The Breakside 6/16 - A Short Announcement
Exciting next steps...
Announcements:
Still looking for work! If you or a loved one needs someone to write/report/edit/do anything for you, let me know!
A Longer Announcement:
Well, buckle up, friends, because this one is a doozy. More for me than any of you, but I hope you’ll still appreciate it. As I mentioned on Twitter, I had some big news to share via The Breakside.
As you may recall, scholarships have been all the rage in the Division III scene recently, with Oklahoma Christian Univeristy leading the way in offering a path forward and an opportunity for (exclusively Open Division) players to get a cheap degree while playing Ultimate. I am also sure that some of you may have noticed an increased rate of content entering your inbox since the school year ended for me, as well as my “please hire me” announcement at the top of every edition and thought, “Wow, he really has no direction right now.” First, not my fault. Second, you’re not so wrong. I have been feeling a little lost at the thought of my time playing college Ultimate coming to an end. So, as a noted hater of equity and the Women’s Division in Ultimate (not to mention a noted Jewish person), I am pleased to announce my commitment to Oklahoma Christian Univ…okay okay. I’m kidding. About that last sentence, at least. Because I have been feeling a little frustrated with how my previous season at Brandeis ended rather unceremoniously at Regionals, and a lot frustrated with graduating into possibly the worst media employment landscape during my lifetime, and a little lost.
A couple of weeks ago, my friend and former Brandeis TRON co-captain Matt Sehgal texted me saying he’d been contacted by the coach of a different program, Davenport University. He passed along my name as a potential candidate for an Athletic Ultimate scholarship. I didn’t know what to expect, but I was excited to chat, learn more about the program, and see if it was right for me. After all, I am a journalist. I owe it to myself and all of you to do my due diligence. And well, it was. I was excited at the prospect of stepping into a community and team with everyone already bought in, four practices a week, team trainers, lifts, all Ultimate-related costs, and tuition all taken care of. The more I heard, the harder it was to find reasons not to do this. I’ll never get a better deal on going to grad school, and getting to kick around in the people’s division for another year or two should be pretty fun too.
Beyond this opportunity for me, I am excited to have this platform to share it with you. I created The Breakside to platform new and exciting things in the sport or people and stories that deserved more attention. And on some level, I owe it to myself, The Breakside, and its readers to go through with this program and take you all with me to hopefully publicize and legitimize opportunities like this in our community. And hopefully, that makes more of these opportunities available to others as well. It’s funny to come full circle on this from when I heard about the OC program several years ago. I hated it. I think it boiled down to jealousy and frustration at the lack of opportunities I felt I had access to on my own teams. But after speaking with Coach Wilson of the OC program and seeing what it did for the recognition of the division across the sport, it was hard not to become a fan of scholarships in our sport, even though I did revel in OC’s failure to make nationals this year (they won back-to-back titles though so boo hoo). And just an additional fun fact about Davenport is that they will have teams in the Open and Women’s Divisions, so it’ll be a real privilege and joy to see the first scholarship foray into the DIII Women’s field.
So without further ado, I am happy to announce…
And now, back to your regularly scheduled Breakside programming. Amateur Statistics for Professional Athletes Part 2 coming soon! (Hopefully this weekend, but let me know if you want some WUL playoff analysis, examining Game Score for biases, or anything else!)
About The Breakside
The goal of this newsletter is to tackle what I see as a gap in the present coverag
e 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 and perspectives 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.