East Ultimate

Hey everyone. This will likely end up being kind of a long blog post, but I think most of what I'm going to say here is pretty important, unlike what I say most of the rest of the time.

First, I'd just like to congratulate everyone in the organization on their performance this weekend, especially the girls. Guys won nine-als, girls made finals. I think we all can see who the real winners among us are. Sorry if the male contingent was less than awesome as a sideline, but many among us were absolutely gone. I'd say that we'll be better at Madison, but if I have my way, we'll be playing in finals on the fields right next to you there. And oh yes, it is possible. More on that later.

Second, a few things this weekend I saw that I was outstandingly happy about. Frogger's massive, massive, massive bookends on New Vista. Jesus that was sick. I saw some excellent layouts from almost every member of the team, short guys skying tall guys, the magnificent Adam getting a goal-saving D. That was sick. We might have been screwed if Broomfield had counted delay, cause we celebrated a little too long on that one. Moreover, the Open team was phenomenally spirited. Maybe not the spirit that wins spirit awards, but the spirit that, in my mind, is far more important. The team that wins the spirit award is usually, but not always the goofy team that loses every game. We might be loud, we might make calls when we believe them, but I saw and overwhelming majority of our on-field time spent with the utmost respect for both our opponents and the game. That's excellent, and I can only assume the women were just as good.

Now the things I'm not so happy about. If you were on the women's team, you can skip this next paragraph, because none of it applies to you. Guys, we fell apart on Saturday. Shawnee Mission was...well, that game was what it was. It shouldn't have been that, but it was so overwhelmingly pathetic that I can even bring myself to address it. New Vista and Shawnee Mission the first day though...We can do better than that. Both of those games were in our power to win. We started off pathetic against New Vista, because this team loves to get itself in a whole and then try and drag itself out. We're a better team than that. We can go up. Then there was Lakewood. We came into that game incredibly down, with little intensity. That should never happen. I know that's easier said than done, but still. Yet somehow, even with our relatively low intensity, we ran with them. Imagine if we'd come in fired up. We still would've ended up in the 4v4 crossover, but I know we would have felt better about it. And Lakewood was an intense, emotional game. That fact would be immediately obvious to those who saw our team afterwards, not least the absolute choked up trainwreck that I was. I guess the moment got the better of me, the thought that I was 3/4 and three losses through my last Saturday of playing at CA. There was an upside, I suppose, that I was remarkably composed after Sunday. I guess my psyche decided that one pathetic display of emotion would be enough for a weekend. But no matter how depleted we were, emotionally and physically, we should never have played that terribly against Woodward. That is, as far as I'm concerned, our lowest moment of the weekend, regardless of the score.

Which brings me to my next, and final (YAY!) point. I said to the guys after Broomfield that this tournament presents us with a choice. And, if only for that and the experiential value, the tournament was very positive. That choice is to either be the team that we have the potential to be, or be the team that it's easy for us to be. This is, by the way, almost an exact retread of what I said earlier, but that's because it bears repeating. We have the gift of almost limitless potential, with the constraint of relatively limited (very limited, in my case) time to develop it. We have the potential to beat any team in this state, and a lot from outside it. But, we have something of an allergy to work. We practice for almost three hours a day, but somewhere between a third and half of that time is spent doing basically nothing. If we want to win games, that can't happen. We have to cut down on that time. We don't even have to make every second of practice 100% work. But we can't have it the way it is. If we want to win, that is. And believe me, I know conditioning isn't fun, I know throwing drills aren't always the best. But, if you want them to, they can make you a much better player. If you just jog through them, the benefit is going to be minimal, but if you're working at 100%, they can, and will, make you better. And I believe we can achieve this. Maybe it's just misguided optimism due to this being my last year on the team, but I don't think so. I truly believe that, faced with the unpleasant truths of this weekend, we can and will change the way we go about things. I believe that everyone on this team will, now that they're faced with them, look at the problems they have in the game of ultimate, and actively work to eliminate those weaknesses.

So I ask you to think about it, to weigh your options. I know when I'm at practice, the sessions I come out of feeling satisfied, and, usually, having had the most fun, are not the ones where we dick around for a couple hours and then go play Gamecube. No, the practices that have always left me most fulfilled are the ones where upon completing, I don't feel like I can move a muscle in my body without it crying out in protest. And sometimes, it's not that pleasant. Conditioning is not fun, there is no doubt about that. But, when presented with the momentary unpleasantness of running sprints compared to the much more lingering disappointment, and, yes, pain, of playing a game or weekend against opponents that obviously outmatch you physically, opponents that can run you into the ground, I know which way I would go. So weigh the options. Weigh the pros and the cons. If a majority of people consider their options and decide they'd rather keep doing business as usual, that's how it is. But I have faith that underneath it all, we have the dedication to put in the work because of one thing, and one thing only.

This team means something, beyond any individual. This team does everything for each other. This team competes not for individual glory, but to lift up all among us. For those few of you that stayed at the Zax's on Saturday night after Zoolander, you saw the Mamabird 2005 highlight video. There was one thing that stuck with me in that, and it wasn't Beau skying someone, or Rabbit spin-kicking the spike, or anything like that. It was something that JV, the good Gottlieb said. What he said was that all the effort, all of it is for something, that we, we being in his statement Mamabird, that we don't just come out to beat these teams. We come out to be great for a while. And I don't know about y'all, but up until the finals of Madison last year, that short period when we were absolutely unstoppable, that was one of the most powerful experiences I have ever had. Let's recapture that. Let's be truly great, be it for a single point, or a single game, or a single weekend, or the rest of the season, it doesn't matter. Let's just be great

Or we could go to practice and play dinosaurs and trees everyday. The choice is yours.

Guess what everyone?

EAST INVITE IN ONE WEEK.

Sounds good, huh? However, that does carry with it a few things. First and foremost, it means that you all really, really should be at practice this week. If you've typically got other things going on on practice days, if you could get out of that for just a week, it would be most ideal, because this is the point at which we really need to take it to another level. Y'all should do your best to make it a good preparation week (eat well, sleep plenty, etc). And, for the Open team at least, that preparation also manifests itself in that we're playing what may well be our toughest early season game this Thursday, the Colorado Academy A team. Mixed is playing Broomfield, which also promises to be a challenge. Just because we've got a tournament coming up doesn't mean we shouldn't bring the fire in those games, and I'm totally confident that we'll come out prepared and ready to roll some unsuspecting adversaries.

So get ready, cause this is going to an intense, sweet few days. Rock on East.

Hey y'all. As you can probably see, Ben now has a blog and admin power on eastultimate.org. Let the reign of terror begin.

Seriously though, I do have some points that I would like to make with this thing, in general and this evening specifically.

First, I've got to address the Open team after the results of today's game. How good does that feel, boys? I know I may speak for myself, and only myself, but after the game against Creek, and my performance in particular, I needed that game badly. That's not to say, of course, that it was perfect. Our offense in the first half was really, really sloppy, so, naturally, it was a turnfest. I'm going to tell you right now, if we want to have a prayer against CA-A in, oh, two weeks, we're going to need to be a lot tighter than that on offense. Our defense too, could use a little bit of work, Monarch scored a couple points that we should not have allowed them to, but we're not lacking in intensity or expertise, our D just needs to click into place a little bit more. Overall though, excellent game from all of you, lots of sick bids, nice throws, and just all around balling.

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