular problems arise with regard to the late call. With marking fouls, defenses seem to get mad when a foul gets called when the disc is in the air for a second. Personally I don't have a problem with this as I know that I have a much clearer perception of what happened if I reflect on what just happened for a second as opposed to self-officiating purely based on immediate sensation. I would prefer late but well thought-out calls.

A tougher case is the very late double receiving foul in the end-zone. 2 players go up for a disc, offense comes down with it after some contact. The offensive player immediately signals goal. A moment passes and after the defender gets up, he says: "I am going to call an offensive receiving foul". The guy with the disc is in disbelief for a second as he felt the contact was not "foul worthy". Then he considers that If my defender percieved that contact as foul-worthy, then he is a fault too, if not more so than me given my recollection of the facts. Using HIS definition of foul, I Am Going To Call Foul . In this example, "Immediately" is 10 seconds after the actual event but only a second after he realized the contact constitued a foul given the OTHER player's definition of a foul.

[muisyle]

In both situations the player can simply contest the first foul call and the result is the same as a double foul (the disc will go back to the thrower), so it really doesn't matter what they do.