SF FlameThowers Apologize

The San Francisco FlameThrowers and Seattle Cascades will be meeting on Friday in a 7v7 mixed pro ultimate exhibition match called Cascades Cup. The game will be played with AUDL rules and each team roster - San Francisco @ Seattle - consists of 10 female and 10 male players competing for a cash prize of $500.

The text:
First and foremost, the FlameThrowers management would like to apologize to all the amazing Bay Area ultimate players who compete in the women's and mixed divisions but did not have the opportunity to try out for a spot on the Cascades Cup roster.

We, the FlameThrowers management, failed to adequately communicate our goals, scheduling, and the process for inviting athletes, holding tryouts, and selecting the final roster. We are aware that there are women who had made other commitments for March 25th and on April 14th prior to our reaching out to the community with these critical details, and for this we are sorry.

Specifically, we did not

>widely announce our desired process for creating a team in early March
>sufficiently advertise the mass posting asking for interested players
>announce the date of the tryout early enough in advance

With all new endeavors, there are always wrinkles to be smoothed out. But regardless of this, we did not carry out the process well at first or hold ourselves to a high enough standard of organization and planning.  What could have been a highly attended tryout and community building experience was not ultimately as well-attended as it otherwise might have been due to the rushed nature of the recruiting and the overall tryout timeline.

The only explanation management has to offer is that we were and are working very hard to make sure all of the enormous number of details associated with the regular season are being addressed and the Cup tryout details slipped through the cracks at first. However, we want to emphasize that this does not in any way reflect the seriousness with which we gave the tryout and the impending game. Gender equity is one of our highest priorities and the Cup is an important step towards equal representation on ultimate's biggest stages.

We apologize to the individual athletes who wanted to compete on the Cascades Cup roster but could not, and also to the ultimate community at large. Moving forward, we will do better. And we offer a heartfelt thank you to those who did show up and gave the tryout their all – we appreciate your effort and enthusiasm for this opportunity!

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