By Far THE MOST Overvalued Player in Parity

Submitted by Heather Wallace on Tue, 2019-11-12 10:15

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Now that I've got your attention.... let's talk about something a little more eye-rolly. After two weeks of high intensity, chirp heavy parity play, women are woefully under-represented on the leaderboard. Only in goals do we have three women in the top 10, and in completions we have ZERO women represented. I believe that most players who register for parity want to throw to women, but women still aren't getting touches so I thought I would share one thing I learned when I transitioned from competitive women's ulti to mixed in hopes we can all apply it and throw to women more.

I am going to use generalities here, so please don't try to skewer this post with the one time you saw this not happen, or the one man or woman you know who decidedly does not play like this. GENERALLY, men and women tend to see openness differently. When I talk to open players, their general understanding is that a reciever needs to have a step or two on their defender to be open - in other words, open players tend to look for visible separation if they want to throw to a target. Generally, women consider themselves open when they are flush with their defender (assuming their defender is similar speed to them and doesn't bust out Helen Eiffert style bids all over the place). Handlers who play womens will often see their cutter get even with their defender, and then throw it to the space on the side of their cutter's body where the defender isn't. Women cutters will often then accelerate to get separation once the disc is up, or use their body positioning to ensure their defender can't get the disc.

This has a few implications for throwers looking to throw to their women teammates:

1. Throw to them - even if your gut is saying that their defender is close, if you think your women cutter is as fast or faster than her defender, give it a shot (this doesn't apply if their defender is an absolute beast known for run-through Ds, like Alisha, Katie or Justine)

2. Throw early - women players will often get separation once the disc is up, so throwing to them early on under cuts gives them the space they need to attack the disc. If you hesitate to throw to a woman early in her cut, you are limiting her space to out-manouevre her defender. Also, throwing early means more yards gained. Win-win.

3. Throw to space - similar to point two, give your women cutters space to run on to the disc. It can be more effective to put a bit of edge/touch on your throw and put it out to a space where a woman's defender isn't than to rifle it into the stomach of your woman cutter, where a rangy defender can swat at it.

4. Make space - this isn't a throwing to women issue, but typically open players have defenders on them that can shut down a space for a woman cutter. If you see a woman on your team is busting it to a space, try to facilitate that by actively clearing instead of making her cut through your huge dude after she burns her defender.

Anyways, just some food for thought as we re-adjust to 4:2 and try to find ways to make parity enticing enough to get back to 3:3.

Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood's picture

Hadrian Mertins...

Tue, 2019-11-12 12:07

...stayed for the insight and helpful suggestions. We can always do better, Parity!

Heather Wallace

Tue, 2019-11-12 12:34

Clickbait title... The Best Chirp EVER in Parity?

Actual content... why swarming female cutters after they get the disc is not an effective bail strategy.

Amos Lee

Tue, 2019-11-12 14:51

Clicked on the link totally expecting to see Brian Perry's name somewhere in the thread. Instead it's just a bunch of stuff Brian Perry could use to improve himself. 

Ariel Untiveros

Tue, 2019-11-12 16:07


Steve Bisang

Fri, 2019-11-15 08:34

Yup

Justine Dagenais

Tue, 2019-11-26 13:46

lol.

Steve Bisang

Fri, 2019-11-15 13:37

re: Point #4.   Just call a pick, problem solved ;) 

Cathy Miedema

Mon, 2019-11-18 10:03

It isn't a pick though. I believe the scenario Heather described is a woman is running to open space (or at least what could have/should have been an open space) that is not open because someone didn't get their defender far enough out of there. The woman on offense can't call pick on the defense for clogging up a space. This isn't limited to men but big, fast guys can cover a lot of real estate if they aren't kept busy. Smaller indoor fields just add to that challenge.

Luke Krolak

Mon, 2019-11-18 15:55

Just so we are clear, you are talking about everyone but Corey Boucher, right?

Abe Greenspoon

Fri, 2019-11-15 21:41

Genuinely appreciate this post. I had never thought about whether women and men thought about being open differently. I’ll keep an eye on this next game. Thanks Heather!

Alex Bush

Mon, 2019-11-18 10:23

I would have prefered to see options like:

- Who is the most OVERVALUED Player in Parity? You'll NEVER guess!

- OVERVALUED players? You'll never guess who beat Brian Perry!

- This Parity player is OVERVALUED, but it's not who you think!

- The secret to becoming an OVERVALUED parity player!

- 9 Reasons why these players are OVERVALUED
- OVERVALUED or UNDER-USED? The answers may shock you!

- He said he'd become the most OVERVALUED player in Parity, she said "no way!" Find out their story inside!

Jon Rowe

Mon, 2019-11-18 11:42

Find out what happened to this FRISBEE ICON when he moved to MINNESOTA! You'll be SHOCKED!

Alex Bush

Mon, 2019-11-18 11:25

BEFORE you read any further, I completely agree that players (men) need to throw to women more and that this is a problem that is endemic in ultimate and need to be addressed.

 

There are some interesting statistics from 2017 and 2018 in regards to how often women get thrown to. Don't forget, in an ideal situation in a 4/2 ratio game women should get 33% of events (defined as goals, drops, completions, or throwaways - both types).

Let's see how that worked out!

Male events - 12011

Proportion Male Events - 71.78%

Normalized Male Events - 55.99%

Female Events - 4721

Proportion Female Events - 28.22%

Normalized Female Events - 44.01%

 

As the table above shows, women did not touch the disc about one-third of the time. In fact, they are seeing the disc significantly less than they should be! Is it because your favourite receiver is male? or is it because men look to men and women look to men who just crowd them and demand the disc? 

 

I wonder how things improved in 2018 with 3:3 ratio? Remember, in a 3:3 ratio, women should see the disc half the time!

Male Events - 13482

Normalized Male events - 59.77%

Female Events - 9073

Normalized Female Events - 40.23%


Somehow things go worse! Did all the men just forget that there were women on the field? Did the women all stand in the back of their own endzone and not play the game? Who knows!

 

 

EDIT: Table functionality didn't work too well

Christopher Keates

Mon, 2019-11-18 12:34

M Event Totals: 2871, or 0.735 of all events

F Event Totals: 1033, or 0.2646004098 of all events

I need to provide cavaets. First, it's early in the year. Sample size is relatively low (but at nearly 4000 total events, it's not that low), and there is still time for this to correct. The above does not account for possible math errors I might have made.

What we can say is that this year so far, women are less involved in play. I haven't normalized anything, but this season would be somewhere between 2017/2018 and 2018/2019's "normalized" percentages assuming 3:3.

This is a 4:2 league and you'd expect (or maybe want) events to happen in a 2:1 ratio. Goals are about 2:1. Assists are around 5:1. 2nd assists are around 3:1. D's are around 4:1. Catches and completions are around 3:1 each. We are far short of expected or desired results.

Amos Lee

Mon, 2019-11-18 13:53

Obviously the main takeaway here is that converting the league back to 4:2 from 3:3 was the most gender equitable decision made in 2019. Right? 

 

Thomas Sattolo

Wed, 2019-11-27 22:36

Getting worse with 3:3 is probably down to all the new women who played that year. When I took a look at the data last year I did find that it got worse, but that basically went away if you just looked at players who played both years.

https://www.ocua.ca/comment/36591#comment-36591

Justine Price

Thu, 2019-11-28 11:35

We need to be careful about framing success in 3:3 vs 4:2 ratio using the number of touches per gender as any kind of justification. 3:3 is a success coz it's the right thing to do in 2019, regardless of what the touches look like. Even with no change or even a decrease in touches, the amount of room to move on the field increases dramatically, and there are less chances of getting D'd by a nearby man. By the same token, the bigger space allows those men on the field more room too, and they also use it. Returning to 4:2 ratio was due to numbers of people registering and being sustainable financially (we can't have the league subsidizing expensive play time).

I can tell you the field has certainly shrunk with more men back on the field. It's not bad, it's simply physics. There's a change in how you play within that physics and quite frankly involves less running for women as you may as well stand around a bit till some space opens up. Ok, you can eye roll there. I would say #4 in Heather's list is the biggest factor IMO. Obviously I prefer having more room as per 3:3, it's just better co-ed frisbee. Anyone who has played the WFDF rule A or B will probably have enjoyed it, it's a game changer. It takes a while too to adjust to the shift. At Harvest this year, on a team of very veteran players (read: old) after a bit of thinkinig, we ended up with a different look depending on whether we were 4:3 or 3:4. OCUA is new to gender parity so give it a bit of growing room and do it with some conscious mental shifts and how it effects your physical movement on the field.

BTW Even last year, women were underrepresented on the leader board, except for the goals where it was either 50/50 or the women were actually ahead. This may have been influenced, not just by the 3:3 ration, but due to lots of subbing and playing with only 4 or 5 women regularly, we had more PT most of the time. Right now most of us are playing 50% of the game as attendance is up with only four spots per team and zero blanks.

As an aside: Don't know if it's been considered, but perhaps Parity could move to an adapted WFDF ratio, with 3:3 always when play is West to East, and 4:2 always when play is East to West for the home team or such. Then you'd need 7 men and 5 women per team.

 

Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood's picture

Hadrian Mertins...

Thu, 2019-11-28 16:16

Moving to a hybrid ratio where we alternate 3:3 and 4:2 is a great compromise when we have more than 40 and fewer than 60 women. It's something we considered this year but didn't have enough women to implement. Definitely not off the table for future seasons where we can't manage 3:3.

Christopher Cas...

Fri, 2019-11-29 09:01

Div A of the Wed Sort-Of Hat League is running a modified 4:2 / 3:3 gender ratio A rule (full credit to Sarah McDonald). It seems like a great way to help leagues transition to a 50-50 gender split and likely to be used for future indoor leagues.

Jessie Robinson's picture

Jessie Robinson

Mon, 2019-12-09 11:02

I have heard great things about this! Way to go Sarah and the group!

Christopher Keates

Fri, 2019-11-29 09:24

When we talk numbers, we are just talking numbers. It's data. It doesn't mean anything. I asked last year "What does success in 3:3 look like? Is it more even involvement between genders? Is it more women handling? Is it a better reported experience by the participants? If involvement goes down but enjoyment goes up, is that success?"

But abstracted away from that, you are 100% right. 3:3 is the right direction to go, independent of anything else we might talk about on this subject.

John Haig

Mon, 2019-12-02 12:23

A hybridized ratio system would be much appreciated over 4:2.  I do hope that the numbers make it work next time around.

Another thing to add on to heather and justine mostly for the men (or their captains) looking to impove is that #4 really is so important.  Making improvements to sharing the disc can't happen with people clogging and cutting others off.  It's hard to fix the other stuff when #4 is a problem.

Andre Scott

Thu, 2019-11-28 14:35

Thanks for the reminders and suggestions! 

//Andre 

Heather Wallace

Mon, 2019-12-02 16:21

A lot excellent throwers who are women won't necessarily pick up the disc without being asked. Even disc-hogs like me tend to scan to see if anyone, even the most inept throwers, are ambling towards the disc before pick it up, so asking a woman to pick up the disc can be huge to get them touches.

Sina Dee

Mon, 2019-12-09 01:24

Looking at week 5 numbers, the following teams percentage of female catches are over 30%.

Toasted Defender - 36% Mehmet's inclusive culture showed above equal opportunity that week. 

Kelsey's Grammer - 34% Alisha and Alyssa are everywhere!!

Caughtfish - 33% The ladies earned their catches with hard cuts

Burnt Toast and Laura S'cored got 30% each.

 

 

Justine Dagenais

Tue, 2019-12-10 12:23

<3

Thuc Nguyen

Thu, 2019-12-19 16:52

I don't play Parity this year, but like most teams, there are dominant cutters that basically eat up a good majority of catches because they cut so well and are always open or a great bail cut. Just curious to see if the stats can  be filtered to remove the dominant cutter bias.