[Will Christopherson]

Was discussing some of the U23 Spirit scores today, and thought of this idea:

Spirit Scores should be given by the Game Advisors for both teams. They would only be consulted in the event of egregiously negative scores. At the very least, their ‘non-biased’ scores should be visible in the event of games with scores lower than 9 (or something.) I’m not sure how this would work, but I’d say they might even possibly be used as replacement scores or weighting in the event of highly contentious games where spirit scoring is impactful for awards.

This arose came from a game that looks like the losing team gave some petulant Spirit scores after a loss. No point in naming names, but here’s the story as it appears in the scores (and as confirmed by a variety sources at the tournament):
Team Lost lost to Team Win.
Team Lost gave Team Win a total Spirit score of 3, with zeroes in both Rules and Communication. Prior to that game, Team Win had scored an average of 2.14 & 2.29 in those two categories respectively, including a 4 in Rules given by another team.
Team Win gave Team Lost a Score of 8 – a couple of 1s, but mostly 2s otherwise. This would seem to indicate the game wasn’t overtly contentious – and a few spectators of the game confirmed this.

It seems to me that the Game Advisors would be a perfect source of outside perspective for a Spirit score for this sort of game. Perhaps an asterisk for the scores lower than 9 (or another score deemed appropriate) wherein the Game Advisors Spirit Scores for each team could be viewed? Possibly they could even be used to adjust Spirit scores if the game is deemed too contentious for calmer heads to prevail?

What do you think?

[Bruno Gravato]

In my opinion, I think that any situation related to SOTG scores should be dealt with the Spirit Director for the tournament and the game advisors should not be involved.

Giving a score of 0 (or 4) requires a justification, so on the spiritsheet the team giving those scores should write a clear reason for it.
If a team believes they got a score that doesn’t reflect what happened in the game their spirit captain should seek the spirit director and the other team’s spirit captain and talk calmly about it.

Spirit scores can be changed. If a team believes they were unfair and their judgement was tainted by the heat of the moment they should be allowed to review their scores (talk to the spirit director). But no third party should overrule the spirit scores. Solely the teams are responsible for giving those scores and changing them if they wish so.
Dialog between teams is encouraged and any SOTG issues should be dealt between them. The only third person that should be involved is the Spirit Director, that’s what he is there for.

This is just a personal opinion, I’m not affiliated with WFDF or the SOTG committee.

Cheers,
Bruno

[Patrick van der Valk]

Although there are instances where Spirit scores given are ‘retaliatory’, having the Game Advisor give the scores stops one of the fundamental objectives of the scoring system:

1) Educate players on what Spirit of the Game is

(the other two objectives are: 2) Help teams to improve specific parts of their Spirit, and 3) Celebrate SOTG by awarding a prize to the team that gets the highest score)

It is so important that teams reflect on the game and as a team, not individual, make the score. Game Advisors do not see the whole game. They are just one person that can focus on one thing at the time.

Further education is needed to reduce this from happening and Spirit Directors must talk to a team if there is an indication that a score is given out of retaliation. It happened in Lecco and we talked to a team about this and they changed their score afterwards.