On-field Personae

In ultimate, as with most sports, your on-field persona (or personae for those schizo's out there) can be drastically different than off-field. Personally speaking, I am normally very intense on the field, but not to the point of being a dink about it. If you escalate things, I have no problem getting loud, though. My favorite example is senior year at regionals, I encouraged an opposing player to "go [make love with] himself" after he labeled one of my correct calls "[cow manure]". The best part: the same player became my teammate a year later, and things were fine.

In my (short) experience, it seems that most of open elite behave the same way. You get respect when you give it. Play like a hack, expect to be hacked back. It reeks of ego, but if it's too hot in the kitchen. Our relationship with BAT has been up and down but mostly is directly correlated with the few Type A personalities from both sides. Our quarters game with Furious was that way as well, but interestingly enough, no other Nationals game was that amped up for us. Game importance obviously played a role.

I have no problem with intense on-field personalities who are extremely nice and subdued off the field. It's the on-field colossal dickheads/cheaters that try to act like saints off the field that bother me. I realize there's a separation where competition is involved, but those extreme opposite players almost seem to be acting.

Then again, there's a large difference in perspective regarding teammates versus opponents.