Almost exactly four years ago, we created YouthUltimate.com because we wanted to bring unbiased news coverage and commentary about youth ultimate to readers all around the world. But, most of all, we created the site because covering ultimate was fun and we enjoyed doing it.
The site has far exceeded the modest expectations we had that summer of 2007. Since then, through articles, podcasts, tweets and even a magazine, we’ve enjoyed connecting and communicating with players, coaches, fans and everyone else involved in the sport.
Unfortunately, however, this marks YouthUltimate.com’s last published post.
When our site crashed just over two weeks ago, we were basically left with two options. The first was to rebuild the website entirely, recreating what we had once had. However, we quickly came to the conclusion that this could take weeks or even months, and that that kind of undertaking would be unrealistic given our other responsibilities. The second option was to downsize and simplify the site, making it more manageable to re-create and manage. However, we firmly believe that if we’re going to spend any time on something, we want to do it right, to the best of our ability, and that’s not something the second option would have allowed us to do.
We had some great plans for the coming months, and we’re disappointed that we’ll not get to see any of those through, but it’s our hope that one day they’ll become realities for youth ultimate.
Since we started the site four years ago, youth ultimate has grown dramatically. Just seven years ago, USA Ultimate (then called the UPA) reported less than 2,000 youth members. In 2007, the number had grown to about 5,600, and today, they have almost 9,000 youth members. The growth in our sport is only going to continue, and there’s no reason all that surrounds it, including things like media coverage, can’t either. Everyone reading this should be proud that their support of youth ultimate is, and will continue to be, a major reason for that growth.
Some things end too soon, and this is certainly one of them, but we do believe that everything happens for a reason.
We would like to thank everyone who helped make this so successful, most notably Michael Baccarini, Tiina Booth, our contributing writers, Kevin Lakritz, Eli Motycka, Tyler Monroe and Vinh Bui, and our advertising partners, VC Ultimate, National Ultimate Training Camp (NUTC), Spin Ultimate, and Next Level Ultimate Camp. We also want to thank the entire ultimate community for giving us a chance to bring you ultimate coverage.
Someone once wrote that we should not cry because something is over, but rather smile because it ever happened at all.
And that’s exactly what we’re doing today.
Michael and John Terry
YouthUltimate.com is down
Last night, YouthUltimate.com experienced a sudden server failure and complete loss of data. We have been given no explanation from our hosting company as to why this happened.
There might still be some hope to restore our old site. We have a pair of file backups that we are going to try to upload in the next couple of days, but for the time being, all is lost.
We are very disappointed at the possibility that years of content are essentially gone.
Over the next couple of weeks, we are going to discuss the future of YouthUltimate.com and YouthUltimate.com The Magazine. For now, the website will be down indefinitely and we will post an update on this site and our Facebook Page in the coming weeks.
Thanks for your continuing support and readership,
Michael and John Terry
YouthUltimate.com
Founders/Editors