Hello again Louisville Ultimateers,

It is my honor to once again be addressing you as the LUFA president.  This year’s election was extremely close, separated by only one vote.  Raymie and I both ran for the post, the other two positions on the LUFA board went unopposed.  If I may, I can put my political science degree to work for the first time and describe to you two readily imaginable reasons for extremely close election cycles.  The first, that both candidates were equally qualified and separated only by a few differences in policy vision or leadership style.  The second: that the voting body is extremely divided and polarized, one group fighting to maintain power and another fighting hard to overturn the current hierarchical regime.  I am quite certain that LUFA’s close election was a product of the first set of circumstances.  Thanks to everyone who came out and made your voice heard.

                 Raymie has worked closely with LUFA since moving to Louisville.  He volunteers an amount of time equal to any other Ultimate leader in our fair city.  LUFA and Louisville always appreciate his organizational skills and hard work.  In fact, Raymie and I have somewhat similar Ultimate backgrounds each having spent our formative Ultimate years in the windy state of Ohio and each of us falling in love with the sport in the Savannah, GA area.  The flagship LUFA league, Summer League 2009, will be coordinated by Raymie this year.  He has some great visions for the league as well as LUFA itself.  I look forward to his counsel as well as continuing to work beside him as we move into the new year. 

                In case you don’t know me I will tell any newcomers to the area a bit about myself.  I am about to be 25 years old.  I graduated from The College of Wooster in May of 2007 with a B.A. in Political Science.  At Wooster I was the president of the Ultimate team for one year and I also coordinated the intramural ultimate league for 3 years.  I currently live in Camp Taylor in one of the many houses around the city populated by Ultimate players who are anxiously awaiting the return of nice weather.   Since returning home from school I have been working with the LUFA board, Steve Loomis and Roger Buch, as well as a host of others to make this LUFA thing run.  It has been a great time and I look forward to 2009, though it will be my last year volunteering for LUFA.

Things got underway last March with a very successful Spring League led by Raymie Younkin.  In May I put together LUFA’s best attended Hat tournament, the Derby Hat.  Around this time the club season was kicking off and Louisville looked to boast three separate club teams; LouEvil for the men, Cruella the mixed team and new kids on the block NightMare, the women’s program.  Continuing our great trend the Summer League in June and July was once again Louisville’s biggest league ever.  Summer League ’08 had 12 teams and was superbly coordinated by Steve Loomis (the original summer league director).  In August Andy Lowe once again directed Louisville’s premier tournament Swill in the ‘Ville.  Andy took it upon himself to host the tournament at no cost to the participating teams and it was a huge success and loads of fun!  Fall League was coordinated by Cory Fox and Rebecca Cahill, both imports from Wooster, and thanks to their hard work and the fair weather conditions the league was a great time for all of the true Louisville Ultimateers who play year round.

A huge thank you goes out to all 2008 volunteers!!! It was probably LUFA’s most successful year ever!  There is, however, one 2008 event that I have yet to mention, the 2008 event that I am most proud of.  In November the dream of Youth Ultimate in Louisville was finally realized.  Evan Boucher had been working diligently all year after accepting the newly created LUFA volunteer position of Youth Ultimate Coordinator.  After talking High School Ultimate up all year, gathering contact information and giving encouragement to young players Evan was presented with a great opportunity.  Dave Wu got in touch with us and mentioned the need for a Kentucky High School Ultimate State Championship, the winner being awarded a bid to High School Nationals by the UPA.  Evan Boucher accepted this challenge and with the help of LUFA funds and connections, Evan was able to correspond with UPA leadership and host an extremely successful State Championship tournament right here in Louisville.  Eight High Schools participated, five from our great city of Louisville and three from around the state.  Although the championship game featured two established programs from Lexington I believe this was a great leap forward for Louisville High School Ultimate.  Congratulations to Henry Clay High School, Kentucky’s 2008 State Championship program.  Thanks to Evan for his hard work and good luck with next year’s tournament set for May of 2009!

Well that about wraps it up from my end.  The 2009 LUFA line up is coming into focus.  Evan will be taking on the Youth Ultimate post again.  Emily Walker has volunteered to coordinate Spring League.  Ben Parris will be directing our early summer hat tournament.  Raymie is taking on the 2009 summer league.  And that’s about all we know so far.  As always there is a lot of work to be done.  If you are interested in volunteering for a position or maybe you just have some spare time to lend a hand every now and then, don’t hesitate to email me or any of the other LUFA leadership.  My email is Hobart.Yeager@gmail.com.  I also look forward to seeing EVERYONE at the 2009 vision meeting in late January.  Stay tuned to the website for announcements about the vision meeting and registration opening for spring league, both will be on or after January 20^th.    Happy Holidays from the LUFA family!

Cheers,

Bart