tempe bound

Wow. My first tourney on "grass" (Tempe in January = a lot of brown) since Labor Day 2007. W0w again. Lots goes through my head. Sure, I've played plenty of games since then, but not that much. Winter and Summer leagues with a stellar record of course, but probably never more than 5 straight hours of play. This is two days. And while there was some talk of working out, it didn't get very far. I hit the stairs up from the reservoir a few times, but I never was pushing it. That's what I find the hardest now -- just actually caring enough to try. One long league game by itself can be tough, this will be 7 or 8 games. Thank goodness we have a few previous world champs besides myself. Ones that still play, you know, the Fall Season. Throw in the Team USA tryout kids, the UPA champs, you start to see why although I might be out of shape, I'm not too worried about the result. I hear we even have a beach stud -- might be very helpful on those sandy fields.

Any team that plays us needs to focus on one main thing -- be the team that plays us the last round on Saturday. It's a key round. People are focused on important things like lasagna, The Library, hot tubs. The greater Phoenix area has a lot to offer. Apparently, there is even surfing in Tempe! Surfing's probably our #1 nemesis in this difficult last round. Maybe people are thinking about golf, there is loads of golf in the region. And imagine the distraction that is the Super Bowl. What if we run into some Cardinals fans that think we should throw every pass like a Kurt Warner bomb, but in thumber form? Who will be our Larry Fitz? Do people think that will help our chances in the last round of the day?

Yes, those were my last round concerns. But I figured, hopefully, the local and/or UPA insiders on the roster can set the schedule up in just the right way to get us through that evil round. And then a few minutes ago, after all the good things I've ever said about Tempe, I look at the schedule and they have us playing a showcase game. A showcase game? In January!?!?! Unbelievable. I guess it makes sense. This tourney was always about the late finals under the lights on Sunday. But that damn Super Bowl has all the locals running the show ready to bail ASAP on Sunday. And they still want their showcase. So elite pool #1 and #2 play a last round game -- please, pull up a chair to the sideline -- on Saturday night. Well, Big Sweet Onion Co., this is your huge chance. For your sake, I hope you make it count.

Sunday last round is a whole different ball of wax.

how to handle a blowout

there was a bit in the news last week about a high school girls basketball game which was won 100-0.  The coach of the winning team wound up losing his job over the incident, or maybe because he refused to back down against opposition to his team's scoring.  i read a few articles about it, and i must say that i didn't disagree with the coach all that much.  now i wasn't at this basketball game, so i can't speak to how exactly it was played or how anyone's actions were "unsporting", but the 100-0 score does not indicate a lack of sportsmanship to me.

the days of these types of blowouts in ultimate are limited now, with the proliferation of elite divisions at nearly all tournaments and elite-only tournaments.  however, they still come up at sectionals for many nationals-level teams, and in my college days as well as during the condor successes around the turn of the century blowouts were commonplace.  these games can be equally uncomfortable for the team that is being beat as it is for the team that is winning.

the black tide and condor teams that i played on had a similar method for handling these games.  basically, we would play the game as well and as hard as we could.  that was what we owed the opponent, whether that opponent was a nationals-level team, or a pickup team of below-average players.  the question was, is it more disrespectful to beat a team 15-0 when playing your hardest, or to beat them maybe 15-2 but with lefty points, or all upside-down passes, or stupid defenses that didn't show respect to the opponent?  when given this choice, we always chose to play our hardest and best.

the side benefit is that it is dignifying for the opponent.  if they get a goal but are under the impression that you aren't trying, they get no pleasure in that.  but if they get a goal against the regional or national champion who is playing hard, that is something they can take with them, something they've earned in the game.  i would occasionally have an opponent ask why we were playing so hard, or ask us to let off a little bit, but my response was always that we wanted them to see our best.  i think this occasionally ruffled some feathers, but for the most part i think the opponents were grateful for the chance to see a successful team playing well, to learn from the experience, and to feel like they earned whatever it was they got.

i think the coach of the high school team should have couched his support for the score by explaining that he had put his reserves in, but out of respect for the opponent he asked his reserves to play their hardest and best, so that if the other team got a basket it would be one that they deserve.  now if those reserves were hoisting up 3-pointers and running the fast break, that would maybe be an issue, but having the reserves play hard, execute and do their best is only fair to both the reserves and the opponent.  

learning to play

most competitive club players have probably used the last few months to explore other forms of exercise rather than training for ultimate.  for me this means doing basically anything and everything that doesn't feel like training.  this means jogging, playing hoops, surfing, hiking, tennis, etc. the one of these that i've been doing a lot lately is playing hoops, and it has led me to an interesting awakening about my hoops ceiling.  

now i stopped playing basketball when i was probably 12, and then picked it up again about 8 years ago with some frisbee guys and others.  i didn't have any skills or fundamentals, but i played good defense, liked to jump for rebounds and had pretty good court awareness.  in the last few years i've been picking up more skills and learning a bunch from talking to people who played and also from watching others.  i've gotten to the point where against shorter or slower or less-athletic players i can get a lot of boards, display a low-post move or two, maybe get a couple put-backs or even hit a mid-range jumper.  but when i start playing against better players i get easily boxed out, i have trouble securing the rebounds that do come to me, i frequently lose the ball in the post, and my shot never seems to fall.  i have this understanding that i'm not quite at that level, but i hadn't figured out what the difference was.

this last week i was in a lunchtime game and there was a guy who was about my height and build, didn't strike me as particularly athletic, but was clearly the best player on the court.  when the ball needed to be pushed, he pressed it on a fast break; when a great pass needed to be made, he always made it; he had an extremely reliable jump shot, burying four three-pointers in my team's short game against his.  it turned out that he had played division I basketball at a low-end school from a mid-major conference.  i did a little research after the lunch game and it looks from his statistics that he largely rode the pine for this school.  but here he was controlling this lunchtime game, with what i had previously viewed as some pretty competent basketball players on the court, including many who seemed bigger and faster than him.  i was impressed, and realized that i would probably never have his ball-handling, shooting or passing skills, even if i was playing pickup basketball for a few hours every day of the week.

this got me to thinking about ultimate and how i developed skills to get to the top of our sport.  we've all been out to the pick-up ultimate game where there's the guy who is pretty good, maybe even runs the show out there, but for one reason or another has never made the local elite team.  see, these people who play pick-up are not so different from me playing basketball.  they're good athletes, they have decent field sense, they may even be able to break the mark or huck really well.  but the difference between these players and the ones on elite teams, and the difference between me and this guy at basketball, is that truly good players have done the drills to reinforce the basic skills and fundamentals so that they can execute all the time.  

this guy at the pickup game probably used to do more hours of drills in a week than i have played basketball in the last year.  when i was in college ultimate i was playing in a very controlled situation for about 15 hours a week...when there was no tournament on the weekend.  these 15 hours would probably include about 8-10 hours of skills practice.  now, when i get confronted by a tight mark, i have the fundamental footwork to step out and deliver a pass.  that guy at the pickup ultimate game hasn't seen a good mark, because nobody at pickup plays that way.  he hasn't had to make hard buttonhooks, or worry about his defensive positioning, because he's more athletic that most of the people in the game.

i think what i'm tyring to say is that if you want to improve, if you're trying to work your ultimate skills up to a point that will get you beyond the pickup game, and onto the best team in your area, you're going to have to do more than play.  you need to find a group of people who are willing to work on their skills, even if it's not the most fun thing to do.  playing pickup can build a lot of bad habits because you don't have to work on the fundamentals to succeed, but at the top level you have to have those skills built in as second nature so that you can spend your mental energies focusing on the higher levels of the game.

a great performance?

now that i'm somewhat relevant again maybe i'll start blogging to try to compete with my worlds teammates for self-aggrandizing ink.  having beers with those guys at their condo during worlds was a great way to get my name in lights.  anyway, this season provided so many ideas for posts, but i don't have the time or energy to properly organize, so maybe i'll jsut fire from the hip on a few of them over the next month or two.  

i think jam's run to the national championship was a bit of a surprise by many involved, and i can only imagine that not many people thought we had more than an outside chance at winning.  however, i think there hasn't bene enough made of how well the team played down the stretch...so let me try to let everyone know how great we were.  but first i'll try to take a stab at the discrediting way to view our victory.  

jam had a very mediocre first two days at nationals.  beating the teams they were supposed to (those seeded below them: bodhi, condors, goat) and losing to the teams above them (ironside, sockeye).  they were fortunate to play a team they were very familiar with who had played an exhausting first two days in quarterfinals, and then get to play the winner of last year's final after what was certain to be a physically and mentally exhausting game.  jam was able to pick up the wins against these beaten up teams and then get a relatively inexperienced (again, not a claim i would make, but some might) boston team in the finals where a solid performance was good enough to take the trophy, and that was exactly what jam turned in.  

here's the alternative view.  jam had a mediocre first two days at nationals, efficiently taking care of the teams they were supposed to, and efficiently losing to the teams they were supposed to.  jam's offense was playing well, and the defense wasn't exerting themselves.  as reward for this average play we were drawn into a half of the bracket against 3 teams that we had a combined 2-4 record against, and were 1-3 against in the series (one sectionals win over relolver).  in the quarters we came out and got a few early breaks and the offense really started finding its rhythm, giving up zero breaks in the game.  the confidence was growing and an attitude was forming that we were ready for the game that ended our season last year, losing to the eventual champions in overtime.  we came out strong at the start and got a few breaks of some uncharacteristic bravo mistakes, but to our credit we made those mistakes hurt them.  we were getting good matchups and making bravo work hard to trade goals, maybe that extra game on friday and a tough one saturday morning were catching up to them, but jam was making sure that they were feeling every point.  while jam didn't pull away convincingly, i think it never got closer than 2 points in the second half and we won with our offense having given up only 2 breaks against a very athletic and physical defensive team.  our defense generated 6 breaks against a team that i think we may have only forced into 6 turns when we previously played them in colorado.  in the finals we played an ironside team that was having a strong tournament, and had steamed through their half of the draw to get to the finals.  after squandering a few early break chances our defense finally got one in upwind and consolidated with the downwinder.  the defense's legs were fresh, and the offense was playing pretty efficiently.  despite a few too many turns, the offense was able to get the disc back and wound up giving up only 2 breaks.  the defense converted 6 breaks on the game, a great performance against what had been a fairly stingy offense when we played them earlier in the weekend (one break on the first point of the game).  

the truth might be somewhere in between, but probably closer to the latter.  the truth is that jam battled injuries and attendance issues all season (14 at boulder, maybe 17 healthy at labor day), and played without damien at sectionals and regionals.  having him back was a huge confidence boost to the team, but especially the offense.  also, after a pretty loose first half of the season, there was a little more expectation put on performance in the latter part of the season and a more regimented system was installed that called for particular discipline.  the result was one of the more convincing finals victories (biggest margin since furious/ring in 2002 if memory serves), and a subtly exceptional performance on the final two days of the tournament (18 breaks for, 4 against in the three biggest games of the season).

so there it is...i'm back.  back on top.  of the last 11 nationals i've played in six finals, having won three of them, but this was the first final since 2003. 

first crack at the offical seeding

thoughts from an old dude that's seen two open tourneys this fall season. i love how this is the "condor blog" and there are no current condors that post here. here goes.


1. jam
what can you say, the ex-condors bring a good vibe. at least, most of them do. couple it with what i might call the best veteran team out there (Damien, Pete, Idirs and the Davis boys), they have a great chance to break the "curse of '88" and bring back a title to San Fran. Possibly a double with the Bay Area masters seeded #1 also? Who would have guessed?

2. sockeye
The vegas odds favorites, returning the same old mix. Looking at a "curse" theme, will Kubes bad luck continue? So strong from top to bottom and always underrated at their best strength - defense. you will never work harder to get open than when you play sockeye.

3. bravo
i play at tempe with these guys each year so i feel like i have to plead the 5th here, but i love this team and if they won, i would be happy for so many guys. it really feels like the maturity of the former mama bird champs is at the right level for a club title and it's impossible to stop both parker as a handler and beau as a target. watch out for one of the most underrated players in the game, steve rouisse. he makes big plays in every big game he plays in. very unmentioned in the write up on the epic Condors/Bravo regional final was the fact that bravo was down to 16 guys at the end of the game. if they don't get their injuries (matty, popes) in line they could disappoint at the end of a long tourney but if they get healthy it could be break through this time and bring home a title.

4. furious
i talked to mg for a bit at labor day as we poached beers from woody's cooler. nothing changing for furious there, nothing changing for them in sarasota. they will probably be in the semis like the last 8 years, making them the best team in all of ultimate over the last 10 years.

5. sub
didn't see them anywhere, but great results this year.

6. condors
from rebuilding to contenders in a very short time. jimmy chu and steve dugan bring their (5? 6?) championship rings and that confidence has spread to everyone. sure, they have lost way more ring holders than that since '05, but these two are so much more infectious with their energy, everyone on the team is walking and talking the way a team should in October. After playing better than bravo - but still losing to them - in the regional final, the condor question is can they put together the energy they've brought in their games against jam, sockeye and bravo (a respectable 2-3 against all three with every game tight) or will they throw out the first day jitters of '05 and '06 and not make the power pools? this year, i see them and bravo making quarters and bringing a strength bid back to the horribly unstrong southwest.

7. boston
glad to read all the stories about forch. having known him since he was in high school and seeing him not really go huge since i got a layout block on his throw in the finals of worlds '02, i'm glad he's got his confidence back. haha. i don't know much about these guys but there is so much ultimate in boston, the combo of the two teams from the last few years must be powerful. will they need a year together to fully gel?

8. goat
i see a great record from this team but i'm unable to believe any first year UPA champies team will make noise at their virgin natties. speaking without ever seeing these guys, look for them to really make noise next year, a la a furious '98.

9. ring
every year, back at natties. they will finish their standard 3rd - 11th, depending on luck of the disc.

10. rhino
seeded too high. predicting they won't make q'finals this year like last. of course, i don't know if link is there and if he is, then ignore this and put them at least into wildcard play-in game.

11. doublewide
stunned at the disrespect the south is getting. as per parinella's conversations, i love to look at an overall great result and making the semis at labor day makes me seed this team in the top 10, especially with a regional title. they will finish higher than this seed.

12. truck stop
don't know much about these guys, but i can't imagine their 8-15 record (and oh-fer against the top 10) will get them out of the lower bracket.

13. chain
same commet as doublewide. classic case of just not having a great result this year, but semis last year and adding zip, they will be a q'finalist is my guess, if not a return to semis. i don't know too many guys outside kid, zip, crawford and jason, but if they have any depth beyond 13 guys, they'll do great.

14. machine
dn't know much about these guys except for the fact that cash plays for them and that guy is the best basketball play at nationals. and he knows the condors so that will help the chi town boys match up against a condor team they don't usually see.

15. pike
good luck

16. van buren
welcome to FLA. team full of RSD "hackers" label could win a game or two with natties experience in coed and an obvious ability to play the physical game.

I'll finish up with my q'finals picks:

jam, sockeye, bravo, furious, condors, boston, chain and double.

look for pool C or pool D to be the "pool of death" that could land more than 2 q'finals teams.


good luck everyone.