2005 – My Year in Review

Idris keeps telling me, a la Jim Rome, “Have a take” for each post. A lot of you that might have ever talked to me know that I’m mostly a rambling fool, so I guess this post doesn’t have much of a take either. But for anyone that played against me in any of these tourneys, I guess it might remind you of good times.

Leiout Beach tourney – worst results in the past decade. I told Tony Leonardo I’d play on his team, he recruited no one. We went 1-6 or so, I couldn’t remember a worse weekend of ulty.

Tempe – played with a mostly Bravo-ish team, lost in the finals to a team heavy with JAM and Condor players. We were down huge and came back, had the disc FIVE times at 14-13 to tie it and I threw the last of our 5 turns. We lost 17-14.

Kaimana – Nada Mooger won their 6th straight and my 3rd. Large amounts of rum and pog make for another hazy weekend in Hawaii. Someone lost us our shot at the spirit trophy by hitting the tourney director with a chair in a drunken rage.

Winter League – epic 15-13 win in finals. Only time I’ve ever played in the rain in LA. My 2nd winter league title

Texas Shoot Out – Most heart breaking loss of the year in the inaugural version of this event as there was a 1st place prize of $3,100 and we had big plans to blow it all on cowboy hats before we left the state. We went 5-0 in pool play beating every team there with the closest game being 13-9 or so, and then lost in the semis when Chain played an AMAZING game that had only 1 or 2 turns the entire time (for them). They then had 4 turns in the first point alone in the finals Glad they didn’t win the money.

Cal States – My 1st win ever at this tourney! The Condors were the repeat champs, but I was coming off my ACL last year. We beat JAM in the semis and half of Sockeye in the finals; they had 2 teams there for tryouts. I have the trophy at my house. I think it’s the oldest trophy in ultimate, dates back to Foothill’s win in ’77. Still trying to figure out how to not give it back.

Summer League – LA summer league is a joke, no real comp, but I like to go and play while drinking beers. Increased my lifetime LA summer league record to something like 40-1. Had to miss the finals once again due to Condor practice.

Potlatch – Played with Sleeveless in Seattle. We are the 3rd best co-ed team in America! I signed onto the amazing stacked squad a week before the tourney only to learn rock stars like Idris and Ryan Y. bailed at the last minute. We had only 13 players and drank box wine all day every day. Had no business being in any kind of contention, and yet we made the semis in the best co-ed tourney anywhere. Highlights included beating Ben Wiggins team in the quarters when one of my teammates said “We have GOT to win this game, I’ve never beaten Wiggins.” All I could think was “Really?” Lost to some team from Canada in semis, I think it was pretty close….

ECC – This is the best tourney you will ever play in. The comp is amazing. We went up 3-0 against Sockeye in the 1st game and held on to the very end where we choked, losing 15-13. Beat Furious in game #2, 1st win over them in a few years. We scored like 7 of 8 to end it. But another 15-13 loss in our last game of the day to Ring hurt bad. Sunday we stepped up to go 3-0 and make the tie-breaker game to 5 to be in the finals against Sockeye, but JAM beat us 5-4 in the mini-game when my guy, Big Jim, caught a blade huck forehand huck from Ron. Ron, if you are reading this, that throw SUCKED!

Labor Day – Another big tourney win! We beat JAM twice and also Bravo. Highlight was 15-4 win over DoG. They couldn’t even complete a pass our D was so fired up. I’d never won this tourney either, so it was a great time.

Sectionals – highlight was skying my Condor LA workout partner for the game winner in the finals. He was uncovered and going to the endzone for an easy goal, but I didn’t see him and brought in my 6’4” defender from San Diego, thus the need to make the awesome play going up over both of them.

Regionals – 2nd worse loss of the season in the finals to Bravo. The D from both Bravo and Condors combined to score ONCE in a 14-12 loss. Embarrassing loss and it also cost us a top 3 seed in FLA.

Nationals – This is the one you try and peak for, but injuries to some of the best players in the game meant we were coming in weaker than we had been a month before. Two flat games to open the tourney and just like that our season was pretty much over. Showed some heart by not rolling over and at least winning the losers bracket. Can we move nationals to Santa Cruz? No one could be us there in '05!

Beach League – Ended the year in style winning the final tourney of the season, the inaugural LA Beach League. I blew up all day!

I guess my take is the year had its ups and downs, but it was a fun year and I proved to myself I've still got some game after coming back from a year of rehab in ’04. See you all out there in ’06.

try to focus

i drove to and from vegas this past weekend (nearly 6 hours each way) with an ex-teammate who now plies his trade in the mixed division. as we were discussing things i realized that my posts cover way to much ground and that i should try to focus them a little more, or else i'll have touched on, but not discussed, nearly everything i think about in ultimate.

so one small thing that we talked about was how ultimate would be difficult to referree. one classic example was from the finals of worlds in finland two summers ago. one of our teammates went up for a deep huck and the disc wound up bouncing off his hand. he called foul. the crowd was incensed and let him know it. our opponents, even the guy that he called the foul on, also seemed pretty upset. his claim was that he got hit in the face as he was making the catch. upon watching the video, it becomes more clear that he did get hit in the face, but the only thing the crowd sees is that he seemed to drop the disc and this call was a make-up for his mistake.

one of the advantages of self-officiating is that you can't really get away with anything because the person who was wronged will call it. so maybe people should be thinking about ways they can foul where the person won't realize they are being fouled.

one thing that a lot of top players get away with is that when they go up for a high ball in a one-on-one situation, the off hand can find it's way on their opponents hip. this subtle move keeps the opponent from jumping so high, and also gives the offender a bit of a boost. yet because it is hard to realize what's happening below your shoulders when you're going up, it is frequently not called. i called this once at a very crucial point in a pre-season tourney against another top team, and the other team was irate, but my opponent had clearly gained an advantage by pushing down on me. i felt it was a good call, and a teammate of mine who had alerted me to this years before said it was a clear example of that move, making me feel quite justified (which is what it's really all about, right?).

back to my point, both of these are examples of calls which would be very difficult for observers to make as they're watching the disc come in to see if there's a foul on the hand or if a strip occurs or something like that. of course, hitting your opponent in the face (i believe this incident was an accident) is much less subtle than a hand on the hip.

I Hate Hat Tournaments

I don't think it makes me a bad person, but when I play Ultimate I play to win. I understand the point of a hat tournament or a draft style league is about getting everyone involved and make sure everyone plays roughly an equal amount. I know it's okay to try and win and it's not like people don't care about winning or losing in these competitive situations, but its secondary. It's probably a character flaw, but it's just important that I've recognized it and don't put myself in those situations. Last night I went out to play in this indoor league they have here. You can just show up to play as a sub. My wife is playing in the league and so I tagged along with her. I end up on her team, which was cool since we've not played together in 5 years due to having kids. There is a mix of players, but most are young with only a few people that can handle the disc. In the 2nd game we're winning 9-6 with ten minutes to go. The wheels come off and nobody can catch or throw. This is the type of setting that keeps me away from this type of competition. I want to figure out the best way to win the game. That is going to mean not playing people and calling some plays that invole the 3 people that can handle to make sure you score. People don't play in this type of league to come and stand on the sidelines though, so that's just not an option. So, of course we lose and I'm annoyed and thinking I shouldn't have even come out. I've played in leauges where I put the team together and that's a different story. I've assembled the team and have confidence in all the players on the team, even Corey and belive me that guy can be turnover machine in league play. I find myself feeling guilty about being this way. Ideally I could just go out and enjoy playing in a hat tournament and have fun with it. It's just not that fun for me.

One of the greatest ultimate players in the country

This is a terrible post, but I have to tell the story. Twenty minutes ago I'm sitting in my office and these two guys walk by. One guy, Kevin, whom I know, says "Hi" and the other guy just stares at me for a second.

"Corey Sanford?" he asks me.

"Do I know you?" I ask him.

He replies, "My name is Chris. You might not remember me, but I worked on that Condor documentary in 2001, I was one of the producers. Kevin, did you know Corey is one of the greatest ultimate players in the country?"

So needless to say, Chris will not have any problems working here on any of my shows.

taking advantage

there are a number of ways to take advantage of the rules of ultimate, but i think most of them can be grouped into one of two categories. the first are plays that may bend the rules or be a loophole in the rules where the onus is on the opponent to make the call (for instance, moving your foot on a throw to the break side of the field). the second are calls, either those which are a technicality in the rulebook or an excessive amount of calls (calling a travel for a slight foot movement on a throw to the open side). for a moment i'd like to discuss gaining an advantage with calls.

it's been said before that we're actually all players and referees in this game. even in refereed sports you find different refs call a different game. some may call the high strike, while others let it go. some may be looking for pushing underneath the basket, while others may let the big men play. just because an ultimate player calls a tight game, doesn't mean that he's a cheater. it may not be good for the fans, but some games (especially with a lot at stake) will create a lot of calls for a number of reasons (disjointed offense creating picks, defenders not wanting to give any advantage calling slight picks, players trying to make big plays which lead to fouls on the mark or on receptions, etc). while boring, a game with a lot of calls doesn't inherently mean that either team is cheating (more on this at another time). the problem is that high-level players may find themselves more prone to make calls when their team is down in a big game. this is the danger of self-officiating. i typically don't get that irked by players who call a tight game, so long as they don't complain every time an opponent makes a call. some of these differences may be regional (i always hear about west-coast teams travelling all the time), but i think so long as a team or individual calls every game consistently, there shouldn't be something inherently "cheating" when someone calls a tight game.

politics

This crazy blog world never slows down. I'd been thinking about this topic, and the pups almost stole it from me with a throw away, multi-topic post including a rant on cities with two teams.

Two teams in one city? It's not rare to Boston. It's almost every frisbee town. OK, maybe they don't all have two teams in one division that go to natties, but most decent sized cities have lots of teams with talent level across the charts. And in almost all these towns, teams don’t usually field the best 20 players on their squad. Why? Politics. You could use Boston as an example, but San Fran always has been the paragon of ultimate politics discussion. One of the old NYNY guys always told me that the best talent was in San Fran, but it never was all on the same team. And it doesn't have to be a big city for politics to get in the way of fielding the best team. What about Gainesville? They made it to Sarasota this year in two different divisions and coed players like Dan and Palmer must be as good as anyone on their open team. Almost every team that is put together does not always have the best 20 people available in that town. It's got people that supposedly gel together, but we all know that isn't necessarily true either, as every team has tensions by the time you've all spent months playing together.

So why is it that it’s hard to get all the best players on one team? The reasons are different, here are some good examples:

• up and coming players think they are the shit, but still want to play with old friends
• old dudes not ready to play with new young guys
• some players packaged together, usually around someone that is an amazing player and his buddies
• And my personal favorite, the old “I won’t play with that guy anymore”

So then why is it that politics and friendships become so important? Don't all of us trying to make it to and/or win nationals want to play on the best teams we can? Or is this some sort of secret admission that ultimate also is truly a social diversion for most of us? Why are we all party to this game where we know for a fact that certain players get cut and others make the team, and that talent is not the final decision maker in those cuts?

Beats me why it is, I just like playing politics.

Jim Rome of ultimate? He did go to Santa Barbara...

If you're reading this, you probably also have looked at Ultimatetalk today. But if you haven't, get there now and listen to the first ever ultimate talk show. I was honored to be invited and look forward to working out such complicated technical issues as the "volume" button on my phone for future broadcasts. Thanks for setting it all up, Idris.

Check out the podcast now.

striking back

i'm back from my weeklong internet hiatus, and before describing the details of hamstring rehabilitiation and other boring offseason activities (see previous posts regarding mixed, beach and injuries) i figured i would post something relevant to the open game.

remember a while ago when the pups started quite a stir with this post? it seemed like everyone was outraged that defenders might play their hardest, and not concede even the smallest advantage to their opponent. as a defender (even made their top 7) i appreciate this sentiment, although maybe parts of their post were over the line.

on to my point, have any throwers tried fighting back? i think intentional fouls on the mark, where the marker is making no attempt to stop the flight of the disc, but only the movement of the thrower, constitute cheating. it's been rare, but there have been a few times when playing, both in tournaments and in scrimmages, where i have had the disc and felt like the marker was intentionally hacking me. maybe a few of those i haven't made a big deal of. but maybe the best way to end it was by firing back. something along the lines of "if you do that again, i'm going to throw a backhand across your forehead", can really send home the message that enough is enough. one time i even tried it, but went for the ribs instead of the face after the marker in a zone, who was behind me, grabbed the disc on my wind-up on a backhand, so i traveled to throw a backhand into his side. while i came up with this method independently, i have heard stories of jim "daddy" doing this in 1996 nationals to saucy jack.

this whole thing reminds me of a quote i heard from my buddy garthe, "an armed society is a polite society".

LA Beach Ultimate

Having moved to Ohio in July from Long Beach, I left behind many things including my job, Ultimate and friends. I miss my friends and Ultimate the most. The scene in LA that Corey describes is hard to replace. When I first moved to LA in the late 80's I was playing Ultimate 6 days per week and even twice on Sundays sometimes. The League system isn't huge like other cities, but playing outside for Winter League is pretty awesome no matter how many teams there are. For whatever reason we didn't play on the beach that much back then. There was no tournament and no organized pick up. The Lei-out tournament didn't even start until 2000. Now it's huge and more and more people are playing on the beach in LA. Beach Ultimate is awesome for many reasons.
1. You never have to fight for field space
2. You don't have to wear cleats
3. You don't need very many people. You can have fun playing 4 on 4.
4. You can play in the rain (of course you can play in the rain on grass, but you have to worry about damaging the field and that's not an issue with sand)

I find it to be a great work out and easier on my body. I started a beach game on Saturdays in Long Beach so that I could play without having to drive very far. This was essential when we started having kids and time became more of an issue. That's one thing about Ultimate in LA, you do have to be willing to spend some time on the freeway. Playing Ultimate and then kicking it on the beach afterwards having some beers is a great way to spend a Saturday. To make it even better you hit the Belmont Brewery after that for some great food and microbrew. I've played indoor here once and it was okay. That new turf is nice, but not the same as playing on the beach in Southern California.

Life's a Beach

It’s a tired cliché for the title to my first blog entry, but I live in Los Angeles and one thing that makes it so great to live here is the beach. That’s where we were this past weekend, at the beach league playoffs. As I said to a few different people before the last game started, “I wish we could play this one forever.” We were on the beach just south of the Santa Monica pier. It was beautiful blue skies, one of the clearest days of the year and everything from Mt. Baldy to Catalina was visible from our “field.” Temperatures were hovering around 70. And my team, She Sells Seashells by the Seashore, was battling Deeeeeez Nuts for the world’s first ever beach league championship. I’m sure you are dying for the recap.

But before I get to the finals, I’d like throw out a shout to the Los Angeles weather. Ultimate players seem to have an overall aversion to LA. Traffic, crime, smog whatever it might be, people feel like they have an opinion about the place, with or without ever having been here. But if you love to play ultimate, and I mean really love the game enough to need to play all year, this is certainly one of the best places to live. Whatever level you are looking for you can pretty much find 365. Hell, one of my favorite events of the year, Winter League, will get going in less than a month. If you get depressed in winter because you have to play on frozen ground or in snow – or not at all – think about that move to So Cal.

Back to the beach finals and also a little bit about the before mentioned Winter League. These two tourneys were the perfect bookends to another fun year playing ultimate. They both hinged around big plays I made late in the game with all the pressure on me. What were these amazing plays you might be asking yourself? Well, it’s a little embarrassing. Perhaps these plays were a bit unclean or messy. They were not the most spectacular plays I ever made, that is for sure. But I’ve always been a big fan of results, and in the end these were big, huge, late game catches to help secure victory in the finals both times. And both of them bounced off my face.

Back in March in the winter league finals, it was 13-13 when Butta tossed up a quail of a hammer to me. As I went up with two hands like I usually do for hammers, Sandy closed hard and might have got it first, or maybe I bobbled it. Go here to the 27th – 29th photos in the sequence to see the pics:

http://www.stephenchiang.com/WL05/index.html

What isn’t clear from the pictures is I eventually ended up gaining possession by pinning the disc to my face before clamping it in one hand. We score the next point to win 15-13, so it was a big catch.

For the Beach League finals, the face catch came one point later. It was game point and we were working it upwind. While conditions were tough for the Winter League finals with rain, the beach finals were chocked full of wind. All day it had been tough to score upwind, but on game point, as I reached for a throw coming up the line, I bobbled the disc and juggled once, twice, three times. And then as history repeats itself, I pinned the disc against my face as I toed the sideline and fell out of bounds. With my teammate only feet from me on the sidelines laughing their asses off, I stood up, surveyed the field and threw the only upwind hammer of the day to Jeff for the championship.

It was a great day and a great inaugural beach league. Seriously, Los Angeles has its perks. Have a great winter everyone!