Colorado Springs, Colo. (December 16, 2021)—Voting is now open for the 2022-24 USA Ultimate Board of Directors election. All current and eligible members are encouraged to learn more about the candidates and cast a vote through their online member accounts at play.usaultimate.org.
There are two board seats up for election this year – At-Large and Elite Athlete.
All current USA Ultimate members in good standing are eligible to vote in the At-Large election, while only elite athletes as defined by Section 5.6(b) of USA Ultimate’s bylaws, are eligible to vote in the elite-athlete election.
Voting is easy!
1. Log into your member account.
2. Click on the “Voting” icon.
3. Choose the election in which you wish to vote (only elite athletes will be presented with that option).
4. Follow the voting instructions.
Polls close on Wednesday, December 29.
MEET THE CANDIDATES
As part of their campaigns, and to help voting members learn more about the candidates, each person running for the board of directors was asked to submit information regarding their candidacy using the questions outlined below. Read more to meet and learn about this year’s candidates. *Note: With only one candidate running for each of the two available board seats this year, candidates will be running unopposed.
AT LARGE
Christopher Novielli
- Describe your professional experience, expertise and/or skill set(s) (e.g., finance, legal, marketing, etc.) and how they relate to and add value to supporting USA Ultimate’s mission of advancing the sport of ultimate in the United States.
I have spent the last eight years working in finance and past 10 years in various volunteer roles in the community from coaching to regional coordinator to USAU men’s club player rep. Over the last few years I’ve understood that the USAU financial situation has been tough due to COVID and think I could bring some professional insight and guidance.
- Provide a brief description about what you would uniquely bring to USA Ultimate to support and accomplish the goals outlined in USA Ultimate’s current strategic plan.
I think outside of my professional background I can bring a unique insight from my many roles I’ve had in the community. I have seen all of the good USAU has done to grow but sitting in so many different positions I’ve seen a lot of the pain points that should be addressed to help facilitate the overall goal of the strategic plan.
- Provide a brief statement outlining why you feel you are a strong candidate to serve on the USA Ultimate Board of Directors and/or why eligible USA Ultimate members should vote for you.
I want what is best for ultimate today and for the future. I have applied my free time into organizing, coaching, volunteering and voicing my opinion towards positive change and growth for many years. I believe I can have the strongest impact and truly give back to ultimate the way it has given to me by serving in this position and speak for players, coaches, sectional coordinators, regional coordinators, local ultimate organizations, men’s club players and more.
ELITE ATHLETE
Ben Heuvelen
- Describe your professional experience, expertise and/or skill set(s) (e.g., finance, legal, marketing, etc.) and how they relate to and add value to supporting USA Ultimate’s mission of advancing the sport of ultimate in the United States.
In my professional life, I am a leader and co-owner of a news and information company. As both a board member and executive, I am involved in all aspects of the business, from strategic planning and budgeting to direct management of a 25-person staff. Over the past decade, these roles have given me experience in thinking big, seizing business opportunities with entrepreneurial energy, assessing risks and constraints, and designing realistic plans to meet our goals. I’m sure these experiences would help inform my work for USAU as a board member. In my main day-to-day role at my company, I’m a journalist and editor. As a journalist, my job is to gather information from disparate stakeholders and synthesize different perspectives into a coherent narrative. To do this well, I need to be able to talk to lots of different kinds of people, understand where they’re coming from, and separate fact from speculation and opinion. To be a good writer and editor, I need to process a high volume of complex information and present it in a way that is easy to understand without losing important nuance. I can imagine several ways in which I could leverage these qualities to help the USAU board with strategic planning and communication.
- Provide a brief description about what you would uniquely bring to USA Ultimate to support and accomplish the goals outlined in USA Ultimate’s current strategic plan.
In my ultimate life, I am a co-coach of a top men’s club team (New York PoNY), a coach of recent U.S. national teams, and an active player. I also recently served three years on the board of DiscNY, which is the USAU State-Based Organization covering New York. And, I was once a high school coach, a college player, and, before that, a high school player. In short, I have interacted with the sport at almost every level and from several different angles. USAU answers to a lot of different categories of stakeholders, and I think my experience with the sport enables me to relate well to most of them.
- Provide a brief statement outlining why you feel you are a strong candidate to serve on the USA Ultimate Board of Directors and/or why eligible USA Ultimate members should vote for you.
As I imagine joining the USAU board, I think my work would be guided by a feeling of gratitude. The sport of ultimate has been a source of joy for almost three decades. It has also taught me about myself, pushed and inspired me to become a better version of myself, helped me develop leadership skills, and connected me with some of my best friends. Ultimate is not unique among sports in its ability to create these kinds of transformational experiences, but I do think ultimate tends to make the joys of sport accessible to a range of people that many other sports tend to miss. As USAU thinks about how to grow the sport, I will be a board member who pushes to keep our focus on expanding what makes the sport feel special. I’ll also strive to bring some humility to that task. In recent years, my ideas about “what makes ultimate special” have been complicated and challenged in some valuable ways. For example, it has been eye-opening to become more aware of some of the ways in which the ultimate community, which tends to pride itself on inclusivity, feels uncomfortable or even hostile to people whose backgrounds and experiences are different from mine. (Even the concept of the Spirit of the Game has been encoded with unconscious bias.) There are so many angles of self-examination that our sport needs in order to become truly inclusive — and in order to be worthy of growth. This line of thinking naturally leads me to think that, as a white man, I’m not an ideal candidate for the board. But then I think, “Well, I might still be a pretty good one.” If elected, I will certainly be ready to listen, learn, and check my blind spots.
