Callahan Campaign

Player Profile

Name: Joel Koehneman

Nickname: Candyman, Seabiscuit

Position: Handler, Hybrid

Experience: 5^th year player

Bio

Joel’s college career began as a defensive specialist on the A-team his freshman year. Did I mention that that team went to nationals? This year marks his third straight year serving as our captain. If it’s double game point for the championship, we want him on the line. It doesn’t matter if he’s played every point of the tournament. We’re looking to him to rock ‘n’ roll.

Every opponent knows of Joel. If they didn’t before the game started, by point three they’ll figure out that he’s “the guy”. Nothing gives me more pleasure than watching their best defender trail Joel all over the field. No one can stop his upline cut, no one. Joel’s superior offense covers less than half his resume. He may start on the O-line, but his roots lie in defense. In my 3 years, I’ve never seen anyone get open on an in-cut when Joel guarded him. That includes practice. His defensive skills aren’t limited to singling out one man. When Joel poaches, he effectively covers all seven guys in the opposite color. It’s beautiful to watch him take over and direct our team’s success in keeping our opponent out of the endzone.

Many of the other Callahan candidates in the nation are quick to hype themselves and quick to make excuses when they don’t live up to their own hype. Joel is human (though it may not seem like it). He makes mistakes. A huck may turn sour or a misread may happen (okay, the latter never happens, but humor me). Joel doesn’t call a close foul. He doesn’t blame his teammates or the weather or his exhaustion, etc. He realizes that none of that will change the past. Instead, he becomes that much more determined to get the disc back and put it in the endzone.

Player Profile

Name: Pat Stephens

Nickname: Pat, Paddy J

Position: Long, O-line

Experience: 5^th year player

Bio

Pat found true love in catching the disc in the endzone and hasn’t cheated on her in 5 years. When he’s on the field, he’s gonna make a sick cut, and he’s gonna get open. If we’re within 10 yards of the endzone, there’s a good chance we’re gonna put him on the iso block and make your best defender look like amateur hour at the Boys and Girls Club.

The team looks to Pat to direct the flow of our offense. Time and time again, he makes the first cut that gets everything rolling. 90% of the time he gets open. The other 10% he clears space for a fellow long to get the disc. Pat’s hucks are crisper than fresh celery, and he’s cooler than the other side of the pillow. He always maintains focus and uses his competitive edge to lead our team. I’ve never seen Pat misread a disc, and I’ve watched him make experienced defenders look like they need a library card. His positioning and ability to box out defenders is the best in the region. While he has been marked as an offensive machine, Pat boasts a defense that outplays most of the starters on the D-line, and he is no pretty boy either. He’ll lay out for anything close when the disc is in our opponent’s hands.

Pat is our leader. We look to him to say the right words. We look to him teach us when we mess up. We look to him when we’re in a tight spot and need someone to step up. Every person on our team has benefited from his personal style of coaching. Even before he was a captain, everyone went to him if they had a question about the game of ultimate. What Pat does on and off the field inspires every teammate to work harder, run faster, jump higher, and get better. Every player on the team wishes they could be like Pat.

The Real Beginning

Our first week of outdoor practices has ended, and Sectionals is giving us the evil eye from two weeks away. Will you be ready?

Thursday gave us a taste of sour weather. The spring season rarely brings all sunshine and rainbows, so it’s good to get some work in cold, wind, and rain. The team seized this fortunate opportunity to work on upwind hucking again. In such conditions, focus becomes the key to success. The cold weather numbs your hands. Just the simple act of switching your grip could cause you to fumble the disc and turn it over. We had the handlers throw first and the longs go second. Completions depended more on luck than anything else. Welcome to the great outdoors.

Being a defensive long, I love bad weather. Why? Zone defense. Indoors, the O line can throw any pass they want. In the still air, these passes are fast and accurate, shredding even the tightest cup. Outdoors, the situation changes drastically. Passes float. Hucks get stalled in the air. And any flutter or tipped disc goes into the ground. This allows the defense that extra second to make sick plays on the disc.

So, despite terrible weather, the team got some solid work done. Both the offense and defense needed work on zone defense. The offense even transitioned into a cup after a turn. Such strategy works effectively to stop upwind breaks, and allow the offense to conserve energy at the same time.

The weather only got worse as practice went on. The b-team left the field around 5:30, and we called it a day about 45 minutes later.

As if to mock us, Friday and Saturday provided perfect conditions. Too bad we weren’t practicing. Stupca scheduled a throwing session on Saturday, but the late notice caused yours truly to miss that one. Then Sunday comes along, and clouds fill the sky with promises of thunderstorms once again. Luckily, the rain never came.

We worked on swings and up line cuts with an aggressive mark on the trap sideline. It’s very easy to panic in this situation and get locked into looking down field. Extra practice is needed by everyone.

Before we started scrimmaging, we got up to full speed with Randy Moss drill. Pat and Joel had some good battles on the backhand side. Phenom took the prize from me more often than I did from him. Cole, on his first day back, did what he could, but Bettsy had the better marms today. I remember seeing B rad sky Zubair.

Some of the matchups got switched up when we went to forehands. I owned Joel.

With a depleted D-line, we scrimmaged with altered scoring rules. The D got a point for every turn over given up by the offense. Games were played to five, and the D-line pulled every point. The D-line started out with zone, and the O-line tore that apart in the first game. We moved to man defense with straight up marks and gave the offense a little trouble, but they still won the second game. Using some of our more strategic defenses, we won the second game. Taste it O-line.

First Outdoor Practice

My friends, the time has finally arrived. The sun has rescued us from our dark days spent in dismal dreary. We no longer have to taste the stale air of the armory. We no longer have to suffer the rug burn of Irwin. Let sweet freedom ring out from the green fields of Champaign, Illinois!

The weather did not disappoint us: 50 degrees and windy, really windy. We warmed up and recalibrated our throws with cut to’s, regular and break side. After being inside for three months, the central plain wind exacerbated every bad throwing habit we had developed. Any flutter resulted in a blading turnover.

We decided to take advantage of the wind and practice upwind hucks. Austin, Walden, and Zubair seemed to do best with forehands (I guess it’s a backhand for Walden). If you get the chance, I recommend watching how Zubair drives his invert into the wind. Walden, running down your backhand is a pain.

We worked on backhands next. The wind blew slightly crossways, so throwing towards the middle of the field leads to the greatest chance of success. Yours truly found it really ironic that Joel stressed this before we started, and his first huck went straight down the line and landed 3 yards out of bounds.

After hucking and realizing that we all need more throwing practice, we moved to zone defense. The D-line pulled upwind every point, and the O-line tried to score. We didn’t keep track of score, but we seemed pretty evenly matched. Both lines have a lot of work to do since turns outnumbered scores.

We have three weeks before we travel to Naperville. Do work.

Centex Recap

First of all, I apologize for not getting a preview up in time. The lack of internet at our Spring Break Condo made it rather difficult to make posts.

Our day started at 8:30 am with Florida staring us down across the field. They thought they could coast through the first round, and we hit them hard. We took half 7-4. In every game, there’s a certain point where the winning team makes a decision. They either step on their opponents throats and push until the gasping stops, or they let there opponent rise thinking they can knock them down again. Florida got back up. We gave up a few breaks, and we suddenly had to fight in order to bring it back to double game point. They won.

Every post on RSD marked Stanford to lay an egg at this tournament, and they did not disappoint. We rolled them, end of story.

Santa Cruz walked into our crosshairs, and we fired without hesitation. They fired back, but we scored more hits than they did. Stupca opened up the lines, and our relievers got the job done 13-9.

Minnesota has been the surprise from the north this year. They’ve been flying under the radar for quite some time, and we underestimated them. Lack of focus and drive killed us in this game. They beat us on double game point, but we should have never been in that situation. Lazy drops, lazy throws, and an unwillingness to step on the gas pedal cost us the number two spot in our pool. We can’t let up. Ever. It cost us a chance at a championship. Don’t let it happen in Detroit.

We ended the day on a high note, dominating Georgia Tech 13-5.

The consolation bracket started even earlier on Sunday. Our first game went off at 8am. When we arrived at the fields to warm up, the sun hadn’t even risen yet.

Game day conditions: windy.

Carleton gave us our first challenge. Both teams fought hard. You would’ve thought we were playing in the A bracket. Both teams got upwind breaks, and both offenses also prevented a double break. In the end, we found ourselves on the wrong side of double game point, again.

So we couldn’t walk away with less than 13^th. On a positive note, we got to tango with NC State in the next round. Neither team got an upwind break. It played out exactly as predicted from the flip. We won the flip. Take that karma.

Georgia bailed on our showdown from thirteenth. Too many injuries and a long drive made them decide to pack it in, so we played Santa Cruz once again. Our first game was no fluke. We played hard and walked away with a record of 5 and 3.

Spring Break Day 3

We slept in. More sleep equals more healing from sunburn. The skies were overcast, and the temperature low. Most of us found this news to be good since we didn’t want to go outside ever again.

Movies, spades, Clue, and Jake’s celebrity game kept us entertained for pretty much the whole day. Memorable moments include Austin’s pantomime of “your mother” and Bonges cheating at Clue because “he didn’t realize” he had a certain card.

We split up for dinner. My car went to a china buffet, and I’m not sure where the other cars went. I do know that Joel’s car ended up at a mini-golf course. I’ll let them comment on their putting skills.

The day ended without excitement. A few of us played drinking Clue, but we went to bed early in anticipation of our early morning departure for Centex.

Spring Break Day 2

We woke up to Sun and 75 degrees. We headed out to spend the entire day on the beach. We had a plan: meet girls and do work.

We started off by tossing. A strong wind provided us with the chance to work on our throws in unfriendly conditions. After months of hibernation, the wind caused us some considerable trouble, but that’s why we practice even when we’re on vacation. In one of the more touching moments of our trip, Charlie and Jman taught Dave how to throw a football.

After a few hours of sun bathing, swimming, and sandwich eating, we organized a game of beer-in-hand whiffle ball. This allowed a few of our gimps to get in on the fun. The wind was blowing with the batter, making pitching a bit difficult. We played about five innings before we called it quits. We probably would have played longer if Miles had done work and convinced the Kansas State girls to play with us.

We started playing five hundred in the ocean. Our lay outs into the surf drew some spectators. After that, Dave and Miles began talking to a group of girls from Texas Tech. Dave was trying to explain how the game of Ultimate is played when the girls asked for a demonstration. Dave rounded up enough of the troops in an effort to impress the young ladies from the longhorn state. He even convinced a couple of the girls to play with us. Unfortunately, he wasn’t suave enough to convince them to party with us that night. I think he looked a little too desperate when he let them bury him in the sand. Oh Dave, when will you learn? If you bury the girl, she can’t get away.

After the beach, we went to a place on the gulf called Bahama Bob’s. I was excited when the menu offered alligator bites for appetizers. I was sorely disappointed. The restaurant atmosphere was dismal. The waitress acted like she had more important things to do. And the food was a heap of broken promises.

Around this time, the sunburn began to set in. Brad and Miles looked the worst by far. Water and Advil were the only drugs most of us were doing that night. We attempted a power hour, but the lack of shot glasses and enthusiasm (except for Joel, that kid is crazy) made for a rather lack luster evening.

Spring Break Day 1

Jake, you did good son. You did good. Our Condo is right on the Gulf Shore. The Sand shines white, and the air smells fresh. Overcast skies cast a slightly dreary aura on the day, but temperatures in the high seventies more than made up for it. Upon arriving, Jake laid down the ground rules, and we mostly ignored everything he said.

After daddy let us go, we rushed the beach and set up a game of ultimate. The sand provides a soft landing for layouts, but the jagged shells provide quite the opposite. A couple of us ended up with sweet scratch marks. Joel’s team won the game (big surprise there). The wind was blowing at about 30 mph, and ironically, more upwind points were scored than downwind.

After the game was finished, about six of us ran into the Gulf. Cold doesn’t even begin to describe it, but you get used to it fast. Three girls approached Miles, B rad, Austin, and Dave. No deals were closed, but they did spend a lot of time in the water together. Being competitors, we set up a competition involving our social skills. Basically, you get more points for being more “social” with members of the opposite sex. No one has scored any points yet, mostly do to the fact that I’m spoken for and therefore not competing.

Food tab: $140. Beverage Tab: $200. Obviously, we perfectly allocated our capital. We decided to start our vacation off right by competing in a Tour de Franzia. We headed out to the beach about 9:00 pm. We met some girls from Kansas State earlier that evening and invited them to party with us. They showed up to our box wine race about a half hour into the contest. Joel, at my suggestion, had begun to tell stories to pass the time. Most of his stories revolved around Pappy. Yours truly told a few as well. Even a couple of the girls got in on the fun.

At some point, a group of high-schoolers walked by and tried to score some of libations. We agreed that if they told us a good enough story, we’d give ‘em a beer. They couldn’t even start a story. We heckled them until they left us alone. Stupid kids.

The teams for Tour de Franzia were divided into the short team, the big team, and the middle men. J ko’s strategy of drinking as much as you can right before you throw up paid off well for the short team. Unfortunately, it did not pay well for J ko’s stomach.

At about 11pm, Cole suggested we move inside to play drinking games. Quite a few of the girls joined us, and we had a pretty solid night. Bonges enjoyed himself a little bit more than others. He kept talking about how he wanted to put caesar salad dressing in and around some girl’s mouth. Charlie worked his Superman charm and got a few numbers.

Three and a half cases of Keystone and a liter of Sangria later, we all passed out around 1:30 am.

Casa de Abdullah

Zubair truly lives out in the middle of nowhere, but it is well worth the drive. The Abdullahs live in a gorgeous, secluded neighborhood that you would expect to be gated if the area was any more populous. Spacious and open describe Zubair’s dwelling. The upstairs was more atrium than hallway, as if the home had a living room both downstairs and upstairs. Mr. and Mrs. Abdullah are lovely people, and we cannot thank them enough for letting us stay the night. They also provided us with lunch and dinner. Mr. and Mrs. Abdullah, you guys rock.

Within ten minutes of arriving, we quickly assessed the entertainment situation. Being ultimate players, we turned the day into a 12 hour competition. We split up into four teams of four (all organization done by Dave), and took each other on in Smash Brothers, Ping Pong, Pool, Scrabble, and Basketball. Normal people play these games for enjoyment and light competition. For us, winning is a matter of life and death. The competition got ugly. Even the scrabble game was splattered with blood. Dave sustained a light quad strain (easily fixed by ice and drugs), Joel nearly took out my ability to have children, and Mickey fell asleep. In the end, B rad, Bonges, Jman, and Miles emerged victorious. No prizes were awarded.

Lefty brought his entire movie collection, and Cole had picked up a few especially for the trip. We organized a system to pick which movie the entire team was going to watch. We compiled 17 movies, and each one of us got to veto one. Since there were 16 of us, this would ensure that one movie was left in the end. It came down to Fight Club and Toy Story (Zubair had it on VHS). Thankfully Jko vetoed Buzz Lightyear, and we fell asleep watching Edward Norton and Brad Pitt beat each other. I’m still mad at Cole for eliminating Robin Hood, Men in Tights.

Terminus Recap

I knew this tournament did not bode well for us when my car arrived at the hotel and the front desk was closed. What?!?!?! A hotel without a 24 hour front desk? The rest of the team was able to check into the other rooms. They also had the confirmation number for my room, but Sun Suites had to be a stickler for rules. My passengers and I spent the night in the car. Needless to say, Sun Suites will be hearing from the better business bureau about their front desk policies.

Our first and only game came against Georgia tech. They are a short team, but they have the speed to make up for it. Our intensity level wasn’t especially high, but it wasn’t noticeably missing either. Jman had some sweet hucks- throwing not catching (I was surprised too). Yours truly threw a break side huck for a score, and made the Clark list. Other than that, our team played in our natural style: defense murders, offense buries.

Lightning put an end to our game with a score of 14-10. Hard cap was two minutes away when we were forced to vacate the fields. Needless to say, we got the victory. The TD kept trying to get the rounds started after every storm (against the advice of Stupca I might add), but the weather had other plans. Tornadoes and lightning reeked havoc, but in the end, the flooded fields put an end to the weekend. Fearing for the integrity of his fields, the owner shut us down (Stupca 1, TD 0).

So, we traveled 10 hours in a car to play one game. I vote we go away, and never come back.

Terminus Preview

NC State, Georgia, Minnesota, and Whitewater will be there. Need I say more?

The Illini head into this tournament as the third seed. Yet to prove they can win on Sunday, the Illini will be hungry for a championship. Our top contenders are listed above, but we cannot narrow our focus on them, yet. Our one key to success will be our unfailing focus to murder, bury, and desecrate one game at a time. We must never settle. No lead is wide enough. Pool play matters on Saturday, not Sunday. This team has not one a championship yet. We have nothing to loose boys, so play like it.

NC State runs a split stack and a ho stack with special situations presenting us with a diagonal stack. There offense is physical and relies on players to make close plays. I’ve never been all that impressed with their handler core. Putting pressure here may result in them thinking twice about close plays. They run force middle most of the time when on defense. Their marks are flat, aggressive, and poachy. Use the footwork we’ve been working on to turn the corner before the mark can get there.

I have not seen Georgia play yet this season. They did place second at ccc, and each spring tournament they’ve been to, so we do know they’ve got skill. Dylan is gone, but the team still has weapons.

Minnesota has gone further than we have on Sundays. Don’t let there mild mannered appearance lull you into a false since of security. A quick start will be key. Getting bogged down in a dogfight doesn’t work to our advantage.

Whitewater. We know them. We know there players. They think they know us. Prove to them that Mardi Gras was no fluke.

Other teams to watch out for: Tufts, Davidson, Georgia Tech.

The Team that Bakes Together, Plays Together

No, that’s not the Art Institute’s motto (though it very well could be). Recently, the D-line has been meeting outside of practice (and parties) to promote team cohesiveness. Events have included dinner at Zorba’s, making valentines for the O-Line, and, most recently, a bakeoff.

Project Cakeway began as the brainchild of Pavan and Dave. Inspired by Heidi Klum, we split up into three teams of six and had one week to prepare our delicacies. Three impartial judges were chosen to decide which D-liners had the potential to succeed in the culinary arts: Zubair, Joel, and Pat. They were instructed to judge each cake on three categories: taste, presentation/creativity, and technical difficulty.

Cake 1

Team 1 (order decided by ro sham bo) built a double layer, funfetti cake with a made-from-scratch strawberry filling. The cake had a light vanilla taste mixed with a creamy strawberry sensation. The team designed the cake in the style of the Chicago Flag since March 4^th marked the 171^st birthday of the city. Unfortunately, none of the judges hailed from the Windy City. The city skyline was built into the side of the cake using twizzlers. The skyline was constructed to scale.

Cake 2

Team 2 chose to use the brute force method. They created a volcano cake using 3 boxes of triple chocolate cake, 2 boxes of funfetti, banana cream pudding, sprinkles, and candy. Had they put in more time, it might have looked decent, but since they started baking it the morning of the competition, the cake looked more like a blob than a volcano. It was still an impressive cake. The mere size of it caused wide eyes from everyone in the room. When asked why they chose a volcano, Pavan answered in words that will go down in Project Cakeway history, “Our team is very diverse. Some of us like Apple Juice; others like Orange Juice. Lions and Tigers. It’s our versatility that defines us. So when I thought versatility, I thought volcano.”

Cake 3

Team 3 named their cake The Darkness. Needless to say, it was a dense chocolate cake. Team 3 opted for a round layer cake with a brownie and Hershey bar filling. Cutting slices required more effort than any normal cake. A thick and rich taste filled up any normal man with just a small piece. It was drenched in chocolate frosting, and a likeness of “The Darkness” adorned the top of the cake in purple icing.

The Competition

Each team gave a 2 minute presentation, and then the judges ate a slice. Each judge gave a 1 to 10 score on each of the three categories. Kyle tallied the scores. Volcano came in 3^rd with 80 points. The Darkness took 2^nd with 81 points. Chicago took the cake with 81.5 points. Volcano won on presentation. Darkness won taste. Chicago won technical difficulty.

The winner!

Why we have the best weather

March has arrived, and for those of you that don’t know, it comes in like a lion and out like a lamb. Here in Illinois, it usually comes in like a polar bear and out like an even bigger polar bear. Wind, sleet, hail, snow, wind, wind, wind, even more wind, rain, tornado, did I say wind yet? Such conditions are not ideal for playing ultimate. We tend to associate ultimate with warm beaches and sunny days, and Central Illinois doesn’t have either.

We are indeed blessed; however, many of us turn this blessing into a curse. We don’t take advantage of our elements. We go through some of the toughest workouts, but the thought of throwing when it’s cold out shakes our nerve (we want hot chocolate, a blanket, and our cartoons). Take a moment and close your eyes (but after you’re done reading this paragraph, since I won’t be able to talk you through the rest of this exercise if you can’t read). Now imagine developing a sick 40 yard huck while your hand is frozen and the wind is blowing at 30mph in your face. Now imagine having that throw occur when we play in warm, sunny Atlanta or Austin.

It’s been quite some time since someone has emailed the list for a throwing session. This great weather isn’t gonna last much longer. The next time you hear sirens go off, don’t cower in the basement. Grab a disc and a friend and head outside. You aren’t gonna get better by loafing around the armory. Bring it on Mother Nature, bring it on!