East Ultimate

State Championship This Weekend!

Just in case you haven't heard, the Colorado High School Championship is this weekend at Colorado Academy. Saturday will be pool play (round robin with a subset of teams) and Sunday the teams play in brackets to decide the champion.

The team and coaches would love to have parents on the sidelines for any of the games. A large part of ultimate is "the mental game." Parents can make a genuine contribution to the team's success simply by cheering, yelling encouragement, and praising good play.

The team has had its sights set on this weekend since last Fall, so it's a big deal for most of them. Expect some zany behavior, including but not limited to, odd hairstyles, bizarre costume, and stress.

To give you some idea of how the team is approaching the weekend, we have attached a slightly edited e-mail from Derek to the team. (In addition to helping understand what the coaches and team are doing, it will also give you a hint of the unbelievable amount of time and heartfelt dedication our coaches give to this team.)

Watching ultimate games is very fun. It doesn't take long to understand the basics of what's going on during a game. The rules are fairly simple. Ultimate teams play a variety of offenses and defenses that can be generally categorized as either zone or man to man -- it doesn't take long to start to discern the difference between categories. But, even without knowing much about the rules or anything about strategy, the game is fast enough and acrobatic enough that it is exciting to watch and easy to cheer.

One note: ultimate is self-officiating and governed by general principles called "spirit of the game." This means the players call and resolve their own fouls. Typically, other players and coaches are not involved and do not comment. This also means that complaining about bad calls is not done. Similarly, heckling or complaining about opposing players, though fine at a baseball game, is off limits for ultimate.

If you feel like bringing snacks, food, drinks or anything else edible, the players will appreciate the effort. Don't feel compelled: the team will bring gatorade and some snacks.

East will be selling burritos and drinks at the tournament on Saturday as a fundraiser. Thanks to Nickie Rounds (Maggie's mom), Tanya Mann (Elise's mom), Lori Potter & Eric Perryman (Jules's parents), Sally Lewis & Alan Fine (Ned's parents) and Maggie Hughes (Duncan & Tote's sister) who have volunteered to cover the food table.

More information (including schedule) and directions are on the team's website. Results and more detailed information about pools and brackets should appear on the UPA's tournament page.

Awards Potluck

We have tentatively scheduled an end of the season, parents and players awards dinner for Thursday, June 2. Please tell us whether June 2 works for you.

The idea is to give us all a chance to honor special (as in really good or really amusing) contributions to the team, say good-bye to the seniors, thank those who need to be thanked (in particular Derek and Tina), and put an exclamation point at the end of the season.

Mary Ellen Scanlan & George Blankenship (Kit's parents) have offered to host the party. More details will follow. If you would be able to organize the potluck part, please let us know. We would be very grateful.

Madison Recap

The trip was unbelievably easy, fun, and rewarding. Though the weather was lousy, and we had a "bagel knife" injury, everything else went absolutely smoothly. Arrangements for bus, food, and hotel all came together marvelously. Discipline problems were non-existent. Even the long ride turned out to be not unpleasant.

In addition to simply being great fun the trip brought the players closer together and revealed some things about how we could improve our game.

Thanks to everyone who helped out. The food and drinks that parents loaded on the bus before we left was all consumed either on the bus or at lunch during the tournament. (Yes, some players even ate the fruit.) In particular, thanks to Kate Sandersen (Hayley's mom) who was in Madison and ordered pizza for the team for Saturday lunch, and Monica Hughes (Duncan & Tote's mom) who managed to convince King Soopers and Chipotle to donate Friday and Sunday dinners. Chipotle (the Monaco & Leetsdale store) not only gave us gift certificates but also provided a map of Chipotle locations in Madison. Gray Line of Denver also gave us a $2,000 discount on the coach.

East Invite

Our first East Invite was a hit. There has never been a high school tournament on the same scale in Colorado. Here are parts of several notes we received from other coaches:

"Super well-organized throughout, guys, and the extra details made it a ton of fun . . . great work! And as the host yesterday, when I left campus at 3:30, the place was spotless -- even had a few East kids gladly picking up the cones that were left on the far fields. Great, great job." -- Cathy Nabbefeld, Colorado Academy

"Congratulations on a tourney well run!

Our kids had a spectacular time and have been talking about it non-stop
today, and not just about the weekend, but about ultimate in general."
-- John Link, Arvada West

"Thank you, Derek! Monarch had an awesome time." -- Kyle Weisbrod, Monarch

The tournament would not have been such a success without the contributions of many parents. In particular, we'd like to thank Dirk Hansen (Mary's dad) who coordinated all the food - a huge, huge job - and Susan Reher (Goofy's mom) who coordinated all our volunteers and helped round up much of the needed gear. These two also largely took care of setting up and taking down everything.

We'd also like to thank all the parents who helped out during the weekend by volunteering to sell merchandise and food. Mary Ellen Scanlan & George Blankenship, Eric Perryman & Lori Potter, Monica, Tanya Mann (Elise's mom), Faye Vanderslice (Mary's mom), Sally Lewis & Alan Fine, Julie Neitz Wielga, Geoff Moses (Jim's dad) and Rusty Footlik (Adam's dad). Sally and Alan distributed our leftover burritos to the homeless. Kyle Sanderson (Hayley's dad) took some marvelous shots of the team playing - they can be seen on the team website.

We have not paid all the bills yet, but it appears we will end up making around $800 on the Invite. Since we intentionally charged a low, per team, tournament fee for the first year, next year's Invite has the potential to be a significant source of support.

--Derek Gottlieb, Tina McDowell, Mark Hughes