Nye: No to Refs in Ultimate

Before becoming known as "The Science Guy," he was William "Bill" Nye, an opinionated Ultimate player.

"To paraphrase Winston Churchill's view of democracy, having no officials in Ultimate is the worst possible way to control the game - unless one considers any other way. Listen everybody, I am not an idealist who believes in 'holistic perspectives' or bemoans the rarity of holistic perceivers. The reason we can play Ultimate competitively is not because disc players are stricken with a higher consciousness, but because the nature of the game is different. The game just doesn't need referees."
-- Bill Nye

Bill Nye concludes his article "The Ref Question: Not Idealism, Improvement" with: "The thing that bugs me most about incorporating officials is the big chance we're missing. As Tom MacNiven mentioned, society has improved its goals through the centuries hopefully (I mean it as an adverb) moving toward a more civilized civilization. Along with this, we have used documents to document our ideals. The permanence of the Magna Carta or the US Constitution is remarkable. It is part of being civilized. The recorded thoughts are more careful - more complete. I am pointing out that a well-written set of rules could be used to resolve disputes on the filed rather than more people (i.e., observers) trying to interpret less-concise rules. We already have 14 opinions, why compound the problem. The thing is, if we give in now, we will never have a other chance. If we stumble along with inconcise and debilitating rules (it's my call) and get ref's to tangle them further, we will not have even tried to progress.

Let's try orienting the rules to the players so that they can control the game. If it doesn't work, then we can observe. But I feel we have to try. Let's improve the rules rather than add more opinions."
-- Bill Nye

[UPA Newsletter, June 1980, pg 6]

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