The Breakside 12/12
Finals procrastination and hot takes.
Welcome back to a bit of an unplanned emergency edition of The Breakside. What’s the point of building a platform if you’re not going to use it right? In that spirit, here I am, past midnight, writing this instead of working on final projects because Shredfest lives rent free in my brain. Maybe I really am turning into a writer because this feels like one I have to get out of my system before I can move on. Before we get into it, I’d like to extend an apology to my mother and girlfriend who are reading this and thinking “Wow I really wish he’d just do his school work.” Don’t worry, I’ll get it done. I promise.
What the F**k are We Doing?
Honestly, someone please explain, I am losing it
For the uninitiated, here is some context: The tweet linked above was posted promoting sponsored content advertising Shredfest, a two-day Ultimate Clinic run by well-known community members AJ Merriman, Johnny Bansfield, and Frank Huguenard. If you think one of those names is not like the other, you know where this is going. If not, Merriman and Bansfield are two players currently active in some of the highest levels of Ultimate. Huguenard is not. In fact, he considers himself fighting a war for the future of Ultimate and believes that he alone has the revolutionary offensive ideas to take the game to a whole new level. Just make sure to sprinkle in a few things: The most combative Being Ulti stint ever, numerous statements explicitly condemning ideas of gender equity, endorsements of “Cultural Marxism” (a conspiracy theory rooted in Antisemitism the Southern Poverty Law Center was onto as of 2003), and election denial.
There’s more, a lot more, but none that’s relevant for the rest of the conversation. If you want to dig more into that mess, search r/Ultimate for “Frank.” You can get a pretty good picture of what’s been going on for the past decade.
After that context, I will provide some caveats. I have never met this man in person. I have never directly engaged with him. I love the thought of rethinking how we teach and play Ultimate. However, I don’t care if someone has the greatest ideas anyone involved in Ultimate has ever had. I wouldn’t care if it was a cybernetically augmented John Heisman programmed to understand Ultimate at a whole different level. I do not think someone with the above views should be platformed in our community. Huguenard is not someone who made one mistake, said a couple of things out of line, or even grew up in an environment not knowing any better. These combative, incendiary comments and behavior have been going on for nearly ten years.
As a community, we have done a poor job protecting vulnerable groups in Ultimate. I won’t pretend I’m some saint who has it all figured out. I have been part of the problem and will likely contribute to that problem unintentionally in the future. Nobody is perfect. That said, there is a difference between people working to better themselves and the communities around them and building a safe space for everyone and those not doing that. And it doesn’t matter how big their flick huck is or how great(?) their ideas are for the game.
This brings me to the title of this piece. What are we doing? Why are we accepting money to platform someone who has made it clear that, as a person, they do not value all members of this community? It doesn’t matter what is said. Election denial and conspiracy theories; this is stuff that drives people away from our game and weakens our community when we give it a large platform, not to mention promote it from the largest news/information source within the community. It’s irresponsible and harmful. We do not need to tolerate people and ideas that refuse to do the same for others (see here for more on that). We have a responsibility to ourselves to do better. To be better. There is no reason that Shredfest, in its current form, needs to exist.
I still have difficulty deciding why I needed to write this. There’s been plenty of pushback from people online. Ultimate players know this guy and already don’t give him or his opinions too much weight. I think it’s the disappointment. Having prominent voices knowingly put their time, effort, and money behind someone who harbors views based on exclusion is a little heartbreaking. From the platforming of this voice to the collaboration with him to the Twitter account of a now-defunct AUDL team account retweeting this, it’s all bad.
Why is this a conversation that needs rehashing? My first ever experience with the Being Ulti account and a large part of the online community was learning about the dumpster fire three days Huguenard spent in charge of it. That was four years ago. There are screenshots of emails, texts, and online arguments dating back to 2012. Why are we doing this again? Especially in light of the past two years of election denial rhetoric. I hate the idea of using this platform as a punching bag for people. That’s not what I want this to be. However, I want Ultimate to be accessible and welcoming to all people. The decision to promote Shredfest by all those involved is a step backward from that goal.
Coming Soon…
I spoke with two of the best players to grace to Women’s D1 College Division recently: Grace Conerly and Clil Phillips! Beyond being incredible players, they were also the inaugural captains for Chapel Hill High School Ember, the girls team they helped get underway in High School. I am hoping to get a story out on this soon. Stay tuned!
About The Breakside
The goal of this newsletter is to tackle what I see as a gap in the present coverage of Ultimate as a sport. I hope that this newsletter will provide an outlet for important, yet overlooked people and stories to receive the coverage they deserve.
About the Author
My name is Noam Gumerman (he/him), and I am a senior at Brandeis University in Waltham, MA. I am from Chapel Hill, NC, and am currently studying Journalism and American Studies at Brandeis University. I am one of the current captains of Brandeis TRON, our open division team. My claim to fame within the Ultimate community is running the @being_ulti account during the week of the 2022 WUCC tournament. Contact me for discussions, feedback, story suggestions and more on Twitter at @noamgum, or via email at ngumerman@brandeis.edu.