2018 Hall of Fame Class

Builders 

Rod Nicholls

Rod is probably best known for organizing several league and No Borders Parties over the years however it is not his party organizing prowess that is the reason for this nomination.
 
Rather, for several years, Rod performed a valuable service for OCUA and for OCUA summer league teams. Rod was OCUA’s "new player coordinator".
 
I once estimated Rod processed over 3000 players. And back then, when we had OCUA’s old business card, people would ask how they could get started playing, and they'd be given the card and told to phone Rod and that he would hook them up.
 
Today players can go on open forum: players looking for teams; captains can go on open forum: teams looking for players. Often players contact Sam, our program officer, and deal directly with her. They can reach OCUA via facebook or twitter and everyone has a smartphone. Back then we had none of those things, but we had Rod. Rod had to do his work using land-line telephones and having face-to-face meetings in bars and at the fields.
 
Annual turnover back then (I don’t think this has changed much) was over 500 players a year. It was Ultimate’s heyday and leagues were growing like wildfire all over the place, but I think nowhere was it growing as fast as Ottawa. When you think about all the new players who join now and still how much work it is with paid staff, it's truly amazing that back then, if not for Rod’s efforts, there are a huge number of players who would never have played.
 
Thanks Rod for introducing Ultimate to so many!