For my capstone project, I decided to create a montage of my trip to Costa Rica with 9 other girls and 2 teachers from SLA. The trip was a field study in the small village of the Bribri community. Over the course of 9 days, our trip consisted of exploring the capital city of San Jose, driving for 6 hours then taking a boat ride to the community, a 2 day service, beach time, and much more. During our time in the Bribri village, we bonded with the Bribri people and completed community service for 2 days in which we built a water pipe system for two houses. There’s so much more that I can talk about during my time in Costa Rica and that is why I decided to document parts of the trip so it would give the audience an overview of my experience and the girls’ experience as well.

I knew even before the trip happened that it was going to be an amazing and eye-opening experience which led me to film almost everything that we did. I documented our experiences from San Jose, the Bribri community, and even the beach after a few days of service. Every single day, I made sure that I had filmed the most important parts of the day for the montage content. However, I learned that it is difficult to focus on what is going on around you if technology is in your hands. Despite my willingness to document my experience in Costa Rica, especially the Bribri community, I wish I didn’t have to stress about having enough memory storage, my phone or camera falling in the water, not capturing the important moments through the lens, and getting a good camera angle. We shouldn’t focus on these, but instead focus on what nature has to offer around us. Regardless, I gained so much knowledge in such little time and I will be able to cherish the beautiful experience forever with this project I completed.

Annotated Bibliography:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Z1Hhw-PWdhlE1YjgPUC9EAAp3lYZ1AcMVDowp4GT7kE/edit?usp=sharing

Summary:

Over the course of my senior year I worked diligently to host an Ultimate Frisbee tournament as my capstone. I began my process with interviewing experienced tournament directors and finding out all of the necessary information needed to put together a good event. Once I was able to create my list of steps that I would need to take, I moved forward with scheduling. Planning the event required, finding field space, finding a certified medical professional, ordering porta potties for the event, reaching out to ultimate teams and budgeting. Along the way I learned many things about how to act in a professional environment. In early April my tournament took place. Ten teams from the greater Philadelphia area attended the tournament and ultimately it was a great success. The tournament taught me a lot and raised over one thousand dollars for the Science Leadership Academy Ultimate team.

Eli Block

Annotated Bibliography  

Bradley Palmer (Abington High School)

Palmer Bradley. Email,  January 2018

Bradley Palmer is the assistant principal of Abington Senior High School. Mr.Lehmann put me in contact with him because he potentially had field space that we could use to host the tournament. I learned how to properly write formal emails and what it takes to keep in contact with someone on a more professional level. Unfortunately there was no available field space for the right time and date for the tournament but I learned a lot while in communication with him. The planning required to secure event space requires more insight than I initially thought and in the future I will know how much background information I should have before contacting someone.

Disc Store

"Home." Disc Store. Accessed January 26, 2018. https://www.discstore.com/custom-apparel.

Discstore is one of the most popular Ultimate apparel brands in the country. They sponsor events and provide merchandise. I was told about their sponsorship policies from Jereme Mason. They will sponsor an event for free and after the event you send them 70-80% of the money made from merchandise. This is a great way to get some cool memorabilia from the tournament and I will learn how to design clothing and discs. I intend to call them to discuss the percent of the money made that we send back. Disc Store has sponsored thousands of tournaments and events and is a very reliable source.

Graham, Seth.. Personal Interview 7 October 2017

Seth Graham is the coach of the Methacton High School Ultimate team, he also is one of the organizes of PHUEL (Philadelphia High School Ultimate Education League). He was my first contact for the research part of my capstone. I learned about what goes into creating and organizing an Ultimate tournament and what options would  be best for our tournament. He provided me with the names of people who would be helpful in continuing to learn about how to put on an Ultimate tournament and led me in a direction where I could make progress with my capstone. As the capstone progresses I will keep in contact with him because he is a reliable resource and very helpful.

Ultiworld

"Home." Philadelphia High School Ultimate Education League. Accessed January 26, 2018. http://phuel.ultimatecentral.com/.

Phuel ultimate is the Philadelphia High School Ultimate Educational League, it provides information for teams in the area and other things youth ultimate in Philadelphia. Before every season there is a meeting that I will be attending and it will provide dates and locations for tournaments. The website has is like a hub of information that has provided me with things about Philadelphia ultimate that I had not known before. It provides names of people that can be helpful in making my tournament be a success. Moving forward I will continue to check the website to gain an insight into what's going on in the Philadelphia youth ultimate scene.

Mason, Jereme. Personal Interview. 23 January 2018

Jereme Mason is the found of Ulti Planning, a company that creates and organizes Ultimate Frisbee tournaments.  They are partnered with a variety of Ultimate services who offer Ultimate related gear. Jereme is also the youth director for the Philadelphia Area Disc Alliance and a full time employ of Pada.. He was a very helpful contact that provided me with information about securing field space, and other logistical aspects of a Frisbee tournament. He explained the constraints that each field space has and what space would be the best match for our tournament. He provided me with the contact information of people who I could talk to about the necessities of a tournament.

Minneci Christina (Lower Merion High School)

Christina is the coach of Lower Merion High School ultimate team, she has had a lot of success as coach and has organized tournaments before.  She has been a prominent member of the Philadelphia Ultimate community, and sits on the board of PHUEL. I contacted her about the reality of having our tournament be USAU certified. She provided me with the pros and cons of a USAU certification. After several emails chains it was decided that the tournament would not be USAU certified.. She was a helpful source of information in the early stages of the research part of the project.  

Pollock, Simon. "Tuesday Tips: 7 Tournament Director Basics, Presented By Spin Ultimate." Ultiworld. July 19, 2016. Accessed January 26, 2018. https://ultiworld.com/2016/07/19/tuesday-tips-7-tournament-director-basics-presented-spin-ultimate/.

This article explains in depth what goes into a general ultimate tournament. It is a reliable source because ultiworld is a know rebuttable ultimate online magazine. The tournament covered aspects of the tournament I had not yet think about like what happens if there is too much rain or some part of it fails. When creating brackets and the physical layout of the field scheduling I now know what to do and how to organize it. Moving forward the tournament will be more organized and have a more professional feel to it. I feel like I have now found everything that has gone into a tournament and now need to organize it.

"Pennsbury's Fall Brawl." Pennsbury Ultimate Frisbee. Accessed January 26, 2018. http://www.phsultimate.com/fb.php.

Every year Pennsbury hosts a tournament in the fall and spring for youth ultimate. It has been one of the longest running tournaments in the country. The SLA team has attended for several years. The website provides score updates, scheduling and other useful things that are necessary for the tournament. Having a website like this seems like a great idea and very useful to teams looking to come to the tournament but are unsure about its legitimacy.  The website is incredibly helpful and organized and I am now considering creating a website for the tournament. The websites reliability is good. Because SLA has gone to the tournament the websites authenticity has been checked.

Prushan Joel

Joel is an active member of the Philadelphia Ultimate community. He works with Pada and helps connect coaches with teams in need. I am interviewing him because he has reliable information regarding tournament organizing and running. Joel coaches a Philadelphia club team and has a lot of knowledge about ultimate. He has a lot of helpful contacts and potentially can help with securing sponsors for the tournament and other small things I might need. I contacted Joel in late 2017 and have talked to him a couple times about the event. His reach in the community is very helpful in organizing this tournament.

USAU tournament sanctioning

"USA Ultimate." Tournament Sanctioning. Accessed January 26, 2018.

https://www.usaultimate.org/tournaments/.

Initially the tournament was supposed to be USAU certified, so we could put the tournament date on their event calendar and entice teams into coming to our tournament. The goal was to make this as official as possible and attract the highest caliber teams. However after researching what it takes to get an event certified it was decided that the tournament would not be certified. There were to many constraints such as age, price and tournament rostering. I learned what it takes to have an Ultimate be official and how I could make it that way. Also how to deviate from your initial plan when something is not working out or when you know it will not go smoothly.

This year, I worked with my classmate Eli Block to create an Ultimate Frisbee Tournament. We had this idea since the end of junior year and we developed it at the start of our senior year. One of the first things we seeked to start our tournament was help from sponsors. Ultimate Coaches helped where they're familiar with the game and how we can design it. Those who know how to run a successful tournament and what we needed to make it the best was our goal. With the help of our coach/principal Chris Lehmann, we sought other help outside of the SLA Community that we know from the game of ultimate which ended up being a great amount of help. One of the people who’s experienced in Ultimate is Joel Purshan where we met up at a Saxby’s discussing how we would measure the fields, having the cones set up and the how much we would charge each team for attending our tourney. We got with another familiar person Jereme Mason where we talked on the phone discussing the date and the schedule of our tournament (not interfering with the SLA Boys Ultimate Spring Season) we discussed the pool play, bracket play, and the seedings. Adding on was the snacks, porta-potties, and getting a trainer. What we learned from doing this was gaining experience from having the idea of something big, to knowing how to create one successful tournament. The tournament “Reach for the Sky” was successful because we sought out help and we persuaded coaches to have their teams come out and have a fun time facing each other and playing at a competitive level of Ultimate

Here is the Link to my Capstone Bibliography:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FEaVLU_M_8z64yaAQsciMOas3T-kdvT_sjixOZs5EOk/edit?usp=sharing

“Being a Cheerleader - Is Cheerleading a Sport?” The Official Site - Varsity.Com - We Are Cheerleading, www.varsity.com/event/1262/being-a-cheerleader-sport.

With this source I looked into the age old question that typically comes when hearing about cheerleading. Is cheerleading a sport or not? This article spoke about what it truly means to be a cheerleader and what cheerleaders go through on a day to day basis. It gave a lot of detail about the definition of the word sport and how there is no solid definition for an official sport. According to the article what makes a sport an official sport is it involving some form of physical activity, competing against opponents and acknowledgement of the competition that has a primary purpose such as the super bowl or the world series.

Pennington, Bill. “As Cheerleaders Soar Higher, So Does the Danger.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 30 Mar. 2007, www.nytimes.com/2007/03/31/sports/31cheerleader.html

This source helped me highlight the importance of staying safe in cheerleading. Many people believe that cheer is all dance and chants but it is far more complex. We are lifting up girls that are our weight or more so in order to avoid danger we have to take special precaution. This article also talks about how sports like football have armor and cheerleaders do just as much if not more than they do without an armor at all. It is a lot more dangerous for cheerleaders than it is for those of other sports for these reasons. I believe this is why cheerleading is the most dangerous sport.

Mather, Victor. “Great Moments in Cheerleading: Could the Olympics Be Next?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 8 Dec. 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/12/08/sports/great-moments-in-cheerleading-could-the-olympics-be-next.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FCheerleaders&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=collection.

This source helped me see more of the evolution of cheer. I got to dive into where cheerleading came from and how it has changed over the years. I think this source is important because it represents like an old school way of thinking about cheer. I feel like a lot of people see cheer as more of a hobby just because of how it was represented in the past. I want people to see that cheer is a constant growing and complex sport. I feel as though this source is more of a timeline of the cheerleading spectrum. It really helped me in getting into the history of cheerleading.

Almasy, Steve. “Cheerleaders prep for hours in search of 2½ minutes of perfection.” CNN, Cable News Network, 15 July 2011, www.cnn.com/2011/US/07/15/sports.sweep.allstar.cheerleading/index.html.

This source helped give a more detail explanation of what cheerleaders go through. Practice is very intense and everything that follows it as well. It goes into detail about training and goals in order to succeed in the sport. I feel like it helps explain what cheerleaders strive so hard for. A title and a trophy just like every other sport. It also speaks on the risk in the sports such as injuries that I believe people don’t know enough about. Cheerleaders work just as hard as other athletes if not harder because they compete for a certain amount of time and have to give there all in a 2 to 3 minute window. That one performance is all they have and there is no coming back from it.

BetterBraces.com. “Cheerleading: The Most Dangerous Sport.” ACTIVEkids, Active.com, 2 Mar. 2016, www.activekids.com/cheerleading/articles/cheerleading-the-most-dangerous-sport.

This source goes to further explain the difficulty of the cheerleading as a sport. It speaks more on the stats of injuries for cheer. It helped me see and explain cheerleading and everything that comes with it. It talks about what practices and coaching looks and sounds like. It gives the percentages of injuries as well. It also brings up the good point that when typically thinking about injuries in sports people immediately think of sports like football and basketball. I feel like this source helps me prove the point that cheer is a very complex sport being that they called in the most dangerous in the world.

Morgan, Richard. “Cheerleading has evolved into a billion-Dollar business.” New York Post, New York Post, 24 Apr. 2017, nypost.com/2017/04/24/cheerleading-has-evolved-into-a-billion-dollar-business/.

This article speaks more on the cost of cheerleading and the number of people involved in it. Apparently it is in the midst of becoming an Olympic sport. I find that extremely interesting because the sport is heavily doubted and it is a very difficult sport. I believe that it does become apart of the Olympics it will finally get the recognition it deserves. This source helped me bring up my point that many people are involved in the sport men and women of all different ages. I pulled a lot of quotes about the involvement of people in cheer and some background on where the sport came from.

Cinetic. “American Cheerleader - Official Trailer.” YouTube, YouTube, 9 July 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=caBZRrJT_vw.

This documentary was a very big help in showing and explaining the world of cheerleading. It captures 2 teams preparing to go up against each other for a title. The documentary shows what the sport is all about while also representing all the work that goes into it. I found this source extremely helpful in showing the positives in the sport and accurately portraying what cheerleaders look like. It shows and represents competitive cheerleading and what it’s like to be apart of that and to be in that environment. I think that in my documentary I can incorporate a lot of their ideas about the importance of cheer and how strict everything gets when a competition is involved.

“Cheer Squad.” Netflix, 14 Mar. 2017, www.netflix.com/title/80170845.

This show is another that helped accurately represents the competitive cheer world. The show follows a team in Canada that is known for continuously winning and it follows their journey to multiple competitions. This source helped me alot with really understanding how an all star team works and how much work goes into being on a professional team. From this source I got a lot of ideas on how I want to film my own video. I like the way they set up the show being a lot of videos of interviews and then showing clips of them practicing and competing.

“Bring it on.” Netflix, 1 Jan. 2018, www.netflix.com/title/60001366.

The movie Bring it on is a very good source to me because it captures exactly the opposite of what I am trying to portray in my documentary. It shows the difficulty of the sport and highlights the competition but it still represents a very stereotypical type of cheerleader.  I want my documentary to capture the different aspects of not just cheer but also cheerleaders. This source is kind of what I want to base mhy documentary off I just plan to tell the story of cheer in a better way then the director of this film. I want to show the diversity in the sport.

“Being a Cheerleader - History of Cheerleading.” The Official Site - Varsity.Com - We Are Cheerleading, www.varsity.com/event/1261/being-a-cheerleader-history.

This source really helped me find more information on the history of cheerleading. I got to see where exactly it came from and how it came to be. They spoke on how UCA ( Universal Cheer Association ) and how it started. I think that it really helped me/ figure out where cheer came from and why it’s important. I took a lot of my information from the years everything was established. I hope to use a lot of the dates in my documentary when I’m speaking on the history of cheerleading. I feel like in adding this it will put historical significance in my video.