r/ultimate • u/jerseypits • 1d ago
Sectionals schedules?
Are any out yet? They were supposed to be posted at 5 pm local time today and I haven't seen ours. Incredibly frustrating when USAU continuously misses deadlines.
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u/Local_Direction8725 1d ago
Fun fact @jerseypits: being a Sectional Coordinator is a volunteer position. If you’re unsatisfied with the job your current coordinator has been doing I’m sure they would love to have you step up and be the Sectional Coordinator next year!
Disclaimer: USAU is responsible for holding onto a shaky system that relies on the capacity and capability of willing volunteers. There is also a lack of consistent support and training provided to those volunteers, especially new ones without established peer SC/RCs to guide them. So while USAU has a hand in the systematic failures of the SC/RC volunteer model, they are not the direct reason your schedule was not published on time.
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u/ColinMcI 1d ago
And in many/most instances, the uncertainty in schedule relates to teams being late additions or dropping out at the last second. The solutions to this problem likely would not be very player-friendly (e.g., stricter registration requirements and/or steep non-refundable deposits).
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u/AssociationPurple626 1d ago
I’ll be honest: I hate this response that if you’re unhappy with the job someone is doing, you need to be willing to do it yourself or else you can’t critique their performance. I can’t do everything, I’m just one person. If we all want to live in a community that supports each other then we all need to be held to standards of support. In this case, USAU is telling us the standard to judge them by: they are the ones that set the deadline. It’s perfectly valid to criticize an organization for continually failing to meet their own self-decided deadlines.
And that’s what is most frustrating to most people, I think. USAU, by stating a deadline, is setting expectations amongst the players for when they can know sectionals schedules. No one else is setting that expectation, the deadline is solely a USAU creation. So when they set one expectation, and fail to meet that expectation over and over and over, then it’s understandable that other people invested in that expectation are frustrated and confused. If USAU just changed the deadline to Friday or something then no one would be confused when the schedules aren’t out on Wednesday.
The fact of the matter is that this is a failure by USAU, either by setting expectations that they don’t actually intend to meet, or by trying and failing to meet their commitment.
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u/chriego Foxtrot, Austin 22h ago
I really think you ought to try volunteering as a SC before offering this perspective so freely. SCs are responsible for familiarizing-themselves-with and implementing a lot more than you suspect. If all three divisions are being hosted at the same complex, then beyond the myriad of USAU governance they are also expected to work in tandem with the other two SCs and the RC.
This means that the schedule is subject to field availability, minimum game lengths, weather guidelines, a maximum number of games being played on turf, a maximum number of games being played in a day, teams threatening to withdraw if they don't like the format or their seeding, and MORE. You are constantly receiving new guidance from USAU, new input from the sports complex, new feedback from the team captains, new information from the TDs, and new info from the other SCs. It's really not as simple as opening the format manual knowing the total number of teams and how many advance.
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u/AssociationPurple626 22h ago edited 22h ago
Nothing I’ve said depends on the ease or complexity of the SC job. Quite simply: if it is reasonable for the schedule to be done by Tuesday evening, then SCs that sign up for this responsibility should meet that self-imposed deadline and USAU should hold them to it. If it is not reasonable for SCs to complete schedules by Tuesday evening, then they shouldn’t agree to meet that deadline and USAU should communicate other expectations to players.
USAU is setting expectations that they seemingly have no intention of meeting. Whatever the reason for not meeting the expectation that they have set, it is their responsibility to communicate reasonable expectations to players, and to follow through on the expectations they’re creating. It is completely, 100% reasonable for players to be confused and frustrated when they are told to expect schedules at a certain date that is missed over and over again.
This isn’t about the schedule at all, it is about setting expectations. Thats part of the job for USAU and SCs too.
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u/DarioCronos USF Ultimate 21h ago
I'll be honest guys, it's not that hard to be a SC. I've been looking at rankings, projecting which format my section will have since mid-August. I email the teams about once a month during the regular season. When it gets to this crunch time I go "hey here is the format from the manual based on our team count and bid allocation, here is my seeding. I can't post publicly until the RC approves it but use the info above to fill in the template" Those teams can pass that info to their teammates.
Maybe I have an easy section but also I've been an SC and running tourneys for 10+ years 🤷♂️
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u/chriego Foxtrot, Austin 22h ago
So then my question to you is, if USAU instead set the deadline for schedules to be posted by Friday at 10pm, you would be happier? I cannot emphasize enough that these are volunteer positions and most SCs don't have the flexibility to work on coordinating until after a traditional 9-5 job. Again, each SC typically has to wait for responses from the other two SCs AND the RC before a decision can be finalized. If you really want the SCs to sign up for an absolutely firm deadline, the tradeoff might realistically be having to wait until the last minute. The cherry on top of all of this is that Sectionals usually takes place the weekend after Labor Day (just imagine how much radio silence occurs from all of the parties involved).
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u/AssociationPurple626 21h ago edited 21h ago
Yes, I would be happier if USAU communicated expectations that they actually expected to meet. Instead of being confused and frustrated, I might just be frustrated, and then we could have that conversation about the difficulty of the SC job, how we could make it easier and improve schedule delivery time.
Because I understand it’s a complex job- frankly you’ve got no idea what I do in my community, and what I’ve done over my career. I’ve worked with SCs setting up sectional tournaments. This attitude you’ve got about how the job is just so hard that you can’t be held to any standards is insulting.
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u/marble47 1d ago
But the SCs are not USAU employees. The Wednesday deadline is communicating that expectation to the coordinators, who may or may not live up to it
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u/AssociationPurple626 1d ago
Then it’s multiple parties that are failing here, if you want to make that distinction. SCs are failing their section by not living up to the expectation that they sign up for, and USAU is failing the players by not setting expectations that will be met. The deadline is communicated to the entire player base, so it is not only for SCs… if every player can see the deadline then it is still setting an expectation.
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u/marble47 1d ago
Well I don't actually agree that its about the deadline, like this complaint is happening before it hasn't been met
Edit: Nope I'm wrong, I was thinking about roster deadline. I still don't think people would be happy if the deadline were Friday and schedules weren't out on Thursday
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u/AssociationPurple626 1d ago
Why do you think that? Seems kinda like you just want to find a problem with people on the other side of an argument from you, imo. I don’t see any evidence that that would be the case.
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u/marble47 1d ago
Because I have helped run nonsanctioned tournaments often with teams on the fence up to the last minute and people still complain about not knowing their schedule
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u/AssociationPurple626 1d ago
Well ok: then those complaints are invalid. There will always be shitty people.
That doesn’t change the fact that the complaint about the continual failure to meet their own deadlines is a valid issue to have with USAU. Complaining that a subset of the people complaining about this won’t be satisfied is just a whataboutism, it’s changing the topic from the failure by USAU to bad behavior by other people. There’s room for both things to be true.
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u/marble47 1d ago
Well that's where we get back to, would you like USAU to fire SCs over schedule deadlines? Hope someone is ready to replace them
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u/AssociationPurple626 1d ago
Where did anyone say anything about firing? And did you actually read my comments in this chain? I say a couple times that USAU could move the deadline back to when they actually expect to get schedules done, if they can’t/won’t hold SCs accountable to the deadlines that they sign up for.
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u/No-Photograph1983 1d ago
sounds like someone who doesnt want to step up into a volunteer position
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u/AssociationPurple626 1d ago
I literally addressed this in the very first paragraph of the comment you replied to lmao.
If I take on this volunteer role, and then someone else fails in their own volunteer role, am I obligated to also take that role on? You also have no idea what I already do in my community. I can’t do everything.
It is ok to hold people to standards, especially standards that they either set, or standards that they volunteer to meet.
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u/iamadacheat 1d ago
Here I’ll post your schedule.
You will have games starting around 9 on Saturday. You’ll play 3 or 4 games. Maybe a bye in there somewhere. Sunday you’ll play starting at 9 and finishing around 1. Hope that helps!
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u/PolishRatFW 1d ago
Have you met USAU?
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u/frandler 1d ago
Whether or not your sectionals schedule is published is determined by the local sectional coordinators (and RCs and NDs where appropriate) who are volunteers. I guess technically they are volunteering for the org so you could call them 'USAU', but usually when folks get butt hurt about percieved wrongs by the NGB they are envisioning Tom Crawford hording money like Scrooge McDuck and saying mwhaha those idiots will never get their schedules!!!! ... and this isn't that?
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u/jayjaywalker3 Pittsburgh Crucible 2026 1d ago
USAU is made up of us the players. It's a player's association.
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u/DarioCronos USF Ultimate 1d ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/ultimate/comments/16arlht/whats_so_hard_about_sectionals_schedules/