Madison Tomorrow
Tomorrow we leave for the Madison tournament at 5 AM. The bus will arrive at East at 4:30 AM. Remind your players, if you would, about the items on the packing list - in particular, warm clothes and a lunch. Saturday's weather - the forecast is partly cloudy and windy. Highs in the upper 40s and lows in the low 30s - has the potential to be unpleasant for those without proper clothing.
Our contact information - it has not changed from the trip letter - is on the team's website (http://www.eastultimate.org). Assuming we can connect to the internet in the evenings, we will try to post a bit of news about the trip and tournament on the team website. The tournament schedule is posted on the UPA site (http://www1.upa.org/scores/tourn.cgi?div=17&id=1146). It will give you some idea of the team's schedule on Saturday and Sunday. (Don't expect to see scores on that page. Although it is possible that the tournament director will submit all the scores during the tournament, it is unlikely.)
Monica (Tote & Duncan's mom) has rounded up donations for most of Friday's dinner from Philly Cheesesteak at Monaco, China Chef 2 at Krameria, the Stapleton Chipotle, and the King Soopers stores at Monaco and Leetsdale, Krameria, and Stapleton, Despite Monica's efforts, we have plenty of room on the bus for more food and snacks, and we would welcome them.
There have been no significant changes in our plans. In response to parents, we have booked two additional hotel rooms. We also had two surprise cancellations (one yesterday!) and an unexpected increase in scholarship money that was requested.
Thank you very much for getting the trip forms back so promptly. We still need forms from three players. All three have promised that their forms would arrive some time today.
Thanks For Your Help At The Invite
Thanks to everyone who pitched in to make the first East Invite a success. Dirk Hansen (Mary's dad) and Susan Reher (Goofy's mom) deserve special thanks. They did a great deal of work planning the tournament, arranging to have parents there to help, collecting equipment, planning and buying food, setting up, taking down, carrying things to and fro, and spending many hours at the tournament.
When there's more time, we will thank everyone - including the burrito salespeople - and share some of the very positive feedback we've received. In the meantime, there are photos, some exciting and some silly, on the website.
--Derek Gottlieb, Tina McDowell, Mark Hughes