Brockhoff 1

David Brockhoff

Professor Gary Vaughn

Intermediate Composition

27 November 2018

Ultimate, more commonly known as ultimate Frisbee, is a sport that was created in 1968

in a New Jersey high school. It involves two teams that each have seven players on the field at

once. To win games teams must score points by catching the disc in the opponent’s endzone. To

move the disc up the field players complete a series of passes up field; once a player catches a

pass they are not allowed to move their feet (besides a pivot) until they release the disc or there is

a turnover. A turnover can be achieved in multiple ways. Usually, the defending team will either

intercept the disc or force it into the ground or out of bounds. A turnover also happens if the

thrower doesn’t release the disc within ten seconds. Ultimate is a non-contact sport, therefore,

there is no intentional hitting, tackling, or otherwise harmful contact between players. Ultimate is

self-officiated, meaning there are no referees. In the most important games there are observers

that are able to overturn or confirm calls, however they can’t make calls. This system works

because one of the core values of ultimate, Spirit of the Game, encourages fair play and

camaraderie between everyone, even opponents.

Since its inception, ultimate has grown worldwide, gaining the most popularity in the Commented [db1]: Just like football, basketball, etc
‘ultimate’ should not be capitalized
USA. There are many levels of competition, from high school and below all the way up to

professional. Within these levels there are also various levels of competitiveness from pickup to

recreational leagues to competitive leagues comprised of teams from all around the country. The

largest levels of competition include club and college. As it has grown it has created

opportunities for Discourse Communities to emerge. These communities range in size, the
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smallest being individual teams ranging all the way up to the entire ultimate community. Even

with this explosive growth there has been very little research on these Discourse Communities.

There are established stereotypes about ultimate, most notably that it is a non-competitive game

for bare-footed hippies. While this may be true on a very small scale somewhere in the world, it

is the furthest thing from the truth in many places. This essay will focus on a smaller group, the

University of Cincinnati Men’s Club Ultimate Team, and the characteristics that qualify it as a

Discourse Community. It will also look at how a team’s past precedents and leadership affect the

literacies, practices, and communication of a Discourse Community, what is referred to by Ann

Johns as “the issue of authority.”

The UC Men’s Club Ultimate team was started in 2007. They rose through the college

ranks quickly under the guidance of JB, a Cincinnati native, and ascended to the peak of the

college scene, the USA Ultimate College Nationals. They missed this target the next year in a

15-13 loss to Pittsburgh, the national champion that year, in the game to go. In 2015 they lost

seven members and their coach JB. The team then went coach-less and has yet to make it past

regional quarter finals. In 2018 Joel Houmes assumed the role of coach and is working to lead

the team to new heights.

I am a third-year member of this team and have also played with many members of the

team from before my time (including many founding members) on other Cincinnati-based teams.

I have served leadership roles on the team giving me further perspective into the innerworkings

of this team. I have collected data through personal experience as well as interviews with older

and younger members of the team to get different perspectives. I interviewed Jose, a teammate

from another team that played when the team made it to Nationals in 2013, and Michael, a

second year on the team, to get a diverse range of perspectives and experiences about team
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functions (practices and non-practices), face-to-face communication, and values. In addition to

these interviews I have access to team documents including spreadsheets and listservs from years

past as well as group chats, Groupme’s and Snapchat groups, that have been used since I have

been a member. These insights and communication practices give me the opportunity to analyze

the team throughout its various leadership stints in its short history.

Before the analysis it is important to understand what classifies a group as a Discourse

Community, especially since this is one of, if not the first, times this community is being studied

as a Discourse Community. John Swales, a University of Michigan Linguistics professor, lays

out a guide for Discourse Communities to meet in “The Concept of Discourse Communities.” He

has six requirements that a group must meet to be considered a Discourse Community:

1.Have a broadly agreed set of common public goals. 2. Have mechanisms of

intercommunication among its members. 3. Use its participatory mechanisms

primarily to provide information and feedback. 4. Utilize and hence possesses one or

more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims. 5. In addition to owning

genres, have acquired some specific lexis. 6. Have a threshold level of members with

a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise (Swales 221-222).

It is also important to understand the role of authority in a Discourse Community, as was

explored by Ann Johns in “Discourse Communities and Communities of Practice: Membership,

Conflict, and Diversity.” She describes authority as “an elite group that imposes its language,

beliefs and values on others” by controlling aspects of the community (513). She uses an

example of English literacy in China. The tests set forth by the government are vocabulary

related, therefore students believe that “vocabulary is the key to literacy.” This belief combined

with the fact that national standardized testing focuses on vocabulary “permits little pedagogical
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latitude to teachers preparing student” (514). This example shows one instance of how

authority’s standards affect everything below them, even if in an unintentional way. This issue is

present in every Discourse Community because leadership is necessary to a group’s structure.

However, the effects differ as the role and actual presence of authority differs between groups.

The team is and has been comprised of around 25-30 players. All of these players at one

point or another went through a tryout process to determine if they were skilled and

knowledgeable enough to become a member of the team, satisfying requirement six. The tryout

process, however, has changed with the leadership. In the earlier years of the team there was a

much lower threshold to join because of a lack of standards and precedents. As time progressed

and the team got better, standards were set, primarily by the first coach, JB. The team rarely

accepted unskilled or unknowledgeable players. There was still a veteran-apprentice relationship,

but the gap between the two was much less. As a result, “the team was on a whole different level,

the atmosphere was way more competitive” (Mikalauskas) and as a result there was a higher

level of accountability between teammates. This standard eventually dropped off when JB left

and the team went coach-less. In the first few years without a coach, players struggled to discern

between players that would benefit the team and those who would not. As a result, the number of

players on the team at the beginning of the season stayed about the same, but there was a larger

skill gap. The coach-less team made “some uninformed decisions” (Mikalauskas) which created

a separation from the get-go. Without a coach, “young players struggled to get better, the older

players were only able to pay so much attention to others during practice” so the skill gap

widened further. This skill gap often discouraged players and led to a low retention rate among

new players, with only a few staying from each new class. This led to greater numbers of rookies

being brought on to the team as the older, larger classes graduated and each successive younger
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classes not being able to return an adequate number. This led to an overall younger team for the

beginning of a new era of coaching. This coach, Joel, has been able to provide more feedback

and introspection to the game though, which has encouraged young players. So far this year, only

two out of ten rookies have quit, a number which was often around four or five by the end of the

Fall last year. Joel has also helped to close the skill gap between players; a second year, Mike

Finke, stated “Joel has helped me pinpoint my weaknesses, making me an overall better player,

as opposed to last year… the focus was mainly to help run the system for the older guys.”

Each of these players may have their own individual reasons for playing or goals to

achieve but the team has an overarching aim to better themselves at Ultimate and eventually

make it back to College Nationals, satisfying requirement one. To do this there are bi-weekly

practices and optional weekly workouts with the aim to address players weaknesses and help

build team chemistry, addressing requirement three. The goal to make it to Nationals is one that

has not wavered throughout the multiple stages of leadership in the club. However, this goal has

only been accomplished a single time, and that the leadership of the club seems to play a large

part in that. Every time the team made has been to the regional finals or further it was under the

leadership of JB. “We were definitely pushed a lot harder then,” states Mikalauskas. The team

has had the same number of practices throughout its history, per University rules, but there was

“a lot more accountability to your teammates” when JB was at the helm. Conditioning, an aspect

of the game that the team has struggled with of late, was never a problem in the past. There were

many external workouts among teammates, the most popular of which was “Berzerker disc

golf,” a game created by JB that worked on throwing and conditioning as players attempted to

get the highest disc golf score possible in the lowest amount of time. This game was often played

(“and won” uttered Mikalauskas) by JB himself. Other than this, teammates often had tossing
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sessions, track or field workouts, and the occasional weight lifting session. Once JB left the team

workouts seemed to drop off. Without a coach to set expectations, the conditioning of team took

a sharp turn for the worse. Weekly disc golf, at a casual pace, was the only regularly attended

team activity in my first year, and, until this year, was the only Ultimate-related team activity

that was prevalent outside of practice. There were a few players who worked out on their own

time, but this was usually not related to Ultimate in any way. When Joel took over he started

using sprints as a common warm-up, exposing this weakness on the team. A small group of

people, spearheaded by Mike Finke, took to the stairs of Nippert Stadium on a bi-weekly basis to

help fix this problem. “I really struggled the first few practices and didn’t want to let the team

down so I put in the work” states Finke. Through these examples it is clear to see that

expectations by a coach have a significant effect on activity by the team. Further than that, a

coach involved with the team outside of practice, acting as a role model and setting the bar high,

encourages even more activity, and, as a result, success for the team. It also seems that higher

standards lead to higher accountability between teammates, making the team more of a family,

both while together for Ultimate and social reasons. This is clear through the different genres of

communication and forms of intercommunication present over time.

In addition to these practices and workouts there has been a wide range of

intercommunication on the team, satisfying the second requirement. The purposes of face-to-face

communication have been similar throughout the history of the team, regardless of leadership.

There is communication to give feedback and gain Ultimate experience; this form has always

been present at practice. This is most prevalent in the huddle, whether before practice when the

focus is being created or after practice with an evaluation of practice. There is also one-on-one

communication between teammates or a coach and player. Most of the time this communication
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is in a positive manner so as maintain a good team culture. During the coach-less period there

was a time when shouting matches between players were common, creating a toxic culture,

however, having a coach around seems to have a calming effect most of the time. This is another

instance of the coaches helping to improve team culture. Most of the difference between eras can

be seen in the forms of non-face-to-face communication and their different purposes, where the

fourth requirement is satisfied. There has always been a formal communication for the team to

distribute relevant information like practice cancellations, scheduling film sessions or workouts,

and giving out tournament information. In the JB era this was in the form of a listserv and the

listserv was strict. There were rules that made sense like “keep the listserv Ultimate relevant;”

there were also “some really dumb rules” (Mikalauskas) like “freshman weren’t allowed to send

emails.” As JB left the listserv remained, but the rules changed. It became more of an all-purpose

form of communication, used to solicit social gatherings and even have casual conversations.

Oddly enough, even though it became less strict, “Freshman still weren’t allowed to start email

threads” (Mikalauskas). I was unaware of this my freshman year and ended up running sprints

after practice one day because I sent an email asking if anyone wanted to toss. As Joel came in

the listserv was eliminated and was replaced by a team email for informational purposes and a

team GroupMe and snapchat for social purposes as well as setting up external workouts. This

streamlined communication amongst the team and made it much more enjoyable. Another large

part of sports, especially Ultimate, is sideline cheering and heckling. Heckling has always been

large at practice, “talking shit makes people work harder, so we’ve always just done it”

(Mikalauskas). This stigma continued and Finke stated, “I work harder when people say stuff

man, its just nice to have someone in my ear, I know they care.” Cheering has had a completely

different life on the team. JB was a heavy opponent, not allowing sideline cheers amongst the
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team at tournaments or practice. This rule was upheld as I joined the team, not as rule, but more

of a team value, “UC is a team that doesn’t cheer” stated Mikalauskas. I worked hard against this

idea though, often to the chagrin of the older players. I had a plethora of camp songs in my

arsenal as well as my whole idiotic imagination. I often cheer alone as it still has not caught on

with the whole team, but I do occasionally get others to join. I also get spurred to cheer by Joel

or the occasional player if the team hits a rut at a tournament. The team cheering shows that

sometimes leaders make dumb rules that aren’t beneficial to the team but they end up sticking

around because it was turned into a team value. It also shows how impressionable a leader is

upon a group as this value was created for absolutely no reason other than JB didn’t like cheers.

The fifth requirement is satisfied with a look into the communication between the team.

The team possesses both a general Ultimate lexis consisting of terms pertaining to rules or the

game in general like “mark,” the player guarding the opponent with the disc, and “pull,” the

throw-off at the beginning of each point from the defending team to the offense. The team also

has multiple team-specific lexis; these pertain to off the field activities, like “Tarnwolf,” one of

the three families that players within the team are split into, and on the field activities, like “top-

hat” or “rogue” two of the team’s offensive plays. The multiple lexes used by the team have

remained consistent. The Ultimate lexis (containing terms such as “mark” or “pull”) is not

affected by leadership of the team as most of these words are defined by the rule book and some

by popular culture within the Ultimate community. The knowledge of these terms has changed

though. JB stressed a knowledge of the rulebook, something absent after his presence even with

Joel around, which led to a deeper understanding of the lexis. However, the team still has that

lexis to a lesser extent. The team-specific lexes have changed more than the Ultimate lexis, but

barely more. Plays have been added to the playbook or changed, leading to different labels, but
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the plays are something that the players have created and named which leadership has little say

in. The team activities lexis has not dropped any terms, only grown in a small number of

instances spurred by a player or group of players and their different interests. One of the best

examples of this has been in “Clan Tarnwolf” (one phrase in the team-specific lexis created

around 2012). Three members of this family, Skindzier, Finke, and Brockhoff, added “raid” in

2017. This is an activity wherein one or more members of the team (Usually in Clan Tarnwolf)

play a prank on someone, whether a teammate or not, to no detriment of the other person. This

example shows that leadership has less of an impact on the vocabulary of the team; that

vocabulary is shaped more by the users than the overseers.

Through hours conversation and years of personal experience, I was able to get a greater

understanding of how the team has changed throughout its existence. By breaking down the

details and following John Swales’ criteria, it was determined that it qualified as a discourse

community, complete with common goals, specific communicative mechanisms, and differing

levels of experience in its members. Through analysis it is clear that Discourse Communities

change and evolve, and an important catalyst in this process is the different leaderships. Different

leaders have different values and these imprint on those that are following them, shaping the

values of the whole club immediately and for years to come. The three different eras of

leadership all had effects on the club that last into the future; some of these are good for the

community but some do harm them, and, even though the leader has influence on the

community, the community chooses what values are maintained and what are disposed of. Their

judgement may be clouded in the moment because of that leader’s influence but the correct

decision about values will be made eventually, leading to the best possible version of the

community. Commented [db2]: I would bring in at least one other

source
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Works Cited

Finke, Michael. “Experiences with Leadership of the UC Men's Club Ultimate Team.” 21 Nov.

2018.

Johns, Ann. "Discourse Communities and Communities of Practice: Membership, Conflict, and

Diversity." Writing about Writing: A College Reader. 1st ed. Ed. Elizabeth Wardle and

Doug Downs. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2011. 499-518. Print.

Mikalauskas, Jose. “Experiences with Leadership of the UC Men's Club Ultimate Team.” 21

Nov. 2018.

Swales, John. "The Concept of Discourse Community." Writing About Writing: A College

Reader. 2 nd ed. Ed. Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's,

2014. 215-27. Print.