Exciting Developments: Restructuring and Midwest Throwdown

I have been thinking a lot about what to write here. Studying abroad stopped regular and meaningful posting, and the semester since coming back to the United States has been, for one reason or another, one of the busiest I've ever had. I have been playing and captaining, though, and I want to get back into the habit of regular posting at least until my final season of college ultimate is over this spring.

Since I've been neglecting this blog, the ultimate world has kept on going. The most significant change in my mind has been the UPA's college restructuring plan. As a player on a D-III school team, I welcome the addition of a D-III Nationals (especially a women's division!), though the location remains to be seen and D-III rankings of any kind also remain to be released. I like the whole sanctioned games change, too-- it makes tournament directors more responsible (though this hasn't forced TDs to make things like brackets in the women's division a standard on score reporter yet...come on, Mardi Gras!) and really makes teams realize the entire spring season is serious and meaningful. I have noticed a change in my team's mentality based on these sanctioned games, and people seem to understand the reasoning for competitive subbing a lot more with games being sanctioned this spring.

Within my team, players who were abroad and separated for over a year have finally been reunited. We have gained some fall varsity athletes who are trying out ultimate this semester and loving it, and practice attendance is, finally and amazingly, regularly reaching 18-2o people! All the talk about this season is coming to some sort of fruition. We are doing more conditioning and sprint work at our indoor practices, I see my teammates in the gym every time I go to lift, and, in general, the work ethic in and out of practice and general excitement about ultimate is at an all-time high.

This sea change of sorts has multiple explanations. First, I have found it only takes a few players to be passionately involved and excited about ultimate to inspire that passion in other people, especially with younger players. The influx of the junior class, freshly returned from abroad, has bolstered practice attendance and their influence has made it apparent to players slacking in attendance before that they can no longer count on low numbers at tournaments to get playing time.

My co-captain's and my efforts have also made some changes. We are doing competitive subbing at tournaments, and because of this we are winning more games, and winning more games generally tends to build excitement on the team. It also creates some spirit of competitiveness within the team that hopefully makes people who would like to get more playing time work harder at practice. We are being strict about doing conditioning in practice and have tried to get people to condition outside of practice (through a google doc, fitness blog, and extra conditioning and practice sessions led by various team members, with varying success).

Finally, certain tournaments and the efforts of dedicated women in the college ultimate world have also been fostering a general excitement about ultimate on our team (and other teams, I'm sure). Anyone following college women's ultimate at all probably knows about the efforts of Michelle Ng and company in running college women's tournaments and creating exciting opportunities for developing college teams at those tournaments. I mentioned this trend briefly in a blog post over a year ago, and Michelle actually commented on that post and her goals in running those tournaments. Since she commented, she has put on a handful of very successful women's tournaments, from Centex to Midwest Warmup to Midwest Throwdown, with new tournaments like the Philly Classic in the works. I attended Midwest Warmup last fall, and we had a great time playing lots of regional talent and enjoyed the feeling of being kept up to date with what was happening and other amenities like score reporting (and for a team not used to attending many high quality tournaments, score reporting certainly is a luxury).

But Michelle and company (by company I mean Anna Nazarov, Holly Greunke, and members of the Washington University ultimate team) have really come through for us with this season's Midwest Throwdown tournament. There are three divisions: div. 1, div. 2, and the Roundup Division. Teams who wanted to play in the latter division had to fill out a detailed application describing their status as a developing college team, team goals, team strategies, descriptions of practice, and challenges to growth and ultimate development in general. After reviewing the applications, eight teams were chosen to be a part of the division. Eight premier women's coaches, with experience coaching and playing elite college and club ultimate, not to mention national team experience and a lot of Callahan winners among them, were matched with the eight chosen college teams, and are going to have the chance to work together all weekend at Throwdown, developing skills and teaching concepts in and out of games against other Roundup Division teams. On top of this, the eight coaches plus other experienced club ultimate players are teaching skills clinics on Saturday evening, open to the entire tournament. Registration for those clinics filled up a few days after being posted.

If you can't tell already, my team is one of the teams in the Roundup Division, and we are beyond excited. We've been in contact with our coach and have devised a game plan for the weekend, and our entire team registered for the clinics. Excitement is high, and I think the weekend will be one of the most useful of the entire season and beyond. We have tried for the past three years to become a more competitive team, with some progress, but I think this one weekend and the relationship we are building with our guest coach will help out more than many of our previous efforts. At the very least it is getting a group of 20 people pumped about the sport and making them realize how good we can be with hard work and focus. I always say ultimate is a limitless sport and very accessible because the great teams today were in our position, to varying degrees, at one point or another, and the relatively small community means you get to see firsthand how teams change from one year to the next. As a friend of mine put it, "ultimate gives you as much back as you put into it," and any reason, like this tournament, to get your team to put even more into ultimate is one to celebrate.

That's all on the intangible level, too. On a practical, tangible level, we'll be getting new drills, team skills, and individual skills to bring back to practice and a weekend of help from one of the best players in women's ultimate. The things we learn will stay on our team for years, and the relationship with our guest coach will also hopefully last beyond this season--she'll hopefully be there to answer questions over email after the tournament ends. Our men's team is extremely jealous of the opportunity, with good reason.

So, the future looks bright, and I think this tournament model is the future of ultimate in developing regions. Getting so much coaching talent at every tournament is unfeasible, but developing a system of guest coaches and having skills clinics for all teams at some tournaments with local club teams helping out is certainly reasonable, I think. Getting this information out to more teams will eventually do a lot to increase overall talent in developing reasons, I think. I have written a lot on this blog about why some teams are so behind others in terms of talent and skill, and have tried to share some of my own experiences with this quality divide. I still intend to write about that divide and my personal experiences with it this season, but it will definitely include positive news and new, exciting developments, like our experience with Throwdown and other exciting changes to the women's division I am so happy and grateful to be a part of.