Naked Ego?

We don't normally indulge in general Ultimate gossip here at the DojoMojo blog, but when this tragic/funny news item landed in our inbox this morning we couldn't resist sharing.

And that was probably because we instantly felt a sense of trans-global, anti-establishment kinship with Dusty Becker and his obviously very committed Oregon University Ego team-mates (who are apparently a very highly rated US college team) who, like the kenshi, haven't let their athletic ambitions cause them to forget how to live a little... Indeed, it seems that the Ego boys have a relationship with their College's student sports board that's not at all dissimilar to the Dojo's with our own BPL League Director (one day we'll look back and laugh, Stu).

So, Dusty & co, we just wanted to put it out there that we're right with you (assuming you're not countenancing doing these things simultaneously...) when you say: "Speeding, drinking, nudity — they’re not bad things... They’re things a big portion of the community doesn’t think are wrong." The story says that Ego players have had four speeding fines across the whole team in two years!!! Just four. We have no doubt at all that there would be many individual kenshi who've received more drive-by taxes than that over the last two years. And if nudity is "wrong" then surely we should all be reprimanded at birth???

Anyway, only a small insight into this unfortunate situation can be gleaned from the news articles, but this story seems to be a terrible one of moral misunderstandings, disproportionate punishments and a general lack of good humour. We're not sure how the student board can actually stop the Ego team from travelling to play - one assumes the severing of future funding would be the only viable instrument - but it seems obvious that this is a prime example of how the inherent anti-authoritarian nature of Ultimate doesn't always sit well within structures of authority (whether that be the local student board or the local constabulary).

It's easy to get used to the Ultimate players' privilege of each individual (rather than some impersonal figure of authority) making rule calls based on their own, personally accountable assessment of every alleged infraction, and often very difficult to accept that the rest of the world at large can't work that way as well...