To be or not to be: TGT ITG

I almost deleted this blog....

2008-09-11T18:26:00.002-04:00

But I couldnt do it. I deleted some of the irrelevant posts at the end of its life, but this little blog has too much in it for me to let it go. The final two years of my college ultimate career, the first two seasons of Pitt's nationals appearances, and some really boring stuff in between. I do think there is a lot in here, and looking back through some of those posts, I wish I had the same zeal, lust and autonomy that I had in those days. Life-changing experience. Couldnt let it go. Hopefully some young Sabah-man, oozing with hate and similarly full-hearty with his 'impossible dreams' will stumble upon this minute piece of history and find support in the words of soul-mate from the early days. For now, I take the determination, dedication and faith in hard work that Pitt Ultimate gave me and turn the new focus--education. En Sabah daba daba....

College Nationals 2007

2007-06-07T22:27:00.001-04:00

Took a day off of school and headed out to College Nationals to support The Program a couple of weekends ago (I have taken four days off this year--two club nats, one college, one Poultry Days). It was a lovely journey out accompanied by Whitey, Mike Lo and one Noah "I made out with Courtney Bitch Thomas on the beer pong table" Eden and then later by Andrew, Sober and Jay. We arrived to the fields with Pitt trailing Wisconsin by a couple of points. Let's suffice to say that Wisconsin was a step faster and a degree sharper than Pitt across the board. Their defense was pressuring Pitt's O into making mistakes and punishing them with relentless work on the turn...and each time they broke, they became more energized. The game was soon out of hand and I became very concerned about what this would do to the team's confidence going into the rest of the day.

Given the auspicious start, Coach made a smart move in sending the team, family and fans into the shade to shoot the shit and forget about the preceding loss for a while. I took the opportunity to check out whatever game was closest and low and behold Delaware is up 11-10 on "UFUCT b/c we make shitty calls." I suspect that Delaware will simply put too much energy into a game that Florida's veteran leadership will not allow them to lose, but wander over in any case. I am surprised to watch Florida repeatedly allow Delaware the underneath and let them patiently work it up the field and then take an opportunistic deep look when it is there. The teams are trading until Del is up 14-13 pulling to Florida who is going upwind. Working it out of the endzone, Florida gets to about the goal line. Double in-cuts come to the force side. Guy to the inside has a cushion on his man and the throw goes up, he slows down to glide into it when Brandon Redding of TSGH fame goes blazing off of the other in-cut to make the layout D. A dump-swing later, 15-13 Sideshow knocks of Florida. Jubilation. The Metro East has a marquee win in pool play. No way Del lets this go to waste!!! Right...

Back to Pittsburgh. Next round matchup is UNC. Boy is it annoying to play teams from Carolina. This is a very even matchup despite another auspicious start giving up an upwind Callahan. This game is marred by a lot of calls and chippy play both ways, but it like two heavyweight fighters giving one another body blows into the late rounds. After having the lead for much of the second half, Pittsburgh gives up a couple of late-game breaks on mental and execution errors and Darkside pulls out a 16-14 win.

Kansas had just finished having their asses handed to them by Wisco (like every other team they played) and had arrived in time to make annoying bitchy comments are the end of the Pitt-UNC battle. Even in time for one porker to get into it with me on the sidelines. Me! Unbelievable. In any case I had my revenge by calling "superman" to whoever he was covering for the rest of the game, or identifying his defender as the one to get the D and then watching that member of the Sabah army destroy his world. In short, Hate was had. Pitt was simply the better team in this game with more skilled players and a deeper team resulting in a comfortable 15-11 win.

Following the win the current team made a nice little presentation to me, presenting me with the plaque seen in the picture at the beginning of this entry. It is a wooden disc with an inscribed plate beneath that reads:

Sean McComb- Pitt Ultimate
2001-2006
"From the Cathedral Lawn to Columbus,
he led every step of the way"

For those not in the know, the Cathedral Lawn reference a patch of dirt behind this beacon of learning on Pitt's campus where we practiced until my senior year. It was there that we had practices with three people at times, just doing marking drills, box cutting drill with an open cone, some running and throwing when that was all the team could get out on some days my freshman and sophomore years. And of course Columbus was the sight of our second consecutive college nationals appearance and first wins at the tournament, just 3 years later. I think the team did a commendable job with that plaque because my career, really, was all about that process. I was so focused on not just beating teams that had beaten me (although you had better believe for the love of god I enjoyed the shit out of that) but it was about taking this seedling that Brody had planted...this infinitesimal spec on the radar of college ultimate, and changing the face of the sport. I didnt know how the hell to do it, although I had read a bit about Opie at Wisco, and I certainly had never done anything like it previously, and that may have been a blessing.

I had always been a dreamer. I remember sitting in my dorm room freshman year, all 250+ pounds of me at the time and saying to myself, and believing, "I am going to win the callahan my senior year." Of course I did not, and was only nominated for a few brief hours by Rob before I had it removed. But thats not the point. It was that kind of sheer stupidity and obsession that was needed. The kind of person who demanded the team shovel off the 8 inches of snow on our practice field in January so we could practice (they refused, thank god). I didnt know what it was going to take, and so...because of that, I knew that I simply had to (to borrow from Honest Abe) do the very most I could, the very best I knew how, and to keep doing it until I ran out of eligibility. And thats what I did, and it has made all the difference. I have received back from Pitt Ultimate ten-fold what I have put into it. I have learned how to lead. I have learned how to believe in the ability to accomplish the impossible and the virtue to stick to the work when it seems things are at a loss. I have now learned to apply that fortitude and work ethic to my teaching and my school, where once again people are telling me that they dont understand how I can get the kids to do what they do in my class and how I can dedicate myself so much to the "impossible" task of getting the kids I teach to a better place in life. So as much as I may have led Pitt Ultimate in changing the face of College Ultimate, Pitt Ultimate has changed the face of my life ten-fold.

And so, after 5 years of that, of sacrificing grades, girls, money, copious amounts of time, bones, blood and everything else to the program, I was able, on that first day in my return trip to Columbus, have Pitt Ultimate change my life one more time.

As rewarding as it was to be a part of the team, to battle with my best friends, to dedicate oneself so fully to the cause...to go back to Ohio and watch it all happening again--and better--and without anything from me, was truly special. There were times when I literally watched in awe of what I was seeing. I was talking with Josh's dad and he pointed out to me that he looks at many of the players as his own sons- me especially. And I looked out on the field and saw my little brothers playing completely outside of themselves...each having come so far from when I had met them. If they could have just seen themselves as freshmen and could see how far they had come. It was simply incredible to see the personal progress that someone can make when they set their mind to a task.

I looked out on that field as Pitt won its first pool play game at Nationals and booked itself a place in the Pre-Quarters and I knew that I had truly been successful at Pitt. I didnt help to make a temporary spot on the radar...but helped to create The Program, which will hold to the same virtues of dedication, work ethic and excellency for years to come. Josh and Stu did an incredible job maintaining and improving this year...and these few steps from Pre-Quarters to the top...they are the big ones. I had the easy job. And now, what I cannot wait for is to see who the young man is who will step up and develop audacious beliefs about what he and a group of his best friends can accomplish...to see a man who will so fully give of himself to that goal that others around him simply will not be able to understand how he does it, but will follow him because his effort demands their respect...to see the man who will take Pitt Ultimate to the mountain top. And, from what little I have seen during my ascent, every effort made in the climb is rewarded, handsomely.

---------------------------------------

In short, because I got quite off topic there...Pitt lost a heart-breaker to UGA as Dylan Tunnell made top-five-player-in-the-country type plays at the end of the game to seal the deal for the Dawgs. Pitt won out in the lower bracket over Udel and Brown to finish in 9th place.

HS States + Pike Invite

2007-05-14T21:02:00.000-04:00

PA High School State Championships

Dissapointed that I wasnt able to leave my track team's County Championships early enough to make it up for Pike Invite on saturday, I settled for catching up with some Pitt guys as they coached at HS States. I got there just in time for them to start their sprint workout without me...and then enjoy the semi-finals.

NH vs. Lebo was an interesting game. NH has a much more balanced team and is much deeper. They are positioned well for a deep run at Easterns (especially with a killa coach). Lebo is controlled by the play of Julian Hausman with help from Pete Imler. Julian has matured well since last year and become more fluid in his mechanics and movement on the field, which was great to see. I am very happy he'll be coming to Pitt to do battle with ESN next year. As for the recruiting motherload that is set to hit Oakland in two years...well, it could mean some very big things for ESN in a few years. I was impressed with Colin's confidence and particularly his intensity this year. I hope that he chooses to play Burgh again this summer, as his development is probably stunted to some degree during most of PHUL and Summer League. Alex's skills were impressive again. I hope that there is an open league in Pittsburgh this summer and that he gets the chance to play. He will have to learn to turn his quickness to his advantage to get around longer marks at the college level. NH wins 15-8/9ish

The Roots, I mean Pennsbury, looked very solid. Very athletic from top to bottom. I was used to seeing these guys make more errors from Mercer Open League, but with less physical play and pressure on the marks their athleticism allowed them to dominate a younger and smaller Hampton squad. Regarding the PHUEL pipeline to Pitt, we have apparently missed the jackpot (Noah) who will be perfecting his cheating abilities (which need a lot of work) at UNC. That said, I was impressed with the growth that Scotty has had since Easterns. His disc skills look like those of an experienced college thrower already. If he does spend a year at a sattelite and then transfer into The Program ala Jake Christian and enter in the North Hills recruiting class...Pitt 09 may be something to get very excited about. I heard another Pbury guy or two applied but didnt get in. If they catch wind of this little blog let me tell you this---go to a branch campus for a year, transfer in, 3 years with Pitt Ultimate will easily be worth 4 at almost any other school in the ME or NE or (for my money) anywhere. Come to The Program, best decision of your life.

Pennsbury was playing Hampton and incoming Pitt frosh Lukas Truckenbordborg4-2-9er or whatever. We'll call him Trucker. Boy has this kid made strides since Easterns last year! He still throws fakes that are 'fakin' a fake, not fakin' a throw" as Mike G would say, but when he really does throw the disc- its awful purdy. He also worked hard with his legs all game as he matched up on Noah and really made him work hard, with a bunch of nice bids on D, and commanding the offense on O (which was particularly difficult as his downfield guys were outmatched athletically). This was a great improvement over last year where he was really doing more dancing than cutting in the backfield. Trucker will have the opportunity to hone his skills under the tutelage of some excellent players because he has made the decision to join The Program. Pennsbury wins 15-10.

Notable absentee's: Bill Kieffer.

Pike Invite (Day 2)

I think this may be the first time that I came midway through a tournament...boy did I not like that shit. I never really felt in a groove on Sunday and never played like I was either. In the PONY game I made a spring 05 quality stupid decision (pikcup and huck to a covered guy running directly away from me upwind) and then played some weak D. In the Pike game I just made two throws that I never should have made. I know exactly why I made them and where the error in judgement came, but they were super-duper dumb. At least its May.

We werent (and I am not) very concerned with outcomes at this tournament in any case. We were subbing very liberally, and very effectively for our objective for the tournament- which was to get as good a look as possible at as many players as we needed to. I think that it was effective because our roster needed some serious trimming and the selection commitee nows feels comfortable making a sizeable cut. When we did put lines with 7 locks on the field, it was a lot of fun to watch- on both sides of the disc. But I was also reminded that as with any new team there will be a lot of growing pains to endure and a lot of chemistry to build. But that will add to the story...we are just beginning to ramp up.

Notable absentee's: Bill Kieffer.

Looking forward:

Two weekend- College Nats
Three weekends- CUT
Four weekends- Poultry Days
Six weekends- Boston
then...China and Atlanta for a while.

Investment

2007-05-07T21:03:00.000-04:00

For the full Pitt perspective please go to TallE's blog (link on the right) where TallE has provided an extensive and insightful write-up on Regionals. The following are some observations and thoughts that I had on the weekend.

The picture above is one that I cherish. The three men in the picture (myself, Fraggle and Mike Lo) are the only three people to be with the team all the way from our 10/12 in our section and 250something collegiate ranking in the spring of 2002 to consecutive appearances to and our first wins at College Nationals in 2005 and 2006. This picture was taken just after we defeated Brown on double-game-point to finish our college careers on a win at Nationals. There has been nothing in my life that I have felt more dedicated to or as invested in as Pitt Ultimate.

Thus, it was quite an experience to join the team as a spectator at one of the most important tournaments of the year, and to feel how invested I am still as they fought off elimination in three straight games. There are so many thoughts for my mind to come to terms with from the weekend (as if the 7 hours of driving home werent enough time) but I will attempt to make this as coherent as possible.

One of the main sources of my sense of emotional investment in the team is the sense of legacy. After regionals my sophomore year Fraggle said that he wanted us to be the players who led Pitt to Nationals (which seemed absurd at the time, having just gone 0-2 at the teams first ever regionals). Once that goal was reached, at some point down-the-line I (with influence from Brody) began to think more in terms of establishing a program at Pitt rather than being the Metro East flash-in-the-pan that seemed to be the style of things when I was an underclassman. A large part of any program is the ability to maintain a certain level of success throughout changes in leadership, which made this a crucial year for the program. So I felt myself heavily invested in the teams success because this was "my baby" (and, of course, Pitt is other people's "baby" as well).

A second source of my investment is in each of these players as individuals. I have watched TallE and Brent grow and mature as players for 5 seasons and they are brothers to me. I have had a special investment in Josh since the very first time he played pickup on Pitt's campus and we have traversed a difficult path together. I have been inspired by the work ethic of Stu and Rob; and I have seen and been lucky to be a part of the development of fine players such as Tony and Evan. And to watch Pitt be able roll out a line of 7 players of such quality on offense and intensity and athleticism on defense is a source of pride in the program. Pitt, this year more than ever, go about everything that they do as a team the right way. They train long and they train hard. They practice with intensity. They play with intensity and pride and heart. This years team is better than last, which was better than the year before, and so on. We are still on the climb.

And so, when we come to a tournament that is so meaningful on so many levels for the team, I cannot help but become invested. Stu and Josh have done a fantastic job with the team this year, and it cannot be said enough.

At points this weekend I wondered what was an appropriate level of involvement for an alumni and if I was overstepping my bounds at some points in time. This was never prompted by a comment or action or anything by anyone on the team, just my own reflection. I found myself naturally stepping back into a leadership type role with the team. Not an active captain type leader, but discussing strategy with Weasel and talking 1-on-1 with the guys I had been playing with for so long. But I also found myself storming the field with the team after the big goals. And at some point I thought/realized that others teams alumni dont do that. So I have just been thinking: what was/is acceptable for alumni. I think, obviously, that its up to the current team and that there is a natural comfortable feel there. Rarely, if ever, did I feel uncomfortable with my involvement this past weekend. I mean, I'm going to be a dick on the sidelines, so shit just ain't gonna change. But on the car ride home I was discussing with the other alumni the eventual distancing that will take place over time, and just considering how the experience will change over time as going to Regionals/Nationals will become more of a focus on a reunion with other alumni than it is a reunion with the current team.

In any case, for right now, I am just left with a great reverence for college ultimate. Talking with Jack on the sidelines this weekend, he hugely regrets not playing in his 5th year of eligibility, and I cannot imagine anyone with the opportunity to play a 5th year giving that up. Mike G says its like crumpling up a piece of paper and just tossing it away...but its so much more. Its just that there is really nothing quite like college ultimate--the family atmosphere of your teammates being not just teammates, but best friends and housemates. The unique opportunity of college life to all be involved in such a closeknit circle. The van rides, the common purpose, the team conditioning, the brotherhood. Yes, club ultimate is great and the actual gameplay is a huge stepup...but I will be very pleasantly surprised if I develop a sense of family with a club team the way that I did in college. But I just dont think that it will happen. Its so much clearer after being away how much a 5th year is missed. You hear all the time about how a vacation or trip or concert is a "once in a lifetime opportunity." Playing collegiate ultimate is THE once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

The guys in the picture above all played out our 5th year, at various costs...including Fraggle just taking 6 credits of Hebrew after fulfilling all his graduation requirements a year prior in order to play his 5th. But I know that none of us regret it, and we would do it all over again. The opportunity to be a warrior with an army of your brothers comes but only so often. Cherish it.

I'm Back, In Earnest (hopefully).

2007-05-01T22:37:00.000-04:00

Alright. With the track season working to a close--divisionals thursday, counties next saturday, regionals the saturday after--and my curriculum moving into reading some novels (less prep time--that stuff about first year teaching being hellish is no lie) I am going to hopefully be able to committ more of myself mentally, physically and analytically to ultimate. That said, there is a lot of catching up to do:

Fools Fest

I was lucky enough to be asked to play with BOMB, a combo team from Michigan, Ohio, Baltimore and other lands. So I got the opportunity to play with some great players I had never had the chance to play with like Ricky, Rook and Gelo from BAT and even some guys from the NYNY Glory Days. I had fun and felt surprisingly up to speed regarding decision making. I had a great time catching up with a lot of the TSGH guys I hadnt seen in a while, especially the great Pat Walters, and all-in-all I had a very good time. As a team we had a dissapointing finish bowing out in quarters after coming out slow for the 7th consecutive game in the tournament, but not before we got some good pizza-slapping in to punish throwing errors/drops.

Henlopen

Henlopen was...well, it was what it was. We had between 26 and 30 guys playing with us over the weekend and our goal was to use the tournament to evaluate talent. Of those guys I would say that over half of them were unknowns to me; so there was a lot of getting-to-know one another. In terms of relative strength I would ballpark that we were missing between 10-12 guys who will be on our series roster. Personally, I played one of my better tournaments on the whole moving the offense efficiently and making very few errors (one?) in the three important games. I was again pleased with my decision making as I did not force any throws that werent open and my only error was execution. I was particularly pleased to beat PoNY having only played them with short-handed teams from Pittsburgh and Pike, I was excited to get another shot and I played a very solid game on our way to a comfortable win.

Training

After Henlopen it was clear that it was time to get back to work. Unfortunately I had a lingering foot injury around the 5th metatarsil of my left foot (I dont have good luck with 5th met's- broke the right one twice) and stuck to lifting during the school week. Sunday I scrimmaged UDel with a group of savage club guys. This was a good workout, but also helped me to develop three hot-spots (future sites of blisters) on their rough practice fields. UDel kept up the tradition of making terrible foul calls on clean layout D's. It was all worth it for the Grotto's run with Caitlin, Courtney and the Franchises afterwards. Monday I went for a 25 minute ez run. Today I did 2.5 miles, 15 hill sprints, and a legs circuit with the track team. Plenty more work to go.

Regionals

This weekend I will make my first trip to ME Regionals as a spectator. The experience will prove to be gut-wrenching, but I am looking forward to flannels, Black Sabbath and seeing Brody as well as seeing the difference between the Pitt I saw at QCTU and the one I will see at Regionals. This year features the debut (to my knowledge) of the pool play format for the ME. Pitt will get a Hippo team on a mission in pool play, but if they survive that will get the winner of (a wide-open?) pool D in the semi's while the (perhaps) more exciting game will be UDel and Boro duking it out for a spot in the Regional final. Big ups to Ben Banyas for what he has done with those Boro kids in his time there. Respec. No Bill Kieffer or Joe Lott on the sidelines this year will certainly detract from the enjoyment of the game around the game, but perhaps some new forces in heckling will emerge to satiate the crowd. Maybe thats what they practice at SUNY schools instead of Ultimate.

Get Excited

I've been watching a lot of the WUCC Trailer that Rob from Ultivillage has put together and it is very well done. After watching it I reviewed the trailers for the others and this is the best by far (fm$). It takes a minute to get through the opening ceremonies stuff, but its pure money after that. Those clips are doing a lot to get me going for this season.

Henlopen, The Kazan Perspective

2007-04-26T20:30:00.000-04:00

Here is Henlopen from the perspective of one of my teammates, Kaza (Eric Brach). I'll update with my own soon:

This past weekend marked the Beth Coltman Memorial ultimate tournament
out at Cape Henlopen, a two-day, three-division event out by the Cape
May Ferry in Lewes, Delaware. Truck had a pretty good weekend - we
went 4-2, and got the chance to run with a lot of our tryouts. While
we were certainly aiming to take home the title (and there were, in
fact, sweet trophies for the winners), the weekend was pretty good
overall. Here's my recap.

Sat Game 1: Medicine Men

Ah, the Med Men. We came out pretty well in this one. To get a sense
of all of our players, we split the team into O and D lines for this
game, which we then reversed for the next one so that everyone would
have a chance to play both sides of the disc. This game was pretty
close the whole way, yet also never really in doubt, at least in my
mind, which is exactly the kind of game that I like.

We traded points with Med Men most of the way, then pulled away at the
end. I really liked starting off the season running O line - I scored
4 goals in this one, which is way more than I ever normally get, and I
really didn't feel like anyone on Med Men could run with me. Best
part was playing on the same line as Jordo - even though he always
owns me in any practice or drill, I feel like being out there with him
makes me a more confident and better player. We won 15-11 or so.

Sat Game 2: Good Fellas

A new name but an old team, game 2 saw us matched up against the
Philly Masters. I had three memorable matchups in this one. The
first was Clayton. He tried to take me deep once and I D'd it; he got
me on a deep one the second time in a crowd. I need to get better at
finding the disc quickly when it floats - that one hurt me. The
second was against some REALLY big dude, who just hung deep - once we
realized they were trying to run a homie, I just left him and poached
the lane in the middle of the field - we got a quick D and scored.
The third was against some joker who set up, like, 5 feet away from
the stopped disc on the force side - I called him out for the fact
that he was gonna do abso-effing-lutely nothing from where he was
standing... AJ had to pull me aside later to question the wisdom of
that little nugget. We rolled 'em, though they got off more than a
few scores on us off of deep shots, where they pulled all of their men
under the disc off of ho stack flow and were then left with 1-on-1
isos in the back. 15-8.

Sat Game 3: Pike

Ahhh, the biggie. Well, we played hard, but we lost. Not much else
to say. We started down a point; I went in at 1-0 and I was promptly
called off the O line by Seany Mac. Damn. Regardless, I felt good
about my O on the D line, and apparently, so was Pike; they switched
Trey on to me every time we got the turn when I was on the field. On
the D side, however, I got run around pretty well by Brandon
Silverman. Kid has stamina. I was in on double game point matched up
against Brandon again, and I was pretty determined to stop him - I got
a layout catch off of a Heckman pass that I was pretty psyched about,
but it was called back on a foul and we lost, 11-10. Oh yeah, and
Matt Gordon had a sick layout D about 5 minutes after showing up.

Reacp on the party and night: good times.
Pike + Truck vs. Pi at Quarters: Pike/Truck Combo
Keven vs. Jack: Jack
Keven's head vs. chair: Chair.
Kazan sleeping vs. Jack lobbing beer cans: ...... Chair.

Sun Game 1: DC Funk in Quarters
15-4, I think. Only thing of note to me was that I threw away two in
this game. Gotta dial that down, both of them were "cute" throws near
the endzone and I got too pumped for my own good. No turns on the
weekend before that. At least it came in a game that didn't matter,
and I learned my lesson and tightened it up. Also, Cuneo showed up,
as did Walsh and Deuce (not playing).

Sun Game 2: PoNY in Semis
This one was almost Good Fellas, as it was 12-11 PoNY in the quarters
game before PoNY pulled away. We started off slow in this one but
later got the win. My boys Ivan and Josh W. both played really well
against us and got some nice D's. I noticed that we really buckled
down and played well against them... except for our Zone O, which
could have been better. A real slap in the face, since that is
usually a strength, plus we had just worked on it during out down
time.

Jody and Masulis covered me in this one, which again, was cool.
Doubly so since I still didn't have too much trouble getting open on
them. It's nice to have reached a point where the other team is
putting their studs on you to try to stop you from getting the disc -
I'm really looking forward to using my speed as a weapon this year now
that I am out of the handler spot.

Sun Game 3: Pike in Finals
Rematch city! We went down 2 breaks early and never really came back;
we lost 15-12. The thing is, we had a TON of chances. I think our D
line earned a turn on 75% of our points - we just kept turning it
though. I would like to chalk it up to inexperience playing together
- three big things stood out that our D line O needs to work on. 1:
The top of the stack needs to be cutting for the swing cut on EVERY
DUMP. That wasn't happening, and we kept getting trapped on the line.
2: The middles need to stop turning it over. When a middle makes a
throwaway... they need to realize that they should have dumped it.
Handlers make hard throws. Middles make easy throws. Either you
throw in flow, or you let it reset. And for the love of all things
holy, LOOK UPFIELD and KEEP THINGS MOVING. If you are not looking
upfield and it is stall 2, well, pull your head out of your ass. And
if you are still holding it at stall 5 and haven't already tried to
dump it, you suck. In our offense, middles should not even be holding
the disc by stall 6. We keep it moving. Finally, 3: CONDITIONING.
We had some late turns we made on our own goal line... and then our D
line offense looked terrible. Lazy cuts, horizontal cuts, no fakes
before cutting, clogging / no hard clearing out... yes it's the last
game of the weekend and yes you will be a little gassed... but you
gotta play smart and hard when you are out there, boys. That's what I
came away with.

All in all, a lot to work on, a lot to build on. A lot of great on
and off the field leadership, a lot of potential.... season is looking
good.

TSGH 3.0

2007-02-07T19:57:00.000-05:00

The ball toward the club season finally got officially rolling (for me) this weekend as last year's members of Truck Stop Glory Hole gathered to discuss the upcoming season. At the meeting we decided to turn down offers from both Potomac and Pike to merge teams and instead to hold open tryouts for Truck Stop. Any members of those teams (or others) with hopes to play for us are welcome to come and try out. These tryouts will not only be for players from outside teams, but no returner is guaranteed a spot on next years team. While no Pike players may make the tryout (part of their merger proposal involved moving practices to Newark), it is expected that almost all of Potomacs will in addition to some All-Region level recent college graduates who have moved to the area. It should be quite a tryout.

There will be a five person selection committee to determine who will be on next years team. Ryan Morgan of Potomac will be given one of the positions to ensure that we have adequate knowledge of their talent trying out. I have accepted a nomination for the committee and feel pretty good about the likelihood that I will be elected. We will attend a few early season tournaments to get a look at the talent in some on-field situations. The plan is to attend Club Terminus, Henleopen and NJ Invite and then to have the roster set for Boston Invite at the end of June.

Personally, I have to be sure to make two of those three, which could get pretty hairy given other committments (Pitt SuperFan, Younguns). Here is my potential spring line-up:

Queen City Tune-Up (This weekend)
Club Terminus (March 17-18)
Fools Fest [invited to play w/ Jaeger and defending champs BOMB] (March 30-April 1)
Henlopen (April 21-22)
Metro East Regionals (April 28-29)
NJ Invite (Early-Mid May, hopefully)
Bell Crack Coed Classic (May 20-21)
College Nationals (May 26-28)
Poultry Days (June 9-10)

9 tournaments, 6 playing (maybe), 2 coed, 1 fun, 3 club...looks like a good time. Not sure if I'll be making Club Terminus, but with my trip to Asia looking less certain, I'll have to crunch the numbers and see how things look in another week or so.

In any case, I am excited again, thank god. This 'offseason' was to long and allowed me to obsess with school and become a workaholic. Starting March 1 I will be running with the spring track team 3x per week and lifting on the other days. Moldenhaur said we are at the crest of a talent wave in the DC area, and I plan to make the most of it.

Oh, we also resolved to have a much improved jersey this year. The one above is a possibility.

An Ultimate Saturday

2006-11-19T22:39:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I had the opportunity to indulge myself in my present and my past by taking in a couple of rounds of UDel's SHOWdown and going to Truckstop's end of year party/chapardy.

I arrived at the CSB fields Pitt was scheduled to play on a few minutes after their first game was scheduled to start. Luckily, after I hauled the bags of lunchmeat, bread, granola bars, gatorade powder and wheat thins a good 250 yards I found Raj who informed me that Bulb was forced to change field locations for Pitt's pool that morning. Hooray. I make the treck back to my car but get to see 5 Truck teammates (two playing on UDel alum, three playing current) on my way. To my dissapointment none of them will be making the treck to DC later that evening for the festivities.

I arrive to the proper fields with Pitt leading Bucknell 4-2. Bucknell is one of those teams that is hard for me to judge because they were actually good, I think, when I began playing...but I also know that my idea of "good" has undergone quite a transformation as well. Anyways, I think that they are down quite a bit this year, they only have one guy who can throw it seems and are still running an offense which for the most part requires them to throw 8-10 passes right up the gut of the field right next to the stack in order to score. Maybe they'll bring things together in the spring, but they are going to need a lot of help from Yoda in order to qualify for Regionals this year.

Pitt is working with a relatively light roster this weekend. They have 5 returners from last years A team (although one got hurt after one game). There are also a handful of freshmen who are likely/locks to make A. The idea of bringing a team like this to a tournament is an interesting idea and will be interesting to look back on as Pitt attempts to establish its program among the nations elite. I say that because the reason, as I understand it, that Pitt went to the tournament was to get their large and talented rookie class more PT before the A/B/ish split. I just spend a lot of time comparing Pitt to other programs and wonder how they go about things and the differences that affect the different programs. For instance, after playing at Club Nats this year I truley see the difference that playing at that level would bring to a player when they come back to the college season and I think about how much that helps teams like Wisco, Colorado, Stanford, Florida, etc. that all have their studs playing in Sarasota (hey--werent those the semi's teams from last year??...coincidence?)

Anyway...I know what the Pitt A guys can bring, so I was really there to watch the top rookies. That quickly turned into watching the two guys who going to fill my shoes on the O line this year: Junior World's Champion Chris Brenenborg and YCC Champion Kyle Baines (yeah, it takes two champs to fill those pups....NOT). Anyway, I was very impressed with both and look forward to them wrecking havoc on college ultimate this spring. They are both at very different points in their games.

Kyle played very well when I was there watching. I remember watching him play at HS Easterns and being surprised at what he could do with the disc because he is a small guy. But he is truley very skilled and can certainly jack the disc, though he didnt when I was watching. But he is very much still in the learning, afraid to make a mistake, take care of the disc rookie stage. Which is a great place for him to be right now. He will need to get to the point where he is taking more risks and pushing his game further, but hopefully he will be able to do that work in winter league and summer league and play sound fundamental ultimate with PITT.

Chris is at a much different point and one that I am very familiar with. It appeared to me that Chris felt he could do pretty much anything with the disc, which he pretty much can, as I found out as he abused my mark for a 45 yard break flick blade/bender for a score in the alumni game (indoors, mind you). But he seems to be at a stage of learning when to holster it. I like to refer to the times when I didnt know how to holster myself as "senior year" and the times when I did as "fifth year and beyond." This was a very hard lesson for me to learn, and hopefully he learns it much faster than I did. It just took a while, but finally dawned on me that I was playing with 6 other guys who were pretty darn good, and that if I just played within the system and put them in positions to be successful and was always there as an outlet and moved with disc within 4 seconds...we were going to be a pretty good team. And so thats what I finally decided to do. So for the most part (except for, ya know, really important times at nationals) I put the hammers and benders away, broke the mark with my pivot, used my legs to get myself open and get open break throws, moved the disc quickly and played TEAM ULTIMATE within the SYSTEM of our offense. I no longer took pride in completed hucks, goals thrown, etc. But solely looked at my turnovers as the number that I cared about. I still contributed to breaking down the defense by getting myself the disc in good positions, getting swings off, getting other people the disc in good spots...but I refused to be a detriment to the team in any way. In the end, I think I basically learned how to balance risk and reward and trust my teammates/not put the game on my back alone. It was a great lesson to learn, but one that takes a lot of patience, trust and maturity. I think that will be Chris' odyssey this spring, and I hope that he has the character and influences around him to get him through the difficulties. He has all the physical potential in the world. The only thing keeping him from being the hands-down FOTY and helping Pitt make big noise at nats will be his mentality. But I think he has the stuff to do it.

Edinboro ended up winning the tournament. Good for them. Maybe they wont let Pitt B end their season this year. James from Edinboro may still be the worst and ugliest player I've ever seen. I hope I get lucky enough to play him after this spring so that I can teabag him in the endzone. Wow, he is bad. Anyway, Boro's deep game will be a tough matchup for a lot of ME teams who wont be able to play good TEAM D, and punish them for the HnH offense. They certainly have a shot at taking the second bid, if they can keep their top 7 healthy and playing at all times through regionals. Anyway, we all know who will be taking the region....

suck it,
Sean

Lovin' It.

2006-11-06T20:44:00.000-05:00

I just got home from a long day at school and was checking the ole buddy list and bboard. I come home to find that after two grueling days of play at CCC and a 12 hour car drive, the spirit of Pitt Ultimate is still alive and well. Brent climbed the Cathedral's 36 floors 3x. Hammonds is outside in November in Pittsburgh working on his throws. On day 1 of the 'offseason.' This is the work ethic that took us from being the doormat of college ultimate to playing on its premier stage.

But as TallE once put it, "There are ONLY 8 teams--" referring to the elite tier of college ultimate. I think perhaps that the most challenging work lies before Sabah, as cracking that top tier in Club or College and staying there is perhaps the most difficult achievement in the sport. It will take a lot of character for that rag tag group of flannel-wearing overachievers to beat the likes of Colorado, Stanford, Wisco, UGA, etc. But if there were ever a group who could do it, I'd have my money on that group of psychotics who push themselves through the elements, labor in the gym and on the track and annually spend these upcoming months putting in the work that earns them the opportunity to compete on the highest stage in May. We have entered the time of the year when Pitt closes the gap on the elite teams and extends away from the meteocre, and I will do my own workouts this winter inspired by what I know is going on in the gym and on the track 250 miles due West.

the new pursuit

2006-10-31T19:59:00.000-05:00

for archival purposes only:

Noah
Worm
Kenner
Ryan
Robin
Jack
BVH
Calvin
J Raf
Carleton guy
Broddus
McGoughan
Willment
Dan MacArthur
Meyers
Johnson
Brent
Frentzel
Connor
Slam

jKINS THE sI

2006-07-08T02:31:00.000-04:00

eVAN jENHKINS WILL BE all region this year because he throws scoober dumps passes and is lanky ass fuck. if you dont vote for him, i will have you killed because he is obviously the most hilarious player in the regiona dnhhis height alone and the fact that he is named t'the bird' is the reason that he should be elected ALL REGION. Which, we all know, is a joke as it is because Brent bellinger and Stu Kellner is bettr thn anyone ese i the rgion. im no jokng,i ee tesegus (to see this) everyday. hey aebetter than yo. read tht again. they are.better. than. you,. okay!11??? ASSHOE> THEY. ARE. BETTER. HAN YOU.,

":youneed a litl "elf camer in he bog" is what sene in the living room justsaidf.

WER IS JOSH M ULLEDN?!?!??!?!?!

WE EEDED HIM AT MARS THIS yrear. HUM AND MIO MIIIIIIIO. 'have you seen hisfacbook picyture??? check out my facebook album to see him and bill, for real. mio is dressed like a girl kid is fucked up. i <3 YOUNGUNZ!!!!!!!! and PIIIIITTTT TTTTTTTTATR
Q!!!ck veryone l. I<# YUOU
0-Sean

mccomb-a-plooa

2006-07-08T02:20:00.000-04:00

triple header, bitches!!!

3-0 at Baseball, 2-0 at beerpong.

bad nes though, Chris brenenborg, our top rookie, has his father coming over to pick him up- that is b aaaaad neqws.

In other news, mars 23006 was FANtaastic!! I pulled hte hat trick- tyhe youngunns took 2nd overall, another step toward the corwn and we had a FANTASTIC time doing it!!!!

if we get Josh, Styu, and George back, ew will be unstoppable in 2007.

I guess thisi s my firest drunken blog post meaning that I need to be super-honest. I am playing Truxcckstop in the fall, and I hope it wokrs out- they have a lot of potential, but we need to see that come to fruition through effort and work ethic- i hopwe that we have it. Pitt is going to be fucking sickin 20007- 5 incredible frosh- kyle, pat, chhrsi b, eddie and others bringing it home- i cant wait for those guys to take the nexc step.

I am moving to baltimore-0 should be pretty sweweet0 meeting plent yof new people and TRUCK STOP GLORYU HOLE ALL THE WAY TO FUCKING SARASOTA YOU ASSHOLE. IU <# Ben Banyasb/xc he is a ture friend and the rest of you assholes dont even know.

I also <3 the younguns of 200766 b/c wqe were the shit on and foff the fieldsl.

Pitt Ultimate will be good forevere because we recruit people like Stu Kellner and Pat Hmamonds, and you assholes fdont have people with that kind of wWILL and WoRK +ETHIC. They have more potential than you and they are OUTWORKING YOU. KNOW THAT. BE AWARE OF THAT> When you get to the linme, next spring, you need to know that everyone on opitrt ultimate HAS PUT IN MORE WORWORK THAN YOU, THEY ARE MORE REAFY THATM YOU ARE, THEY ARE OUT FOR B LOOOOOD AND THEY ARE GOING TO KICK YOUR ASS. BE AFRAID. BE VERY AFRIAD. THAT IS ALL. END THIS SHIT. BITCH.

Time Off

2006-06-22T19:21:00.000-04:00

Save an hour of "ultimate" and an hour of "goaltimate" with the kids at camp this week, I havent played Ultimate since CUT II nearly three weeks ago. I went home the weekend prior with the intention of going to Pike practice, but somewhere along that 5 hour drive through the night, I realized that I was not looking forward to practice at all. I realized that I was going because it was what I was supposed to be doing- moving on to a natties club team. I was doing it because it would be good for Pitt Ultimate- we graduate players on to good club teams. At the time I didnt want to play frisbee at all.

Since then, I have regained the itch. Even just playing at camp and trying to put enough touch on a 30 yard away pass that an 8-yr-old could settle under it was satisfying...but I have even come to consider attending the 'fun pickup' around the city. In fact, I might be going to high school pickup momentarily. I do want to play frisbee. But the question I am still left with is: what kind of frisbee do I want to play this fall, and how much am I willing to sacrifice this summer to do that?

I told Pike that I needed to take some time off, they understood and gave me until after Mars. But I will need to go back each of the next three weekends to be at practice. Then comes August...an interesting work opportunity has come across "my desk" as my current camp director has told me that I should try/could get a job directing a 3 weeks sports camp at Shady Side Academy thats a followup to our current day camp which would only be 17-20 kids, pay very very very well and I would get to hire 3 peeps of my choosing to help me run it...which sounds like an incredible deal to me and a great opportunity, but would go until August 18th and my first day on the job in Baltimore is August 22nd...so I would like to do the move prior to that...either way its not much time to get settled.

Its weird, I think that I am questioning this so much because I am so used to feeling completely comfortable sacrificing A SHIT TON for my team, and I just dont feel that way. I have some friends on Pike, and I'd really like to spend a season with them, but its not like it is with Pitt...I dont want to go across the state three weekends in a row for 9 total hours of practice in July alone and then do it again in August, and then do it as a 2-3 hour commute each way all fall. But even as I write this, part of me is saying: of course not, that is crazy. And another part of me is saying: this made complete sense to you just a month ago and you didnt think twice about it.

What does this mean, truckstop? That may be the answer. I dont know where their team mentality is at, but I know that Pike is petal to the metal, and they are working hard- and I have total respect for that and that is what I tried to do with Pitt (and I think we accomplished that reasonably well for a college team). In fact, I respect it so much that I would refuse to be on that team if I werent able to give the same effort: and I think that what I am coming to realize is that I'm not able to give that effort. I would still need to make some Truckstop stuff over the summer, but I could coordinate that with contract signings and apartment hunting when I'd need to be in Baltimore anyway. And the commute in the fall would be painless. I assume Potomac is more along the lines of Pike. I assume that Truckstop isnt because I havent seen the same fire in their emails, they dont have track clubs running a couple of times a week, and they told me at regionals (in jest for this season, I assume) that they picked up a player at sectionals last year (point being that I could jump on board later in the summer).

Perhaps the most annoying part of all of this is that I keep going back and forth, unable to let go of my self-perception as this player with unbelievable drive. But in the end, maybe I left that drive, along with my breakfast and lunch, on the fields in Columbus and on the turf behind on the IM fields. In any case, its good to know that I still love the game, and I still have the itch to go out and compete, even if it is pick-up and not sarasota.

Time will tell??

I have heard the call...

2006-06-14T18:09:00.000-04:00

Pitt made their return trip to nationals a few weeks back. Our opener was against Texas, a team that we were certain we could play with. It was cloudy but deceptively warm and humid. The game was not pretty...a lot of turns both ways not so much created by D, but by both offenses looking a touch off. I started off strong, scoring upline and getting a couple of assists. One assist was on a hammer to the endzone that hung but I got away with, which might have been unfortunate because it burned me later in the day. We ended up down a couple of breaks and just playing some rushed ultimate. Salad led Texas with great confidence in the second half, and we wasted strong defenders on him rather than letting them D-up a lesser player downfield. In the end they won 15-12. This was a great opportunity that we let slip by not playing our best ultimate- or even strong ultimate by our standards.

Next up was Wisconsin. They had just rolled Michigan and took advantage of the slopfest that we brought over from the field we had played TUFF on. They create space very well, everyone on the field is a threat with and without the disc. We were, very simply, overmatched. They exposed a huge advantage they had in athleticism across the board and made things very easy on themselves. I have always found it difficult (this year) to play Wisconsin because they are constantly applying so much defensive pressure throughout the field- on the disc, in the lane, in the stack, on the dump. I played sufficiently in this game, and was able to get and move the disc, but I credit this to my simplified role- I think its easier for me to get open in my position than it would be downfield, they guard the upline very well, which made me open for the dump/swing. Another thing- they made us throw perfect hucks, which we could not do- this is perhaps one advantage to tight physical defense that goes unnoticed- that huck that hangs or has just too much zip on it- when your best downfield shot in the past 6-8 touches is a guy with two yards on his defender bolting deep- you take that look, and you know it has to be perfect, so you rush it and its much tougher.

The buy was rough. I got a sandwhich and some salt and felt okay, didnt drink enough at all. Watched some of Udel/UCSB (I still have no idea how UCSB beat both of us). I got the "youre dehydrated headache" about 15 minutes before our warm-up jog. On the jog I got a cramp in my rib. Talked to the trainer- they said it was likely dehydration. I chugged a ton of water and ate salt. Started to feel really shitty. Walked over to the woods and spouted 5 spews of firehose vomit. Returned to the field enraged. Sucked it up and started out the first half. Luckily, D went on an incredible run to put us up 6-1. Unfortunately, the O team came on and tried to play the same loose style against their D team, which they ate right up. I tried one of those ill-advised floaty endzone hammers that I got away with against Texas, Michigan did not let us get away with that...I remember that being a big point of some sorts, perhaps to take half 8-3? I had almost nothing left at that point and wanted the point to end...I should have called a timeout. I'm a moron...I really hope I learn a lot from that throw- same goes for my teammates. We (and I especially) need to be confident enough to possess on big points. I do remember hitting Stu to take half, or to score the first one out of half. A couple of points after half we turn the disc and dude I'm on is running and I simply have no more fuel, then theyre coach starts yelling to run me, eventually they get the break and the game is over for me...hardest game of my life to take. O team is down another weapon on offense and suffers more on defense. We fall 15-12, TallE will one day explain why.

Friday night I sleep for 12ish hours. Saturday we return to the fields to play Harvard in the "we dont want the prequarters losers to play a fresh team bowl." Both teams 0-3 on day one, both hungry for their first victory of the tournament. When I get to the field I feel naxious again. I decide at one point that there is absolutely no way that I allow my career to end with the Michigan debachle, and despite playing some of the first half of the Harvard game light-headed, I play on. We are up a couple breaks throughout. O team is playing very well. We dismantle the Harvard zone and dink around their clam, with the acception of one time when we start from the rear-brick due to our second offsides and I have to throw a ~30 yard backhand blade to Vatz to get us out of it, which was an interesting adventure. Tallz did a great job of taking good shots and using the breaks to the top when we needed it...we did well to switch our angles of attack and make cutting easier. Harvards O played well too, scoring with ease at times. It was a few big individual plays from our best athletes- Stu, Andrew, Hammonds- that made the difference in this game. Jack Marsh had a subpar game for him, missing on a few of his patented breakmark flicks. Will Chen played a superb game, touching the disc consistently and having I think zero errors while making the offense work for them.

UCSB. What I remember: these guys were bitches. Some kid had a real real cheap foul on me on an upline cut, which one observer wanted to deliver a GMF for, and delivered a hit which the Tide sideline applauded. They played dirty with some clutching and grabbing (as did Michigan- big time) and made some opportune travel calls. Loss 14-11

Brown- this was a game I was not excited to play. It had been a long tournament, I just watched UGA and Colorado play an incredible quarters game and I was excited to see the semi's. Luckily, the 13/15 game was scheduled during semi's. Brown, being 0-5 on the weekend, was hungry to get a win, and throughout the game it seemed as though they would. Brown was up a break through the first half and much of the second. There were also some very long point where our O team decided to give them the disc multiple times and grind out points, which we mostly one. To our credit there were other points where we smoothly sailed down the field. Brown was even better on O for much of the game, restting the disc with ease and cutting with discipline to make their offense easy...it helped to have Colin getting open at will. We put a semi stacked D team on, and Brown worked 50 yards with ease before stalling near the endzone. We did a great job between the mark and the defender to shut down the reset and they were forced to put up a stall 9 hammer into the stack that I got a piece of. We scored that break and we right back in the game. Fast-forward to universe point. We pull to Brown, after letting Vandenburg hurt us with long backhands we have finally switched to a flick mark that is much more effective. Again he puts up the flick to Mahoney and as I turn I see three white shirts settling under the disc with him. Rob takes the best position on the disc and it ends up tailing away from everyone and falling harmlessly to the ground. Mike Lo picks up, goes to me, Weasel screams "IT DOESNT HAVE TO BE ONE THROW," I break to an in-cut (I think), get it back about halfway between the brick and midfield. I see Joshy going deep off of a blown switch, Mahoney trailing by about 15 yards, though little Joshy is hobbling his heart out I let it fly instinctually- this was one of those throws that you just see the field and put it- no thinking. It ended up being a pretty nice throw- Josh comes down with it in stride and we win. Everyone goes and tackles Josh. I give a big smile- my last throw for Pitt Ultimate- pretty good way to end it (taking down the defending champs).

After the game celebrate as though we did a lot better than 13th. While we finished the same spot as we did last year it was an entirely different tournament for us. There was only one game we werent in, and Wisconsin did that to a lot of teams at this tournament. We celebrated knowing we had again taken steps forward as individuals and as a program, and that felt good. We talked as a team and elected Stu Kellner and Josh Suskin as captains for next year. It was an obvious choice, and I believe that they will do very well. It was a decent run at the helm for me.

I have learned a few things- always set the bar high. The sayings about not knowing how high you can go until you come short are true. We did not acheive our goals as a team this year, but that did not leave me feeling as though the season was a failure. We did not work hard or smart enough to make quarters, but we did improve. We have had a lot of debate about setting team goals around here, and from this season what I have learned is that you should set the bar high- high enough so that there is room for improvement between where you started from (last year) and where you want to be (ex: quarters this year). We accomplished something between the two and I do not look on the season as a waste or a failure as I feared I might if we didnt reach our goal. Similarly: personallyI was not the player that I wanted to be this season, there was too much I had to do in order to be eligible (18 grad credits this spring) in order to be in the condition and mentality that I wanted to be for the season. But, knowing that, I did grow as a player for the most part. While I made some stupid loose cannon decision in some big spots- universe point in regional final, hammer in the michigan game- I played much smarter ultimate this season, I trusted my teammates much more and I took shots when they were there and allowed my skills to give us the opportunity to continue to work the disc around until a shot that we did want was there.

Finally, I learned to truly appreciate this incredible and unique experience in the moment. I was able to be intense on the field but enjoy the game, I could even smile at the little goofs TallE and I would have in the backfield (mainly because we were good enough to overcome them). But I really learned to enjoy the little things about my team- the characters, the atmosphere, the comfort we all have with one another, the goofyness, the things that I cant even put into words that makes this team so special, makes us so close and makes this team so great. I think that what truly makes this team worth committing so much to is what happens when you are not on the field. I love the game, no doubt, but I love shooting the shit in the tent between games, the van rides (oh my god the van rides), the team dinners (mongolian grill- BONG), the sausage parties where normal guys resort to desperately hitting on beat as high school girls (i hope recruits arent reading), the shit that people like Rob, Jake, Wes, TallE and Jenkins say that no one outside the team hears. You know, every team says these things...but I truly wonder if every team enjoys each other as much as we do. I am sad to see my time on the field go, but I am more dissapointed to see experiences like the van ride to Easterns, the Kennywood trip and the dinner at the Mongolian Grill go.

Such is life. If you have eligibility left- cherish it. Time for a run.

Hatin' it.

2006-05-01T18:37:00.000-04:00

Boy do teams like to hate us. One of my teammates this weekend said "Rutgers, CMU and Pitt B have Pitt's back...everyone else is against us." I'd add Florida to the list, but yeah. The Colonial hates us, perhaps because we've turned "Yellow Sunday" into "Black Sabbath" perhaps because there were contentious calls going both ways in the Udel game and the crowd was pro-Udel, so we heard it all day long. Perhaps because players on our team play with passion and dont joke around on the field as much as other teams do.

Whatever, the reason, I am okay with it in the end- I'm still going to Columbus afterall. I was still part of taking a team that was one of the absolute worst teams in the Region when I got here and helping it to take itself seriously and now be one of three (?) teams to get back to back births to Nats out of the ME. Actually, maybe thats it- we arent from the Colonial/Philly area and don't play ME tournaments, so they dont like the new kid on the block.

Maaaybe, its because we travel to play the best competition we can, and people see that as us seeing ourselves as superior. I did find it odd to see one of the Haters out at the fields giving his two sense to all calls made when he equated finding the best players in the ME to looking through feces; no matter that some of those players were/are his teammates and almost all of those players (ME all region) are much better players than he is. I just would have thought that if you look down on a group of people so much, you wouldnt waste your time coming to watch them...but then again maybe we arent the ones with the superior attitude afterall.....

Whatever it is, people can hate. We go out and spend our season trying to bring respect to the region. Then we come home to regionals and get boo'd and cheered against.

While I am writing about it, its more a matter of trying to figure out the motivation than it is making me feel bad or whatever. I'm sure I'll get some angry comments about how the Colonial teams arent all butt buddies and how people hate Pitt because we make shitty calls or whatever...don't hear all the other good teams we play complaining about us...we here teams like Harvard, NC State, Florida, and others telling us it was a good hard-fought battle. Sure there are the occasional Colorado State's, but you run into blatant cheaters every once in a while [Nice dive into the mark foul call after a stall had already been called Pre ;-) ].

All Region 2006

2006-05-01T18:26:00.000-04:00

Here's my 7 in no particular order:

Brent Bellinger- gets open underneath at will, always has gas in the tank. If we dont have him, we need to run a different offense. Offensive MVP of Pitt Ultimate, no doubt.

Stu Kellner- Capt. Callahan. Stu makes the big play when we need the big play and give the D line the long strike capability it needs to be a threat to score breaks. That is, unless Stu just gets a callahan.

Pre- tireless player and smart poacher, also made Udel's zone O work upwind. Has long been a great player, and just starting to be seen for it.

Raj- I was very impressed with how smart he was with the disc and he made me work hard on offense. Made the big throw when he needed to and for the most part executed it well. Without Raj around the disc, I wonder where UDel would have been. Additionally, playing against Raj is a pleasure because we both battle hard and our disagreements are almost always worked out painlessly.

[hooray for imports ;-) ]

Jack Gaynor- Good athlete, great size, nice long throws and great in the air, also lead GW admirably.

Jon Greenburg- Carried Swat to backdoor finals. Great defender, and great in the air...from what I saw of Swat the offense ran through him...I would love to see Greenburg, Pre and Brent just matchup one on one on each other over and over.

Billy Kieffer- Tougher sell now since Rutgers went a dissapointing 1-2. But I KNOW Billy is an all-star...and I know that he will probably not make the team because the Colonial hype machine will get some random dood for Hopkins or something on the team b/c he was "awesome at the sectionals party!" or something.

Sectionals 04 and 05

2006-04-15T00:14:00.000-04:00

Things I should be doing: Sleeping or working on an assignment for grad school
Things I am doing: Updating the blog

Actually, I might be in violation of the teams "lights out 11 hours before the first round" policy. Whoops. It is day one of sectionals afterall.

Sectionals 2004- Junior Year, State College PA.

Boy was West Penn weak this year. I had missed the entire spring season due to a fracture in my fifth metatarsal. We started the year with five players, so we recruited like crazy that year and have the following players still currently on the A team: J Sus, Bobby D, Willie, Joonks, Sip and Trent Owens*; as well as a whole mess of B teamers. We were building, to say the least. Fraggle was leading the D line, Mike Lo was the only real thrower on the O line, Brent was the only real cutter, TallE hadnt asserted himself in any way yet, and we had picked up Andrew that spring. We were young, and I was frustrated. Rather than realize what we were going through in rebuilding that year, and fueled by the frustration of my foot I became very bitter and yelled constantly, and was a drag and was an unsupportive leader. It was a great learning experience for me, but I was very hard on the players, and I am honestly surprised how many of them took so much from me. To this day my behavior as a leader that spring is certainly what I am most regretful for in my career. At the same time it taught me a great deal about being a leader, particularly helping me now as a teacher (although its a lot easier to just be supportive of a 12 year old than a 20 year old).

Anyway, back to the point: day one we opened with a win over PSU-B, then we lost to Bucknell 11-1. Eleven to One. 11 to one. They threw a four man cup, we didnt have handlers to play it, 11 to 1. That game hurt. Then we lost to Yuk by one or two upwind breaks. Then we beat someone bad...oh yeah, St. Francis, and I got to hobble around for a couple of points...yay. We opened Sunday in a must win with Boro. We played very strong D early and put a lot of pressure on them as they dinked around in the backfield, but eventually they worked it out and scored. As we went along we dropped and got broken to a big loss in the end. Losing to boro...oh man. There might have been a game inbetween, but all I remember is winning a tight game with Susquehanna to take 5th. This sectionals hurt. This season hurt. It took so much out of me not to be able to play. I was coming into that spring in great shape. I remember in early practices I was a cutter in our Ho-Stack and I was getting open on Brent regularly and I was really excited to play.

Sectionals 2005- Senior Year: Edinboro PA

I spent the fall semester of my senior year in London. I refractured my foot while I was there. They did a test on my foot to see if there was still blood going to the bone (meaning that it was healing) and I escaped needing surgery by the thinest of margins. The UPenn doctor also got some company to hook me up with a $3000 Ultrasound machine that I used in the morning and before bed that vibrated my bone very slightly to enhance blood flow, I also took calcium pills (I doubt they helped). Anyway, my foot healed in time for me to play a game at our first tournament and work my way back in from there.

The season started with a meeting at my house where we set a goal to make nationals. Driving this was a win the guys had in the fall over Deleware, who was coming off of a nationals bid. Little did we know Udel would go 1-2 at reggies that year. Anyway, we set the goal and we set off to work. We also had an A and B team for the first time. We made the cut at 15 players, where there seemed to be a natural cutoff in talent. That group of players was special. We became extremely tight, we had great chemistry on both lines, everyone knew what everyone else was going to do, we ran Stu into the ground playing him both ways. To this day, setting such an outlandish goal and simply putting our heads down and getting to work is one of the most special experiences I have been a part of. The improvement over the course of that spring was remarkable, and being a part of that group of guys has given me the belief in myself that if I truly dedicate myself to any purpose in my life, and if I am willing to make the sacrifices and put in the work to accomplish something- anything is possible.

We played almost our entire season out of region to play the best competition we could and to play in the best conditions we could. Because of this, I dont think we knew exactly how good we were going into sectionals. We found out pretty quickly that we were pretty good. We won every game at sectionals by 12 goals. My personal favorite was playing Bucknell. We were up 10-1 I believe and Weasel suggested that we play the couple players who didnt play all the time and chill it out. I gave him a death stare and said "we crush." Unfortunately we didnt get up 11-1, which is what I really really wanted. We did win 15-3. Sunday morning we had Yuk in the finals. I will never get tired of beating Yuk. Never. Ever. I got to matchup on Tommy, which is fun, Josh had Drews number, Rob had Dean, Andrew had K2...we just matched up really well on them on D, and then there was the O line, whose zone O was beautiful in the few points they got to play. We just stomped on them 15-3. This was also the origin on the SWC: Sectionals Wiffleball Championships (I just made that name up). This is one of the classic things that makes this team so special to me.

Regionals 2005- Senior Year: Princeton, NJ

We opened with Columbia. Have I mentioned how bad we are in the mornings? Well, we almost screwed the pooch as the two seed going to Universe point with the 15 seed. They had Krishna (I think) and big John who is on Pike now, they were good and played the whole game. We also had an inexcusable drop that would have ended the game easy. Anyway, we won, and Weasel said to never speak of this game again, so...no more. Next Yuk came out and tried to play us for 5 points. We were up 4-1 or 5-0, so they packed it in. This let Josh score 9 goals in front of some cum-dumpster he wanted to impress, which made him happy. We then had a bye before playing Rutgers, who were upsetting bitches left and right. We rode the O line to a win in this game, as the D line got a few breaks, but the O really brought it home working the 4 handler zone O set beautifully. Raj, Mio and Billy really played well for Rutgers in this game, but were understandably tired.

Sunday we had Queens in the final. We knew this would be a tough game from our earlier mathcup at Spring Fling. We also knew we played 13 players. Weasel made the decision that if we werent looking to strong at half, to consider saving our top players for the game to go. We started out on a run, despite some sloppy early play from both sides. Mothership came back to take half 8-7. Queens got the first two out of half, Stu pulled his groin and TallE's back was in bad shape. We packed it in. GW was our opponent in the game to go. One of their captains had conveniently broken his arm horsing around after saturday, but we also lost Stu- arguably our most important player, so both teams were battling down. We started out taking a lead. I just watched some footage of this the other weekend thanks to the generosity of one "House" (thanks again house!) and was reminded that it was uglier than I recalled. I had three D's this game: sky on Spears, huck D on Naylor, point block on Link. I had some bad turnovers, but threw some decent breaks as well. We were up fairly big the whole game until letting them in at the end. According to Vatz's recollection we were up 12-7 before letting them back in to 13-12. We won with Brent throwing a hammer to empty space with the rationale (explained later) "I was sure SOMEONE would get there." Well, I did and then threw the winning goal to Andrew. Unfortunately we dont have any pics of this celebration. We do have pics of a false celebration caused by Naylor saying I called a foul prior to Brent throwing a goal to Josh, which was just ridiculous. No matter. We won. We reached our goal. An absurd goal based on the previous spring and fall. The whole process was incredible and unforgettable. The joy of reaching such high expectations is still one of the best feelings, if not the best, that I have ever had. I put so much of myself into the team that season, and I cared about it so deeply, and cared about each of those guys so much. I have a pic of that team on my desktop and on my wall. The picture is of us with our arms around one another in a circle, that is the way that I would like to remember that team. We only had ~15 guys, but everyone was at every practice, we trained together, we became a single unit and we worked out fucking asses off to make the jump. And it was worth every ounce of energy we put into it.

Nationals 2005- Senior Year: Corvallis, OR

This was the icing on our cake. We were happy to be there. We wanted to compete, we wanted to see what nationals was, and we wanted to prove that we belonged. We did some of those things. We played Georgia tough, but our D line just had no offense that game, only got one break. We had a decent second half against UCSD (of course, they won the first one 8-1). We took half against CUT, but lost it thanks to some retardo drops. J Goldstein also made a sick layout PB on one of my hucks.

As the tournament went on we realized that they teams were not super teams or some incredible thing that we couldnt fathom. Those teams were very good, they didnt make many unforced errors and all their players were skilled, and they had large teams. But as the weekend went on we realized more and more that we could play with them if we just didnt piss ourselves because they were "oh my god- UBC!!" or "oh my god- Carleton!!!" or whatever. Unfortunately, we didnt get what we wanted most- which was a rematch with Queens, as they forfeited the placement game to us.

Nats was a good learning experience. We got our feet wet. We got a taste for it, and I think we all walked away wanting some more. This years team has been different, but good...we'll see how badly we want it over the next few weeks.

My Fifth College Series

2006-04-12T23:11:00.000-04:00

TallE gets to reminisce on his blog, then I do too, and he can suck it when he yells at me for it. I'm doing this without looking at the PittUltimate.com history page, we'll see how I do

Freshman Year: Gettysburgh PA.

I remember we lose to Gettysburg and CMU (like 14-3 or something, and I thought Matthew Bourland was the best player...ever) and we beat Bucknell B. I'm guessing there was another loss in there, likely to PSU maybe? Or maybe just another shitty West Penn team. I remember that the Gettysburg game was supposed to be big and that we lost and I felt terrible about it. I also remember that the Bucknell B game was scrappy. We were that bad. Boy, we were bad.

Sunday we started out with a win over...Shippensburg I believe. This was another battle, but we won by a few. Shitty zone both ways. The SC, Mark somethin was on this team. We won the right to play Bucknell. I remember how impressed I was with Bucknell's athleticism, they were a TON faster than us...just, a Ton. We had 10 guys at the tournament, including Me, Mike, Fraggle, Brody, Phil, Yan, Whitey. I remember when Brody and Phil pulled themselves (we were down 14-1) and Fraggle made a big speech on the line about scoring 14 goals in a row. I remember what I thought of that speech at the time too, but I'll leave that up to you to guess. So, we didnt score any in a row, as it turned out. I remember that this was one of the worst feelings that I have ever had in sports. We were just absolutely terrible. I then went over and watched PSU-B beat CMU to make it to the game-to-go where they lost to Boro.

On the plus side, the game against Bucknell was so incredibly enfuriating that it drove me to throw and run for hours, literally, every single day over the summer. That summer I became a complete junky on the game and came back in the fall ready to become an actual player (eventually).

Sophomore Year: Edinboro PA.

Sophomore year we were still a small team, but Brody said over and over again throughout the year "You only need 7..." (to make it to regionals). Well, we proved him wrong because we only used 6.5. The tourney opened with a matchup between us and Yuk. I had never beaten CMU. The year prior they crushed us. I wanted to beat them very badly though. I remember a few things from this game. 1) Drew point blocked me on the goal line we were attacking and then giggled at me as I chased him going deep (I would get the last laugh in this game though). 2) Dan Naylor dropped one of my pulls. 3) I pointblocked Dan Naylor's huck/punt attempt as we went to set the zone. I also remember Yuk's Zone O strategy: swing to a line and backhand huck against our 6'5 deep deep. It worked almost every time. Also of note- Brody put me at chase that year to get me into shape- Thanks Brody!

Later that day we beat Juniata, featuring Ed Lorenz (sp?) deciding to huck a disc directly into my chest as I followed my pull down as the chase, leaving a line between my nipples that could be viewed later that night. What an all star. He wears gloves while playing (like, all the time), enough said. We also got crushed by PSU.

Sunday we drew Susquehanna, a scrappy group of athletes with a couple throwers. We bring the Z, its super windy. One highlight: I'm chasing in the zone, handler throws a big huck into the wind. Crowd of peeps run 30ish yards downfield to get under it, I stay where I am. Disc hits the wind and comes all the way back to me where I knock it down as the crowd decends upon me. West Penn Ultimate baby. One lowlight: There is some collision or layout or something that results in Brody throwing his back out. We brought ten players, but we really only have 7 players, this is devastating. Brody continues to play through excrutiating pain. He is playing side handler in the zone, all he can do, basically is catch and throw, and walk up the line. Amazingly, this works, except for the time that I tried to lead him for yards forcing him to layout, which he did and caught the disc, like the trooper he is. We win and draw our good friends from Bucknell who ended my previous season with a whooping.

Its super windy for the Bucknell game. Luckily, they try to work it against our zone early in the game and I was playing well as the chase and got some PBs to get us some cheap upwind breaks. Our huck and play D strategy is working to perfection (I cant recall what the fuck we did with Brody on D). I also recall that we went 4 handlers at one point, not knowing that it was an actual strategy, but knowing that I wasnt able to throw far enough to swing across the field. I also remeber that going downwind on game point us I had made the decision that everytime I got the disc I was going to throw it into the endzone, no matter what, and we were eventually going to come down with one. I overthrew Phil on the first one, but TallE caught it at the backline and we had secured a trip to regionals. I remember jumping on Phil and riding him like a horse because I was so happy. Brent was huge for us in this game, popping came naturally to him and without Brody he stepped it up bigtime. We lost to PSU the next game (Brody was walking with a dog-leg turn in his back at this point. It looked like this:

O
I_
..I
./|

I've had to insert periods (...) to help get the alignment right, but the "O" is Brody's head, and then his back so misaligned that the top half and bottom half are on completely different planes, and then underneath are his legs. It was quite a sight. Maybe I should make this the next Pittsburgh Ultimate pictogram....

Then I rock-paper-scissored Naylor for 2/3.

I remember coming back to Pitt and walking around campus the next day (which happened to be beautiful) with a huge feeling of pride, knowing that I had helped accomplish something that had never been accomplished in the history of the school. Yes, I realize this is humourous now that we are good, but I really did feel just awesome and so proud of that team. Still do. We werent very good, and we got everything we could out of ourselves.

Regionals: Princeton, NJ

We were the 10 seed. We drew GW, the 7. As it turns out, they finished 3rd that year, missing nats on a controversial call on a callahan by Ian McClellan (the correct call, but I believe the observers had to call the UPA to get it). Anway, we were right with GW in the early going. Brody got a callahan that I was too tired to celebrate, which he got super pissed about. We eventually fell 15-10. The next round we played Rochester, we had beaten them earlier in the year, they were no good...but we played like absolute shit. Two and through for us at our first reggies. I remember Brody's speech when we were cooling down. It was the "go around the circle and ask what your greatest accomplishment in sports was, and then tell people they could be legit good at ultimate" speech. I think I stole it from him. Its a good one, people like glory.

My only other memory of that tourney is of Misha Horowitz. I remember being completely in awe of him as a player (I still am, incidently). Watching Swat against, I think UPenn and watching him and Neo carry that team was basically what made me want to be a flashy thrower guy. Mesh's mechanics were so smooth and his puts were money, I remember sitting there and thinking: "thats what I want to do."

Seeing that game gave me enough motivation to spend that summer throwing and running for, literally, hours everyday. I started to actually get in some decent shape, and I spent a lot of time learning how to throw from different release points, how to throw from my max stretch/off-balance, and spending a lot of time working on releasing the disc as quickly as I could. That summer in SL I was the main handler on a team with Dildo (a great guy from UPenn) and Brent, and got to throw A LOT of hucks. I also played my first Mars. I can't fucking wait to play Mars again.

Tomorrow: Junior and Senior years: Broken foot and Glory!

Easterns, finally.

2006-04-12T22:58:00.000-04:00

First, let me get Easterns out of the way: We won. Yay! Boy were we bad in the UNC-W game, and I made a D that left me hurting for the next week. Anway, we cleaned our shit up and had a pretty good weekend. I have been getting better about turning the disc over, I had four throwing errors combined in semi's and the final. Against GW, one occured when I was stranded with Brent improvising as the reset cutter at a high stall count, the other was when TallE and I had a miscommunication in where I wanted him to go to get the reset. Against Harvard one was a brain cramp, after I had carried the load working upwind on our first game point and since everything was working so well I guess I just imagined the poacher I saw obviously in the lane would let my throw go right by him- nope. The other was a routine swing with a little pressure coming from the mark and TallE's guy on his hip that I just got a little lazy with in the wind. I also dropped a pull, but my teammates played some sweet fucking D and we got the turn back on a coverage sack.

We insituted a 'get up 3 hours prior to gametime' rule at Easterns that I think is a great idea, although it made for a rough saturday when we had gotten in at 3am (thanks for driving Brent!). Sunday morning we had enough time to scrimmage almost an entire half (usually what we come out slow on O for) before starting against FSU, and were able to get all our turnover out of the way (and turn the disc over we did in the scrimmage). I'm looking forward to how this will work out for sectionals...also looking forward to knowing where we're going for breakfast: JoJos, Ritters, Eat N' Park, Pamela's, Sheetz?? So many options.

The Easterns Cup is getting engraved in Wilmington and then sent up to us. We all signed an Easterns disc for Mike G to send down to him. Matthew Bourland will one day hopefully replace the picture of crusty oldheads thats been on the CPU website for like 5+ months, and all will be good in the world.

Centex

2006-03-27T18:49:00.000-05:00

Centex was a big step for us. First, I want to dispell any nonsense, in my mind, about Texas not playing to win that game. Yes, once we were up like 6-2 they took the whooping. But their coach was very pissed in the early going and one of his players even got into an argument with him when I asked him why he wasnt wearing their ace shorts and he said "If we're going to play like shit, then I'm not going to act like an idiot" or something along those lines. Also, Salad played most of the game and all ofthe O points, so its not as though they packed it in. End rant.

Anyway, after coming out like complete crap to start the first three games of the day (to be bailed out by the D team in the first two), the O started decently against Florida. After scoring our first two, we gave up a bit of a run, but then were solid the rest of that game and all of the UT game.

It was good to see us fight through a tough day of ultimate with a lot of points and be the harder running team at the end of both days. It was not good to see the laboring starts on both Saturday and Sunday.

I think we identified more of what we struggle against both offensively and defensively and can address them in practice. I sure aint gonna advertise that here tho, sorry folks.

Personally, I felt good about playing conservatively. My mantra this weekend was "win with your legs" so instead of trying to force hucks and break too much downfield once I had the disc, I focused on winning the power position or getting myself an open break with my cutting and was very successful with it. I definitely struggled the first two games Saturday. But then had one turn in Carleton (a characteristic try to do too much against the Z throw), and none that I can recall (maybe one throw that popped in the wind) in the Florida and Texas games. Then when the O struggled against Western and was throwing into poaches like it was our job, I was still able to refrain from pressing and trying to do too much, just letting the O work itself down the field. Again against Zona I was solid, although I made a couple throws harder on cutters than I could have. I think I had two turns vs. Brown. One where I locked onto Brent for too long and tried to throw to a bad cut and one where I snuck something through the cup but a defender came in from the side for a nice D. Both my fault.

Anyway, I was very happy with the win it with your legs attitude, and I hope that some more people on the O line take that idea to heart because I found it to be lethal for me. In retrospect, I could have also gone in for more D points, especially Sunday...although the only time we would have needed it more was against Western, and we werent getting many D points.

We still arent getting enough open hucks. I think the problem is that either the original cut isnt getting enough seperation for the huck without a mark, or if it is getting enough seperation, the deep look is coming a little late and the mark has time to catch up. I still feel as though this is an area in which we should be excelling more than we are and should work on this more. I especially want to do get TallE in these positions because he hucks well on the move and can release quickly, Vatz also times better for him than he times for Brent I think. I'll think about how I can make this happen.

Overall, we found a new gear to play at this weekend and continue to dispell the myth of these untouchable and unbeatable teams for us. It will be interesting to see if we come out and are able to play with the same kind of intensity and focus on saturday at Easterns and make an easy day for ourselves.

Terminus

2006-03-13T19:07:00.000-05:00

Terminus was frustrating at times and we certainly did not get the results that we wanted out of it. We did, however, get a much needed wake-up call, I think. We established a team goal, we got a much more defined idea of where our shortcomings are as a team and a stronger desire to address those specific problems. I think that we got tougher as a team, and I know that personally, my desire has increased more because of the tournament. Most importantly, I think that we have better identified the differences between our team and the elite college ultimate teams, and we can do better to address those now.

Personally, I played like complete shit offensively on Sunday. But, whether for reasons of stubborness or what-have-you, I believe that I will work through it. Its simply a mindset for me, and I am working to find ways to get into and stay in the proper mindset now.

Love the struggle. There are no shortcuts.

Cross your fingers...

2006-02-16T21:48:00.000-05:00

I was hanging out in the ole room 106 this morning before school when the 6th grade teacher came in. She was there to tell my mentor teacher, who is the department chair, that she is resigning effective late march. She is doing so because Pittsburgh Public Schools is closing a bunch of buidlings and therefore laying off a lot of teachers and she has only been there for two years, so there is a good chance that she'll get the can, so she is jumping ship early and taking a job at another school district.

They were briefly discussing what will happen with her classes and the thought of a long-term sub seemed dissapointing to both, then they turned to me and began to consider the possibility of the principal signing off on an emergency certification for me and I would begin to take over her classes and transition into that classroom, my own classroom, soon. I would likely still have to keep one of my 7th grade classes because I am still student teaching, and there are a lot of "ifs."

They told me not to get my hopes up, but to cross my fingers...so they are WAY crossed, and my hopes are definitely up. I would be getting PAID yo. I would also have a leg-up on all the other initial cert teachers out there looking for their first job. I would be extremely confidant walking into an interview with experience in my own room, 21+ grad credits, and bangin gpa's for undergrad and grad and a 190/200 on the praxis. Yeah, I'm a nerd, but I'd be a nerd with a job.

To relate back to ultimate. I'm going home to get el coche friday night so I can stop being so late to practice. Yay!

You never know....

2006-02-15T21:19:00.001-05:00

You never know....

2006-02-15T21:19:00.000-05:00

when ordinary events of your life can put the most important thing in your life into perspective. This afternoon I put up tomorrow's quote of the day for my students:

We must accept life for what it actually is - a challenge to our quality without which we should never know of what stuff we are made, or grow to our full stature.
Robert Louis Stevenson

'life' Robert? Try ultimate. But maybe he's right, in the sense that if you know what you are doing, then for the four-five years you are in college, they are one in the same.

After school I went to my 3hr 'bitchfest' that the University calls student-teaching seminar. I listened to the other people in my program complain how they didnt have time to do X or Y assignment because their student teaching took up too much of their time, how they couldnt relax, etc. No one in there knows that I take an additional class, that I still work once a week and none of them really have any idea of what kind of a time commitment ultimate is.

I've had a couple of teammates talk to me about how they are worried about being able to balance the time commitment of their classes (no jobs) and ultimate with our new team mandated training minimums. My only concern is that I have enough hours of open facilities to accomplish everything. This moves on to something that I've struggled with for a few years, which is how I could possibly get someone to understand my perspective. A teammate taking 15 undergrad credits telling me, with a full-time job, work, and 6 grad credits that they are in a time crunch.

I'm getting derailed. The point that I came here to say was that the initial wave of difficulty with my teaching is over. I'm able to get basically everything for Rogers done in school, which just leaves me my two night classes to work on outside of school. I am able to really recommit to training and preparing for the series. I have taken that first hit of student teaching and remained standing, now I'm comfortable in the classroom, ahead on my planning and I'm ready to roll. I have 3 months in which I still have the opportunity to completely dedicate myself to this team and walk away knowing that I gave the team everything I had for five years and got the most out of it, which I anticipate being one of the most satisfying feelings I have ever enjoyed, if I am able to really dedicate myself for these three months.

Here goes....

QCTU

2006-02-12T23:39:00.000-05:00

I have to get to sleep, but real quickly...

1) We just could not get fired up at all on Saturday. For whatever reason, our team just cant get that mentality when its super shitty out. We should have pretty good weather from here on out though, hopefully

2) playing on a 26yd wide field is simply ridiculous

3) We came out and played hard game 1 sunday

4) We came out flat and let UGA get the jump on us. They were up 6-1 as O just was not playing with any mental confidence in ourselves, this will change. We close to 9-6, but lost 10-6. Nonetheless, we saw we could go on a run against a good team

5) I still havent seen anything I dont think that we can beat. NC State played jumpball all game saturday and we managed to misplay enough discs to reward them for it. UGA is solid, but when we get some games under our belts, get healthy and make some serious committment for the season we will be able to beat them.

6) We will be fine. First tournament, saturday was a wash, sunday showed glimmers. wake up call for everyone.

Newest Member of Lamenter's Lane

2006-01-30T21:00:00.000-05:00

...or whatever we're calling our herd of injured folk. The herd was down to just to just Vatz at the beginning of Saturday's double practice. Brad tested his achilles and had to stop pretty early on, just got the referral to PT today. I hit the jackpot.

My achilles had been tight last week, so I gave it a couple days off and gradually worked it back in, never feeling tightness even following a sprint workout friday afternoon. Then in the cold on saturday it just got tighter and tighter. At one point walking around between points it kind of locked up and felt as though if I would put any more weight on it, it was going to pop. So I got it loose enough to keep playing and finished out practice. Saturday night I couldnt walk up or downhill (and I live in Pittsburgh) without a LOT of pain. Sunday it was really badly inflammed. Went to student health this evening- Distal Tendonitis. Ice for the next 48 hours, Ibu around the clock, then heat for the next few days, while doing some stretching exercises. No running for 7-10 days.

I'll still be ready to go for QCTU. Just not with the chemistry and conditioning I had hoped. But so goes College tournies in February.

Training last week(ish):

20-Jan: 2 winter league games
21-Jan: Practice
22-Jan: resting calf and wrist, core
23-Jan:resting calf and wrist
24-Jan: 45 mins throwing, core
25-Jan: 40mins cardio, calfs, lunges, leg press, core
26-Jan: 20m cardio, ankles, hammys, quads, ab/ads, calves two ways, core
27-Jan: 40's Pyramids- 4 and 3, core
28-Jan: 5 hr practice
29-Jan: rest achilles, core

The schedule of ridiculousness has begun, as has my asthma season...but this time I have medication, bitches. 6 credits, full time teachy, 3 hours tutoring, and then ultimate...I will really need to just get through these next few months one week at a time, but I'm looking forward to the challenge. But since I have to be halfway across the city by 7:45 tomorrow morning, its time to get to bed.

Turf...

2006-01-22T14:44:00.000-05:00

Oh, to be a field sport and a club sport at an urban university in a city of hills. What does that mean? We dont get access to the minimal field space the university has. But we do have a decent practice space (though only ~80ish yards long). We started there last year when it was sandpaper turf. Over the summer/fall the University installed field turf (the turf with the rubber pellets underneath). Indoors we have access about once a week to a full sized indoor football field (full ulti field, with sandpaper turf). During January we have it at a reasonable time, practicing to no later than 11pm. Then once intramurals begin we dont usually get onto the turf until 11 or 11:30 when we do get to use it.

Now, this situation is much better than it has been in the past when we would practice on the Cathedral Lawn (akin to a "mall" at other univerisities) where practices were wrought with distraction, sprinkler heads, and a field that, after september, was just a giant mud puddle when it was wet and caked dirt when it was dry. But the turf has led to a lot of injuries. They are likely compounded by the pounding our team is giving to ourselves outside of practice.

We have a roster of 21 players. Three had excused absences from practice, so we had 18 in attendance. And a number of those were in attendance with injuries and not participating, a couple others went down during practice and before you know it when we went to scrimmage we were only left with 10 players. Some dont like the new "better" turf at all (Brent mainly), but it would seem to me that we should have fewer injuries on the more cushioned turf. But last year with our robust roster of 15 we always had at least 12 to scrimmage with through the season, even on the shitty turf. I just wonder what the difference is and why we are in this annoying spot.

Game on. Bitches.

2006-01-20T02:58:00.000-05:00

Its that wonderful time of year. It's the time of year when, no matter how late I go to bed and how tired I am when I hit the pillow, I still lay awake for 20-30 minutes thinking through things from the past practice, considering how I can help the rookies play better defense. It's the time of year when I'm giddy as a school girl on my way to practice. It's also that time of year when our practice field should be under inches of snow and ice (at least it was last year) but instead I was out today in shorts and a t-shirt.

We've started taping practices. Our first film session was not too productive. It was mostly a lot of "sean runs funny" or "look at this sweet thing I do here" or "here comes the spike and fight." Although watching the Lugsdin tutorial on positional defense from Disc 3 was good. For this weekends film Josh and I are going to preview it and select some key points that we want to look at more. In these early weeks I want the team to focus on proper defensive positioning and being heads up and looking for good switches. I've been switching with Josh like crazy this week...hopefully we can pair some good examples of that with some missed opportunities to have a switch. The positional defense drill we did today was good to work on the D fundamentals. Hopefully we carry those fundamentals out of the drill and into the scrimmages.

Training this week:

13-Jan: 1 hr throwing, 2 WL games
14-Jan: practice, film session
15-Jan: 30 mins recovery cardio, core
16-Jan: Sprints: 4x (70x20x40); 8x (25-15-40) accelerators
17-Jan: practice, 2.5mi (17:21), leg curl/ext/press/ab/ad, RDL, core
18-Jan: cardio, core, calves, lunges, bi/tri, wrists, lat, row
19-Jan: practice, life

Respect

2006-01-06T21:12:00.000-05:00

By 5/28, we will have it. Fuck haters.

Strikes and Gutters

2006-01-03T18:20:00.000-05:00

I got an inheritance from my grandmothers estate (she passed away 1.5yrs ago) while I was home over winter break. It was enough to pay for my inflated costs for traveling to tourneys due to my co-op hours and our enhanced travel schedule, get some stuff ive been holding off on for a while, and but some away to accrue interest that would help pay off the student loan interest I will get hit with soon.

Then I got to school to get my "refund" check (my leftover student loan money I use to pay my rent). It was $1600 less than the fall. A fall which ended with me completely broke. I checked with financial services and because I have to take 18 grad credits at the school of ed in order to be eligible for ultimate (my 12 credit student teaching is not applicable to seeking the degree of masters of education, only to my initial certification program) and the school of ed's flat rate is only for 9-15 credits...its another $1600 to pitt. Yay.

Easy come, easy go.

Winter Break Update (ramblings)

2005-12-29T22:34:00.000-05:00

Five months from yesterday we will be crowning a new champion of college ultimate. Five months.

I've been working a really ace job at the malls "Five Below" store where everything is $5 or less (read: junk). My boss is 19. Good times. Did I mention the week before Xmas I worked 10pm-7am every night/day? Yeah.

But I have enough money to fly my ass to Centex and Terminus (and Stanford????). Which is good. I also got a lot of money/gift cards for christmas, for the first time in a few years, which has allowed me to buy some preppy clothes for student teaching.

I also bought an A.I. jersey for winter league. I was considering not doing this, but I did. I have a black Dikembe Mutombo jersey I was going to use, but Vatz said we were gonna try to go white and I found the AI for $20. I was also considering not getting it b/c Vatz said he was going to, but decided: fuck that. AI is my hometown boy (literally lives 5-10 mins from my house), I've been watching him all the time for his 10 year career and still remember the day he became my favorite player (save MJ) when I watched him take GTown to the Big East Championship over UConn. He just plays so hard every night and takes such punishment...gotta love it. He does lose points for the whole "we talkin bout practice man" fiasco. Anyway, I decided these things outweighed the fact that he and Vatz have the same number. But if Dave still goes with AI for WL, say la vie. I think he should go with "Flash" its the #1 selling NBA jersey. So many people cant be wrong...

I've still benn training, though I havent been posting it to the team bboard (as others seemed not to follow my lead so much). I ran some fast paced miles tonight interspersed with some ez miles. My fastest was 5:52, slowest 6:10.

Fraggle chatted a bit about blog readers...he had some secret readers, some creep found Josh's blog and sent it to "The Man" (aka Bill Kieffer)...so....anyone out there lurking this blog that I dont know about? If I sent you the link...I know about you. If I didnt, I dont.

I think our team should have our back to school/spring kickoff/goal setting meeting on Wednesday if possible...because there will be a national champion crowned later that night, and it would be a good precursor. I probably wont get my way on that one though.

I was considering the following idea for the month of january- have lunch 1 on 1 with each person on the A team. This would be especially good for me to connect with some of the freshman and geta read on how they are enjoying the team (read: B Tate) and also give me some time with everyone before I go into 3 months of being mondo-efficient (full time teaching, 2 masters classes, tutoring 1 night/week, practice, conditioning, prep for teaching...woah). What do you guys think about that? I think there would be some value...people get to sask me face to face any Q's they have in a controlled setting (read- where they cant be embarassed/reserved).

I've watched two seasons of the West Wing while home. Thats all Netflix had (through season 5). They are on 8 now as I understand it, but Sorkin stopped being the head writer after 5 and I hear they went down hill. What a great show.

I was chatting with my friend who is currently teaching English in China. I was telling him how we should take a cross-country road trip sometime when he gets back...go see Brody, take him along for a while...visit Phil Katz, maybe watch ECC or something out there, bother Jaeger in Seattle, go to Canada for the first time...see the Northwest to see where I might wanna live in the future. But mostly its to see things like the Grand Canyon, Yellow Stone, Mount Rushmore, Mt. Shasta, etc. There is no way I will have time to zig-zag cross-country like that me thinks. We'll see. I saw a lot of cities while I was in Europe...I want to see some nature, do some campin, and I really want to spend some time talkin with the Av-ster (Avi), and Brody for that matter...they are two people that I really always want to have close to me/always influencing my decisions, etc. I was talking to him about how I've been putting things I'm interested in my metaphorical backseat while Ultimate has been riding shotgun for the last 5 years, and now the backseat is getting full. I just have to figure out how to hold it all back there for another 5 months. (And for Mars....oh how I cannot wait for Mars).

I read Sacred Hoops again and Tuesdays with Morrie. If you havent read Tuesdays with Morrie, you should...it took me 3 hours and was just fantastic. Mitch Albom is the author.

Wasnt this disgustingly not focused enough on ultimate? Sorry all. I'll do better in the future...but gives you an idea where I am mentally- I need to get back on track. I'll be in pgh for New Years, and that will flip the switch.

See what you got yourself into Talls?

Book Review: Sacred Hoops

2005-12-13T00:01:00.000-05:00

This is an interesting book--part self-help, part sports psychology, part autobiography. Jackson paints a vivid picture of the Bulls during their first three-peat and of the progress he made as an individual that allowed him to implement an environment that allowed those teams to succeed.

This book continued my personal psychological movement away from hate and towards a more inward focus on my own game. Jackson established this aspect of his book early on, quoting the first lesson from the Red Holzman school of management: Don't let anger cloud the mind. Jackson devotes his eighth chapter to "Aggressiveness Without Anger." In this section Jackson discusses the ability of anger and its eventuality--hatred--to cloud the mind and distract the athlete from the ultimate goal: victory.

I am realizing as I progress in this entry that I am undertaking a truly monumental task. This book has really changed me in a lot of ways. I believe that I was, in many ways, preset to respond to the book. I have read a number of books on Taoism--an eastern philosophy whose principles Jackson calls upon frequently. I am also experiencing this transition personally from a player driven by a desire for "vengance" to a player focused on the battle within. Because of these things, I think that I was in a position more than most to welcome Jacksons words with open arms.

I will add, however, that I was a skeptic. My ex's mom was a huge Jacckson fan (they're both Buddhists) and I remember commenting to myself about how pompous and higher-than-thou Jacksons entire persona appeared to me. I'mnot sure about what to say about this particularly other than the book erased these thoughts. But what autobiographical work doesnt paint the author in a favorable light.

Anyway, I am having difficulty with this in large part because I read the book in its entirety within 18 hours. This didnt give me much time to reflect on all of the lessons. I will need to reread, devoting one day to each chapter and allowing myself some time to digest.

Anyway, despite what it may seem- the whole book isnt about spiritualism/zen. While its certainly a thread, that thread ties together Jacksons personal progression as a player, building a successful team, player management, building a championship team, the tenants of the triangle or "motion" offense, being a leader, and an intimate look at the psyche of MJ. There is a lot going on here.

Thanks to Brody for the recommendation.

Data set: Games played with teammates

2005-12-11T19:02:00.000-05:00

This is a fairly accurate idea of who I have played with the most while playing for Pitt. The comparison of Phil and Brody's totals to the current juniors is evident of how injuries/being abroad (and injured) have effected my games played over the past two years.

Fraggle- 125
Mike Lo- 115
TallE- 98
Brody- 86
Brent- 85
Phil- 73
Josh- 66
Wes- 66
Rob- 66
Evan- 65
Andrew- 62
Reed- 55
Stu- 45
Vatz- 41
Yan- 37

The Illusive Victory Within

2005-12-05T01:21:00.000-05:00

I used to be the King of Hate. I started and accounted for 59 of the 264 posts in our team's HATE thread on our bboard. I used to spout hatred, and my inspiration for success up to this point has been, largely, avenging the losses suffered during my first three years of college ultimate. This has provided me with a lot of drive. But the source of that drive has been changing.

I think that it started when I went to see Gandhi's grandson speak. He wasnt all that special, but he did still deliver that message of incredible self-discipline and self-awareness. The seed was planted. Then came Jaegers email in response to my question about coping with the possibility of a failure with something you invest so much of yourself as a person in:

Looking back on the season, regardless of whether you win or lose, there are two ways you may potentially feel:

1) If you poured all of yourself into the team, you'll be happy because you will have learned something about yourself that no other experience can offer, and you will have the balls to do it again in whatever you do with yourself after that. Even in defeat, you gain the courage to try and you walk away with the knowledge that the team was better for having had you, and you're better for having been a part of the team.

2) If you cut some corners, didn't do all you could, made excuses, etc: you'll NEVER KNOW what could have been, and you won't have learned anything about yourself. A lot of people FEAR trying their hardest because they're worried it might not be good enough. But the alternative (not trying your hardest) makes even successes empty because you know that it's probably others who carried you and not vice versa. You'll walk away not having really learned anything. This is a feeling that I fear far more than the fear of defeat.

Very wise- Jaeger style. I do struggle with this to a degree, I have been a "perfectionist" (which is a weak term, cause nothing is perfect, right?) for most of my life, so I am always aware of where I didnt quite do enough. Nutrition is an easy one- Lance eats a proscribed diet, weighs his servings, keeps charts of caloric intake vs. output, nutritional charts, etc. Of course he probably also employs a nutritionist among the other trainers he has. I guess this is one of the differences between being a world champion cyclist and a mid-level elite college ultimate player. But I think you can see the pandora's box that I open to myself here. Today for instance, I slept for a long time, which I need to make sure that I do. I worked for 4 hours (yeah $40), I went to the gym- jumped rope for 10 minutes and did some lifting and core stuff. But I didnt run at all...part of that being b/c I forgot socks, and wasnt going to hit the track in the dress-ish socks I was already wearing to lift/jump in. But I have been dissapointed with that effort all day. But even on days when I do much more than this, I still dont believe its been enough.

The only time I felt satisfied with my effort was for a period of time over the summer. I would wake up at ~6am, go to the gym and run and lift. Go to camp from 8-4, making sure to be as active as possible. Then I would go home, quick nap and meal, then off to summer league, pickup or running. Then I would come home and sleep and do it over again. It was fantastic. I'm looking forward to winter break to be able to find myself giving this kind of effort again. The problem is maintaining it with all the responsibilities of school (work and homework). It will be even tougher in the spring between beginning of Feb and late April as I will work as a teach full-time, and take 6 masters credits at night, and work 1 night a week. Ouch. And thats before ultimate. I will have to be incredibly efficient- there is literally no time to waste. Thankfully one of the masters classes is simply reflecting on our work experience in the schools.

Anyway, I'm getting away from my point. I watched "Coach Carter" the other night, and while slightly hokey, there is a good message to athletes. That message is that over the course of a season, a career, your opponent is yourself. Your battle is to overcome the current ceiling on your potential that your mind has set, to believe in your ability to explode through that ceiling, and to expect these things of yourself. This is the "ever illusive victory within."

I've gotten back into reading MJ again. I think that something I struggle with is my ability to set intermediate goals for my development- something MJ stresses. (You think its a coincidence- Michael Jaeger, Michael Jordan???- theres something about those initials) I suppose all that this would take would be to sit down with a few thoughtful teammates and work them out. One would certainly be something with turnovers, but as I've espoused on at length, that will take a deeper belief in the personel around me. Another will have to do with physical fitness, or at least my defensive capabilities. Perhaps something about # of bids per game or per day or per tourney. Though I dont have a wealth of shots due to covering little handler shits, I think the threat of the layout, if established early, will make throwers and cutters more cautious and can lead to turnovers in the backfield as well as downfield. MJ says- Fear is an illusion, and Jaegs' quote touches on this- the only thing to fear is lack of personal effort, if I have given my all and played my best game, that is all that is in my power to do. There are no shortcuts- damn fucking straight, unless a Beau Kitteridge shows up in the spring, but as I have said about our lack of ever getting 5th-yr transfers before- the victory is sweeter when its homegrown. Teamwork- I am looking forward to becoming a real 'team' over the course of the spring. I'll address the leadership section in another entry.

Everything that I have learned from the two Lance books puts the onus back in himself, using his own experiences as incentive and crediting his own willingness to push himself and make sacrifices for his personal success.

"Nobody could give confidence to an athlete except himself. You got it from everything you did leading up to the competition so that at the race itself you looked at all the other strong riders beside you and said 'I'm ready. I've done more than they have. Bring it on'" -Lance

So, its on me. From now, December 5 2005 through May 28, 2006. 173 days to see what I am made of as a person, how far I can push myself and how well I can help others find their fire. This is the last go around with me at the helm, En Sabah Nur, and I plan to do everything I can to go out on top.

"If you are going to do something great, you need a strong will and attention to detail. If you surveyed all the great success' in the world the common denominator is the sustained focused attention." -Lance

My first college tournament

2005-12-03T14:46:00.000-05:00

I figured I should update this with something other than random hatred, although I do have some thoughts on that topic brewing. Instead, inspired by TallE's recounting of his first tournament, I will share my own first experience.

First of all, it was apparently co-ed (wtf?) according to our websites history page, which I wont argue with since it was written at the time and I'm remembering it now. Anyway....

September 22, 2001- 5:45am, I weigh ~260 lbs. I leave my dorm and walk to the union. There are only a couple of guys there. One is Fraggle, who to this point is the second best ultimate player I have ever seen in my life. He is also tripping on acid. At this point I decide it will be an interesting weekend. We took approximately 10 (?) guys to the tournament. Two of them had played college ultimate before- Brody and Dan Perry. Two others had played ultimate before- Fraggle and Ed. As I mentioned, Fraggle was on acid and if Fraggle was on acid, it stands to reason that Ed was probably also on acid (and other things). Additionally, he/they had drunk orange juice with it, which apparently makes the halucinations relapse and makes the whole experience last much longer or something. Don't ask me how the fuck that works, the only drug I've ever done is alcohol...and in an homage to last night I'd just like to say: "RIGHT?!?!!" Other than that we were all green. Brian Behan was there, he was a great athlete (and promptly quit the team after the tournament). Alex Chen was also there, he was really fucking fast. Oliver and John might have been there, though I can't remember. Mike Lo had not yet joined the team, no Whitey, no Phil Katz.

I was wondering how the hell we got up there, and was ready to chalk it up to everyone just piling in Brody's conversion van, which we did, but now that I know it was co-ed some Pansy probably also drove and took some people. Anyway, we get up there and we warm up. Our first game is against Edinboro. They are wearing Braveheart-style face paint and skirts. On the first point of the game they come down in some defense I had never seen or heard of before- it's a zone, and an aggressive one. We never practiced zone D or O. A bunch of us ran around aimlessly knowing we werent exactly covered, but having no idea what to do about it or how to help the situation. We simply could do nothing, at all. Although I will say that I had two throwaways that game and oddly, I can remember both of them. Also, two was a lot...because we never possessed the disc for more than a few passes.

Pitt had never previously lost to Edinboro. We lost 15-0. This was my introduction to ultimate.

After the game Fraggle and Ed went into the woods and smoked up. Our next game we lost to CMU 15-7. They didnt even have any good players, I just remember Naylor hucking to some fast African American kid for like 7 of their goals. That kid didnt stick around, thankfully. We actually won our last game of the day. It was against Dickinson.

So lets review the situation here: a 5:2 tourney (apparently), a 15-0 loss in game one, and only three games on the first day.

The next day we opened with a 7-6 loss to Allegheny. 7-6. It wasnt windy folks- the ultimate was just THAT bad. That was somehow the quarterfinals of the A-bracket, meaning despite being as bad as we were, we were only one point from semi's...wow. Then we beat Dickinson again- they wore sparkly skirts, I remember one of their women being hot. We ended the day by beating a Pittsburgh pick-up team headed by one Mike Yanchak. I remember that we actually played "well" in this game- which probably means we strung ~5 passes together a couple of times.

I guess I should take my pride in Pitt Ultimate's improvement with a grain of salt- there was no where to go but up.

And thats how it all began.

Re: CCC Reality

2005-11-27T14:12:00.000-05:00

I feel lucky to find myself surrounded by people who will keep me in check. I think that it was probably pretty clear to anyone who read "CCC Reality" that I was psychologically bracing myself for impact. I was clearly afraid after our DE performance that we could go down to CCC and pull a UNC (O for) and just be devistated. Jaeger called me out on this, which was a good call. TallE called me out for making excuses for our loss at UDel, which was a good call. I'm prettty ashamed that my confidence was rattled so easily.

The good news is that it was bolstered a great deal at CCC. TallE, Rob and Wes impressed me a TON on the weekend. TallE is just an offensive machine. He truly is an obvious all-region selection at this point I think. One of the best parts about his performance was when he had some quick little shit on him he wouldnt just sit in the backfield, but he would get out and let his legs loose. This is made possible by having Evan back there as the second option. If Evan werent there, I would not feel comfortable having TallE leave, because M.Lo has a tendency to dance. Rob was much stronger saturday than sunday, but what I saw from him was fully sprinting his cuts and timing his deep cuts very well. He roasted Tim on OSU (formerly from CUT) time after time after time, and had some jabroni from their team freaking out about how often he was beating them deep. He also threw a nice flick huck to the Tall Man. Wes had a breakout performance this weekend I think. That isnt to say that it was flawless- he needs to remember the guy from Mad Cow on OSU who lay-out D'd him on two in-cuts in the same point, but he cut with assertiveness, he was strong in the air, and he is a cutter who can put nice soft flick hucks out in front of our cutters.

Anyway, the point of this entry is that I'm not worried anymore. We are getting healthy, we are getting Brent back, and hopefully we are all going to be busting our asses over break. We will be in contention this spring if we work hard, its time to see how well our leaders can set the example, and how hard our X factors are willing to work.

T-Day Break

2005-11-27T13:57:00.000-05:00

T-day break was excellent for me. I slept well, I ate well and I trained well. Monday and Tuesday were devoted to sleep and recovery from CCC and making sure that I didnt get sick. Wednesday I did a nice little workout at the high school. 1 mile EZ to get warm, then 5 reps of the following sprint: 70 yard sprint downfield, at the 70yd mark turn and sprint 20y to the left, when you reach that cone, turn 180degrees and sprint across the field to the other cone. Then I ran 10 hills. Then played a couple hours of hoops at Nova. Friday was the Fourth Annual KoP Turkey Bowl, which I escaped from injury free (thank god). Saturday night I went to the bball courts and did some windsprints: start to foulline to start to half-court to start to far-foul-line to start to endline to start to far foul line to start to halfcourt to start to foul line to start. I also did a nice jumprope workout. I ran 7 windsprints and between each I jumped rope for four minutes. 1- both feet, 1- left foot, 1- right foot, 1- both feet as fast as I could. This made for a nice and pretty exhausting workout.

I regret not being able to make it up for the pike+ pickup in NJ, but not having a car over break makes these kinds of things difficult. I will return to school later today refreshed, re-energized and ready to get my schoolwork the hell out of the way so that I can train well the rest of the semester.

Ho-Dags

2005-11-23T02:57:00.000-05:00

This weekend was the first time I got to really watch the Hodags and I was very impressed. Here is a list of things about Wisconsin that I hope our team will emulate:

1) Sideline talk to the D (and O). I got bitched at for being upset about not getting this when we were playing zone in the Illinois game and our rookie Deep Deep, playing the position for the first time in a real tournament that weekend, who also did not have a voice due to being sick, didnt have anyone talking to him and they hucked deep down the line to someone unaccounted for. Its Stu's opinion at least that you should never need anyone talking to you on the field when you are on D...and while its obvious that the more you can do on the field without any sideline help, the better...that doesnt mean that we shouldnt expect it from our teammates to do what they can. I was literally blown away by how self-motivated they were to talk, how actively they all talked to everyone on the field in both man and zone D, followed the play down the sideline, etc.

2) Skills. They ALL have them. They are all a threat to huck. They can all break the mark. They were all throwing during their byes and between rounds.

3) Speed. They sprint all of their cuts, they are running as hard as they can at all times that they are playing offense, and they have multiple people in motion at once. They were all in shape, they were all athletic, and they were all smart players.

4) Strategy. They use good pull plays and endzone plays. They play to their strengths (running deep pull plays to Muffin's flick, running an endzone cut that requires ability to turn sharply at a high speed for their most "vatz-esque" receiver who can do that). Their marks are active and aggressive and they "scag" (go to a no dump mark) on the sidelines call or on a stoppage of play. They ran a smart zone for the weather.

Developing...

2005-11-23T01:43:00.000-05:00

"The game is much easier than we make it out to be. Use your head. The mind is a powerful thing. Just complete your passes and leave all the turnovers for someone else."

This is what I find myself thinking about most coming away from CCC.

Games I played well in offensively: Arkansas, NC, Ga Tech, Illinois.
Record: 4-0
Games I played poorly in offensively: Wisconsin, OSU, Georgia (sort of), Davidson
Record: 0-4

I dont think that this means anything like "as I go so goes the team" (that may be true, i dont really know/care and havent thought about it) but more that the 'better' our opponent is, the harder D-line offense is, the more likely I am to feel pressed to MAKE something happen, and thus throw a higher risk throw and create a turnover.

The UGA game is an interesting consideration. We scored two breaks and I remember one definite turnover when trying to hold a throw back on a pick call (second straight tourney with one of those). I wonder how many errors I made trying to force offense in this one. Probably not that many (any?) but more just a factor of us not getting chances.

The Wisconsin and OSU games I forced things as a matter of not having faith in our cutters to get open downfield. Thats not to try to push off blame, I'm still the one throwing the disc away there, its just identifying where the mental breakdown came for me. Also, for the OSU game we were working upwind almost every (every?) time we got the disc. So with that, and them forcing my flick much of the time, our D-line O was in some trouble.

The Davidson game was a similar beast. Originally I was worried that one of our less experienced throwers would get stuck on the line and we'd turn it over. In reality, I just ended up turning it over, over and over again. Whats interesting in all of this is that we were able to work the disc up the field and the little light bulb in my head didnt go off and say "guess what, you dont have to force it!" This has been sitting uneasily with me for a while now and I've been thinking about it a lot.

Now, let me start this by saying a couple things. 1) I am the captain of Team Defensive for a reason. Obviously I am very defensive, but that is usually because I have given a great deal of thought to most things and because I am far harder on myself than anyone else is on me. 2) I used to, and still do from time to time, get into a situation like this with my Dad. Situation: 1) I fuck up. 2) I give myself a REALLY hard time about it and get pretty frustrated with myself (more than I think most people do). 3) I hear about my fuckup from Dad. 4) I get really pissed at my Dad b/c I'm already really pissed at myself and the last thing I need to do is hear it from him. Pissed to the point where I can displace some of that frustration onto him with a "fuck that" attitude that will lend me to making the same mistake again. I can say that at least in real life, this basically doesnt happen anymore.

So in the Davidson game this situation happened with me playing myself and Stu playing my Dad. But also, it felt, with everyone playing my Dad. It just felt as though I could do nothing right, and all that I heard from my teammates was criticism. This is probably an exageration, I probably got a the average 'way to go' type of praise on our few breaks. But its definitely not an exageration of how I felt things were occuring at the time. What I needed most, as a player at that moment was just for someone to say "thats okay, calm down and play patiently, I know that you can do that." Instead, that kind of advice was constantly given in a negative manner, advice was given calmly, but never in a positive way...always in a 'you cant do this' or 'youre sucking' kind of way...and while this was true, no player wants to hear this while its happening, nor does it do him any good to hear things that way.

On the plus side, I think that I have almost completely eliminated that from my own captaining since the dark ages of spring04 when I was Captain Crabby Pants and just screamed at people. In retrospect I think a lot of this was out of being injured that spring and anger at the injury, and I think Brody and I compounded that mentality in one another. Anyway, during tournaments I dont think that I ever yell at players for their fuckups, and only express my frustration on the sidelines. And, I usually just talk with them calmly about these things afterward. At least this is what I am trying to do more and more of. And usually when I talk with them, its in effort to fix the problem and most often I begin by asking them to talk to me about it first so that I dont repeat what they are already telling themselves or know about what to fix about the problem and usually try to work in some positive reinforcement or expression of my faith in the player. So at least this situation drew my attention to understanding exactly HOW preferable, as a player, it is to deal with a situation that way as opposed to spring04 Sean method.

Another positive to take away from the Davidson game is to realize, AGAIN, that for the next X tournaments before Regionals and Nationals that I more important than anything I create offensively is building my own trust in what the rest of the D team can create offensively. This was the mistake of last spring where we went along playing less than nationals-caliber teams and having me huck, chuck and break our way to scores of only a couple passes and then when we met teams that couple play real D and shut down the first cut or not let me get every other disc, we suddenly didnt have an offense. I have to have confidence in the rest of the D-line, and I cant retard their growth as offensive players by the way that I play.

I have complete faith in my ability to play conservative offense and not turn the disc over when I have confidence in the people I am playing offense with. This comes mainly from Regionals this past fall where I had two throwaways in four games while being the main reset option. The trick is just getting myself to buy into that mentality. And its not a matter of just saying that, I need to actually have that faith in my teammates...I tried that for a while against Wisconsin, and when that confidence failed, so did my taking care of the disc. I need to showup to a tournament or game and legitimately believe "our D team can work the disc 70 yards on these guys."

Oh, and finally...I cant express how good I feel when TallE walks off the field (like in the UNC game) totally frustrated after having to play O with the D line. Its like having an illness that no one can understand, until they get it for a day and then call you and are like "woah, that shit is fuckin rough!" and youre like..."yeah! tell me about it!"

I am Capt. Defensive, comment with care...

CCC Reality

2005-11-15T22:53:00.000-05:00

I think that its important that we go into this weekend with an understanding of what CCC is and what CCC is not (for Pitt Ultimate):

What CCC is:

An opportunity for us to see how much the 7.5 (Vatz = .5) of our top 12 from last years team can step up and play beyond their normal role.

An opportunity for our rookies to play an expanded role against top competition

An opportunity for us to deal with adversity as a team (hopefully better than we did after UMD at Udel).

What CCC is not:

In any way a marker of what Pitt Ultimate is capable of in the spring

A chance to see where we stack up against the nations best

A predictor for the spring (see Kansas)

Anything else??

It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great.
-Jimmy Dugan, A League of Their Own

(yes, I feel like less of a man having quoted A League of Their Own)

Black Eye

2005-11-09T17:57:00.000-05:00

I was talking over last weeks "potentialitis" based anxiety attack with my dad on Friday night. When he tried to give me the whole "Thats why its a team support, you cant do it all yourself..." speech, I explained to him why that didnt work for me. Basically, I just really really associate myself and personal success with the team. As the team goes, so I go. So its fitting that I left the tournament this weekend with a black eye.

We lost to Maryland 11-10. I got beat upline for the winner. Andrew point-tipped the throw into and absolutely incredible and perfect upline shot, and Sam had a step on me so it was over. Andrew said that if he hadnt tipped it, it probably would have gone into my back. No matter. I totally misplayed the situation. As we reset (off of a goal called back [he definitely landed on the line]) I knew the dump was coming and I envisioned shutting down the cut and forcing a high-stall throw into the swirling wind. I tried to play a little closer than I had most of the game to that point and Sam slipped by me and it was done. I thought I did a good job on him all game. He only broke me once (on the goalline, but I forced a low throw and a layout catch) and I took away a lot of downfield looks. But the last one is the one I'll remember.

I probably lost the game for us much earlier though. It's hard to say why I went into shitty D-line offense mode. But there we were, with me chucking the disc deep or forcing something upfield on the first throw. A few of them were frustrating. There was the upwind huck that doinked off of Josh's hand, and another upwind throw into the endzone which my mark congratulated me on, but Andrew managed to somehow not catch it. Turnovers nonetheless. Anyway, I realized it was comical when at one point I picked up the disc and Andrew (iso'd) and Josh (last in stack) both just started sprinting deep simultaneously. As it happened Josh was behind his man, so I sent the flick and just missed him long (where as before i was just missing short on the flick side). So...granted, a lot of the turns were close, but that doesnt mean we didnt give them the disc back.

So what is the solution? 1) Trust B Tate. 2) I need to check myself. 3) I need a cutter, not someone who we call a cutter; a cutter. 1) B tate can get open, that isnt the problem. I think that the problem this weekend was that I did not feel comfortable with the disc in his hands in the wind. He threw away a disc on an easy in-cut and had a drop and I had trouble trusting him after that. But the only way he is gonna get better is if I trust him in those situations. 2) If I dont turn the disc over- who will? That is a great question for me to remember. Although Josh tried to force something on the upwind goal line which absolutely infuriated me (remember who should have the disc on the goalline in our offense?) because not only was it an execution error, but a mental error trying to force a difficult throw into a small space when we had worked the disc that far downfield. 3) If we want the d-line to have real offense, then I need someone who can get open underneath. The best fit would be Stu obviously. If the D line had Stu we could be very good offensively this year I believe. Other solution is for Rob, Andrew or Josh to become a cutter (a first cutter, an Iso'd cutter). This is the third year for each of them, so if it hasnt happened so far--when?

The Offense struggled this weekend. The D-line scored ~4 of our goals against Maryland. I think it was the final 3 point of GW that really did us in. TallE had to suffer through three more points while already sick and Josh and I both got injured in the final points. Then we came out flat and gave up a 4-0 (3-0? 4-1?) run to Maryland to start the game. D got us back in and we were tied at 4-4, but the O just never seemed to have an easy time scoring goals. We also looked like we were playing Offense in a very small part of the field. I wonder if TallE or Vatz have an opinion on this, and though the field was narrow, it seemed like we were still playing on our practice field. Evan struggled as the second handler, but needed to so that he could see where he needs to improve, and after talking with him tuesday he does and I feel confident that he will be working harder. Mike Lo had a couple of killer mishaps (doink drop on an easy incut, not catching a pretty easy break from me). We also had a couple unnacceptable hammers. One from Brad and one from Wes. If we had scored on Wes' possession we would have had a d-point and an 0-point to win it, but they marched it down.

Rob got fronted and his only move stopped working. Wes still is not fast enough and we really need him to be getting there. Vatz played well and brought an another gear to our offense, but he is still a shell of what he was because he cant push himself through the long points playing D and O like he used to be able to do. He also slept on our sidelines, which is an absolute joke if he considers himself part of the team. Brad cut too slowly...I think he will have a lightbulb go off when he sees how Brent plays against non-SL players and can emulate that. TallE was sick and it showed, he battled and I give him a ton of credit for it...I just wish that he had been healthy so that I could have seen him do what he did against Indiana and given me much more faith in the O for the spring.

So whats a team to do? We seem to be one cutter short right now. We need a Vatz/Brent/Stu for the D line. Do we rotate one of the three of them in? Does Wes become the cutter we all hope that he will? Does Ted Olds transfer and play 3rd/4th fiddle with Wes in an offense that features TallE/Brent/Vatz in a Shank/Grant/Lugsdin style offense (I havent heard from him in a while, so I doubt it)? What we need most, I think, is an answer to that question.

I think that I definitely personally over-reacted to the loss against MD. We had .5 TallE and .5 Vatz, 0 Stu, 0 Brent. Thats a lot missing. And I played like poop. So one fall loss to an ME team does not mean we wont make natties or that we wont do well there. It did show us all, I think, where we need to improve...which is very important. And it motivated a lot of people to work harder, I think. Pre prognosticated that if we had beaten Maryland we would have fallen to UDel b/c we dont have anyone who can match up on Pat Walters. Oh how little they know...

As for me. I have finally gotten serious about getting in shape. I am running three miles a day on top of practice/lifting/raquetball/agility drills/whatever else I am doing. I am also recording my food consumption into an online program that analyzes nutrition and caloric intake compared to output. Its only been three days paying attention to nutrition, so we'll see how well that goes as I continue. I ran 3 miles four times last week and my times are between 20-21 minutes now, which is solid. I will also be attending this information session where I hope to get a better idea about how I can get into good shape for ultimate or at least walk away knowing a little more about my fitness level. Though my 'personal fitness' instructor from last year seemed to be a waste, KB seems to think that Kory fella knows what he is talking about.

beaten up

2005-11-08T00:14:00.000-05:00

Ive been spending the majority of the day in a good deal of pain and thought I'd share it with the blog world. First is the black eye suffered against GW. I look like the guy from A Clockwork Orange. It doesnt hurt much, its just ugly. Second is the pinky finger that is blown up to about double the size of the other. But most annoying are my quads which took a beating on sunday. Ben from GW kept just barreling into me as I positioned to deny his upline cut and he would just throw his knees into my quad and then run away. But the worst of them was when the tables were turned. I had him beat upline and as I went by he just stuck his knee out there and caught me on the quad. I called foul/injury and as I stretched it, it went to the brink of a "Charlie Horse" before I could rub it out. At least I never had to whine like "Linc" when his calves cramped...what an ordeal.

I still ran my three miles tonight, but took it ez. It took a while before I could open up my strides at all.

club '06

2005-11-07T23:07:00.000-05:00

Here is your latest report from the rumor mill:

Danny Clarke is moving to Boston and starting a co-ed team which Teddy of MCUDL is going to play for (source: pups)

Now for your update on the Sean McComb recruitment process:
- approximately 20 mins after elimination from regionals Ringo recruits for Philly.
-Last weekend Deo recruits for Burgh
-Yesterday Ben Kleaveland recruits for Pike
-Today Tom Pribicko recruits for whatever he ends up doing- this may involve Truckstop "getting serious" (?) putting me, Tom and Greenburg on their O team (and I'm supposed to recruit friends). Or...co-ed (shiver...). I can tell you this...if this fall is my last season of ultimate, and it very well could be...I aint goin out like that...natties or not. I'm playing Ultimate, not whatever it is they play.

analysis: its nice to feel wanted. I wonder how much I allow ultimate to influence my location over the summer/fall. I played Burgh last season out of a sense of duty to the Pittsburgh Ultimate community and to Pitt...I wonder to what degree I will feel that sense again. But until it's June I've got a job to do...so ya'll talk to me then.

UDel thoughts are coming. I need to talk to some people at practice before I want to put any thoughts down.

College Season Day 1. 207 days til Nats.

2005-10-31T14:33:00.000-05:00

The A team had a couple of very solid practices this weekend. The skills are coming up very quickly and we are working hard. The rookies did well in the wind on saturday and extremely well when we opened up Big Box on sunday to be throwing 30-40yd+ throws every time. Very impressive. I threw way too much away in the scrimmages, mainly caused by trying to throw sneaky shit all over the place due to the 25yd wide field and 6yd deep endzones. Also...B Tate and I will be uncoverable in the spring. The D line offense will be exciting to be a part of because we will have the opportunity to be so low risk by having the reset available at all times.

I had an interesting discussion about captaining with Josh last week and I talked a little about captaining last time. I thought I'd record it here for posterity and for the future info of youngins starting out trying to become leaders on the team. As you can probably gather, the context of the discussion is that Josh has trouble buying into our goal because of the way that he has been performing himself and because of the work ethic he sees around him. I often have this problem, which is that 1) you often dont see/hear about what others are doing and so its hard to trust it and 2) Without seeing that kind of effort from everyone, its hard to get it out of yourself.
--------------------------------------
GardenStateOMind: so i actually didnt read the goal email until now, it didnt forward for some reason, but im not there yet, after reading your post in the board and realizing that thats where we're lacking. if vatz worked half as hard in real life as he thinks he does in his head he'd be unstoppable. wes hasnt shown thats hes going to be a star yet, and that needs to happen. talle needs to realize that when your not at practice he needs to be a leader. hes been with this team longer and has more experience and talent than anyone else, and that doesnt mean he even needs to bring a lot to the table, but he cant take away from it, and anytime him and vatz are just off on the side talking about how much things suck but not doing anything to help it theyre just bringing it down. ive actually been really happy with rob so far this season, but theres still shit like that practice he missed to hang out with meridith that cant fly. most importantly, there are 6-7 people there at 3. thats not the comittment of a team that is going to win the whole thing. i know what my part needs to be for us to do this, and i will be the best player, teamate and captain i possibly can be when may rolls around. i refuse to think "wow, if i had only done that" when the series comes around. but right now, i cant tell you i believe in the team 100% to do that, because a lot of our teams (and my) actions to this point have been contrary to that. thats no to say it wont change, but as of right now thats my stance on it

TyronePower3000: josh....this is the fundamental problem with you as a captain right now. you cannot be a man who sits and waits for others to show him the way, you need to...right now, tonight, become a man of action who leads other men into battle, into a season...you have to be of the belief that no matter what the fuck the team is like right now that doesnt matter because you are going to make this decision and then they will follow you. stop being a headcase, stop worrying about everyone else. if no one more replies to my email, that doesnt mean shit to me, honestly. I want to know where people are at, to gauge it, but I will push them every single day regardless of that. its time to man up.

TyronePower3000: you are A CAPTAIN...THAT MEANS YOU LEAD. X is not the captain of the team for a reason- he is not a leader. you are a leader. It is time for you to lead
TyronePower3000: if you believe that it is possible for the talent of the 25 guys to win, then you believe in this goal. period.
TyronePower3000: the rest is up to you, me, and weasel to make happen
GardenStateOMind: fair enough
TyronePower3000: that is what jaeger told me, you push and push and push, and they will follow
TyronePower3000: but we have to go first
TyronePower3000: is it just fair enough?
GardenStateOMind: it makes sense, its just hard to execute in the aspect that ive never done it before, but i guess that just makes it more rewarding when its all said and done
TyronePower3000: "It's the magic of risking everything for a dream that nobody sees but you"
GardenStateOMind: ya
TyronePower3000: thats, actually, everything that captaining is...its you believing when no one else will, that is your job

Information Lag

2005-10-24T01:20:00.000-04:00

In his last post, Idris Nolan refers to ultimate knowledge getting out to the masses. I thought more about this tonight as I read throught Steve Mooney's "Conceptual Ultimate." The document was written nearly 10 years ago, but there are still some ideas in there that I have barely been exposed to, or never learned the reasoning behind. It really is somewhat ridiculous, but then again I am in Pittsburgh and though we have our diamonds-in-the-rough as far as upper-crust knowledge of the game...its no Boston/wherever the hell else all the smarties gang-up to be smarter than us.

Anyway, I couldnt remember where I got the conceptual ultimate from, but I'm sure that its blog related. I emailed it to a bunch of teammates tonight. This is good also. The articles especially, also, testosterone man is fun...I wonder if knows running-man and mister-man of Evan Jenkins' creation.

Also, to attempt to get some valuable info out to the masses sooner, I will be creating CD's with articles and videos, etc. for the youngins on my team to hopefully spread the wealth of knowledge a little faster.

State of the Team

2005-10-23T22:20:00.000-04:00

Given that this week was a week full of events very emblematic of a "program," I thought I'd take some time here to account for where we are at as a team at this point in time.

1) First ever Pitt Ultimate Boosters Dinner. We called this the "Friends of Pitt Ultimate Dinner." We hosted a nice dinner party for those people who have given a donation to the team or traveled a great distance to see the team in action and support us. We invited 26 people: select alumni, parents, supporting members of the ultimate community and university administrators. 12 people were in attendance and had a fantastic time. For a bunch of college kids we put on a pretty nice dinner party...we had some hors d'oeuvre's: jarlsberg cheese spread, havarti, sharp cheddar, crackers, grapes, sliced apples, 4 types of wine. The main course was chicken breast in a garlic-herb marinate served with steamed asparagus, rice pilaf, and mushroooms with a hollandaise sauce. Dessert consisted of three types of pie served alongside coffee, tea, and hot cider. Following dessert we held a viewing of a Pitt Ultimate slideshow and presented signed discs from nationals and a copy of the slideshow to all the guests.

The dinner was a huge success. For the first time in any of our careers we saw Henry Thorne speechless, and everyone was blown away by how well we pulled everything off. As far as practicality, we got a dozen people who love the team and the sport to sit together in a room and talk about how great they are and how much they should support us. The dinner cost the team $200, which will pale in comparison to the financial returns we are likely to receive. Great idea for this from the Tall-man, great execution led and hosted by Dave Vatz, and great support work from Josh and McCabe. After dinner, I spent forever cleaning up and that got a little drunk off the leftover wine and talked to Brody about my future. I also, it seems, told him to go ahead and delete all of my email- woops. (btw- now reach me vai SeanMcCombATgmailDOTcom)

2) Alumni Game. This years alumni game was kinda week. But the alumni game for now is what it is. The alumni had 6 players, Mike Lo helped them out a lot and I played the first half with them. Due to their low numbers we just played the game to 11. The alums were up 6-3 at half. I switched over to current when they picked up a straggler and the comeback was on. Current ends up winnin 14-12 or 13-11. Afterwards we have a bar-b-que back at the house which was a nice relaxed time...nice to be home for a weekend. Stillers and Birds win.

3) We have ourselves an "A team." A 25 man A team was selected earlier this week and we practiced for the first time on Thursday. I, of course, have class thursday afternoons and so I wasnt there. I got reports about how poor practice was from two team leaders who are virtually at Josh's level as far as respect on the team and leadership position. They are just a) too quiet or b) not quite mature enough as a leader yet (though well on his way) to have been elected captain last spring (and lets not forget that I'm still there's still a sheriff in this town). Anyway, these two very capable leaders of our team are complaining to me about how poor this practice was and how Josh is a terrible captain.

This was dissapointing on many levels. First, obviously, I look forward to the day when Josh makes this "his team," in some sense. Obviously a team is never one mans team, but in another sense, the team could look to one person and have that person be their leader- this could be by actions on the field, or, as i try to, through personality and the embodying of the ideals of the team (this is what I strive for, anyway). Josh and I ended up having a good talk about this, and his captaining in my shadow is not helping anything...but as long as I am around and I have his back, he should feel more prepared to assert himself. Currently he gets some back-talk from people when they are being lazy or disruptive at practice and he calls them on it. This happened to me too when I started captaining. Your peers and your elders are not used to viewing you in that leadership position, or that position of respect and therefore he doesnt get the respect that I do, just as I did not initially get the same respect as Brody did. When I was experiencing this, Brody told me that they wouldnt give me respect until I dominated them on the field, so I worked toward this and in at least some aspects of my game I am able to do that. For Josh, I think it is more a matter of being in my shadow and not yet having developed the personality for the position. This will come, and I think that him knowing he has my support and knowing that there are times when he needs to simply show that he is the captain, this is his practice, and you are going to work your ass off- or go home...will help him a lot.

This was also dissapointing b/c these two guys could have easily saved the day. Either one of them could have called the team in, called the bullshit effort a bullshit effort, and told everyone to get their ass in gear- we all know the stakes for this season and we all know that there is no time to waste. In fact, hearing this from a voice other than mine would be absolutely fantastic. I know that I am basically like the energizer bunny when it comes to trying to push this team to get better and better, but even I can get worn down at times, and I need to hear the pump-up speech from another voice, I need to have my own drive recharged by my teammates and have my own fortitude reaffirmed by hearing my teammates say the right things themselves, instead of just hearing them agree when I say the right things.

I will say this, in my experience in ultimate, I have had a greater combination of inner will/drive to win/ability to voice that drive...than...well, a whole whole lot of people I have played with. While I dont want to flatter myself and acredit the teams attitude to simply my beating them into having my attitude, I have been told by people that have watched the transformation that that is what happened. But I am leaving soon, and while I hope that the attitude sticks, that void may need to be filled by multiple people, and those people, whoever they may be, cant just sit back and wait for others to step up and be the motivator. They must take it upon themselves. And it would be good to see that happen now (and see it in places other than the Bboard). But that view may just be my little ole self-important skewed nonsense, so who knows.

Anyway, the A team is created, and can begin to take on an identity. I can be at both practices this week, and we'll practice this next weekend (b/c its not parents weekend), so hopefully we start to gel a little more. There is a lot of talent...but a lot of lightbulbs need to go off over the next month.

Keeping Perspective

2005-10-20T00:09:00.000-04:00

Today, when I was leaving class, a guy who was on Pitt Ultimate with me my freshman and sophomore year was running through traffic. I recognized him due to his "prancy" running form. Ed Schneider, what a guy. Ed ended up dropping out, but seeing him got me doing a little retro-specting about Pitt Ultimate.

It is amazing to think of what has happened to this team over the past 4+ years. I am so glad to have played a part in it, and I cannot think of a more rewarding way to spend 5 years of ultimate than building a team from an absolute doormat into a team looking to compete for a national title. And if we were to win the title, I would have, I truly believe, the most rewarding collegiate ultimate career. Sure Mike G may have won X number of championships and been the best player in the country and so forth...but I started at the very base of the mountain back in the fall of '01 and have struggled up the mountain. I have a pretty good view right now, but I thirst for the summitt.

Here are the UPA College Ranking at the end of my freshman year

Please note we finished behind 29 b-teams, 2 c-teams and a high school team. I realize that the rankings can mean little, for instance CMU's B-team finished ahead of its A-team, but #228 is incredible. That year winning two games at a tournament was a feat. Our website has a pretty good history section to it in which you can find an entire spring (and most of the fall's) write-ups from me. This includes some pretty hilarious (though now a bit vague) fuck-ups on my part, such as turfing a disc literally basically at the marker, throwing D's to the MM of a zone over and over again, hitting a kidn in the chest with a high release, etc.

Though I have to say that I did, apparently, somehow, have this silly idea of being dedicated even then, when I was a nice tanker at about ~245 lbs probably and absolutely sucked at ultimate. I included this at the end of my sectionals write-up:

4) Our team has a long way to go before we are able to make it to regionals, three and a half places to be exact, and the work in getting there doesn't start in the spring, it doesn't start in the fall, it starts when we get home for break...with each dedicated player making a decision about whether they want to get out and play summer league, and condition and get faster and have more endurance and improve their throws, and then work with everyone else on the team in the fall to continue our gelling as a team, with everyone of its components a better cog in the machine.

Even when I had no fucking clue what "the walk" even looked like, I knew (for what that team needed) how to "talk the talk." It also surprises/bothers me that none of the youngins these days are willing to do the writeups. Lazy lazy lazy. I was so willing. I bet I can trick McCabe into doing it.

After 2002 Stephanie Kurth just starting posting links to the rankings rather than copying and pasting. "Harold Buck" bawked at this, but nothing was changed. So, since the links are to a page that gets updated with each new ranking, Stephanie has effectively eliminated years of ultimate history. Thanks, Steph. Anyway, Sophomore year we qualify for regionals with a huge upset of Bucknell in semi's after beating Yuk for my first time ever in pool play (highlights: point blocking a Dan Naylor huck/punt as they went downwind, having an upwind pull dropped). We went 0-2 at reggies, predictably. We only had 7 real players on that team, and Brody played sectionals crooked. Literally. As his back had been thrown out. I layed him out once in zone on a swing, but he didnt pussy out and let it fall, he layed out and got it--good man. Junior year was a building year. A step back in the rankings, but a huge step forward in becoming a team. That year we got Josh, Jenks, Rob, Wes, Stu and Reed...and most of what fills out the B team now. The rest, my friends, is the sweet sweet recent history that is ESN Ultimate.

It has been a good ride, and I wouldnt change it for any other way of college ultimate in the world. Pitt Ultimate is who I am, and I'd like to think Pitt Ultimate will forever have a little dash of Sean McComb in it. But more seriously, and I wrote about this in the entrance application to the School of Ed which is allowing me to play my 5th year of eligibility (Masters of Ed), seeing what happened with this team, and being a part of it, and helping to drive it, has given me hope and drive to take on a lot more seemingly impossible causes in life. But they will have to wait until June 2006 at least.

Anyway, in looking at all of this, and I remember saying to myself as a freshman that I was going to play at nationals. I also told myself I was going to win the callahan. Both were probably equally unlikely at the time. Well, not really, 16 x ~20 kids go to nats every year, only one wins the cally. Either way, I do have the ability to completely throw myself into a seemingly impossible mission, and I very much like that about myself. I like the underdog, I like believing in a dream that no one believes in but yourself, and I like to completely dedicate myself to that dream.

I heard this quote from Million Dollar Baby during the ESPY's:

"It's the magic of risking everything for a dream that nobody sees but you." That, is me and Pitt Ultimate. And I love that feeling. I do have the willingness to risk. I do have that.

Ohio State Tourney

2005-10-16T22:46:00.000-04:00

Pitt X (which was really Pitt A minus 7 starters from last year) had 20 guys. 6 top vets- Jenks, TallE, Mike Lo, Rob, Wes, Joshy. Then Reed, Nick and 12 rookies.

Results-

Pool Play (3-0): Pitt 13- Denison 6, Pitt 13 - Kenyon 5, Pitt 13 - Michigan 1?
Bracket Play (2-1): Pitt 10- Ohio Northern 8, Pitt 8- Indiana 13, Pitt 13- OSU 4?

We played alright in these games, obviously just getting our legs underneath of us. Being so rookie heavy, there were a few concepts that I was really trying to get through this weekend to these guys. First was about defense. Too many times we would simply front, let the guy run at us, and as he passed us turn around and chase him. Ugh. So I explained over and over again...play his back shoulder on the force side, run in with him, then if he cuts away...run out with him while checking over your shoulder for the disc. I probably explained it 6ish times throughout pool play, but I think that they began to pick up on it. Highlight of explaining this was that at some stoppage in the second game Josh said to the team "we need to be fronting our men." I nearly exploded. We resolved to "we need to not get beat in anymore" (when the other team is going upwind).

The other thing that we focused on more was offensive spacing and cutting, etc. This is where you expect lines that have two vets handling, one vet cutting and 4 rookies cutting to struggle. And we did. Although, I will say that I was impressed with Mike Lo, Evan and TallE's ability to pitch and put and keep the disc moving around back there until a rookie could time a good cut. This was HUGE this weekend. The rookies became obviously hesitant as the stakes were raised. After the fourth game on Saturday we did a little intra-squad scrimmage and the difference between the assertiveness from our quarterfinal (which ended saturdays play) was astounding. It seems that this is probably an obvious happening for rookies playing in their first real tourney (since we mostly just rolled bitches at Skylander).

Saturday night was nice as after a failed trip to Sonic (fraggle lead..never a good idea) we went to a wing place and caught the last 7 minutes of the Notre Dame/USC game and had some fantastically good wings. Then I got 10 hours of much needed sleep since we werent slated to play until 11:40.

Noticing the rookies fear in the quarter, Josh, Coach and I made the decision to let the rookies know that we believed in them and we were either winning the tournament or not with them on the field (we had shortened the rotation a bit as things got hairy in the quarter). So we only played with three of those 6 solid vets on the field at a time on Sunday. I made the rookies aware of this before the semi, made sure that they knew we would have complete faith in them.

We had starting our warmup only about 20 minutes before gametime, which, given our stretching routine and all, is too late. We were obviously sluggish early on. The vets more than the rooks it seemed. After losing a grueling first point we let them get on a role out to 4-0. Then Jake Christian caught an upwind huck from TallE and we got the subsequent downwinder to 4-2. After missing a number of goaline shots for 4-3, we eventually lost the half 7-2. Seeing some heads dropping and noticing some waning belief in ourselves, I pressed the team a bit at half. I was pretty pleased with my thoughts here centering on our team coming here to fight, to ourwork them, and basically...to battle. We came out strong out of the half cutting to 7-4 or 8-4. We traded the rest of the game to 13-8. What I really took away from this was the way that the rookies responded.

Yes, they didnt know how to cut or see the field really. Yes, our stack was too deep and due to a lack of many skilled players on the field at the time, and the wind, theyre poaches clogged our offense a lot. But our rookies athleticism was fantastic. And you could literally see the flow of the sport start to click in their minds as they learned to time cuts, move to good space, threw upfield successfully. And they stepped their game up, they responded in the second half...and that was good to see. What could have been a blowout by a team (Indiana) of 4th and 5th year players against a team with 12 players at their first real tournament, was an actual battle with long points giving us valuable learning experiences. Indiana will be alright this year, I dont know if they have enough outstanding players to make the show though. And they will simply dissapear after this year. Their offense continues to work too hard to get too little...the Ho stack, in my opinion is meant to open up big spaces for big gainers and 1) they refuse to huck and 2) they end up gaining 10-12 yards per pass, with few consecutive complete passes. They must just not know anyone who knows the strategy of that offense, or something. They are much better suited to run a stack I think (but most college teams probably are).

TallE seriously impressed me this game. We needed him to be incredible and he did not disapoint. He was forced to throw break a ton and into small spaces and hit his spots with regularity. But what was most impressive was his movement around the disc. I think the odd aspect of this is I'm used to seeing him play with relatively skilled players (burgh, Pitt O last year) where his simply moves got him open for the dump. Or at Skylander where he was, for the mostpart playing subpar defenders (or team defenses). Against Indiana he was covered by Drew, who is a solid college defender normally, and against marks on our rookies which were challenging them--basically, he had to get creative. Talls simply destroyed Drew. I have never seen him be that quick/agile. Actually, I have...but its usually against me and on the turf, and while I will say that he plays very well, at least I do better than Drew did. But I dont know who would have really contained him today. Very well done.

Rob was also impressive, playing strong D and working hard as a cutter. I would like to see him do a lot of agility/quickness drills before the spring. He runs very hard, but doesnt turn very quickly to get himself any easy seperation. Wes was very slow in this game, I hope he uses it as motivation not only to get his ass up and to the fields earlier, but to also do some speed and agility work and to continue to get in better shape...we need him to be big in the spring. Josh struggled. He is working on changing a number of aspects of his game and feels like he is under a bit of a microscope. We did ask a LOT from him as the only cutter on the D team today, maybe we all need to think about that a little more. Evan played well, I loved how he was able to get the dump and ALWAYS get the break swing off...this was very important while he and Mike were pitching and putting. Mike also impressed, just being solid and getting open as needed. Sometimes he danced a little much. He also needs to play aggressive D, not scarred D.

We palyed OSU in the 3rd place game. Took it to them. The rookies combined their stepping up in the second half of the semi with the alleviated pressure of being in the semi's to really open things up well. Had some nice D's and the offense finally started to really look good.

McCabe played well, had some good bids (would have gotten a few more of them on D if the bid were a second earlier) and a sweet sky against OSU. Skylar played well against IU, but had some ugly points again OSU. Brad played well, and needed to...good to see. Jake Christian played very well. B Tate stepped it up and showed that he was a real competitor. Blake Watkiss is starting to really understand offense. Pat Hammonds also played well.

The initial split should be decently easy and result in a large team...like 26 guys. That said, Brent is away, Vatz and Fraggle are still injured. I think that we will go into the series around 22, but I want to keep working with some guys like Neupauer, Pannone, Chris, Zach and Skylar as the season goes on. Reed's A status is still annoying me. He can play well and be good on D for a while, and then had a couple points in the IU and OSU games where he had multiple turnovers and he needs to get it in his damn head that he isnt allowed a single one in a game and in big tournies...in a day or a weekend.

Good News; Scary News

2005-10-13T16:02:00.000-04:00

The good news is that because I will be enrolled in a Teaching Seminar night course as a part of my PY program, I will only have to take one additional Masters class in the spring. The other good news is that I met with one of my faculty and I'm cleared to enroll in the masters class for the spring. When I asked about applying for the M.Ed. program, she said I didnt need to, and that the good news was that "When you complete the PY program, you'll automatically be moved into the MEd program and you can start taking classes in the summer, fall, spring...whenever.

Scary News:

I dont complete the PY program until after the spring. Meaning even though I will have completed 24 credits towards a Masters degree over the past year, I wouldnt be allowed to play mutherfucking ultimate in the fucking spring. What absurd rules.

So I explained this dilemma to my faculty and I gave her the eligibility rules and highlighted the important sections. She is taking it to the guy in charge of all the teacher education stuff tomorrow to talk to him about it. The trouble being that I would be enrolled in two programs at once. Fuck.

So here is what happens. Either the guy says that its okay and I am enrolled in two at once, or I have an easy decision to make that will delay my life for a while. The easy decision is this: drop out of the program that I am in right now, and do something else that makes me eligible for the spring. That could either be 6 credits in another masters program (lit?) (social work?) or become a full-time student pursuing another undergrad degree. The problem of this being- 1) I would have to student teach in some other way (Teach for America looking more likely here) 2) Throwing thousands of dollar$ away on credits that are probably meaningless. While I might get a masters in literature or social work one day, the likelihood is low...and as far as another undergrad degree...well, thats just silly. So, I'm already in debt up to my waist (looking at like $20,000+ right now) so whats another $5000-$8000 huh? I would double the debt if I had to, to have the opportunity to play this spring. You only get one shot at this in life, I am not gonna miss my chance.

Another thing that pisses me off about the fucking upa is that the eligibility committee wont look at cases until January. When its too god damn late to do anything about it. What the fuck is that. And what kind of eligibility rules say "okay, you are taking 6 masters credits this spring, but arent enrolled in the program, well...you're out, but this other guy who is taking 6 credits and is in the program, he can play."

I weighed 260+ pounds when I got to this team and that didnt stop me.
This team was hardly a team and a shitty team when I got here and that didnt stop me.
I broke my foot twice playing this sport and that didnt stop me.
Some fucking academic advisor telling me that I cant be in two programs at once sure as hell isnt going to stop me.

Whatever it takes. I will be in a Pitt Uniform, on the field, laying it on the line in Columbus this May. I have come too far with this team to settle for anything less than that. And I would fully support anyone who was able to identify something so meaningful in their lives that they would go to all costs to be able to take advantage of the window they were given. That is what LIVING life is all about.

Injury, A Team

2005-10-12T23:34:00.000-04:00

First- injury. So I guess I tweaked/pulled my upper-inner-thigh, just south of groin (though vatz contends that it is "lower groin") at the very end of the tourney on Sunday. I went out and tweaked it again at practice tuesday and then stupidly tried to play a little more and tweaked it more seriously. Walking had some pain to it. But I used a heat pack and some icy hot and it was feeling much better today. I even did a little jumping on it at practice and it was alright (though I wasnt playing, but I was throwing). I plan to icyhot again tonight and then heat again in the morning and then tomorrow evening go to the gym, get it warmed up on the eliptical and give it a stretch and see how it feels. If it feels good, I'll hit the treadmill. Then come home and repeat heat and ice.

A team- our first split is coming up (plan to do a final split in the spring, and a provisional one after this weekend). It is going to be tough. I've alredy had a bunch of people talking to me about their chances and everything. I suppose that it is a good problem to have though. Anyway...here are the people (who are currently playing [discounting brent, vatz and fraggle]) with a shot going into the weekend:

Mike Lo
TallE
Wes
Stu
Jenkins
Sean
Rob
Tony (torn lcl?)+
Andrew
Reed
Josh
Kitten+
Nick+
Bailey+
Mike Pannone+
Pat Hammonds -
Patrick Newsome -
John Johnson +
Matt McCabe -
Matt Neupauer
Brandon Tate -
Chris Caldwell
Skylar Brunner +
Brad Bellinger +
Blake Watkiss -
Jake Christian -
Zach Born +(27)

27 is a lot. And it will have to be widdled down from 30 in reality. The players with the "-" are the rookies that I feel are safe through the final selection probably...unless something goes horribly wrong with them. The "+" people I think are susceptible. The only rookies with neither tick are Neupauer and Chris. I find myself rooting for these guys, mainly because they are good friends with Btate, who will be stupid good and informed me that he's "gonna steal my job" if I dont look out. If that kid is better than me by this spring, than he can have my job and I'll simply enjoy rolling the fuck out of national-caliber teams. But I dont think that he'll be mature enough to keep possession by this spring and thus wont have my job. Hell, I just figured out the whole "keep possession" stuff for myself in the fall of my fifth year. He would simply be uncoverable at the dump, however.

Patrick Newsome is incredibly fast. Every time I see that kid on the field it amazes me. He and B tate were going full tilt for about 30-40 yards right at me today, it was incredible.

Skylander

2005-10-10T14:36:00.000-04:00

We sent three teams. Missing top players: Brent, Vatz. Missing top rookies: Blake, Patrick, Chris.

Sean's team: 8-0/7-0. Closest games were vs. Edinboro 13-6, and LoveBomb men 13-5, SUNY Buffalo 13-4/5. All others 13-1 or 13-0.

TallE's team:7-0/7-1. Closest games were vs. Edinboro 11-10, Lovebomb 13-9/10, vs. Josh's team 13-7ish? When we met in finals we played our rookies and a couple vets vs. one another, my team won by a few.

Josh's team: 6-2. Lost to Boro 11-12 on hardcap after having just scored upwind, lost to TallE's team. Had games that were too close against Grove City and SUNY-B.

This tournament is pretty meaningless since there werent very many good teams there. But is historically significant to me because in my first tournament with Pitt at Skylander I we opened with a 0-15 loss to Boro and finished third from last in the tournament on a team with two players with any college experience. This year we brought ~45 kids and two of our three teams met in finals.

Personal fun highlights were pointblocking Taft three times after he left a message on my facebook about how he was going to pointblock me (needless to say, he didnt) and then D-ing him up on his incut on game point. I also threw a few fun around forehands across field into the wind for easy scores. B Tate has a sweet callahan in the zone that basically stole away any hope for a Boro comeback. Its always fun to beat those guys.

Other fun moment: leading the 38 man P-I....T-T cheer as TallE's team cameback to beat Boro early on Sunday. Blew my voice out, but the T-T was deafening...I love this team. Got to beat up on Edinboro and a SUNY school...and that never gets boring.

Next weekend is OSU, and that will tell us a lot more about where we are.

Injuries: tweaked inner thigh muscle in last point vs. Boro, but feels better after 11 hours of sleep. I'm going to the gym to get it warmed and stretched tonight. Have a majorly inflammed middle finger on my right hand from layout D vs. Buffalo, hopefully will be fine by OSU.

Thoughts

2005-10-07T16:48:00.000-04:00

Things the team should have:

a locker full of training equipment-
jumprope, parachute, cones, tennis balls, a binder with different workouts, discs for throwing, etc. Ideally this would be in Cost(?).

books- ulti tactics as well as other good sports books and reading material about sports and training.

Webspace- I dont know how much web space we have, but if we could put an audio recording of "It's Not About the Bike" on there for team members to download, that would be sweet (though obviously illegal, but that hasnt been a problem for us so far with this team). We should also have some kind of "bank" of sports articles and info that the team can access from the website...this should be in the same format as the normal webspace, just be accessible by an individual login (pitt id and a password)...we sort of have this going with what cheese did at first...but its not very easy to access or use for the masses. We should have articles, video papers, maybe a select photoscrapbook, etc. accessible from here. It would also be excellent if we could upload film of us playing into this webspace...oh man...that opens all kinds of new possibilities...we could also put playbook tutorials in this space. The sky is the limit for this stuff...it just depends on how much time and knowledge the people who would contribute to this space would dedicate to it. This could be a huge bank of knowledge for our team to pass on from generation to generation and watching old films and such would be sweet. If we were to make this vision a reality and the webspace that Pitt provides for us werent enough...it would be worth it to look into pittultimate.org or pittultimate.com depending on what we could get and what we would have to pay in exchange.

This week

2005-10-06T21:42:00.000-04:00

Monday- full body lift w/ Wes
Tuesday- practice
Wednesday- practice, fartlik run, stair workout
Thursday- nuthin...had work, and 6 hours of class, then was getting sick when I got home and want to get through this weekend healthy (looking tougher by the hour).
Friday- rest up for Skylander...8 games this weekend and its gonna be nasty.

I also got some nutritional tips for athletes from KB and went to the grocery store on Wednesday night, which means a return to healthiest eating w/ plenty of fruits and veggies- hooray.

Practice this week has been solid. We're up on the field turf on upper campus now- much better than Cathedral Lawn. There will be a lot of shitty ultimate this weekend...my goal- play above it, let the rookies have fun while learning, win easily by not turning the disc over.

Pitt is sending 45 people to this tournament...who'da thunk that'd ever happen. The biggest thing that I am hoping out of this weekend is that ~20some guys start to seperate themselves to make A/B decisions easier after OSU. That, and that we beat the shit out of SUNY Buffalo...there may not be a shitty team that I hate more...except possibly SUNY Albany. All SUNY's can go to hell.

I gave the top rookies a taste of the real Capt. Sean at practice on Wednesday. By that I just mean being a little more intense, expecting better performance in the drills, and acting like I will in the spring more- like a captain. I think that it was okay.

Classic City Classic preliminary pools came out. I like it. It will hurt if we dont have Vatz for the tourney. But everyone else will just have to step it up. Josh and others are putting a lot of weight on our performance at that tourney, and while it will matter...playing without your two best cutters (if that is the case- Brent, Vatz) will make it difficult to really assess where we are at.

I need to remember after the first game of the day to assess how I want to turnover-wise. My hope is that we will be good enough to play conservative ultimate and I wont "have" to take shots. Actually, the more I think about it...I should play this way and put the onus on Evan to be the one taking the shots.

Oh baby...they just moved CMU over to my pool...FUCK YUK...hell yeah!

Looking ahead

2005-10-02T14:55:00.000-04:00

While the Philly game sucked hairy ballsacks, there were a couple of good things. After not playing a lot for the day, Rob got a sweet sky D catching up to Philly's main deep (TC) and getting over him. Jenkins put up a sweet away pass in the Philly game and threw a nice I/O (that was nearly too much O) score to TallE. Evan also played great D in the BaNC game and moved decisively on offense all day. TallE will be solid, and his deep shots looked better at regionals...he threw a couple of seemingly effortless flick hucks from the brick. Wes is getting there, he needs to focus on being lighter to gain speed, he needs to become more aggressive. Like when that Ogre from BaNC was covering him...he needed to get downfield and gain big yards rather than just giving us a free dump option. Josh played some headsup D. And had a nice closing D as DD in the zone in the BaNC game. Josh's game is so mental that its hard to judge when he aint playing for Pitt...he started to make some good bids though. Stu will be solid...him playing on an O line will help his disc conversation a lot I think.

The bad- according to the sage- Billy Kieffer, Colorado returns their top 4- JV, Chicken, Richter, Beau. Unbelievable. Apparently Richter didnt play as a freshman, or something? Whatever...we're bringing it this spring, and the higher the climb, the better the view. There will be individuals that we will struggle with, but what we have to develop is a very nice team. We will get to that level on only one thing- the character of our players and our willingness to put in the work it takes to improve. And once we are there we will only succeed by playing upon the strengths of our team. Figure out what you do well, and do that. Thats us baby.

Club Regionals

2005-10-02T03:20:00.000-04:00

Posting this at 3:20am...hard to explain why I'm doing this now, but I have the energy at the moment and its fresh.

There are a number of things that I learned about myself this tournament. First is that sleeping properly leading up to a tournament is an absolute must. I will be stressing this for the entirety of the college season. For student teaching, I hope to come home and nap immediately afterschool (on non-practice days) and then wake up to train/eat/prepare. I never felt ready to play in the Truckstop game, and it showed. I dropped the second pull that we received on the day. It was surreal and unnacceptable, but when the disc hit my hands and fell, it was like that moment in a dream where you are falling and then are about to hit the ground and wakeup...and I was just left thinking...did that really happen? Yep.

That pull rattled me and I felt shakey on every pull the rest of the day. I think this feeling was proliferated by everyone on my team telling me that "it was over" and "you got this" and things like that...which simply reminded me of the fuckup. Or, when in a team huddle, Danks referred to me as "pull-dropper." What a guy. I refuse to ever be on a team with that fucker again. Anyway, all that really needed to be said is Deo or TallE saying "that is not who you are, dont give it another thought" or something. The difference being that everyone bringing it up made me talk about it (to defend myself, yeah right), and made me think about it more and more. I just needed to know that I was better than that, have someone believe in me, and go. Instead, all of the "you'll get it" and "you'll work through its" and reminders of the error that made it haunt me the rest of the day.

I dropped two more easy passes on the day. One running into the endzone in the Truckstop game when I was milking a beautiful throw from Stu to get into the endzone, nearly ran too fast and ran into the disc, tried to catch abruptly, bobble, etc. drop. Ridiculous. Worst of all, now it was chronic, or something. Or so I thought. Its one thing to make throwing errors because of a lack of mental focus or something, because I get so many throwing reps that I can just work it out easily, but catching pulls and away passes (where you have time to think about it) are a little different. Insteresting. The final drop was in the W&M game (game two) when I made an upline cut for what would have been a goal. Deo threw his upline flick, which is wobbly and got pushed by the wind so that as I went to stab it on one plane it jerked a bit, and my hand ended up scraping the top of the disc. This needed to be an easy clap...or maybe just a flat throw out in front of me. But yeah, my fault. Ridiculous.

Throwaways: TallE will have the official number, but I won the competition. I had one error in the Truckstop game. It was a swing toward Turco, who was gassed. I threw the disc really hard, hoping to get it to him while he was still in the endzone, and just threw it harder than he had the gas to get to it. W&M- I dont recall any, but I think there was one. BaNC- two. A rushed flick huck to Turco that continues to provide me with overwhelming evidence that I should not rush that throw...at least this time it was a good throw, just on the wrong angle and out of bounds, instead of turfed. Second was on a give-and-go with Jason. This was due to me not trusting him as a receiver (wonder why?) and trying to put the disc in a tiny window where it would be easiest for him to catch. I just missed, and Jason mistimed his jump, so the disc popped up over him. Philly- one. Another miscommunication with Turco. He was making a cut in on the breakside, I threw to him around the reset (Stu) and as he had dissapeared from my vision behind stu, he also stopped his cut.

I was 2/3 on hucks. Missed the one to Turco. Had a not-so-hot one to Stu in the Truckstop game that he read-well for a goal, and had one that I liked a lot to Turco in the BaNC game.

The Philly game was one of the most frustrating games of Ultimate that I have ever been a part of. With the exception of the miscommunication with Turco I was turnover free (that was late in the game with the outcome no longer in doubt), but it seemed like everyone else was just trying to give them the disc...we refused to play possession offense...we just wanted to grip and rip, chuck and huck. It was terrible...the way to beat those guys is to be patient...to use the reset, to outwork them...we're supposed to be the team with more legs, right? That dont mean beat them on the first sprint of the point, fella's. So I would basically feel like I would keep going out on the field, and doing my job and executing every time I was looked to (get the disc, break the mark or move the disc upfield)...but after a few throws someone would want to throw it away. Then it was hard to come with the D...

(sidenote: Timmy once again did not live up to his own hype, getting no D's against us)

My D is getting there. O line defense is weird. You dont come down breathing fire, you come down breathing let-down cause some guy just chucked the disc away (or some dufous dropped a pass/pull, hi). Anyway, there were a lot of times when I would have had a layout D, but I didnt have my feet set to fly. A bunch in the W&M game, a couple in the Philly game, a bunch in the Truckstop game..I was right fucking there and didnt go. I think this is also a matter of sprint recovery and endurance training and speed- conditioning. I need to have enough in the tank to summon up that energy for the bid mid-point. And more than anything else...its desire...I just dont think that I was every invested enough in the outcome for this team to get goin. This is also a shame, but I just play my D on emotion.

(sidenote: Ed Van Leer is a dickhead)

I got beat deep once, but I would have had the D had I not tangled feet with the receiver at the very end of the run (I was PISSED about that one). So when he called a timeout I decided to just fucking eat him alive on the mark, and I forced the turn. That is something I was good at today...getting turns from the mark. I was swinging around on 5/6 when the thrower turned to the dump...forced a bunch of stall 8/9 hammers to space that we ate and got Shultz a callahan on a stall 10 reset attempt.

Parinella says: Players make plays. Parinella also says a lot about O players refusing to throw the disc away. I think that it will be interesting to explore where these two ideas overlap throughout the spring. Because while I was attempting to refuse to throw the disc away (and other people were throwing it away) I was feeling like I needed to make a play. But I am now thinking that I might just have a misconception of what he means by "plays." For me, making a play means always getting open for the reset (which I was good with today). Or breaking the mark when we had to have it. Or breaking the mark to start some better flow on the other side of the field. And at times, the occasional cross-field flick bender or huck. So maybe they do work together, but each player needs to understand that the mindset needs to be "I have to make plays" AND "for me a play is ______ (fill in team role here)."

Idris says: Know what you do well, and do it. I break the mark and throw 30 yards and under anywhere on the field well. That is what I tried to do all day today, and I had my best decision-making performance of the fall, by far. I hope to expand this to "I throw flat hucks out in front of deep cutters to both sides" by the spring.

In other news, Pike lost to Potomac :-( They went down 4-10, back to lead 13-12, lost 15-13. Pike has pretty much the same lineup from last fall...so what is the difference? They looked bad earlier in the day only beating Truckstop 15-13, having trailed most of the way.

So to sum-up: Sleep. Make plays in your role. Lay-out.

The real season has begun. 237 days.

Masters Scrimmage and Throwing Practice

2005-09-29T22:42:00.000-04:00

Last night Burgh scrimmaged the masters team. We won easily, 15-6. The oldies just didnt bring anything to the game, we were patient the first few points and they never really put up a fight.

Personally, I had zero errors on the night, which was a goal for me. I was happy with how I played, although its different than normal. I only threw one goal, and it was a routine quick flick break when the mark was slow getting on. A couple people made a big deal about it...which I really didnt understand, it was just routine. One interesting moment was when I was marking Coach and he got the reset and went to throw the swing, I came over to what I thought was wide enough, and he just kept reaching around with the ole lefty flick. When he threw it I thought to myself "damn...thats tough to stop," then I thought about how much I throw that exact throw and had a little chuckle to myself. I'm looking forward to playing my best ultimate at Regionals.

I threw with Andrew and Jake Christian for about an hour and a half this evening. I was working with Jake on throwing while balanced and stepping out. He is progressing. I was working on throwing the flick huck with a mark on (60/40 force flick). I had learned to throw the huck stepping forward this summer. I was trying that with Jake marking me and it just was not working out. I was too worried about the handblock to get any I/O release on the disc when released so close to the mark (whether it would be a foul or not)...so they were just ugly. So I adjusted to releasing by stepping out very wide and just throwing the hell out of the disc. This worked much better, I began putting them out 60-65 yards with regularity and the mark was no where close...fuckin sweet.

Jim Parinella just sent me some workout materials from DoG, with a typical pragmatic warning about plyo's due to the immature bodies of college students...a warning worth heeding, though we are certainly going to steal some of the stuff.

My jumprope, insoles and cleats will be delivered tomorrow, just in time for regionals. Looking forward to starting to work with the jumprope and getting back in a good pair of cleats.

Lance

2005-09-28T11:29:00.000-04:00

I'm a big fan of Lance. I've read both of his autobiographies...and there are just so many little gems of inspiration in there amongst the greater story of overcoming all odds. Here is something I read last night as I was finishing up the second book:

"For instance, theres no math that can tell you why some people ride in the Tour de France, some never enter the race, and some dont risk. I've known guys who never quite put it all on the line, and you know what? They lost. One minute, after nearly a month of suffering, can decide who wins. Is it worth it? It depends on whether you want to win. I have the will to suffer. I do have that.

There are parts uknown with regard to human performance, and those are the parts when it's just about pain and forfeit. How do you make yourself do it? You remind yourself that you're fulfilling you obligation to get the best from yourself, and that all achievement is born out of sacrifice."

Eight months from now it could come down to a single throw. A single mistake could make all the difference. The question for the next eight months will be: Do we have the will to suffer? Do we feel obliged to our teammates to get the best from ourselves and one another? Are we willing to make the sacrifice to achieve?

Last "off weekend" for a while

2005-09-25T23:38:00.000-04:00

No tournament this weekend. Friday saw a good 5+ hours of Ultimate still though. I threw with Jake Christian, a promising rookie for an hour on the Cathedral Lawn. I got him stepping out and throwing balanced while releasing the disc away from his body, and got him to start using more wrist and less arm. Also worked on his flick hucks, they are coming along. We'll see how much transfers over to practice. Afterwards went right up to the IM fields to work with TallE, Vatz and Josh on resetting the disc. Had my most defensive success when faceguarding for the first move. I'd like to get better at bodying up on the dump cutter, I think that would be the best defense. I know that when someone gives me a cushion I feel real comfortable, but when they body, especially against FM, I have to work harder. I should have realized this last spring when I gave Tommy fits by bodying-up. I think this defensive technique will become even more effective as I continue to work on my fast-twitch muscles via jumprope and stairs work.

Friday night we had a special practice for the top 12 rookies. 11/12 made it to the practice, on late notice, on a friday night- woah. What a success it was. 5 playing vets (me, talls, josh, mike lo, wes) an injured Vatz and Coach. We did some skill work with breaking the mark, then Vatz did a clinic on power cutting. We immediately followed the instruction by running solo- a drill that isolates a cutter in a lane against a defender. This was a great drill...we really got to see how the rookies stacked up. Brandon, Patrick and Pat all impressed in this drill. Later we were saying "no one in the region will be able to cover Brandon," then I said, "well, Patrick could, but he's on our team also." It's going to be a fun year. We ran solo for a good while, and you could see things coming together in their heads. After solo we scrimmaged. It was a very very solid scrimmage. The level of play was about what it was last January before the split I would say. The best part of it was the intensity, both teams were working hard, and making the other pay (often) for mistakes. Mike Pannone was playing in sandals...and was absolutely toasting people...he is ridiculously fast. My team went down big early, then Josh and I started doing what we do and finished the game on a 3-0/4-1 run. We were hurt by having to have me with either JJ or Brad B handling, both playing poorly on the night. The low 4 were probably Zach, Skylar, Brad and JJ...three residing on team Sean/Josh. Its strange to have cared about a scrimmage at practice, but I'm retrospectively bitter about having 3 of those 4 and 2/5 A teamers...stupid Josh making teams.

After going to Steak and Shake and Walmart until 3am, getting out to Fox Chapel for a 10am club practice was rough. I came to realize at this practice how important it is to sleep...I just felt like shit all day, never felt warmed up, always tight. I threw two turnovers...one being a flick that just sailed a couple yards out of bounds from the target. This is of note because I did the same thing this morning...but this time it was because Danks is a fucking cheater and waits to call "TRAVEL!!!" until the thrower is releasing the disc, which caused me to think about holstering the throw, causing me to throw it out of bounds. Fucking cheater. Fucking old men trying to hang on. I can just be happy I wont be his teammate again after this weekend, cause thats a shitty way to play the game. Anyway, interesting notes on practice is that our O team sucked against the FM. I think Banyas will help us out here as a cutter who will break the mark after getting the disc downfield. It just seems that TallE and I are looking downfield at a bunch of cutter running straight down the marks back. This also made me think that Pitt should play a lot more FM in the spring.

Thoughts for the spring:

Jenkins- needs to be big for us on the O line...needs to get some nice hucks goin on, needs to get open reliably on the dump.
Mike Lo- I want to watch his D this weekend...he is scrappy and chippy and if the O line aint happenin, maybe he could be a good vet presence on what will be a young D line...he has the right attitude, but needs to leave his feet
Andrew and Rob- listened to them talk about what they did instead of coming to practice for ~20 minutes on the ride to Burgh on saturday morning...how frustrating. They both need to be more committed and much better in the spring- I hope that they are gonna work for it...we need them to.
Blogs- more people need them. We should have "pittultimatetalk.com" or something like that with a bunch of us updating. That would be sweet. I'd have to check some of my shit-talk though...boo.

Other event of note- ordered my Nikeid Speed TD cleats saturday. Hopefully they'll be in for the Ohio State tourney. Nike says 3-4 weeks. I think I'm also going to purchase a second pair so that hopefully, between the two pairs, a shitty pair for rain, and practicing on the new turf...I'll be set through the spring.

*One of those days...

2005-09-23T17:52:00.000-04:00

So...this one goes out to any future captain of Sabah. So we are trying to have this higher level practice and having a fucking terrible time trying to get a field to do it. Every move I (we) make, its the wrong one...not matter how much time we spend debating what is right. I spent two hours last night trying to figure out what to do to best help these rookies, we finally thought we had it worked out and then 2 hours before the practice, the field is taken out from underneath our feet. Not only that, but I'm struggling right now because some of us have totally and completely committed to the idea of winning a national championship...I am one of those few. I train everyday, I have changed my eating habits, sleeping habits, studying habits...I am paying $13K in tuition alone to be in school this year to give everything that I have to this goal. I am totally and completely committed to that. But this is a team sport. There need to be ~20 other guys on that page to get it done...and waiting for them to come over is hard as hell.

This is the curse of the captain. You are the catalyst. The team starts, pauses and ends with you...if you cant care, they wont care. You have to be the hope, when all have lost hope...even yourself. You have to keep your nose to the grindstone, to continue to demand constant self-improvement, more dedication, more hard work...when things most most grim.

The thing of it is, when you see the others making the team the second priority...when you will drop everything in your life and bust your ass so that a handful of rookies can have one higher level practice, but some of the other A-teamers will not even make sure that they can be there...it crushes you the most. In many ways...the captain may not have to be the strongest of body or skill on the team...but the strongest of will. I believe that there have been times that I've willed things to happen for this team. Not often, and not by myself certainly. But I have lead the charge. And its hardest to remember those at moments like this, when you are consumed by frustration...but when you keep your nose to the grindstone, the payoff is well worth the difficulty in getting there.

"Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will. "
--Mahatma Gandhi

The other thing is this- find the guys on your team who are willing to lay it all on the line, who want it as badly as you do...keep them close to you. If you do start to waiver...their enthusiasm and their belief will pick you up. You cant do it all yourself. This has proven invaluable to me over the past couple of years.

"Don't give up. Dont ever give up."
-Jimmy V

Getting Caught Up

2005-09-22T23:47:00.000-04:00

I havent blogged in a while. I hope that hasnt been too big of a dissapointment to the six of you that read this. Tuesday Pitt had practice. We had relatively low numbers (compared to the previous weeks), the positive aspect to this was that the 12 rookies that we are especially keen on keeping around were still there. I guess we are doing something right then. The Pitt practice was decent. I came late due to class, but Coach Weasel had been there doing a throwing clinic which was apparently a big success. He got Brandon throwing like a champ, which was huge b/c I think the fact that he was struggling developing his skills was really frustrating him- although with his athleticism it was really just a matter of time. We rant the WUFF Camp box drill pretty well and then did some three team scrimmaging. My team went 2-0 (in games to three) including a comeback win over Josh's team in a game that he really wanted to win. I dont get the psyched up for these little practice scrimmages, but there are few things I enjoy better than handing a Josh a big L when he gets into super competetive mode. So I put the ole "Suff-o-mark" (suffocating mark) on Jenkins and got us a couple of turnovers and we ended up working to get the win.

Probably the most important aspect of Tuesday was another "Lunch with Weasel" where I had finally put together and articulated a number of sentiments I had about the team that had been floating around in my head but I hadnt been able to put into words. As I had mentioned earlier, our team really really MUST specialize in the reset, I really think that this will be paramount. If we are to win it this year, it will be by playing ball-control offense, and in order to do that...we're going to have to be able to move the disc at will. Part of that will have to do with being one of, if not the most skilled teams at nationals...and everyone on this team needs to improve their skills, across the board.

The other thing that I realized was while having lunch with Josh. I think we were discussing how our vets have been sucking it up at practice- goofing off and not taking it nearly as seriously as they should, not getting themselves better. My take is this: with the possible exception of Brent, we were all mediocre players at nationals. That was enough to get us out of the ME, but not enough to do anything but make a couple of teams sweat once we were there. We all need to improve our skills- TallE, myself, vatz, stu and wes on the deep ball particularly...everyone else on breaking the mark via the pivot and throwing with touch into space. Our entire D-line needs to get much more athletic, I'm doing my part, for sure...but I hope everyone remembers the frustration of not being able to get the turn when we needed it in the Georgia game. As for our rookies, they need to get to the point of functional skills at that level and then the top athletes among them- Brandon, Patrick, Pat and probably Jake need to make some big plays on defense. Pat needs to win his share against the Dillon Tunnels of the world and Brandon and Patrick need to just be quicker and faster than people respectively. I wish I could make them see how easily they could come to dominate this game with their level of athleticism.

I had gotten shitty sleep sunday and monday nights due to getting my homework done, and having to still finish what was due wednesday and getting through the days on ~5 hours of sleep, I skipped club practice in order to get the homework done and sleep. I slept in on Wednesday and it was like a whole new world. I really cannot overstate how important getting good sleep is going to be to me for this year for staying healthy and recovering and everything. I am going to have to do some serious cost/benefit analysis when it comes time for Cost Center practices and having to be out at school at 8:10 or whatever.

So Wednesday Wes and I did our Stair workout at CMU. I had hoped to double-up with a Fartlik run, but when I got out there, there was a girls soccer game and they had closed the track. Bitches. So I just read for class and waited for Wes to do stairs. Did the three sets, this time I wasnt as cardiovascularly tired, but my legs felt it a lot more...I had the shakes big time. Then we did some throwing. I was putting some nice 60 yard flickies out there to wes, right down the pipe...pretty sweet.

Tonight I finished classes for the week...I swear, every week I just survive to the next. Our projects are beginning to become due over these next two weeks and after this weekend, I have three tournies in a row...so I need to bust my ass this weekend and get ahead. Tonight after I got home and ate I was getting dressed to go do a sprint workout when it started to pour. I considered not going to run...it was 10:30 and pouring. But I sucked it up and got out there. Here's the workout:

15 x (60-90), start the watch at the first 60. You have a minute to finish each sprint and get back to the start line. During the 60s, that is easy. During the 90s, it gets kind of tough. In total, the workout take 29 minutes + ~13 seconds.

It's a nice little workout. A real ass-kicker. But I really saw it translating to a game well...sprint recovery and all. Not sure what all is on tap for tomorrow. I am thinking a track workout perhaps. I might start my track workouts to be what those Atl guys posted. With the three tournies coming up I think I'd like to be lifting two days a week...maybe do the light/distance run on Monday, lift Tue, harder track/fartlik/sprints/stairs Weds, lift Thurs, 2-3 miles on Fri? This of course being complicated by having Burgh on T and W of next week. I've been reading a lot about training, but its tough to know which one will be key for me...

I feel good though...I feel this shit working. The dietician also has me eating much better. I mean, I ate fairly well before, but moving over to trail mix as the snack rather than pretzels or something is paying off...as is trying to eat more at breakfast, and making powerbars my other new snack...and paying more attention to fruits and veggies...I get through the day with a lot more energy to train at night.

Monday, Sept 19th

2005-09-19T21:45:00.000-04:00

Tonight Wes and I did all three of Jaegers supersets at the gym. It took us a little over two hours...mostly due to having to wait for various machines/stations. I also did 20 minutes on the stair master to warm-up. My body was crashing hard at the end of the lift. I mean it was: squats, lunges, pivots, quads, hammys, calves, abductor, aductor, bench, incline, pull-up, lat pull downs, upright row, bi's, tri's, painters, washers, rear delts, decline press, chest flys, and some ab stuff while we waited. Long night. Most of those being two sets of 15 reps. I have learned the following while lifting this month: there's a big difference between 10 and 15. Anyway, during the chest fly's I was feeling it hard...I pumped them out and got the tri's out. I lost a half-pound during the lift compared to after the warm-up. I left weighing 185.5. That means I lost two pounds over since Thursday...which seems odd, but not as odd as losing nothing over the weekend of Chicago. So whatever. Also means I've lost 8 pounds since coming to school. 175 here I come.

I didnt lift yesterday due to Wes oversleeping after the Stillers game. But that was alright, I was still pretty sore from landing on my head at Sectionals. Tomorrow is Burgh practice...which will probably be a waste of my night, althoughwe may due some sprints, which would be alright. I just feel as if I am obligated to travel to these practices so that my teammates who dont play in college (all five of them) get a chance to drill and throw. I would just rather spend the night at the track. But this is what I've gotten myself into.

Okay, 10:00 was my cut-off, time to get to schoolwork.

Zaz

2005-09-18T19:14:00.000-04:00

Eric Zazlow has a great blog. www.zazman.blogspot.com

This was a reply he made to a comment on his blog:

"Honestly, I think the biggest difference between Tier 1 and Tier 2 is expectation of excellence. Personal expectations and aspirations, as well as team expectations. Tier 2 teams needn't accept most of the turnovers that happen, but they often do. I am encouraged by the sight of my team keeping stats and focussing on turnovers and appreciating how much hinges on simple mistakes such as over-running a mark. When these expectations are brought to practices and simple mistakes are corrected, play improves immensely and a team can focus on more subtle mistakes."
---------
Expectation of and aspirations to excellence will be something that will have to set Pitt Ultimate apart this spring. I'm thinking of challenging TallE to a turnover competition: who can have less on each day of a given tournament.

Club Sectionals- Pitt

2005-09-18T17:13:00.000-04:00

Club sectionals was phenomenal for Pitt. Our teams of B teamers from last year and rookies finished first and second in Division II. Each team had one loss. One losing to PSU early in the day, rolling at the end when they started playing only the top of the lineup (but still losing). The other only losing to the first Pitt team. Both Pitt teams beat CMU split teams missing four A-team players from last year. The PSU team was mainly sophomores with a few freshman (one I recall having played at Easterns last year). Other than that, it was high school teams.

I have to say that I expected the Pitt teams to play at about this level. I havent heard a great number of reports, but Nick said that the teams played as much as "a team" as any team he has been a part of. Which is a good sign. I saw Patrick Newsome making some absurdly athletic plays and I heard Blake Watkiss taking a cooldown jog after the game and telling the people he was jogging with about a track meet where he competed against people on the olympic team, and in terms of intensity, this blowing that away. The final game certainly was intense. Pitt beat PSU 15-12. All ~50-60 Pitt guys at the tournament were on the sidelines screaming and going crazy for their teammates...bringing their intensity up. Blake had a last second fingertip deflection of a PSU huck that was a great play (although getting roasted wasnt so great). After getting the D his intensity was contagious, and he tore his shirt. Great kid.

I talked with Jake about me taking him under my wing a bit, needing him to be a big player for us in the spring, and needing him to listen to me and heed my advice in order for that to work out. He was very reseptive. First thing is first: that damn flare when he is holding the disc has GOT to go. Jake is still a bit of a spaz on the field and I dont care for his affinity for the hammer, but he will play good defense and is athletic, and wants to learn from me (most important :-]).

After the games Vatz, TallE, Josh, Coach, Rob, Brad and I went out. We talked about many of the issues I talked about in the team size/ O + D line entry. We figure Evan will have to move over to the O line, Wes will have to become a dominant cutter and the D line will have to get more athletic and skilled. Among other things. Weasel also prefers the 19-22 range, as does TallE. Vatz is still fighting for ~25 (much of this out of compensation for him being the only stud from his class, I suspect).

It was good to talk with Weasel again. I like what his perspective brings to our discussion. TallE as well, I miss him on the Core.

Overall, sectionals was great for the guys. They got out and played four-five games and got some great experience. The lower half of our rookies still bother me. Its so cut-throat, but thats the way I have to be this year. I want the top 10 to just keep getting better. I hope that we can start working with them at the IM fields this wednesday.

Offensive Protection

2005-09-18T17:00:00.000-04:00

While I was watching football today I had a thought correlating an offensive line to dumping/resetting the disc. Being a handler I have always focused on this idea. When RUN beat Pike two years ago, I felt it was because we had a couple of defenders who made their handlers unsure that they would be able to easily hit the reset, and so they forced throws upfield that werent there. I think that overpowering an offensive line in football puts similar pressure on the offense and forces bad decisions downfield. I know that when I feel I can get the dump at will my team should never force things downfield and i personally play much more conservatively, because there is no need to play any other way.

I thought about reading another blog, probably either the Count or Parinella's again where they spoke about DoG seeming to specialize in the reset during their reign atop the club scene. And I think about all the superbowl champions who, by the time they had made it so deep in the playoffs, get a lot of attention for how cohesive a group their offensive line is, and the kind of protection they supply the offense (after spending most of the year being after thoughts after the skill position). I think this is another similarity...players often work on their hucks, hammers, bending throws, etc. But rarely work at throwing a good, floating dump into space that allows the offense the advantage on a reset; or dont work on throwing the upline pass that will just sit in front of an upline cut, fast enough to get out in front of the defender but not too fast to run away from the receiver. These things are often overlooked by teams, but I think that at nationals, its often the teams with the skills to give themselves easy resets and confidence on offense that play late into saturday and on sunday.

Club Sectionals- Burgh (seancentric)

2005-09-18T09:47:00.000-04:00

Founders Sectionals was held in Pittsburgh at Turner Valley yesterday. The A division only had 6 teams: Pike, Philly, Burgh, ICU, Bucknell, Penn State. So we were able to get it done in one day, which is fine with me because I really dont enjoy satruday of normal sectionals where you just beat the crap out of college teams all day.

We opened with ICU. I started out alright because like against many teams, I had any throw that I wanted. But then I started to get greedy. I just kept turning the damned disc over. It was unreal. The absolute worst was when there was a turnover in our endzone, I ran the disc up to the line, Stu took off deep and I unbelievably rushed the throw and put it directly out of bounds. Amateur hour. It felt, like how I was playing a few weekends ago...just trying to force everything...worse than how I was playing for Pitt during the bad stretches I had at Nationals. I know that my refusal to turn the disc over this spring on the D line is going to be absolutely essential to our success as a team, and I am trying to learn that now rather than the spring.

Other highlight of the game was following a shitty dump cut for TallE he had to throw a stall-9 crossfield hospital pass. Pissed that I didnt get open I decided that I was catching that God-damned disc (obviously intended for a covered Banyas). So I got up pretty big, probably the biggest I've gotten up in a game, while overtop of the pile, with my hand on the disc, catching it...my legs got taken out. The next thing I knew I was going headfirst into the ground. Landed on my head pretty bad. On the way to the ground I called the foul, I heard someone on the ICU sideline scream in disbelief of the foul...so that first thing I did after I landed and hadnt lost consciousness was start arguing. I love it. Turns out, everyone agreed to it being a foul (though I have to say that I dont think that I jumped straight up in the air, but whatever...thats the advantage the highest man gets, and I think that I'm going to make that me more and more often now).

This sky was kind of like the layout D I had against Bomb in Mercer this summer. Not on the same level, because I could get adrenaline pumping thinking about that D for a week afterward...but the feeling of being overtop of a pile of people, skying all of them...nice. Speaking of that layout D...the feeling of getting that one really made me want to start making more bids. Unfortunately, I didnt get too many more opportunities with Blaze, didnt care enough usually in Pada, though I guess I did make some bids, and either dont care enough (cant get that level of defensive intensity on the O line) or the teams we play against know that other players will be open enough that they dont need to throw to a tightly covered guy (good ultimate). Either way I had one that I absolutely should have made a bid for in the Philly game, I still hit the disc a millisecond before Kareem caught it, but he caught it. And the idea of that guy scoring on me really pisses me off, whether it was on a breakside huck or not. Fuck! I did sky Alex on a heads up help D off the back of the stack earlier that point...that was sweet...nothing like getting a D on the first player you really saw as a superstar in the sport.

On to Pike. We eventually pulled out a squeaker over the Masters 11-10. I was of little help, probably should have come out after the landing on the head. So after the game, having played while feeling dizzy and having my head throbbing I sat down between rounds and for the first 6ish points of the Pike game. After having half of our rookies watching me vag out and seeing our handlers being static (which Pike ate up), I couldnt take it anymore and went into the game. I played all of my point in the game error free. I broke the mark consistently, moved the disc quickly and got open at will on Mio, who can eat me up as a defender if I'm having a bad day or before I was good. I even caught this disc that Deo was fouled on by reaching between Mio's torso and arm. I also threw two scores, one a flick of ~40-45 yards to Deo, the other a backhand of about the same length to Jason. This one was satisfying because at this point they had become marginally concerned about the mark they were putting on me (i hesitate to say actually concerned because I dont think they were concerned with us at all, but knowing the Pike mentality probably just concerned that they play their game the right way), and I threw it a little low release with some bend on it to get around Mio's on-coming mark. I only ended up playing i think around 8 points of the Pike game, but played well.

The hour between the Pike and Philly game really killed me. Everything tightened up, I think due to the landing on the head thing, and I was not feeling well. Then as I waited for the team warm-up for longer and longer Deo eventually said "5 minutes till game time, lets drill." This was not the way to approach this game, the most important of the day. But its fine. I was happe with the D matchups I gave our D team. Especially Turco on TC, that resulted in a number of D blocks throughout the game. Tim Johnson, despite his self-hyped defensive abilities didnt have any blocks. Ringo covered me most of the game, but I usually had no problem getting the dump and swing off on him. Mazuco covered me a few times also and once as I pivoted through, fell due to contact with his leg, but completed the falling pass he said "I have to touch you for it to be a foul." What universe are you in buddy?

Anyway. I urged myself throughout the game to play with more discipline. And I only had two lapses in judgement. Once throwing a flick around the stack to the break side for Evan. And once throwing a flick huck to Banyas that hung and he was already too deep on the field for. The one for evan was a frustrating one and somewhat characteristic of my problems with the team. Phillys defenders sat inside of their guy on the force side, staring at me. Meanwhile, our cutters just hung out in the stack and let them chill there. If someone would have just faded to that back cone over there, I could hit them with an easy bender. But no. So I forced it. Amateur hour.

My other frustration in this game was the following: like I said, I was getting the reset and swing at will, TallE and I were both breaking the force at will against these guys. You would think that seeing that we were getting everything we wanted, our downfield guys would chill out and let us walk the disc into the endzone with them. But no...Jason Pratt decided that it was time to break out the huck. And Deo had the dropsies like nobodys business. Wow was that frustrating. Anyway...we kept coming close, but coming up short against these guys. Very tough. 14-10 loss.

We rounded out the day crushing two college teams and my body locking up more and more. I'm more sore today than after two days of Tune-up, and I didnt even play a great number of points in 3/5 games. Oh well, I'll get some food in me and a lift and some Ibu and should be back to normal for lifting this evening. More than anything, I think that this weekend showed that we dont have that extra gear as a team, to bring intensity and go on a run with a few D-breaks and solid offense. We did it somehow against MadCow, but I have to say that more than anything I agree with what Tim said watching that game "Don't kid yourselves, they are handing you this game." Its true, we dont get blocks often, sometimes the other team just gives us the disc though.

Team size, O line and D line

2005-09-16T16:29:00.000-04:00

After reading some of The Count and Parinella's blogs I began to think a bit more about team size. Last year we had 14-15. We obviously want more than that. Do we want to go as large as the Wisconsins of the world with 25? Or is the 19-20 range more comfortable to us. How do we feel about this recruiting class...do we take more from this year because they are such a strong class, figuring we might not find such a wealth of athletic talent this year and dont want these players to develop slower on the B team?

My A team stone cold locks as of now:

TallE*
Sean*
Vatz*
Josh*
Evan*
Stu*
Wes*
Rob
Andrew*
Mike Lo
Brent*
Fraggle (in what capacity, I cannot say)

*It will be the work of these players from now until May that will determine if our team makes pre-quarters/quarters or semi's/finals. Looking at that list...only 4 of the 9 players we expect to be studs for us this coming spring play on the O team. I would think that of 9 players, you would want 5-6 of them to be on the O team. And the O team isnt the place to stick rookies, the D team is. So who should move to O? Me? Evan? Josh? Stu? Andrew? My first instincts say Evan or Stu. They are the players with the skills. Obviously I have the skills, but I think that I need to run the D-line's Offense. That said, I need to get more blocks.

That leaves the following A teamers from last year unsure:

Reed
Kitten
Tony

These are also the same three players from last years "bubble" that made A. I just went into the pictures that I have from Regionals to look at the team pic to be sure I wasnt forgetting anyone. Its amusing to see all of the braces we all had on. Such a small team. It really does say a lot about our character how we all fought so hard to get where we did. It also says a lot about the role of luck that we got the draw that we did and that things fell our way. That G-dub game sure was a battle, too bad I couldnt have made it easy on us. I did have 3 blocks though, one of my better performances.

Top B teamers:

Nick
DTR
Bailey
Camilo

-----

I think what will determine how things shake down is what we need on the A team. And I think that that is athleticism. The reason those three A teamers are on the bubble is because their man D wasnt there when we got to nationals, it wasnt up to that level. Unfortunately, I dont know that any of those B teamers have it either. It will have to be up to the rookies.

I like Nick's chances to make the O team. I like him taking Wes' position as top of the stack from last year (with Wes moving downfield and being a force as a cutter). I also see him filling Wes' role in Zone O. Wes will have to learn to be a popper as good as Stu/Fraggle though. I believe in him. Another key will be Mike Lo's ability to step it up come pressure time. He was solid at regionals, but crumbled at natties, and I dont think the club season has helped him much. Although maybe taking the step down to the college ranks will help him take a step up in confidence. He will be key. I want to run an offense with two dump options, and he needs to get more solid in order for us to do that.

The question with size is...when do you get too big to have good chemistry and have weak links? I guess this is something we'll confront for real in Jan/Feb.

Top Rookies

2005-09-16T02:35:00.000-04:00

In no particular order:

Brandon Tate (?)
Chris (?...a little higher than brandon)
Brad Bellinger (100%)
Jake Christian (100%)
Matt McCabe (100%)
Blake Watkiss (100%)
Patrick Newsome (65%...can he focus solely on ultimate enough?)
Patrick Hammonds (100%)
JJ (100%)
Skylar (100%)

Unfortunately, the two players with the highest ceiling on their potential (in my opinion): Brandon and Patrick Newsome, are also the two most likely to drop off from this list. If these ten stuck around...we'd be staring a dynasty in the face...maybe skylar is below this line...hard to say right now, the skills he came in with from high school have quickly been caught up to by most others.
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Neupauer (getting points for bro who played on Boss Hogg)
Tim (frat?)
Bulgan
Zach
Mike (really fuckin fast)
Justin Bisciglea
Ravi (is he serious?)
Kyle Warren (awesome guy)

September 16, 2005

2005-09-16T01:36:00.000-04:00

Ask not what your teammates can do for you. Ask what you can do for your teammates.
- Magic Johnson
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Today was a practice day for Pitt Ultimate. We had approximately 50+ kids out there. And that is given that some of the vets werent there. These two things are starting to concern me. They've been eating at me a bit for a week or so now. 1) We only NEED the top ten freshmen to stick around for the A team, and in all honesty, all of the rest are retarding their progress. 2) I dont know what some of the vets are thinking...but there are two problems with them: a) they arent working hard at all...most arent working outside of practice and practice these first couple of weeks is a joke, b) even when they are at practice they arent exactly being paragons of practice virtue...they are being lazy, socializing, and not helping the rookies develop.

I am going to call for a team meeting either Sunday or early next week. I'm not sure yet if I'll make it for returners or all those interested in the A team. I'm somewhat worried that if I tell everyone and say "all interested in the A team," then I'll get people who really dont belong in that meeting. But maybe they need to be scared off by something. Also, I want to create some environment where I can focus on the development of those top recruits. CMU offered to share their IM fields with us to some degree on some weeknights, and I am thinking about making those games/pickup an invite only event. These things are kind of tricky because I dont want to step on the veterans toes, but at the same time, I need to make sure that these kids who have the athleticism to play for the A team get their skills to that point before its too late. Right now I am leaning towards making that stuff with CMU be for like 20 guys- top 10 A teamers from last year and top 10 rookies. This is just an idea at this point, but I think that it provides the greatest opportunity for rookie improvement...which is what we are missing at practice.

I want to hold off on splitting the teams until after the OSU tournament on October 15-16. We'll likely send three teams to Skylander the weekend before. If we have 20+ people per team for OSU, I think that we should send a team of players we are certain to make the B team to North Coast Open or something. I know that this stuff is getting pretty cut-throat...but there is a lot that we need to see before splitting the teams and its not just seeing the rookies in game situations, but some of the veterans too. Bailey, Nick, DTR and even Camilo have looked strong in early practices...but the practices are so shitty (rookies) that its really hard to tell anything.

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Tonight Wes felt a little run down from our prior training (big lift monday, sprints on tuesday, stairs on wednesday) so he suggested just going for a maintenance run. Hoping to get a little bit more of a workout I suggested raquetball since he and I usually have good matches. Unfortunately Wes wasnt on his game tonight and it was over kind of quickly. So after he left I went for a 2 mile run on the treadmill- 14:14. Not tooo bad, for not having run miles since early August. I plan to get that down to around 12. After the run I did some Ab work, stretched to gain flexibility and worked the hip flexor and hip aductor machines. That twinge I got in my groin at Burgh practice last week coupled with Stu and Vatz's groin injuries have me a little overconcerned...but strengthening all of those muscles and stretching the groin well can only do me good.

I have a lot of thoughts on training running through my head right now. I was reading www.ultimatetalk.com tonight and reading about DoG's track workouts. I'll do one of Jaeg's track workouts next week. I would like to also get into more agility training...perhaps add that into the day we do stair workouts. Since sectionals is only one day and there is no tournament this week I'd like to do the following next week:

Sun- lift
Mon- stairs/agility
Tue- Pitt practice + Burgh practice (masters scrimmage?)
Wed- Track
Thurs- lift
Fri- Fartlik
Sat- Pitt practice + Burgh practice

I hope that this week I finally get caught up/ahead on my schoolwork and finally get a job lined up. That would be huge. I think that after each lift I am going to eat a power bar and drink some H2O on the bike and then run two miles.

I left the gym weighing 187.5 tonight. Goal playing weight (by time I leave school for winter break)- 175lbs.

September 15, 2005

2005-09-15T01:06:00.000-04:00

Tonight Wes and I did Jaeger's stair workout at the CMU stadium. We did ascents in this order: highknee1step-quickfeet-highknee2steps-quickfeet-1leghop-quickfeet-
1leghop-quickfeet-2up1down-quickfeet*. The height at the stadium was good because you started to reach muscle failure near the top and really had to push through the last few. The workout was much better than I had anticipated, the sweat was pouring off of us as we went. We then threw for a little while, but Wes's arm got sore...he may be developing tendonitis...that would be bad.

The quote of the day goes to Lance:

"Nobody could give that kind of confidence to an athlete, except himself. It couldn't be faked, or called up at the last minute. You got it from everything you did leading up to the competition, so that on the day of the race itself, you looked around at all the other strong riders beside you, and said, "I'm ready. I've done more than they have. Bring it on."

I believe in this sentiment whole heartedly...you may be able to fool other people about your training for a little while, but when you are on the line in the big game, only you know if you have done the vital preparatory work or not, and having the confidence of knowing that you have may make all the difference.

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*Added directions for stairs workout- with quickfeet changing from 1 step at a time to 2 steps at a time across sets; highknees concentrate on form; quickfeet concentrate on arm drive and quick turnover; 2up1down concentrate on short explosive hops with minimal time on the ground.

And so it begins

2005-09-14T16:55:00.000-04:00

I've decided to start this blog today because today is a very important day. Today marks 255 days until the finals of the College Championship tournament. Everyday between today and that day needs to be important to me and my team if we hope to be on the field on May 28, 2006.

I'm writing this blog for a few reasons. First, is to give my mind an outlet. I have a lot of good thoughts that go through my head about this team and this sport, but sometimes they just fade away before I have a chance to tell anyone. Second, is as a bit of a historical piece. I once considered writing a captains log for the Starship Sabah, ala Jean Luc-Pacard. I thought about this as I was first starting to captain this team 3-4 years ago without much of an idea of what to do. My hope is that I do a decent enough job this year that future captains in our program will be able to take some information away from this to help their own leadership. I know that every team is different and will bring their own unique set of needs, but it is comforting to know that others have struggled as leaders before you, and that the struggle is well worth it. Thirdly, I am writing this to hold myself accountable; accountable to myself and my team. I want us to be a great team this spring, and I want myself to be a great player this spring and I believe that those two things will feed off of each other. Finally, there are some people away from the team right now (specifically Brent and Brody) who are as obsessed with this team and its progress as I am, and hopefully this is another way for them to stay informed.

My hope is to spend a few minutes each day writing about both the team and my personal progress. I am a busy dude, so hopefully I am disciplined enough to make sure that that happens. So without further ado...here we go.