What do you do when you don’t have numbers at practice? A nasty fever-coughing virus has taken out key players on our team for a week or more, and with a large, consistent, athletic class studying abroad this semester, rare is the day when we can field 14 girls at practice, let alone 12 or even 10. Despite going to a small school, practice attendance has never been an issue in the past, or when it was, it was after the series had ended for us, and so we were content to play hot box or 5-on-5 for an hour before calling it quits. But what do you do when eight people show up to practice healthy enough to play one week before your first major away tournament? Even when we have enough to play 6s, it does not allow us to practice zone offense and defense accurately, and even with 14 girls at practice, we are automatically playing without any subs, and so the pace of the game is much slower than game pace…and the old adage is true…you play how you practice.
It’s not only the illness that is taking players out. Injuries, lingering injuries, are taking their toll on old and new players alike. This speaks to athletic abilities in general on our team, but also to an institutional lack of support for club sport injuries through the athletic department. And then, you have the freshman issue. The freshman who is not quite sold on ultimate yet, who decided to sign up for a hundred other activities and committees and finds homework loads their first year different from high school and sometimes comes to practice but not always…but would I come to practice as a freshman, too, if week after week we were scrimmaging without full numbers? If older teammates shirk practice for unknown reasons, would I, as a freshman, feel it was acceptable to skip practice because I had “too much work” or “a meeting”? You see, this freshman issue is related to another issue, that of older players not coming to practice for no apparent, good reason. And then can I, as a captain, send out a strong email to my players, telling them how important practice attendance is, knowing full well that the people who will be the first ones back after such an email will be the ones who may not have waited long enough to heal their injuries or nurse themselves back to full health? I stood on the sidelines today in a feverish haze, barely able to shout out instructions to the eight girls who were doggedly playing hot box at our “practice” today, and thought “is this supposed to be my senior year of ultimate, is this the buildup to the spring semester that everyone on the team has agreed will be one of our best seasons to date?”
Certainly practicing at all is better than not practicing, and you can still run drills and help people with their throws without full numbers. There is benefit in playing smaller games of 5-on-5 because it does give newer players more touches on the disc. But sometimes, especially when I am sick on the sidelines, too, I feel like our little team is falling apart, and after having dedicated so much time to making our team better, it is frustrating to be reduced to lackluster scrimmages at this crucial point in the season. You simply cannot effectively teach and practice team skills when you don’t have a full team.
I am sure this problem is not limited to my school. In fact, I’m sure other bagel fodder schools deal with this problem far more than we do, and what I’m experiencing now, for a few weeks in one semester, is what other schools have to deal with week in, week out at practice. I don’t know what to do about it, though. “Recruit!” said one of my teammates today, after that frustrating 8-person practice. We have never actively recruited, save manning a table at the freshman organization fair the week before classes start. At a school as small as ours, and considering that we practice right in the heart of campus, I think visibility is hardly an issue for us. What is an issue is emphasizing to freshman, but, almost more importantly, older players, that practice attendance is vital to being a member of the team, a point that I had thought was clear, but may need to be reviewed-- again, and again-- until we can stop playing hot box and start playing ultimate.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Thursday, May 14, 2009
A Few Comments and Predictions
Keeping up with ultimate while studying abroad is harder than I thought…sorry for the huge break in posts. No promises of anything regular until I am back in the U.S. in August.
A few comments and predictions, though:
-Congrats to the Iowa State women on getting the third bid to Nationals from the Central Region. I’ve played against them a lot, and they’re a solid team that deserves to be there.
-The 2009 women’s Callahan award should go to Georgia Bosscher. I don’t even care that I’m unqualified to make such judgments because I play for a tiny team that’s been beaten by Bella Donna to the tune of 1-13 more than once…listen…Georgia Bosscher is, without a doubt, one of the best (if not the best?) women’s college ultimate players in the country-- a standout player on an already very good team-- and, from what I can see as an outsider, a great leader. My freshman year of college, we were at some tournament, and a teammate pointed her out to me and said, “See the girl with the dreads? Her name is Georgia, she is a phenomenal player, and she is only a sophomore.” Since then, I've seen her play at a decent number of tournaments, including Nationals in 2007 and Central Regionals (club and college) in 2008, and also captain Wisconsin's tryout team last fall. I’ve seen her pull a disc out the back of the opposing team's endzone. I’ve watched her notice a disc out of the corner of her eye, layout to the side, and get the D at chest height. I’ve seen her destroy cups with beautiful high-release backhands. She has huge throws, huge ups, and huge bids. This girl can play, she can lead, and she deserves to win.
-I’m also calling it: the 2009 women’s national title will go to Bella Donna. They have the 2008 Callahan winner still playing for them (Courtney Kiesow), at least one of the best handlers in the women’s college game (Emilie McKain), and a deep roster with too many other names to list. They are stacked, and I think they want it badly this year. They lost to the two teams seeded above them (UCSB and Washington) once each for a combined point differential of 3. Look, I don’t even care that I’m not in the country and haven't seen them play all spring…Bella Donna for national champs in 2009. Midwest represent.
-For the men, I think it’s CUT’s year, but I’m even more unqualified to make that statement than I am to make any of the above.
I won’t be in Columbus to watch any of these predictions unfold or crash and burn, even though my parents live half an hour away. No, I’ll be in Munich for the weekend, which isn’t too shabby, but if you’ll be in Ohio, have fun for me. Having watched nationals before, I can say for certain it’s amazing to see so much good ultimate in one weekend. Plus CUDA is awesome. Yeah Columbus.
A few comments and predictions, though:
-Congrats to the Iowa State women on getting the third bid to Nationals from the Central Region. I’ve played against them a lot, and they’re a solid team that deserves to be there.
-Are there more DIII teams than usual on the men's side at Nationals this year? Carleton, obviously, but also Luther, Williams, and Tufts.
-The 2009 women’s Callahan award should go to Georgia Bosscher. I don’t even care that I’m unqualified to make such judgments because I play for a tiny team that’s been beaten by Bella Donna to the tune of 1-13 more than once…listen…Georgia Bosscher is, without a doubt, one of the best (if not the best?) women’s college ultimate players in the country-- a standout player on an already very good team-- and, from what I can see as an outsider, a great leader. My freshman year of college, we were at some tournament, and a teammate pointed her out to me and said, “See the girl with the dreads? Her name is Georgia, she is a phenomenal player, and she is only a sophomore.” Since then, I've seen her play at a decent number of tournaments, including Nationals in 2007 and Central Regionals (club and college) in 2008, and also captain Wisconsin's tryout team last fall. I’ve seen her pull a disc out the back of the opposing team's endzone. I’ve watched her notice a disc out of the corner of her eye, layout to the side, and get the D at chest height. I’ve seen her destroy cups with beautiful high-release backhands. She has huge throws, huge ups, and huge bids. This girl can play, she can lead, and she deserves to win.
-I’m also calling it: the 2009 women’s national title will go to Bella Donna. They have the 2008 Callahan winner still playing for them (Courtney Kiesow), at least one of the best handlers in the women’s college game (Emilie McKain), and a deep roster with too many other names to list. They are stacked, and I think they want it badly this year. They lost to the two teams seeded above them (UCSB and Washington) once each for a combined point differential of 3. Look, I don’t even care that I’m not in the country and haven't seen them play all spring…Bella Donna for national champs in 2009. Midwest represent.
-For the men, I think it’s CUT’s year, but I’m even more unqualified to make that statement than I am to make any of the above.
I won’t be in Columbus to watch any of these predictions unfold or crash and burn, even though my parents live half an hour away. No, I’ll be in Munich for the weekend, which isn’t too shabby, but if you’ll be in Ohio, have fun for me. Having watched nationals before, I can say for certain it’s amazing to see so much good ultimate in one weekend. Plus CUDA is awesome. Yeah Columbus.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
My First Experience with Ultimate in Germany and Force Middle
Sorry for the lack of updates. I am in Germany now, and I am a lot busier than I thought I would be, and in the down time, I have not been thinking about ultimate as much as I normally do. I have played with the team here twice, and don't have much to say except about that, other than they play a lot of force middle, which I dislike, and are still mainly indoors, which I also dislike. I am also sick, again, which has halted any extensive plans to begin to get in shape or to play as much as I would like. As I continue to settle into life here and develop a schedule, I hope to attend practices more regularly. Oh, the vocab differences are kind of fun; a disc is a Scheibe, they force links and rechts when not doing "FM" (for "force middle," not mitte as you might expect), and handlers are Aufbauers. The stall count is still in English, though.
On the topic of force middle, does this work well for anyone? I find it really hard to play defense in a man situation when the force changes from one side of the field to the other. I am probably not a good enough player, either, but still, I think the team needs to be really good about determining when, exactly, they're going to change the force from a backhand to forehand, and potentially call switches on defense. Needless to say, joining up with a group of Germans and playing pickup ultimate in the park with them for the first time means that this communication on defense was not there.
I guess what I'm trying to say is I play man defense by lining up on the correct side of my woman depending on the force. If the disc starts off being force forehand, I line up on the correct side to stop the cuts to the open side. The disc gets thrown to the other side of the field, now it's a backhand force. Suddenly, I am on the wrong side of my woman, and she has an easier open side cut. I can see force middle upsetting teams' usual open-side offense, and if I were a better defender I'm sure I would have an easier time with it. I was just always taught that the force, at a basic level, was supposed to make the other defenders' jobs easier upfield, and force middle, as I understand it, does not make it easier on the defense. I guess it makes it harder on the offense, but is it worth it?
I did a Google search on "force middle" and found a blog post from four years ago on it. The poster himself said under the "how to attack it" section: "Additionally, don’t forget that the downfield defenders are having to constantly switch which side of their man to cover. The closer the cutter is to the frisbee, the less time a defender has to make up the distance." His post talks about setting a force middle with poachers, which is more than what the team I played with was doing with their force, so I could see it working better with poachers, and, like I said, intelligent switches. But still, I don't know why force middle would be your go-to defense without poachers and a tight, communicative defense. I guess it is giving me some practice on being way more aggressive on defense. And maybe as the season goes along, I'll develop a better on-field connection with the team and defenses like this will become easier. Who knows.
See, this is why I don't write about strategy. But it's all I've got right now to talk about right now. I'm pretty much just asking for input about force middle, benefits and downsides, things I'm missing. Comment away; in the meantime, I'll try to finish some posts that have been lingering on my computer for far too long.
On the topic of force middle, does this work well for anyone? I find it really hard to play defense in a man situation when the force changes from one side of the field to the other. I am probably not a good enough player, either, but still, I think the team needs to be really good about determining when, exactly, they're going to change the force from a backhand to forehand, and potentially call switches on defense. Needless to say, joining up with a group of Germans and playing pickup ultimate in the park with them for the first time means that this communication on defense was not there.
I guess what I'm trying to say is I play man defense by lining up on the correct side of my woman depending on the force. If the disc starts off being force forehand, I line up on the correct side to stop the cuts to the open side. The disc gets thrown to the other side of the field, now it's a backhand force. Suddenly, I am on the wrong side of my woman, and she has an easier open side cut. I can see force middle upsetting teams' usual open-side offense, and if I were a better defender I'm sure I would have an easier time with it. I was just always taught that the force, at a basic level, was supposed to make the other defenders' jobs easier upfield, and force middle, as I understand it, does not make it easier on the defense. I guess it makes it harder on the offense, but is it worth it?
I did a Google search on "force middle" and found a blog post from four years ago on it. The poster himself said under the "how to attack it" section: "Additionally, don’t forget that the downfield defenders are having to constantly switch which side of their man to cover. The closer the cutter is to the frisbee, the less time a defender has to make up the distance." His post talks about setting a force middle with poachers, which is more than what the team I played with was doing with their force, so I could see it working better with poachers, and, like I said, intelligent switches. But still, I don't know why force middle would be your go-to defense without poachers and a tight, communicative defense. I guess it is giving me some practice on being way more aggressive on defense. And maybe as the season goes along, I'll develop a better on-field connection with the team and defenses like this will become easier. Who knows.
See, this is why I don't write about strategy. But it's all I've got right now to talk about right now. I'm pretty much just asking for input about force middle, benefits and downsides, things I'm missing. Comment away; in the meantime, I'll try to finish some posts that have been lingering on my computer for far too long.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Two Women's Ultimate Blogs Worth Reading
I enjoy reading about women's ultimate, but not many blogs concern themselves specifically with covering the women's game. This week I've found two blogs that do. One is written by USC's coach and the other by a player on Illinois Menace. You'll also find I've added them to the links on the right.
Obviously I don't go to big, nationals-caliber tournaments like Trouble in Vegas, Pres. Day, Centex, Stanford Invite, etc., so it's good to have some solid blogs covering these tournaments as well as regional tournaments and also offering other posts that bring attention to the women's side. All I can really do is make half-educated predictions about the Central region, and maybe you'll see that on this blog later on in the year, but I thought I'd share the two blogs above who are better positioned to cover the women's college game than I am.
I feel like there might be other blogs out there that I haven't found yet-- anyone know any other good women's ultimate blogs (other than ICultimate)?
Obviously I don't go to big, nationals-caliber tournaments like Trouble in Vegas, Pres. Day, Centex, Stanford Invite, etc., so it's good to have some solid blogs covering these tournaments as well as regional tournaments and also offering other posts that bring attention to the women's side. All I can really do is make half-educated predictions about the Central region, and maybe you'll see that on this blog later on in the year, but I thought I'd share the two blogs above who are better positioned to cover the women's college game than I am.
I feel like there might be other blogs out there that I haven't found yet-- anyone know any other good women's ultimate blogs (other than ICultimate)?
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Study Abroad and College Ultimate: Some Follow-Up
My last post was on study abroad and ultimate and some of my teammates read and responded. They are going to Mardi Gras this weekend almost savage, and so I feel even more guilty now than I did before, but anyways, I wanted to share some of their thoughts because I think they are worthwhile.
I said in my last post about friends who had studied abroad: "They came back with cool jerseys and discs and awesome stories and maybe a better understanding of how ultimate is growing in other parts of the world." I wanted to expand on that a little bit. First, if you study abroad and play on an established team, you're bound to learn something new. Any team you play for will have different styles of play but also leadership, practice structure, drills, and team culture. A discerning player can evaluate these differences and see if it's worthwhile to bring some new skills and drills back to their home teams. The other possibility is studying abroad in a place without an established ultimate scene, and, well, one of my teammates said it better than I could:
"The alternate possibility is study abroad in a developing country with little to no frisbee presence, and I think this can be even more educational. I learned more about the game trying to to teach people in Ecuador who had never seen a frisbee than I have in any team I've played with or practiced with. Plus the excitement of introducing a game that occupies such a huge place in your life to people who have grown up playing soccer with roundish pieces of fruit is such a nice reminder of how powerful (religious?) throwing a frisbee can be."
That about sums it up. I had not thought about the benefits of not just playing ultimate abroad but teaching it to people abroad, something that is very possible if you study in a place where ultimate is not well-known.
I said in my last post about friends who had studied abroad: "They came back with cool jerseys and discs and awesome stories and maybe a better understanding of how ultimate is growing in other parts of the world." I wanted to expand on that a little bit. First, if you study abroad and play on an established team, you're bound to learn something new. Any team you play for will have different styles of play but also leadership, practice structure, drills, and team culture. A discerning player can evaluate these differences and see if it's worthwhile to bring some new skills and drills back to their home teams. The other possibility is studying abroad in a place without an established ultimate scene, and, well, one of my teammates said it better than I could:
"The alternate possibility is study abroad in a developing country with little to no frisbee presence, and I think this can be even more educational. I learned more about the game trying to to teach people in Ecuador who had never seen a frisbee than I have in any team I've played with or practiced with. Plus the excitement of introducing a game that occupies such a huge place in your life to people who have grown up playing soccer with roundish pieces of fruit is such a nice reminder of how powerful (religious?) throwing a frisbee can be."
That about sums it up. I had not thought about the benefits of not just playing ultimate abroad but teaching it to people abroad, something that is very possible if you study in a place where ultimate is not well-known.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Study Abroad and College Ultimate: Benefits and Downsides
I was supposed to leave for Germany last week to visit some relatives before beginning my study abroad program, but I was diagnosed with mono the day before my plane was set to leave, so I'm hanging out in the U.S. for two more weeks and recovering some strength before leaving to begin a semester of study in Freiburg, Germany. Being ill for the past three weeks has stopped any writing I had planned, but I feel better these days, and so I thought I'd write a little bit about studying abroad and how it relates to ultimate.
I will be leaving behind my small, beloved college ultimate team in the capable hands of two captains, and I trust they will have an exciting season, maybe the last season in the UPA without divisional play. Once I am allowed to run again without fear of my spleen exploding, I am hopefully going to be playing with an apparently well-established mixed team based out of Freiburg. I know nothing about ultimate in Germany, and I hope I’ll meet some cool people, learn some new things, and be able to go to some tournaments with them. If not, hopefully I can meet people who will be willing to toss a disc with me sometimes. If my ultimate plans fall through, maybe I can return to a sport I played way back in middle school that I hear is kind of popular in Europe…I think they call it Fußball.
If nothing else, I hope to use this chunk of time away from the academic rigors of my home school and away from college ultimate as a time to get in good shape. Before I got sick I was weightlifting regularly here at home, snowbound, but once I return to grass and hopefully have some type of track facility available, I intend to develop some type of sprint routine. Mono might put a dent in these plans, but hopefully not too much, we'll see how that goes. So there might be some future posts about working out, and I’d welcome any advice or links you have about fitness. This is assuming I can withstand the temptation of three things the Germans know how to make that I love: chocolate, bread, and beer.
Anyways, I will be abroad until the middle of August. This means for the first time in three years I will not be playing in a summer league, which makes me sad, because summer league was how I was first introduced to real ultimate and it has always been a great way to make friends within whatever local ultimate community I spent my summer.
And, of course, part of me feels bad for leaving during the spring, the time of the college series. The four other juniors on my team are also going abroad, taking away much of the experience on our team. The current sophomores are returning the favor in the fall of this year—all ten (or more?! more keep joining the team) of them, I believe, are leaving for areas as diverse as Morocco, India, and Israel. I wouldn’t have it any other way, of course—I think study abroad is a worthwhile experience, and I wouldn’t want anyone not to leave because of ultimate. Is this the attitude you can’t have if you want to go to nationals? Maybe. Is study abroad more popular at smaller schools? I’m not sure. My gut reaction would be yes. Half of the juniors at my school study abroad, and in literature I got from others like mine (small, liberal arts schools), they all advertised their high rates of study abroad. Does this disrupt the ultimate season? Undoubtedly. Is the disruption bigger at smaller schools, where a higher percentage of students study abroad? Possibly. Even studying abroad in the fall, which sometimes isn't an option because of how classes work out at home and how the semester works abroad (this is the case for me), disrupts a lot of team-building and training, especially in places that can't go back to outdoor practice right away in the winter and early spring.
There was never any pressure on my team to not study abroad, and I would feel very uncomfortable putting pressure on anyone to sacrifice a chance to study abroad for the ultimate season. If I were on the A-team roster of a top college ultimate team I'm sure I would reconsider my decision to leave in the spring, and I imagine there would be pressure not go to. I have no idea how top teams handle that, except I imagine most players would choose to stay and compete and sacrifice a chance to study abroad, because, after all, they already sacrifice a lot of time and money to be at the top. I don't want to presume too much about how that works on top teams, however, so I'll stick to what I know...
...Because I'm not on an A-team roster on a top college team, so I don't have to feel too guilty, and I think if you choose to study abroad, you can continue your ultimate education overseas. Almost everyone I know on the team who has studied abroad (and on my team, that would be most woman I've known) found some type of ultimate wherever they were, whether it was less established programs, like in Chile, and or very established programs, like in Australia. Some of my friends got to go to prestigious tournaments like Paganello and some got to play in big tournaments in the Australian series, for example. They came back with cool jerseys and discs and awesome stories and maybe a better understanding of how ultimate is growing in other parts of the world.
Also, maybe having a lot of experience on the team leave for a semester isn't all bad for the team. Certainly having the entire junior class go abroad in one semester isn't ideal, and in most years it is more balanced in terms of who leaves when, but my hope for the team this spring is that underclassmen get to step up into roles left by juniors and become better players themselves. The seniors are still there to steer the ship, to to speak, but sophomores and first years get more playing time and experience and grow into better players, though it may be a difficult and at times frustrating road. This frustration may not pay off in this season, either, but in the future.
So, there are benefits and disadvantages of studying abroad, with most of the benefits going to individual players, but as I outlined above, I think the case can be made that sometimes having players study abroad can be better for the team as a whole, at least thinking in the long term.
Well, there's a "small" post for you on Bagel Fodder for once, ha ha. I wanted to give thanks for the recent press on Banana Cut and the link from Mackey's blog for my long piece about the fall season. Look for another post or two before I leave, hopefully.
I will be leaving behind my small, beloved college ultimate team in the capable hands of two captains, and I trust they will have an exciting season, maybe the last season in the UPA without divisional play. Once I am allowed to run again without fear of my spleen exploding, I am hopefully going to be playing with an apparently well-established mixed team based out of Freiburg. I know nothing about ultimate in Germany, and I hope I’ll meet some cool people, learn some new things, and be able to go to some tournaments with them. If not, hopefully I can meet people who will be willing to toss a disc with me sometimes. If my ultimate plans fall through, maybe I can return to a sport I played way back in middle school that I hear is kind of popular in Europe…I think they call it Fußball.
If nothing else, I hope to use this chunk of time away from the academic rigors of my home school and away from college ultimate as a time to get in good shape. Before I got sick I was weightlifting regularly here at home, snowbound, but once I return to grass and hopefully have some type of track facility available, I intend to develop some type of sprint routine. Mono might put a dent in these plans, but hopefully not too much, we'll see how that goes. So there might be some future posts about working out, and I’d welcome any advice or links you have about fitness. This is assuming I can withstand the temptation of three things the Germans know how to make that I love: chocolate, bread, and beer.
Anyways, I will be abroad until the middle of August. This means for the first time in three years I will not be playing in a summer league, which makes me sad, because summer league was how I was first introduced to real ultimate and it has always been a great way to make friends within whatever local ultimate community I spent my summer.
And, of course, part of me feels bad for leaving during the spring, the time of the college series. The four other juniors on my team are also going abroad, taking away much of the experience on our team. The current sophomores are returning the favor in the fall of this year—all ten (or more?! more keep joining the team) of them, I believe, are leaving for areas as diverse as Morocco, India, and Israel. I wouldn’t have it any other way, of course—I think study abroad is a worthwhile experience, and I wouldn’t want anyone not to leave because of ultimate. Is this the attitude you can’t have if you want to go to nationals? Maybe. Is study abroad more popular at smaller schools? I’m not sure. My gut reaction would be yes. Half of the juniors at my school study abroad, and in literature I got from others like mine (small, liberal arts schools), they all advertised their high rates of study abroad. Does this disrupt the ultimate season? Undoubtedly. Is the disruption bigger at smaller schools, where a higher percentage of students study abroad? Possibly. Even studying abroad in the fall, which sometimes isn't an option because of how classes work out at home and how the semester works abroad (this is the case for me), disrupts a lot of team-building and training, especially in places that can't go back to outdoor practice right away in the winter and early spring.
There was never any pressure on my team to not study abroad, and I would feel very uncomfortable putting pressure on anyone to sacrifice a chance to study abroad for the ultimate season. If I were on the A-team roster of a top college ultimate team I'm sure I would reconsider my decision to leave in the spring, and I imagine there would be pressure not go to. I have no idea how top teams handle that, except I imagine most players would choose to stay and compete and sacrifice a chance to study abroad, because, after all, they already sacrifice a lot of time and money to be at the top. I don't want to presume too much about how that works on top teams, however, so I'll stick to what I know...
...Because I'm not on an A-team roster on a top college team, so I don't have to feel too guilty, and I think if you choose to study abroad, you can continue your ultimate education overseas. Almost everyone I know on the team who has studied abroad (and on my team, that would be most woman I've known) found some type of ultimate wherever they were, whether it was less established programs, like in Chile, and or very established programs, like in Australia. Some of my friends got to go to prestigious tournaments like Paganello and some got to play in big tournaments in the Australian series, for example. They came back with cool jerseys and discs and awesome stories and maybe a better understanding of how ultimate is growing in other parts of the world.
Also, maybe having a lot of experience on the team leave for a semester isn't all bad for the team. Certainly having the entire junior class go abroad in one semester isn't ideal, and in most years it is more balanced in terms of who leaves when, but my hope for the team this spring is that underclassmen get to step up into roles left by juniors and become better players themselves. The seniors are still there to steer the ship, to to speak, but sophomores and first years get more playing time and experience and grow into better players, though it may be a difficult and at times frustrating road. This frustration may not pay off in this season, either, but in the future.
So, there are benefits and disadvantages of studying abroad, with most of the benefits going to individual players, but as I outlined above, I think the case can be made that sometimes having players study abroad can be better for the team as a whole, at least thinking in the long term.
Well, there's a "small" post for you on Bagel Fodder for once, ha ha. I wanted to give thanks for the recent press on Banana Cut and the link from Mackey's blog for my long piece about the fall season. Look for another post or two before I leave, hopefully.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Tales from the Chumpionship Bracket, Part I: The Fall Tournament
I started writing this about halfway through our fall season, finished it up tonight, and I hope it’s a nice change from the more “academic” posts I have been offering on this blog. I would like to tell a story of sorts, a story for a cold winter’s night, going back to when the Midwest was still relatively warm and snow free, a story I hope is true for others, the story of an ultimate team at a college tournament in the fall, and not a top team, either, but the Everyman team, the Bagel Fodder team…
The cell phone alarm goes off sometime between 6:30 and 7:00 AM. I clamber out of bed, avoiding the five people sleeping on the floor, wrapped up in sleeping bags, fitfully trying to savor a few last moments of shuteye. Slowly, with bleary eyes and doleful looks, people get up, get dressed, and make their way down to the continental breakfast, if we're lucky enough to have a hotel with such amenities. I eat half a waffle, fill up the water bottles, and carry my bags down to the car. Barring any major map-reading mishaps, my co-captain and I make it to the fields in time to sit through the captain’s meeting. Together we decipher the field map as the dew soaks through our shoes and herd our teammates to the correct field as they come in to the parking lot after us.
Everyone is there with 25 minutes until game time. I encourage people to put on their cleats and take a warm up lap. Five people join me as I circle the field. I always wonder why it takes so long for people to get their cleats on in the morning. The other team is probably in the same shape as we are, but if not, if they’ve been throwing and drilling since we first staggered on to the field, it will make the first game that much harder. "Let’s do an endzone drill," I suggest, grab a disc, and make my way to our endzone. “That should be a forehand!” and “Sprint on your cuts, guys!” are familiar phrases. After five minutes or so the other captains come over. We toss, win, and decide to pull. I always feel starting on defense is a good way to get people's heads in the game, especially if our warm up is going poorly. Everything seems slow in the early morning, and the horn inevitably sounds before I feel anyone is warmed up enough.
“Bring it in!” Most people come running. I try to keep track of who was warming up the earliest and who was running the hardest in the drill and call them on in the first line. A brief pep talk, a quick cheer, and we’re on the line. I usually pull the first disc if I am on the field. Pulling is one of my favorite parts of ultimate, stepping back from the line, looking down the field at the opposing team, and shouting, “three, two, one, ultimate!” in the clear morning air as a long, crisp backhand sails out of my hands. That first throw and that first sprint will never get old, and I still get nervous before each game.
This season, our first games have always been the most heartbreaking. Often they are against higher seeds in our pool, but usually not so high that they seem unbeatable. We have come so close many times to beating those teams— sometimes all the way to universe, almost always to the last time cap, and usually they never win by more than two or three points. I can’t decide why we can’t pull it off, exactly. We are usually ahead by one around point eight or nine, and then a few breaks by the other team, the horn blows, and it’s over. A little more intensity on defense, a few better dump passes, a bit more luck in catching, a few better throwing decisions, and the game could have gone the other way. Sometimes that first game is the difference between playing for 13th place or playing for 1st place on Sunday.
With the first game over, we shake hands with the opposing team and make up a cheer. We cheer at the end of every game. Cheering was one of the first things I remembered and loved about ultimate, and I hope that as the sport grows, the cheers and zany games remain. In the post-game huddle, my co-captain and I try to sum up the game, focus on what went wrong, what went right, and try to keep people excited and motivated for the next two or three games.
Often victories are hard-fought, coming down to the last few points, each team grinding it out until the end. My favorite memories are from these difficult games— trying to catch my breath and calm down my breathing to give a steady stall count on the mark, seeing a teammate streaking deep and winding up for the long huck, standing on the line before the pull on a crucial, tense break point, a layout catch to save a misplaced dump pass, fighting to shut down a cutter, wrenching your ankles and feet with the sharp turns, the feeling of relief after a brutal, long point in the wind comes to an end.
Oh, the wind, inevitable in the Midwest in autumn, and often causing lot of turnovers on both teams, since throwing and catching are more difficult. Low scoring games are common, as is zone. I usually play hatchet in zone defense, giving the cup encouragement and advice, trying for the layout Ds, keeping one eye on the poppers and the other on the handlers. There’s a special type of tiredness and endurance that comes with zone defense, and it toys with your emotions. Shutting down a team with zone is one of the best feelings in the game, redemption for the exhaustion, but the feeling of a zone defense slipping out of position as the opposing team breaks your cup is one of the worst. Then there’s zone offense. There’s a slow patience in zone offense I enjoy—when everyone else has the patience—gaining a few yards with a quick pass to a popper, losing a few with a dump, the slow, steady motion of handlers swinging the disc, the tense fun that comes from breaking a cup, and, if the patience holds and our hands are good, the man call and hopefully the sense of accomplishment that comes from breaking a zone defense.
Like I said, victories have not been easy recently. I think schools everywhere are getting better, and teams we used to beat with ease a year or two ago now offer consistent challenges. Still, even if we have to work harder for victories, the feeling of beating a larger school never gets old, and we manage to do that at least once at every tournament.
After play ends on Saturday, we crowds back into the cars and drive to the hotel. If we’re lucky, the men are still playing, so we get first dibs on showers. Sometimes all of us decide to descend on some poor restaurant without showering first. After eating a hotel breakfast and maybe an energy bar or bagel and running around outside for six hours, everyone is hungry enough so that our bill hopefully offsets any offense given by all twenty of us traipsing into the place at once, dirty and sweaty and generally loud and rambunctious.
In the evening, back at the hotel, some people drink, some watch TV, some try and fail to do homework, and others pass out early. I am amazed that we have not yet been kicked out of a hotel for crowding ten people to a room and, at some tournaments, like Halloween, staying up late playing drinking games. Halloween tournaments aside, generally everyone is in bed by midnight, which is good because Sunday dawns bright and early again— another cell phone alarm, hurriedly packing the cars, and driving through sleepy Midwestern towns back to the fields.
I am always amazed at how sore I am on Sundays. No other sport or activity matches the full-body soreness that comes after a long day of good ultimate. There is some sort of strange joy in working out the pain during the first warm up on Sunday. The first cheer of the day invigorates everyone, and soreness and fogginess are gone after the first few points; the edge comes back as the dew on the grass dries when the full morning sun hits the field. Sundays have run the gamut in emotions and experiences this fall. We’ve gone from losing all our Sunday games to winning them all, from placing near the bottom of the chumpionship bracket to going to the finals of one small tournament. Whichever way it goes, win or lose, Sundays are always exhausting, the kind of exhaustion that creeps up on you when you take a break on the sidelines. Despite the exhaustion and potential frustration, I have fun at every tournament we go to because of my teammates, new and old. The fall in particular is a time for getting to know new players, and they quickly become part of the fold with the laughing, joking, and camaraderie that comes from spending an entire weekend in close quarters with people. After one away tournament, they become part of the special type of community college teams foster. Combine that with the camaraderie and respect between teams that the ultimate community as a whole builds, and I don't think there is any other sport I would rather play.
Every tournament ends with taking our cleats off for the last time. Untying your cleats, peeling off your socks, and reflecting on the weekend sitting in the grass among teammates, sometimes in the bitter cold, sometimes in the rain, sometimes in the glorious pale sunlight that the Midwest offers up in the fall, but sitting down after running around for an entire weekend, after diving to the ground, after wrenching your shoulder from throwing and your legs from cutting, sitting down after all that, win or lose, is immensely satisfying. Then comes the slow walk back to the car, organizing everyone back with their stuff, and the long, warm drive back, sometimes six hours cramped in the car— a fast food dinner, attempts at homework that always end in naps, every stop and every time you get out of the car your body reminding you through cramps and aches that you need to eat more salt and cool down after those games. Then you come back to campus and it's dark, back to usually an entire night’s worth of homework and people who don’t understand why we do it, weekend after weekend, year after year. But we know why we do it, you know why you do it, right?
We do it because we love our teammates, we love ultimate, and even if the victories are few and far between and some tournaments are frustrating, when things didn’t seem to go right the whole weekend long, we will be back two weekends from now, in the outskirts of some town at some soccer complex or polo field, ready to put our cleats on and do it all again. We go to these fall tournaments for the small victories— the rookie player having the confidence to look upfield and get a good continue throw. A burgeoning handler breaking her mark. A perfect dump, swing, swing, score sequence. An awesome D, a sweet layout grab. Ultimate on bagel fodder teams sometimes doesn’t look pretty, but at every level, ours included, people play with heart, and we all love this game fiercely.
The cell phone alarm goes off sometime between 6:30 and 7:00 AM. I clamber out of bed, avoiding the five people sleeping on the floor, wrapped up in sleeping bags, fitfully trying to savor a few last moments of shuteye. Slowly, with bleary eyes and doleful looks, people get up, get dressed, and make their way down to the continental breakfast, if we're lucky enough to have a hotel with such amenities. I eat half a waffle, fill up the water bottles, and carry my bags down to the car. Barring any major map-reading mishaps, my co-captain and I make it to the fields in time to sit through the captain’s meeting. Together we decipher the field map as the dew soaks through our shoes and herd our teammates to the correct field as they come in to the parking lot after us.
Everyone is there with 25 minutes until game time. I encourage people to put on their cleats and take a warm up lap. Five people join me as I circle the field. I always wonder why it takes so long for people to get their cleats on in the morning. The other team is probably in the same shape as we are, but if not, if they’ve been throwing and drilling since we first staggered on to the field, it will make the first game that much harder. "Let’s do an endzone drill," I suggest, grab a disc, and make my way to our endzone. “That should be a forehand!” and “Sprint on your cuts, guys!” are familiar phrases. After five minutes or so the other captains come over. We toss, win, and decide to pull. I always feel starting on defense is a good way to get people's heads in the game, especially if our warm up is going poorly. Everything seems slow in the early morning, and the horn inevitably sounds before I feel anyone is warmed up enough.
“Bring it in!” Most people come running. I try to keep track of who was warming up the earliest and who was running the hardest in the drill and call them on in the first line. A brief pep talk, a quick cheer, and we’re on the line. I usually pull the first disc if I am on the field. Pulling is one of my favorite parts of ultimate, stepping back from the line, looking down the field at the opposing team, and shouting, “three, two, one, ultimate!” in the clear morning air as a long, crisp backhand sails out of my hands. That first throw and that first sprint will never get old, and I still get nervous before each game.
This season, our first games have always been the most heartbreaking. Often they are against higher seeds in our pool, but usually not so high that they seem unbeatable. We have come so close many times to beating those teams— sometimes all the way to universe, almost always to the last time cap, and usually they never win by more than two or three points. I can’t decide why we can’t pull it off, exactly. We are usually ahead by one around point eight or nine, and then a few breaks by the other team, the horn blows, and it’s over. A little more intensity on defense, a few better dump passes, a bit more luck in catching, a few better throwing decisions, and the game could have gone the other way. Sometimes that first game is the difference between playing for 13th place or playing for 1st place on Sunday.
With the first game over, we shake hands with the opposing team and make up a cheer. We cheer at the end of every game. Cheering was one of the first things I remembered and loved about ultimate, and I hope that as the sport grows, the cheers and zany games remain. In the post-game huddle, my co-captain and I try to sum up the game, focus on what went wrong, what went right, and try to keep people excited and motivated for the next two or three games.
Often victories are hard-fought, coming down to the last few points, each team grinding it out until the end. My favorite memories are from these difficult games— trying to catch my breath and calm down my breathing to give a steady stall count on the mark, seeing a teammate streaking deep and winding up for the long huck, standing on the line before the pull on a crucial, tense break point, a layout catch to save a misplaced dump pass, fighting to shut down a cutter, wrenching your ankles and feet with the sharp turns, the feeling of relief after a brutal, long point in the wind comes to an end.
Oh, the wind, inevitable in the Midwest in autumn, and often causing lot of turnovers on both teams, since throwing and catching are more difficult. Low scoring games are common, as is zone. I usually play hatchet in zone defense, giving the cup encouragement and advice, trying for the layout Ds, keeping one eye on the poppers and the other on the handlers. There’s a special type of tiredness and endurance that comes with zone defense, and it toys with your emotions. Shutting down a team with zone is one of the best feelings in the game, redemption for the exhaustion, but the feeling of a zone defense slipping out of position as the opposing team breaks your cup is one of the worst. Then there’s zone offense. There’s a slow patience in zone offense I enjoy—when everyone else has the patience—gaining a few yards with a quick pass to a popper, losing a few with a dump, the slow, steady motion of handlers swinging the disc, the tense fun that comes from breaking a cup, and, if the patience holds and our hands are good, the man call and hopefully the sense of accomplishment that comes from breaking a zone defense.
Like I said, victories have not been easy recently. I think schools everywhere are getting better, and teams we used to beat with ease a year or two ago now offer consistent challenges. Still, even if we have to work harder for victories, the feeling of beating a larger school never gets old, and we manage to do that at least once at every tournament.
After play ends on Saturday, we crowds back into the cars and drive to the hotel. If we’re lucky, the men are still playing, so we get first dibs on showers. Sometimes all of us decide to descend on some poor restaurant without showering first. After eating a hotel breakfast and maybe an energy bar or bagel and running around outside for six hours, everyone is hungry enough so that our bill hopefully offsets any offense given by all twenty of us traipsing into the place at once, dirty and sweaty and generally loud and rambunctious.
In the evening, back at the hotel, some people drink, some watch TV, some try and fail to do homework, and others pass out early. I am amazed that we have not yet been kicked out of a hotel for crowding ten people to a room and, at some tournaments, like Halloween, staying up late playing drinking games. Halloween tournaments aside, generally everyone is in bed by midnight, which is good because Sunday dawns bright and early again— another cell phone alarm, hurriedly packing the cars, and driving through sleepy Midwestern towns back to the fields.
I am always amazed at how sore I am on Sundays. No other sport or activity matches the full-body soreness that comes after a long day of good ultimate. There is some sort of strange joy in working out the pain during the first warm up on Sunday. The first cheer of the day invigorates everyone, and soreness and fogginess are gone after the first few points; the edge comes back as the dew on the grass dries when the full morning sun hits the field. Sundays have run the gamut in emotions and experiences this fall. We’ve gone from losing all our Sunday games to winning them all, from placing near the bottom of the chumpionship bracket to going to the finals of one small tournament. Whichever way it goes, win or lose, Sundays are always exhausting, the kind of exhaustion that creeps up on you when you take a break on the sidelines. Despite the exhaustion and potential frustration, I have fun at every tournament we go to because of my teammates, new and old. The fall in particular is a time for getting to know new players, and they quickly become part of the fold with the laughing, joking, and camaraderie that comes from spending an entire weekend in close quarters with people. After one away tournament, they become part of the special type of community college teams foster. Combine that with the camaraderie and respect between teams that the ultimate community as a whole builds, and I don't think there is any other sport I would rather play.
Every tournament ends with taking our cleats off for the last time. Untying your cleats, peeling off your socks, and reflecting on the weekend sitting in the grass among teammates, sometimes in the bitter cold, sometimes in the rain, sometimes in the glorious pale sunlight that the Midwest offers up in the fall, but sitting down after running around for an entire weekend, after diving to the ground, after wrenching your shoulder from throwing and your legs from cutting, sitting down after all that, win or lose, is immensely satisfying. Then comes the slow walk back to the car, organizing everyone back with their stuff, and the long, warm drive back, sometimes six hours cramped in the car— a fast food dinner, attempts at homework that always end in naps, every stop and every time you get out of the car your body reminding you through cramps and aches that you need to eat more salt and cool down after those games. Then you come back to campus and it's dark, back to usually an entire night’s worth of homework and people who don’t understand why we do it, weekend after weekend, year after year. But we know why we do it, you know why you do it, right?
We do it because we love our teammates, we love ultimate, and even if the victories are few and far between and some tournaments are frustrating, when things didn’t seem to go right the whole weekend long, we will be back two weekends from now, in the outskirts of some town at some soccer complex or polo field, ready to put our cleats on and do it all again. We go to these fall tournaments for the small victories— the rookie player having the confidence to look upfield and get a good continue throw. A burgeoning handler breaking her mark. A perfect dump, swing, swing, score sequence. An awesome D, a sweet layout grab. Ultimate on bagel fodder teams sometimes doesn’t look pretty, but at every level, ours included, people play with heart, and we all love this game fiercely.
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