The series of decisions that resulted in the men’s ultimate Frisbee team being disbanded for this year have become a matter of significant contention, both locally and nationally. In response to the decisions by the Club Sports executive committee to cancel the team’s season and national title hopes, and the halting of appeals by EMU Student Activities Director Gregg Lobisser, the team has received an outpouring of support from like-minded students, fellow Frisbee players and enthusiasts across the country and members of the University community.
The decision to prematurely end the team’s season was made in response to complaints from a student at Oregon State University who was offended by the team’s one-point match against each other – with one side playing without pants or underwear. Granted, this choice of behavior was not exactly the brightest on the part of the ultimate team.
It probably says more about the problems with our society, however, than it does about the problems with our ultimate Frisbee team, that we are so terrified of our own bodies such as the simple public exposure of them might warrant a punishment of this severity. And while the ultimate players have not exactly demonstrated themselves to be paragons of virtue – especially considering past transgressions against the law regarding alcohol and traffic violations – they do not deserve the punishment they received in this case. The punishment is simply so disproportionate as to even remotely be considered justice, and it should be rescinded immediately.
Perhaps Club Sports would have been reasonable in levying a sanction of more minor consequence than cancelling the entire season, especially in respect to the importance of student participation in Club Sports activities. The team’s members could have been asked to do community service, submit to further scrutiny, or even withdraw from future tournaments, as retribution. But the outright cancellation of its season for an offense so minor is a clear overstep.
Further, Club Sports argued it has taken into account past transgressions by the ultimate team as cause to justify its punishment. This too seems disputable as legitimate reasoning. The team has found itself in trouble throughout the course of the year, but all of the prior transgressions have been prosecuted by appropriate authorities, and citing them now as a reason to legitimize a cancelled season seems, at best, an attempt to discipline them further for societal debts they have already paid. Each instance of bad behavior should be corrected by measures appropriate to the behavior, and the practice of a “three strikes” rule often results in patently unreasonable sanctions for otherwise trivial abuses, as is the case here.
Finally, we are concerned that punishments regarding the behavior of our student athletes are waged selectively. Just recently, three members of the basketball team were given community service hours – a punishment far less severe than season cancellation – for crimes we believe to be much more disturbing.
In the past, athletes have frequently received little more than public criticism or “special probation” for behaviors as severe as driving with a suspended license, reckless driving that resulted in accidents, and failure to appear before court. And many of these athletes bear a responsibility that the ultimate team largely does not: They represent a public face for the University. Yet the ultimate team is punished much more harshly for merely appearing on the field in partial nudity, which, while offensive to some, hardly has the potential to do serious damage to anyone.
We do hope the men’s ultimate Frisbee team is able to learn from this incident that it must take greater care in how it behaves, both on and off the field. Nonetheless, for the Club Sports executives to come down so harshly on a team that shows great potential in its sport and an admirable willingness to participate in student activities suggests the Club Sports executives are more beholden to the sensibilities of one disagreeable OSU student than to providing valuable opportunities for student participation on our own campus.
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