I play with girls.

I never fully realized the amount of "hatin' on Co-Ed" that was going on in the Ultimate world until I travelled down to Florida this last weekend for Nationals. I know that both the Open and Women's Divisions consider themselves more competitive, and on the broader scale, I would have to agree. But then I also assumed that the Mixed teams that actually practice and compete all season to qualify for Nationals were excluded from this no-better-than-league-team bias... From what I've heard, however, this seems unfortunately true.

What I do know:
In the Twin Cities at least (Ok, I know that there's a Central Region bias that I working against here too...), if I were to invite the best 30 players in Ultimate to a "Best Players in Twin Cities Ultimate Party" I would start looking 1. For men on SubZero (open), get a lot of my guest list, but I would then go to Flaming Moe (Co-Ed) to fill out the spots, and 2. For women I would take a couple from Bait (Women's), but not have to go very deep at all before once again filling the ladies spots with Flaming Moe players again.

My point here is that the men and women on the elite Co-Ed teams in the nation aren't the rejects of other divisions. Most of the players on Moe could plug in to a top Open/Women's team, and some could be stand out players.

Personally, I don't think I could make SubZero, but I do think I could make an Open team or two at Nationals, and I could certainly be a key player on any second tier Open team. This just wasn't at all appealing when I was starting my Club career 3 years ago. And It still isn't. If I'd liked the people on that are now on Dingwop (Open) or Liquid Assets (Open), I might be there instead now, but that's not the case, and besides, those teams deliver so much less in terms of training, practicing and competition. I'm seeing much better Ultimate and improving my game more by playing for Moe.

How about this? I would play Open with the men on Flaming Moe... So it's not just an Open Division thing that I don't like. It must be a social thing...

From rec.sport.disc:
"You point out how Coed is more of a social sport which is all well and
good, there is no question it's fun, but it's not at the same level of
competitiveness because they are outweighed by the social gathering
aspects."

Part's of this thread were what got me thinking and writing about the Mixed Division, and not all of these points are bad, but seem mostly misguided. So yeah, I do play on a Co-Ed team for social reasons... but I would be playing on any team for social reasons! Lord knows that nobody is gaining anything financially from Ultimate.... there are no endorsements, nobody is getting any notoriety in larger society, and I'm sure as Hell I didn't get drafted by Flaming Moe. (Nor am I about to give my agent a bonus for extending my contract with the team.) "Social Reasons" have to be a ways up there for anyone competing in this sport right now.

The balance between the team I can play for as a person and the team I can play for as an athlete is Flaming Moe. And I would also argue, Mixed is on it's way up from it's past as a 'retirement division.' Now Mixed is able to attract many elite players despite the historical bias against it... Young players like myself will be drawn in to this division more and more every season when they compare the options in their home towns and find the same balance I have, on competitive, spirited, and hard working Mixed teams.

A final thought:
•Should we have Mixed, Women's and Open Nationals (and finals) at the same venue? (Another rec.sport.disc topic.)
Why not? If anything the Mixed Finals were the most consistently entertaining to watch. Women's was a blowout (again), although of course it had it's moments, and the Open final shifted so rapidly between intense/exciting competition and stagnant call arguing that it was easy to stop paying attention. And if we're worried about our spectators in this sport, why not supply another opportunity to watch on Sunday?

Ok, that's all I got for now. See you on the field.
Moe #22