Samuel Johnson
Professor Dees
ENC 1102-0034
29 Jan 2015
This Bibliography will mainly focus on the communication skills that relate to Men’s Ultimate Frisbee here at the University of Central Florida. Specifically how communication is used: on the field between players, for coaching purposes, as well as the communication skills that are required for self-refereeing, since there aren’t referees as most college tournaments. In order to make the most out of the skill from everyone on the team, it is essential that the players are able to communicate effectively with one another as well with those on the other team. In order to conduct thorough research, I used databases such as Ebsco Host as well as the database used here at the University of Central Florida “OneSearch.” I was able to find many scholarly articles written about the means of communication used in the sport of Ultimate Frisbee. Whether it was about: communication between a coach and his players, players on the same team, or even players on different teams. I was surprised to find so many articles that go into detail about the self-officiating aspect of the sport. Most of the ethos that are used in Ultimate Frisbee are seen throughout the articles. The articles themselves range everywhere from how and why Ultimate Frisbee is self-officiate, to the pros and cons of self-referring. Specific themes that emerged throughout the various articles in this bibliography include the norms, practices, and ethos that are used in Ultimate Frisbee, using communication to express thoughts between coaches and players, as well as operationalizing self-referring between players on both teams. Throughout my research I have also conducted two interview with separate backgrounds and experiences. One being the Coach here at the University of Central Florida, and the other being a representative from Disc Store. I believe that with the range of sources presented here, I will be able to fully examine and analyze Ultimate Frisbee as a discourse community, as well as the tools that the players and coaches use to communicate.
Griggs, Gerald. “‘This Must Be the Only Sport in the World Where Most of the Players Don’t Know the Rules’: Operationalizing Self-refereeing and the Spirit of the Game in UK Ultimate Frisbee.” Sport in Society 14.1 (2011): 97-110. Print.
In his published journal, Gerald Griggs conducts a study based on the Ultimate Frisbee community in the United Kingdom from 2004 all the way until 2007. By observing his participants throughout the time span Griggs was able to interview multiple participants, and observe the participants as they play. With a specific focus on those within the United Kingdom, Griggs conducts his research based on what he calls the “inner workings” of the sport Ultimate Frisbee, and gives the reader a better understanding as to how the constitutive rules work throughout play of a game, which becomes much more interesting considering the fact that for the most part, Ultimate Frisbee is self-officiated. Griggs decides to dedicate his focus towards the self-officiating portion of Ultimate Frisbee is because he found that a repeating theme among all literature that pertains to the development of sports is the construction of rules and laws. Another aspect of this article that will bring much more support to my discourse community is how Gerald Griggs decides to dig even deeper, and explain “the application of constitutive rules within a pervasive ‘ethos’, which is referred to in Ultimate Frisbee as the ‘spirit of the game’”.
Robbins, Blaine. “”THAT’S CHEAP.” THE RATIONAL INVOCATION OF NORMS, PRACTICES, AND AN ETHOS IN ULTIMATE FRISBEE..” Journal of Sport & Social Issues 28.3 (2004): 314-37. Print.
In his published article, Blaine Robbins really devotes his time and research to understand more about a number of norms, practices, and ethos, which in Ultimate Frisbee is more commonly known as the Spirit of the Game. In order to collect the data necessary for his research, Robbins conducted a field observation which was used to compare and welfare of Ultimate Frisbee in three different settings. The three settings that Robbins researched was Corning College, Stuart University, and The Mallards which is an informal group at a private university, a seasonal open collegiate team at a public university, and a seasonal elite club team respectively. In order to successfully understand the norm and ethos of Ultimate Frisbee, Robbins was able to observe the sport through the presentation of field notes, different voice recordings, as well as informal conversations with players. The main argument made in this article is “the author argues via rational choice theory and game theory that players selectively create, negotiate, and manipulate norms and practices to maximize game interaction, quality, and/or fluidity depending on the particular conditions such as level of competition between players, history between teams and players, and the rewards at stake.”
Robbins, Blaine G. “Playing with Fire, Competing with Spirit: Cooperation in the Sport of Ultimate.” Sociological Spectrum (2012): 270-90. Print.
I was very fortunate through my research to find two published articles both written by the same author, Blaine Robbins. This article however focuses more on the cooperation between the two teams when it comes to making officiating calls on the field. The author feels that after proving that “third-party agents are necessary to promote cooperation when groups are large and spatially diffuse”. He feels that the size of the community and spatial diffusion will reduce centralized control, since a refereed system is not yet completely organized. He later finds in his research that “with qualitative methods that cooperation in Ultimate is the result of the sport being federally controlled and embedded within tiers of organizational constraint that promote informal regulation of competitions through norms, reputations, and self-discipline.” This research will be put to great use as I further discuss my discourse community because Robbins was able to infer that people like to play Ultimate Frisbee simply because there are no referees, and the sport can be a place to hang out and have fun with friends. He writes this article with a sociology perspective giving me the ability understand my discourse community from a social interaction perspective.
Walters, Kirsten. “Ultimate Spin: Contesting the Rhetoric, Countercultural Ethos and Commodification of the Ultimate `Frisbee’ Sport, 1968-2008. .” Dissertation Abstracts International 69.7 (2009): 188-193. Print.
Kristen Walters book Ultimate Spin, goes into great length in multiple aspects about everything there is possibly to know about Ultimate Frisbee. Chapters in this book range from the history of the sport dating back to the sixties and seventies, to the invention of the Frisbee and the evolution of ultimate. She covers aspects of the sport from the invention of the actual Frisbee, all the way to how Ultimate is becoming more and more of a popular sport. The amount of detail and research that was put into this book is great for me because it serves as a go to source for my research of Ultimate Frisbee as a discourse community. What I plan to get out of this book is information as to how Ultimate Frisbee has become so popular throughout the country. Walters goes into great length explaining where and how the sport originated, the history behind all Frisbee Sports, and what the future may have in store for this rapid growing sport. I found it interesting how she has an entire section dedicated determine whether or not this a sport that will generally me multicultural, or if it will remain mainstream.
“Ultimate Frisbee Plays – Ultimate Frisbee HQ.” Ultimate Frisbee HQ. Web. 26 Feb. 2015. <http://ultimatefrisbeehq.com/ultimate-frisbee-plays/>.
As my research drew closer and closer to an end, it became much harder to find scholarly sources that did not contain the same material as did the other sources. I feel like even thought this is not a scholarly source, Ultimate Frisbee HQ will play a vital role in further examining my discourse community. I decided to choose this site over other Ultimate Frisbee sites it goes into great detail about different aspects of the game, the history, terms to know, rules, what to do before a game, what to wear, etc. this really is the go to site for learning just about everything there is to know about Ultimate Frisbee. What this source will really help with my discourse community is the list of terms to know and what they mean. Terms can from types of throw that are most commonly used, to basic offense and defense formations, all the way to different types of slang and lingo that can be commonly heard throughout the course of an Ultimate Frisbee game. “The sport of Ultimate Frisbee comes with its own culture, and with any culture there is a language. Here is the official dictionary of all vocabulary, terms, lingo and definitions Ultimate players use.”
Doyle, Peter. “Ultimate Frisbee: Communicative Action in a Self-Officiated Sport.” (2011). Print.
Peter Doyle examines a particular aspect of Ultimate Frisbee that is essential in every Frisbee game or tournament that is played, and that is the communicative action in self-officiating. This article has examined in depth the effect of self-officiating and how players on the field use communication, as well as their own type of ethical discourse, to explain their interpretation of the call made on the Ultimate field. Doyle uses a phenomenological approach to best gather the required account of an individual’s experience whom actively play ultimate at any level of skill. Doyle bases his argument around a specific type of analytical framework that was adopted from Jürgen Habermas who is a critical theorist. This framework will support Doyle’s qualitative examination which will be collected from player participants. More than anything, this article focuses on how communication in Ultimate Frisbee is used between the two teams on the field, and not so much between players on one team alone. He makes clear that in recent years observers have been employed to help monitor games, and Doyle is able to recognize that this type of practice is starting to become more of a reality for all tournaments.
Roca, Andrew. Personal interview. 25 February 2015.
What I am hoping to get from my interview with Coach Andrew Roca is how he uses such a high level of communication with all his players in order to be successful at college tournaments. What I also look to take away from this interview is to find out what he does to create a stronger relationship between players and coaches, and how that team chemistry is used during tournaments. I look forward to talking with Roca because he used to play at the college level for UCF, and now coaches UCF. It wasn’t until about two weeks ago when Coach Andrew Roca was signed to a professional Frisbee team based out of Jacksonville. With the experienced he has gained over the past several years at the college level, he will be able to take with him as begins to play Professional Ultimate Frisbee. With this interview I feel that he will be able to give me the knowledge of how to effectively communicate from the sideline, to those who are playing the point on the field. I felt that for this discourse community, it would be essential to interview Roca simply because of his countless years of experience with the sport.
Mira. Personal interview. 25 February 2015.
I decided that it would benefit me if I made an attempt to interview a major Ultimate Frisbee company, so I decided to email Disc Store which is an Ultimate Frisbee company that produces and sells discs, apparel, custom made uniforms for teams, as well as a plethora of other accessories one might need in order to enhance their game. When I originally sent my interview to Disc Store I had no idea what to expect since I was sending my interview to a customer service hotline. Two hour later I received an email with plenty of useful information from a customer service expert, which gave me a completely different view of the sport and why it is so popular around college campuses. Now granted the information is not coming from a published scholar, what Mira has that some of these other sources lack is the exposure. She works at an Ultimate Frisbee company, and is exposed to the sport and everything that comes with it every single day. She probably gets emails like mine all the time and knows so much more about the sport, in a different aspect than some of these other authors who have published articles.
Samuel Johnson ENC 1102 English Portfolio 