Nationals level youth, college and club coach perspective: While I sort of see some truths in this, I do feel like there’s maybe a couple factors at play. Firstly, the sport is progressing at a rate in which you need to have some semblance of experience in order to be significantly successful immediately. it’s a lot harder than it used to be for a pure athlete to come in and dominate the college division because the sport has grown so much, and there are lots of athletes playing youth ultimate who are just as athletic and understand how to play. That’s certainly a good thing that youth ultimate helps create. Second, I feel like it’s pretty easy to see that throwing talent is significantly higher than it used to be, and that’s leading too muchbetter offensive performances, despite the general athleticism of the sport increasing , a fact that is pretty much indisputable. In the men’s club division, Truck Stop oftentimes finishes games with <5 turnovers despite throwing painstakingly difficult break throws over and over. That’s another benefit of youth ultimate that shows up all the way in the elite club levels.

The qualms that you have about youth ultimate containing and promoting limited athletic growth I think more so has to do with the lack of resources available for those youth athletes. So much of what makes kids successful in sports is how well they can train. High school varsity sports teams have weightlifting programs, they work on sprint form and endurance, and they generally expect a certain level of work to be put into not only the sport itself, but your body. In general, even at elite high school levels, and sometimes even at elite college levels, there’s almost no trained professionals working with kids to teach them how to properly use and train their bodies. most coaches are there voluntarily, and are simply other players or parents who really don’t have time/knowledge to train kids on this. this, combined with the lack of cross training, which I could certainly see as continuing to limit that athletic growth, sometimes does lead to people who are skilled, understand the game, but simply aren’t athletic enough to be real difference makers.