Strategy: Solidify the UPA as the Leader in Youth Ultimate through Creative Outreach, Standard Setting, Diversifying Participation and Enhanced Competitive Opportunities

The Ultimate community has spoken: Investment in youth Ultimate should be a top priority. But the UPA and the sport face many challenges, among them ensuring that UPA youth competition is scalable, creating opportunities for younger age groups, expanding the sport into socio-economically and racially diverse groups, and ensuring that knowledgeable adults are available to organize and teach the sport.

Tactic: Create and distribute UPA Youth promotional package. Print and video materials with information about the sport, how to start a school team or league, basic skills, and rules will be created and made available at no cost to schools, parks and recreation departments, and youth organizations. A pilot program will be used to test the effectiveness of the tools in target states.

Tactic: Review/rewrite High School/Middle School curriculum. In order to insure acceptance by PE teachers and athletic administrators, current tools will be reviewed and revised to meet national physical educations standards.

Tactic: Explore the need and structure for non-school-based youth play, and the role of the UPA Youth Club Championships in that structure. Is it important to have non-school based play? If yes, what should the structure be and what are/should be the goals of the YCC?

Tactic: Expand and develop the role of State Youth Coordinators; provide guidelines for best practices for state level youth competition. The tremendous potential for the growth of Youth Ultimate demands the people and tools to make it happen. But it cannot be accomplished through a centralized program. Similar to other high school sports, leadership must occur at the state level and the UPA is pledged to support it.   

Tactic: Develop model for U14/Middle School play. Building local middle school Ultimate must focus on building participation not competition – experienced middle school organizers will develop a model for implementation.

Tactic: Revamp coaching educational offerings to be better targeted and accessible to participants and to ensure coaches are educated on UPA policies. After three years, more than a thousand people have taken the initiative to learn that coaching is skills and drills and much, much more. However, the UPA has also learned that educational needs vary widely, and that course materials and teaching formats must be updated to accommodate these needs.

Tactic: Create plan, develop materials and identify leaders to promote girls Ultimate. Participation by girls and women in Ultimate lags well behind that of boys and men. Among the tools to be developed are a best practices manual and outreach kit for increasing girls’ participation at the state level.

Tactic: Stimulate a pilot for a local Ultimate program for underserved and underrepresented youth. What is the best model? Right now the UPA does not have the answer. However, we will commit resources to a local community program with a solid plan, a desire to serve as a pilot program, and eventually provide guidance to other communities on how to make it happen too.