To all the A-Teamers: Congrats. To all the B-Teamers: you guys are going to be good. Seriously, you will be better than the Valpo team that Kurt left behind. Keep coming to practice and there’s a good chance we’ll see each other at Regionals.
If this is your first year on the A-team, you’re here because the captains and Stupca think you’re ready. But I’m gonna tell you that you are not ready (yet). I remember my first year on the A-team. I held my own in practice. Played hard and put forth a lot of effort. I thought I looked pretty good out on the practice field against my fellow A-teamers. Then I stepped on the field at my first tournament against other A-team starters and got lit up. I played maybe three points that entire weekend, because that was about my worth to the team. If you want to gear up for your first tournament, take every opportunity you have to play against our best players. It doesn’t matter if you feel out matched. Looking like a fool in practice for the first month of the season is much better than looking like a fool on the field at nationals.
My fellow returning players, we’ve got a name to live up to. We lost a lot of good players from our quarterfinalist team. Now, we must prove that we’re an established program instead of a just another joker team that gets lucky once every 5 years. These last few practices we’ve looked sloppy. We’re dropping easy catches and turfing simple throws. Crisp passes and catching the disc should be second nature at this level. On the plus side, our decision making looks good. We could always be faster and more proactive, but I think we’re on the right track as far as our ability to mentally play the game.
Keep pushing yourselves to become better athletes and players and don’t slack off during winter break. After we come back to classes, we’ve only got three weeks before we’re boarding a plane for beautiful
