Huddle Up – Updates on The Huddle

USA Ultimate absorbs the very popular Ultimate blog The Huddle

Since 2007, the online publication The Huddle has doled out a wealth of strategy, team tips, and Ultimate know-how to new and veteran players alike. Bringing together immense talent and credibility from contributing authors like the Northwest’s Gwen Ambler and Andrew Fleming to the East coast’s Tully Beatty and beyond, The Huddle was the strategy resource for every college, club, youth and rec team in the nation.

Andy Loveseth, Huddle co-founder, reflecting on the inception of the publication, said,  “The Huddle was started to provide a source of insight into the high level Ultimate strategy for everyone everywhere. As an online publication, access to the wisdom and experience of great players and coaches would become free and ubiquitous. Players from all of over the country — from small colleges to developing Ultimate communities — would benefit from the knowledge and skills from the very best our sport has to offer.”

The Huddle, started by Ben Wiggins, of Seattle Sockeye, and Andy Loveseth, was handed over to USA Ultimate in late December. The changeover to will include The Huddle being hosted on usaultimate.org and being officially produced by USA Ultimate.

Andy Lee, USA Ultimate’s Director of Marketing and Communications spoke on the absorption of this respected outlet. Lee explains, “It gives us a more refined platform on which to deliver strategic advice and features geared towards a specific demographic and skill level. The Huddle has served the Ultimate community around the world as a tremendous resource with strategic and feature material geared towards players and fans alike. The whole nature of it being a publication put together by the Ultimate community for the Ultimate community is a unique aspect and one that makes it a well-respected resource.”

USA Ultimate plans on using The Huddle as well as USA Ultimate Magazine and the Ultimate Nation (CEO Tom “Craw-daddy” Crawford’s weekly address) to reach out in their current efforts to grow the sport from the youth level on up.

So what can the Huddle’s faithful readers expect? Well in the near future – not much. Currently, there isn’t a set schedule yet as to how often articles will be published. However, six volunteer editors have been chosen which include Melissa Witmer, Aaron Magil, Rusty Brown, Shane Rubenfeld, Steve Sullivan, and Rich Coker; all who will be working with Matthew Bourland, USAU’s Manager of New Media.

Melissa Witmer, who also contributes to Skyd, is excited about the opportunity. “Our job is to just look over the submitted articles and do minor edits for enhanced readability,” says Melissa. “We just got our first assignment so we’re still figuring out how to divide up the workload and help each other out.  I am thrilled to be on ‘the inside’ of The Huddle.”

While The Huddle often presents voices of elite level contributors, Melissa notes that The Huddle is a place for everyone in the Ultimate community to get involved. “You don’t need to be an elite player to get involved with The Huddle.  We would love to have a few more photographers, videographers, and graphic designers on board.  Anyone interested in getting involved in any way should send and email to thehuddle@usaultimate.org.”

Andy Lee says that this upcoming season will be a learning experience with the blog. “Initially, our goal is to simply make the transition with Ben and Andy,” says Lee, “maintain the solid network of contributors that they put in place and put the publication on a regular timeline.”

While The Huddle is now in new hands, co-founder Andy Loveseth did share that he and Wiggins are working on new project that he described as a “once in a generation sort of idea.” We’ll see what 2011 brings. I hope it brings cookies.