June 10, 2014 by Charlie Eisenhood in Livewire
Longtime Philadelphia ultimate leader Trey Katzenbach emailed me yesterday. He wrote:
Do you know of any updates to the [USA Ultimate] 11th edition rules in the works?
One of the most overlooked improvements to play that has come about with the advent of the pro leagues is the fact that players can continue to move after a call is made. This completely removes all of those violations that occur when someone starts moving before the disc is checked in after a call or those times in which a foul occurs on a deep throw and is not completed. Everyone has to go back to the relative positions they were at when the throw occurred and it is frequently a point of contention with the defenders almost universally making up some ground on the open receiver. It seems to me that this would be a very easy addition to the current rules.
I agree — the ‘go back to where you were’ dance is silly, and the pro game has shown that it is perfectly workable to just allow continued movement.
What are some other possible 12th edition rule changes?
Here are some that I would like:
– Whistle initiated restarts of play
– Some amount of allowed substitution during timeouts (the pro leagues allow full subbing; at Stanford Invite this year, an experimental rule allowing a single player substitution was in effect)
– A rethink of observer TMF/PMF penalties — there should be stricter, quicker penalties and fewer warnings
– The ability for any on-field player or coach to call a timeout
What needs to change in the next update to the USAU rules?
