Rags to Riches : Adam Wright

Disclaimer: I ramble on a lot in this, read it anyways

In response the Brun's recent rambling, I have decided to tell my story to counter as well as add to his story. Bruns and I are an interesting species, we are the only two players in Illinois Ultimate history to go from the C team to the A team the following year. Lets not forgot the many others from the C team who detoured at the B team before getting called up. People like Steve Haake, Brandon Smith, Papa bear, and this year Jack Rabuck. It also is telling that others from that team stuck it out for their whole career and were not discouraged that at the beginning, they were very bad at ultimate like all people on the C team. People like Conerty, Dana, Jacob, and Rob. At let us not forget the dearly departed, like Alan Jarman, and Charlie Ma.

That's enough shout outs. What I'm trying to say is that being on the C-team was a collection of people that all got different things out of it. Bruns said he was very upset that he got cut to the C team, but I didn't care all that much because I hadn't put much effort into ultimate that spring and had poor attendance to spring practices and tournaments. So getting cut to the C team wasn't that big of a surprise for me. I was also pretty bad at ultimate.

Backing up a lil bit to how I got involved in the program. In high school, Pecs and I went to the same high school and the summers following junior and senior year I would come along to pickup ultimate with a group of people Chris knew from church. We took it pretty casually as we were always the worst team out there, a bunch of high schoolers with no experience playing against people who had played some sort of structured ultimate before. We lost all the time and we referred to ourselves as the moral boosting team, because other teams always stomped us and felt better about themselves.

So basically I thought of ultimate as this game where you just ran around in circles, and Pecs would boost hammers to me in the back corner of the end zone every once in a while. The summer following senior year Chris had a teacher from our high school come play with us a few times and opened our eyes to some of the subtleties in cutting and getting open. He told us to either run away or at the disc, because its easier to get open and easier to throw to. This is an idea that comes up in our offense even now. It was a good point. His tutelage helped and we played a little bit better. It should be noted at this point that I didn't really have an idea of how to throw forehand at all and could barely throw a backhand.

Over the course of that summer, Pecs was super jacked up about playing ultimate at Illinois and did all the research into the Rookie Facebook group they had created and contacted all the right people. I remember talking to Mike Cozza and thinking he was super awesome and I hoped that ultimate at school would be super fun and all that jazz. I was pretty excited about playing, but not to the extent that pecs was at the beginning of freshman year. Similar to Bruns, I didn't attend all the practices, and I don't remember much about that fall outdoor practices. We learned stuff like the vert stack, Beta, which is different that ours now. At the same time, I was a part of the wrestling club on campus and went to that twice a year, I wrestled in junior high and high school pretty seriously so I was probably more interested in that then ultimate.

Once we moved indoors, my attendance was even poorer because face it, the armory sucks dick, and we were practicing 4 times a week in there. On average I probably went to 2.5 practices a week. When tryouts came around, I skipped the first tryout practice and made the first cut, so I was pretty pumped about that. It should be noted that at this time, I was not the little fatty I am now, and was in much better shape compared to now. At this time, Bruns was just a nobody that was only referred to as Chuck Junior, because hes a ginger like a fomer player, Chuck. To tell you the truth, I don't even remember Bruns from the fall of freshman year. I only remember that someone was called Chuck junior.

The next tryout practice came around and long story short, I got cut. Didn't really matter to me though, I knew I had no business being on the A team. B team was huge though, probably like 40 people, although no more than 25 ever showed to practices, but thats to be expected. I guess its important to note that freshman year, I had been playing as a long and saw no reason to do anything different. I was decently athletic and had garbage throws, throw me on the pile of longs in similar situations.

That spring I think I only attended 2 tournaments, the Music City Tuneup in Tennesee somewhere, and sectionals with the C team. I skipped Mardi Gras to stay in champaign and party with old wrestling coaches, because State was in town that weekend. I also skipped out on Huck Finn because I participated in a wrestling tournament at ISU. Needless to say, at this point I was more interested in wrestling that playing ultimate. Seemed right to me because I invested so much time in high school to wrestling and felt fitting to continue doing so.

So when I finally got cut to the C team is when I made the switch from Long to handler, on the grounds that there were only 2 or 3 people on the C team who handled. I decided I would handle out of necessity for the team. By this time my throws had progressed a little bit from where they were in the fall. I distinctly remember being at music city tune up warming up by throwing and feeling really confident in my forehands like I could actually control them and what not. I also remember the first time I boosted a forehand really well was at an Irwin practice right after we had been split into B/C and I went to a handler group instead of the long group and a few people were like wtf are you doing. We were doing some sort of hucking drill and I just bombed a forehand and it all seemed to fit nicely.

C team played at D2 sectionals that spring and although we didn't play all that well, it was hella fun. We had some people on that team that were really bad and we hadn't practiced together and it was all together ugly. We ran Beta X a few times, I had a few good hucks and some people decided to drop them. I do remember in the ISU game they were playing zone or some junk defense and I threw a blade forehand across the width of the field and it was completed. Not much has changed since then I guess.

Here is where the important part of the post should be. How I got better over the summer following my freshman year in order to make the A team, but I've been enjoying myself too much just rambling about myself and ultimate, so it took me 1000 words or so to get to this point.

So essentially the summer after my freshman year, I played tons of ultimate. I was in 3 different summer leagues that allowed me to be playing 3-4 times a week. I was playing in a CUSL-West league, the NUSL, and the church league that I mentioned earlier in my post. Each league had its own little niche of improvement. The most competitive of these leagues was the CUSL league. It was mostly older people with some college players mixed in so everyone knew how to throw and what was going on essentially. This was my proving ground, when I did something well for the team in this league, I was super pumped because it was against decent competition. The NUSL summer league was usually dicking around with other Illinois players as we stomped on high schoolers, but sometimes there would be a decent matchup against some other college players. When we were stomping on high schoolers, I would frequently boost it, do kind of silly stuff that I wouldn't do in the CUSL league because my teammates would get angry. Then there was the church league, which had a lot of people that didn't really know what was going on and the results didn't really matter, so we dicked around a lot. The only players on our team with experience was pecs and I so we had to teach some of our friends how ultimate should be played and helped our game as well. We would mess around even more in this league, I'd throw hammers all the time, recklessly boost it, etc etc.
So the basics of what I did the summer after freshman year was to just mass as much playing time as I could. Young players need to experience different situations and no amount of practice can take the place of what you learn in game. Taking chances in meaningless games helps you identify what you need to work on more and what works in game and what doesn't. I didn't really have the goal of making A team my sophomore year. I was just enjoying playing ultimate, and success was just a byproduct of having fun. That summer I also went to a FC champaign tournament in Rockford which really opened my eyes after playing a summer of pickup and weak leagues. The first game at Rockford was against Beachfront and I was blown away by how fast everything was going and that I needed to step my game up to be back at real time, instead of at a summer league pace.

That fall, fall of '09, I tried out for FC champaign and made it which was pretty awesome because the only other sophomore on the team was Sid, so I felt like I was in good company. I didn't get to play all that much at sectionals for FC but I got a lot of good practices in with them on the weekends as well as some good playing experience at CHC that fall. I went to pretty much all the practices that fall, just felt like I should, I didn't have any big motivations to make A team, but ultimate was fun and I had fun at practice, so I went to all of them. I felt like I had a chance of making A team and once it got closer and closer to cuts I felt like it was very possible. After Border Brawl, our tryout tournament, I figured that they were gunna take 2 handlers out of myself, Steve, and Pecs. Pecs and I got the call up to the A team and Steve went on to rule the B team.

I'm really glad I ended up making the A team, I wouldn't have had the patience to play on the B team, and although I played a very little amount on the A team, I learned a lot from practice and just watching a lot of ultimate. Walden always like to cover me when he could and would just make my life a living hell ,but I know his intentions were good. Basically over the course of this whole year I just went to practice, kept boosting it and I was happy with that. I felt like I became a much better player over the course of the year just by exposure to good players and tough practice opponents.

The summer following my sophomore year I was working down in champaign, and we would do workouts 2 or 3 times a week and the usual crew would be myself, Sidrys, Pecs, Kurley, Mark, Jacob, Dmac, and Goose would usually run things. That summer seemed like it was 95 degrees and 100% humidity every time we worked out but it let us do some pretty brutal workouts. Goose always seemed to have a good drill for us to do that seemed very applicable. He'd see something and then we'd do a very specific drill to help that situation and would always help. We'd do a hucking drill, but with the special focus of trying to throw the huck directly over the defenders head to make it difficult to D. Drills like this seemed to help control on throws immensely. There are countless other drills we did, but thats just one I remember. We also did a lot of physical workouts with sprints, even when it was blistering heat. Goose would continue to tell us, “Make the heat your friend.” Seemed kinda crazy, but I feel like over the course of this summer is when I made a lot of improvements to my game, my throws, and my physical ability.

One of the things we focused on a lot was flat throw, We'd be doing a huck drill and I would throw a bomb, but usually goose had something to say about every throw that could've made it a little bit better and to concentrate on for the next throw. I feel like this mentality can help make great strides in your throwing technique and throwing skill. After every throw, think of how you could've made it better or how to make the throw more game applicable.

Needless to say, I was pumped up for the year to come, I felt like I was in position to be a starting D line handler behind Kennedy and we would just bomb it all the time on the D line and everything would be awesome. I felt like this is when I peaked thus far, the fall of my junior year felt really good and I felt that I was playing well at the fall tournaments I attended. Some mental errors I could've done without, but physically I was at my peak that fall. As many of you know, at rivalry reheat I tore my ACL and I haven't really been the same since. I had the surgery on my knee just about a year ago, (December 19th, 2010) and I thought by this point my knee would be no issue. Sadly, It still kind of is, and I need to take the proper steps to get it feeling where it needs to be.

In my time of being injured, I spent a lot of time just throwing during practice with other injured people or sometimes goose would come hang out and we'd throw. One drill that really helped with accuracy is you start standing like 10 yards away from each other and each of you throws 5 passes to each other, and if the other person had to move their pivot you start over. After 5 completions each, you each take a few steps back, and you keep doing this until you're throwing 40 yarders directly to each other. It just goes to show that with a lot of concentration its easy to throw really accurately.

Another throwing thing I did in the armory into the net, was throwing while off balance or with odd body momentum. Snackman does it sometimes and just kinda looks stupid, he stands on one foot and throws. I would step backwards and throw. It makes it so you kind of detach your arm from your body and prevents you from using your body to influence your throws. Practicing this is what allows you to throw fadeaway 60 yard hucks. Its pretty cool. Credit goes to some dude on Jam that Walden sent me an email about.

Basically theres so many things you can do to get better at throwing with pretty minimal effort. Kennedy sent out that wiggins throwing stuff a while back, and while I read through that, a lot of the main points were stuff that I usually thought about or goose lectured us on. So if you haven't read that, it would probably be a good idea to do so.

To kind of wrap everything up, a lot of rookies are at a point where they have no clue what they need to get better at, or more so just need to get better at everything. My advice to you is play ultimate to get better at ultimate and just to learn what the fuck is going on. Just learning how everything works and seeing a bunch of different situations and high and low levels of play will help your ultimate intelligence. Once you know whats going on, then you can take the proper steps to improving specific aspects of your game, and learning what your niche of the game is. Are you just gunna run around like a squirrel and layout and get D's like gibby or are you gunna be the gunslinger, boosting it all the time like me, shifty hips like JR or long cuts like Bsmith.

Play ultimate to get better at ultimate.


Read this:

Read all of these: http://www.brown.edu/Athletics/Mens_Ultimate/media/zipstips/

Throwing article I referenced : http://skydmagazine.com/2011/11/wiggins-zen-throwing-routine/

Theres loads of other information on the web, dig through skydmagazine, they have lots of cool articles on there

This is me Rambling

Obviously it is no mystery that I went from near the absolute bottom to near the absolute top of Illinois Ultimate. I constantly tell myself that I should put together a Kevin Bruns Improvement guide. Last year I created a google doc with what I thought would basically streamline all the improvement I made in four years down to about one year. I never shared it with anyone because I constantly tell myself, "No one will care"/"I need to perfect it before I share it."

This is not a blog about my streamlined process. This is just going to be me rambling about all the different things I did and whether or not I feel like they contributed to my development. Obviously I can flesh this out a ton, and if provoked I can go on tirades. Basically I'm using this post so that the Rookies can see how someone goes from C-team to Captain, and so that no mystery remains.

So down to business. I came into my freshmen year with only one advantage, I knew I wanted to play with this team. A lot of rookies first need to be convinced that they want to play/are feeling things out freshmen year/are just trying new things. Forget that garbage, I knew I wanted to play and I was going to go to practice.

Fall of 2008, I attended about 75% of the practices. I went a lot during the outdoor season, taking a few days off as "mental health days" (this is a lie I tell myself when I want to be lazy). I would skip bad weather days too, and I always bounced early because Newman hall stopped feeding people at 7:00pm. I went to all the tournaments, usually I would have one good moment at a tournament that made me feel good about myself and that is all that mattered.

When the team went indoors there were 4 practices a week. The monday night practices I totally just skipped. Mondays were only an hour and a half, and it was straight conditioning. The emails always said these were optional, but apparently if you planned on making the A-team they were not (a good lesson to learn, "optional" only means "optional" if you don't want to make the A-team). I think I had decent attendance tuesday/thursday and saturday.

Outside of practice I did pretty much nothing. I went to the gym a few times, did some bi's and tri's, and some presses, nothing with more than about 25 pounds though. I really liked the jumping boxes because they were fun, so I did a whole bunch of those freshmen year. I would do some quality 3 throwing with friends outside, but I bet I only averaged about 2 hours per week.

I'm going to use this moment to define a Quality of Throwing variable. So obviously there is a difference between throwing with some girl that you're hitting on, and throwing with another ultimate player who is way more dominant than you. So I'm going to use a base ten scale to score Quality of Throwing. E.g. a 1 is being bare foot with a drink in hand throwing to impress the ladies, and 10 would be cleating up and throwing 10 break marks against the best player you know and then switch and letting him break you 10 times. To flesh this out a bit more, in practice we do break marks and there is some variance in the quality based on how hard people are trying. Let's say we just did a cross fit, quality will probably be at a 5, however if we are all focused and going hard we can get to a 7. There is no variance in throwing with a good player, because if you start to check out they will foot block you ten straight times and then you just cry as you walk home.

During tryouts I got cut right away, which was way upsetting because fat little Adam Wright made it further than me. Throughout the spring I continued to go to practice, and continued to take "mental health days." I went to 3 out of the four tournaments, and remember getting super upset about being cut to the C team, but it didn't matter because PBear was my captain so it was exciting.

The summer of 2009 I had a rough job. I worked about 65 hour weeks, and had a long commute. So I did nothing to help myself improve. I worked the job with a friend of mine and during our hour lunch breaks we got in some quality 3 throwing. I did manage to squat 2x a week, with no lifting plan at all. I would do some calves and sit ups and push ups and squats, but the weight was just like whatever felt fine I would do.

Fall of 2009: I went to almost every single practice in the fall. A kid who lived on my floor was also going to practices so we would throw quite often. I did the elliptical the entire fall (I had convinced myself it was a good idea because I could turn up the resistance and it wouldn't "stress my joints", just another lie on the list of lies i tell myself).

After making the A-team I started lifting with Rabuck and Kennedy. I'm pretty sure I said "Now that I made the A-team I guess I should start acting like an A-teamer." During the winter and the fall I didn't pay attention to the method or anything behind lifting, I just followed Rabuck and Kennedy (Kennedy eventually abandoned us so it was just me an Rabuck with occasional visits by Papa Bear). We squatted, did some belgian squats, some assisted pull ups, some abs, free weight shoulder things. It was just me going through the motions.

The remainder of that year I would throw a lot with my floor mate, lift with Rabuck and go to practice.

By Nationals of that year I think I was maybe the 12th long on the D-Line. After Natties I got some ideas from Walden, and I had a job downtown which required no manual labor, and only worked me about 35 hours and paid me for 40. I was able to get up and lift 3x a week. So MWF I would squat, calves, bench and abs. My squatting technique was load really heavy and then get as much motion as a I could, inevitably I sacrificed a ton in my range of motion, this is not a good idea. Fortunately I never injured myself, and I think I got a little stronger.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays I would pull out an old mattress in my basement, set it up against the wall, get down on my knees and throw 100 forehands and 100 backhands at the mattress. I used a mattress because it was usually about 5:30 am and I didn't want my dog to start barking when he heard frisbees landing and effectively wake up my entire family. I credit this as helping me improve more than anything I have ever done.

Throughout that Fall I would lift 3x a week, just squatting and benching, all the while convincing myself that Rabuck (who was in Australia that semester) would come back stronger than me and I couldn't look myself in the mirror if that happened. Went to every single practice, tried to guard Papi every time I was in and tried to play as many points as possible each practice.

I got to practice early and would do hill sprints in the southwest area of the complex. I would also throw in cross fits of squatting/crunches/push ups.

When Rabuck got back in the fall my lifting shizz started to get real. It was the first time I paid attention to the lifting plan and it all made sense. We have 5 lifts, squat, bench, overhead press, dead lift, bent over row. 3x a week we lift and each time we do Squat plus two of the four lifts. The plus two are in groups, bench/bent over row and ohp/dead lift. The numbers also mattered. There are always 3 sets. On monday we do 3 sets of 5 reps, on the bar is 65% of your max, then 75%, then 85%. On wednesday we do 3 sets of 3 reps, on the bars is 70%, 80% and 90% of your max respectively. On Friday are 3 sets, first is 5 reps, then 3 reps and then 1 rep of 75%, 85% and 95% of you max. This holds for all your lifts and you just rotate through it all. At the end of 2 weeks, you should have completed the cycle twice for squatting and once for the other four.

Goose also got me, Papi, Rabuck, Sidrys and Sul doing some track workouts. The always consisted of 2, 1000 yard runs as a warmup, and then we would do either 4 400's or 6 200's or something in that range of difficulty.

This summer I went to a bunch of chicago club tryouts, which definitely helped me see how good people can be at ultimate. I had a job that required me to live on the road for about 8 weeks. I was in a hotel monday through friday and hanging with Rob in champaign on the weekends. MWF I would take my speed ladder outside and do a bunch of those, and then a bunch of 40's. During two weeks I was working up north and was able to get I think 4 workouts in with Waldo.

I'm pretty sure this is the bulk of it, these hours really build up, but there is no way I can add how up the hours I have spent just thinking about ultimate, which is also a valuable activity when trying to improve.

I'm done, that was me just spitballing so if anything is unclear people should totes talk to me.

KB

5 months until Regionals

The Fall of 2011 curtain has dropped on Illinois Ultimate, and the moment leaves me at a loss for words. As I was going through the phases of an Illinois Ultimate Fall for the last time, I would constantly wander back to my days as a rookie. It feels like yesterday that I couldn't throw a forehand, or was getting blown away by every team at No Wisconsequences. When I add up all the events that have transpired since my first month of college, everything falls back into perspective and I'm reminded of how far I have come.

Specifically reflecting on this fall, there is a ton that will stick with me.

The most important thing is that our rookies are nasty. Fall 2010 provided us with 4 very special rookies, and during the Fall of 2011 26 ballas graced our practices with their presence. Their attendance has been way above average for a class of rookies, and I'm pretty sure that four years from now they will be stunting through Nationals.

More imminently is the final push of the class of 2012. Four years ago the captains (Denis and Phenom) sent an email to the listserv trying to pump us younguns up and get us excited to come to practice more. In that email they said, "Four years from now you guys are going to be sick." Since day one I feel like we have had high expectations of ourselves. In 2010 there were whispers about how nasty 2012 was going to be. Our rookie class had two starters on the A-team, and an All-Region Freshmen of the year. It didn't take a genius to add two studs and the Roman Legion that was our rookie class and predict a sweet finale. Now here we are about to begin writing our final chapter together and I could not be more excited.

Our D-Line longs are as athletic and deep as ever. Sometimes when I toy around with play time depth charts I convince myself that our D-Line longs could be terrorizing offenses with up to 9 guys getting significant play time. An important note needs to be made on this statement. When Illini Basketball brags about having 7 people come off its' bench, it's usually because they all stink and they don't have a guy to go to, when Bruns brags about his sick D-Line longs it's because they can all go out there and get a D.

The D-Line handlers are almost as hungry as they were in 2010. Realistically, it is impossible to find an individual hungrier to play every single point than Kurt Zoellick. This year we might come close. When we get down we have a pair of seabiscuits at D-Line handler who are going to keep working and keep our sidelines energized by trying to make plays. Colin and Gibby have both put the team on their backs at different points this fall and it makes me very optimistic that they got the meddle to drive some clutch comebacks this spring.

There are two all-Region locks at O-Line handler. As long as those two don't put their tails between their legs when we are in the red zone, magical things could happen.

Our O-Line long unit is suffering the most from graduations. This definitely hurt and will continue to be tough to bounce back from, but we have enough motivated individuals to get better. Right now we are much worse throwers and worse at getting open, but something tells me that our defense on turns will be fine. There is tons of work to be done here, and four weeks at home is usually enough time for people to search their pain cave for their spirit animal, realize it isn't there, and then step back out into the light and have an epiphany.

Going forward from here, a few things are evident. First, our conditioning is so far from where it needs to be.

Second, our rate of injuries needs to decrease and under no circumstances should it increase. Injuries are always stupid, and injuries in the early part of the season absolutely kill us. Winter break needs to be used to keep lifting and keep stretching.

Lastly everyone needs to keep in mind that we have accomplished absolutely nothing yet. There are a handful of people that walk around with some unearned swag. We have not done anything on the ultimate field to earn that swag, and why we are wearing it so proudly escapes me. After break we have 3 months of work before we even have a chance of earning that swag. Always remember that not only teams but individuals, are only defined by Regionals and Nationals.

Bruns

First A-team tourney

Ultimate has only provided me with 3 sleepless nights. One of them was the night before my first A-team tournament, and in my defense the lineup at Border Brawl '09 was amazing. It was an 8 team tournament and you were guaranteed to compete against every team.

The Schedule was:

Iowa

Luther

Kansas

Colorado

CUT

Wisconsin

Minnesota

7/8 of these teams ended up making it to Nationals. Extremely similar competition to what we get to face at MLC.

As a sophomore I had big dreams of some day being one of Illinois' 'guys'. Making the team as a Sophomore would go a long way in getting me to a sweet spot on the depth chart.

I had my nervs pretty well contained until I got in the car Friday afternoon. It is a seven hour drive to Kansas City, and my car was full of a bunch of returners to the team who knew they had spots and the topic of discussion was how well they thought the team could do that year. The conversation forced me to think about just how badly I wanted to be apart of a team that competes for Nationals.

When we got to Mark's lovely abode in Kansas City, I grabbed my sleeping bag and searched for a place to sleep. I spent the first hour just laying, staring and psyching myself out. Everything I knew about the teams we were playing terrified me, and nothing about my skills comforted me. Beyond the anticipation of playing a couple teams that have recently won National Championships, was the everlasting desire to not let down my teammates. I fretted about potentially seeing the disappointed looks in their eyes after I got beat down for an entire point.

These thoughts poisoned my mind until Adam Wright started snoring, and once that happened there was no way I would get any sleep that night.

When morning finally came, it dawned on me that the only thing I could control was how much effort I put into every single point. In hindsight, that was the only thing that mattered.

Why you should Watch Club Nationals

It's the last weekend of October, and that means it's the weekend of Club Nationals. Even if you don't feel a special affinity for any team there, or feel like you don't care about what happens throughout the course of the weekend, you should still try to watch a couple games... Why?

A. They are a lot better than we are. This is by far the most important factor, the individual pieces are better than us, and the sum of their parts are better than ours. What are they better than us at? Well they are better throwers, cutters and defenders. More importantly they are on a whole other level in terms of running their offenses. When you watch a club team run a good offense it seems like cutters have tons of space to work with and the pressure on throwers is non existent because they are not trying to hit people's guts, but rather floating it out into the wide open spaces. They are extremely disciplined and very rarely do they do stupid things, it is a pretty amazing thing to watch.

2. It's a lot different swimming with great whites than it is watching them on Discovery channel. When you watch club nationals your first instinct is going to be "Why am I not impressed? I bet I could keep up with them." Let me be the first to inform you that you are lying to yourself. Club marks are tight, and club throwers could not care less. The best part of watching good ultimate is picking up new tricks to use when throwing and watching what makes a good marker a good marker. Club markers don't just sit there and foul away at people, however they are very close, balanced, quick and use their feet extremely effectively. Despite all this pressure the throwers still get their shots off. Faking is something that I don't find intuitive, but watching people who have spent about 10,000 hours refining the craft really helps you develop an idea of what can be done to break the mark.

D. It is still a game of runs. I remember when I believed that high level ultimate was usually decided by about 1 break. This is a ruse. Even at club natties it is a game of runs. Teams never mentally check out (Machine was down 5-1 to Furious and won 15-12). Illinois really takes pride in its ability to check out at random times throughout a weekend. Seeing how the best players in the world compose themselves under the highest pressure in the game is a great model for how you should carry yourself every single weekend.

Finally, If Revolver plays Doublewide you might get to watch Beau Kittredge and Brodie Smith go at it, and that alone should be good enough.

KB

How much better I am than my guy and Eminem Lyrics

Sorry for the hiatus. The past couple of months I have been enjoying the fall season. Practices have been full of young and chipper rookies working hard to learn the game. Tournaments have been successful for everyone who was able to avoid the curse of the Bümhaus.

However, this is not the reason for me to break my silence. A question was posed to me this weekend by Erik "Heff" Huemiller. The question: What are you thinking when you find yourself here,

on the line staring down your opposition?

At first I didn't really have an answer. Honestly I'm not thinking about anything. Usually K-Train and I talk about "deuces of fire" and related topics of poop being on fire. On a more serious note, it bothered me that I didn't have a real answer to this question. So I listened as Heff began to do some more digging.

Neal mentioned that he thinks about "usually how much better I am than my guy and Eminem Lyrics." This was a great answer and It reminded me that throughout Regionals I was thinking

About a year ago I was talking with Crayon. I was trying to get him stoked to play for Illinois. During the conversation it came up that at the beginning of game I was afraid of my opponent. This fear goes beyond respect, there was a time when I was generally scared that my guy would beat me and I would let down my entire team. I was also scared that I would never touch the disc and I would never garner the attention necessary to move up on the Illinois Ultimate depth chart.

This fear always faded sometime in the first third of the game. Usually I would get pretty open going deep, or get a couple easy incuts and that would settle me down a ton and the fear subsided and then I would get pumped because I knew I could play against the fool that was trying to guard me.

I had this fear during MLC 2010, but afterward it never reared its ugly head again. I never reflected on losing this fear until Heff brought up his question. It had been a long time before I had even thought about the guy I was guarding or how good that person could possibly be.

So what was the moment that broke this fear?

I asked Chris Hidaka to talk with me a bit about cutting, and he graciously gave me some of his time. I tried to ask some questions about how Chris adjusted to where his defender was and what his defender was doing. He thought really hard for awhile and then he dropped the bomb, "I really never notice my defender." He doesn't set up his cuts based on where his defender is, nor does he adjust things because of what his defender is trying to do. Instead he just feels. Just feel the space, the gaps and the windows that are opening and closing. For me this was huge, and I consciously took it into practice and slowly played with idea of never looking at my defender. Before I had been in the habit of looking at my defender as I cut, breaking that habit led me to another place in my development.

When consciously looking at your defender and trying to read his hips and trying to adjust to him, you find yourself throwing some weak fakes and unconvincing jukes. When you stop looking at your defender, faking disappears. Instead, just feel the space and cut really hard to it, if you feel that you have lost the space, stop and go another direction that you feel has a bunch of space.

At the end of the day I am not sure if this mentality helped me become a better player, or if becoming a better player allowed me to not care about where my defender is. I like to think it was an incremental moment in my development, and so I share it with you guys.

Also it really helps to think about this

Bümhaus

NexGen v. Machine

The only thing that looked good about Machine was their new Jerseys. The game started out with a Machine Oline, that didn't even closely resemble the Oline that will be stepping on the field at Regionals, punching in a score. Machine followed with a strong break and then decided to take a nap for the next five points. Down 5-2 it never really felt close again. Machine got as close as 7-6 I believe, but the game ended 15-9.

Some notes from the Machine side.

-A few key players were missing, most notably Machine Captain Mike Shiel and Illinois Superstud Joel Koehneman.

-Illinois Captain Ryan Smith made his first Chicago Machine appearance. 6 points played, 2 turnovers, 1 assisst... I'm not sure about D's but I am going to go out on a limb and say 0.

-Rory of Machine came down with some great jump balls.

-Machine threw a Clam that seemed to work fine early but as points, and the game, wore on it was just bad.

From the NexGen side

-Their experience as a team is definitely what set them apart from Machine.

-Stubbs' ability to shine on a team of all stars says more than a ton.

-When Dylan Freechild had space to work with no one could keep up with him. When he didn't have free space, he made some.

One final point in the game bummed me out. After Matty and Jimmy Mickle combined for a score the announcer referred to it as Colorado to Colorado, a few points later Ryan Smith and Walden Nelson put together a goal and the announcer totally misses on the Illinois to Illinois connection. Oh well... #cantgetnorespect

Yo We're in Boulder

After Finals were boomed and roasted, we took our free time to the south campus, or the Complex Fields south of Kirby.

As a team we spent four days fighting through two-a-day practices. Morning practices were easy warm-ups, lifting and then half an hour of throwing. The afternoons were basic drills and skills, and then topped off with some sweet scrimmages. Monday scrimmage the O-line rolled, Tuesday the D-line trucked, Wednesday we broke into a three on three tournament, and Thursday a three on three tournament with special throws required to score reminded us that Ultimate is fun.

Wednesday Pools for Natties came out. We learned we were the 17th seed, which fits since we finished 17th twice now. We are in a pool with number 1 overall Pitt, Colorado College, Iowa and Tufts. The Iowa game will be a rematch of a pool play game in Madison that was pretty tightly contested, and the Tufts game is a rematch of a placement game in Columbus that was a big heartbreaker to a lot of the older guys in the program.

After going home for two days the team regrouped in Champaign for the trek to Boulder Colorado. We stopped in Kansas City Sunday night to sleep at the Hirshman's and Krieger's. The rascals over at the Krieger's thought it would be hysterical to saran wrap Adam Wrights van... I also thought it was hysterical. Monday morning we bounced out of Kansas City and 11hours later showed up in Boulder Colorado!!!!!

There are mountains here, being a bunch of boys from Illinois we feel quite out of place.

3 days till first round.

84 Steps to Nationals

For the second year in a row Illinois took the three seed into Regionals. This year however it was a tournament with only one bid to Nationals. Before the weekend even began, the realization set in that the team would have to go through both Michigan and Michigan State in order to punch their tickets for a road trip to Boulder, CO.

The team made the comfy three hour drive to Rockford, the same site as Club Sectionals where a majority of Illinois players ended their Club season last October. I was one of the fortunate few to be staying at the luxurious home of Gibby, I only heard shady things about the hotel so I can’t go into detail but I do know that it was an experience for those privileged enough to be there.

Saturday morning we rolled into about 60 degree weather with about 15-20 mph winds. It was an upwind downwind day, but not dramatic enough to make it a significant advantage for the downwind team.

Our first game of the weekend was against Darkwing from Loyola with observers. The game began and it became apparent pretty quickly that Loyola had some great upwind throwers. We traded the first points and then had a very long o-point to take the lead 2-1. Another Marathon point ensued which included a lot of punting and a lot of missed shots to Dane and Neal. At 3-2 our D-line used some great catches and blades to get the first break. After being called for offsides our Defense steps it up and D’s it on the goal line then marches it down for another break, 5-2. Loyola came back with an O and a Break point of their own, which put our O-line going upwind to avoid the double break. The O-line marched it upwind for the score, setting up our D-line to take the downwind break back from Loyola. Halftime came at 8-5. Out of the half Loyola played like it was Regionals and we didn’t, they brought the game all the way to 8-8. Universe ensued. Walden intentionally didn’t inform us we were playing a universe point for our own sake. A jump ball to Dane won us the game and got the nerves out for the rest of the weekend.

Gibby got interviewed by the news for being the hometown hero in between this game and the next

Western Michigan was the four seed of our pool. All we knew about them was that they played Michigan tough at Conferences. The O-line started the game very smoothly and the D-line took their time to get comfortable with the competition. The teams traded to 5-4, before Austin stepped on the D-line and used some great throws to get us our first break. Going downwind on D, Crayon dunked to earn us the turn and we used the wind to punch it in. Trading into halftime put the line at 8-5. Coming out of half Western Michigan began cheers of “They’re Crumbling” to inform us that we were crumbling. I found this to be hilarious and can’t wait to steal that cheer in the future. After a few o points, Pecs found Crayon for the break score. D-line ran it to 13-6 and O-line finished it from their 15-8… THEY’RE CRUMBLING!!!!!!!

Papal Rage of Notre Dame was our last game of the day. Early in the game, our hometown hero Nate Gibbons got a sick D, and Andy K-Train Kilinski laid out past someone’s face and the crowd…went…crAAAAAzy. Austin had some great throws, Sid put a full field hammer Papi started to unload his scoobers and D-line worked to take an 8-4 half time lead. The second half was really exciting, both teams O-lines scored every point and the game ended 15-10.

We went to watch our B team become the Dev Regional champions, and then headed back to the hotel and the Gibbons house. Those that went back to the Gibbons house got some great Chili and some homestyle love.

The next morning is going down in my book as the best Sunday morning warm-up of my life. Three reasons why.

1. It was warm and not windy.

2. Indiana brought their boom box and I love warming up to music

3. During their warm up jog Michigan ran past us and gave a nicely timed M-A-G-N U-M cheer right by our warm up. Why does that make me happy? It was the first time they have ever recognized us a rival to them… it was awesome

Indiana was our first game of Sunday, it was also a Quarterfinal game. Kennedy had sat out all Saturday and was using the Indiana game to get his feet back under him. Indiana had two great senior leaders on their team that were not prepared to go down with a fight. They threw the first punch to break at 2-3. It didn’t take long for our D-line to get the break back on a hammer to Neal. Papi threw is fourth and final scoober of the weekend, 100% completion. Colin Reid played some of the hardest defense I’ve ever seen out of him as he matched up with Ed Wu, who was also playing his heart out. Papi and Austin managed to connect for a final break going into half 8-6. In the second half hometown hero Gibby laid out a massive D and Kennedy put the blade to Alex for a nice break that made breathing a lot easier. However, Indiana played lights out against us, I can’t give them enough props for the way they went about this game. They didn’t resort to cheap calls or fouling they just poured their hearts and souls into this game and any member of Illinois who wasn’t familiar with what an elimination game of regionals felt like received a lesson as IU brought it back and tied us at 12-12.

O-lines traded until it was 14-13, a bit of confusion ensued with soft cap being on, we broke for the win but IU felt like the game should be played to 16, but that was it, it ended 15-13. For all but two of the Illinois players, this was our first time ending someone’s season. Great game IU.

Michigan. Just like 2009 and 2010 we got to play MagnUM in semis. Our B-team had hung around just for this game, our women’s team had just finished their season and our alumni were there in numbers. We had the largest sideline in the Region and it was going crazy. They refused to let us lapse, they went nut when we got turns and they made it impossible for us to give up in any way shape or form. Michigan came in having a great spring and was the only team in the Region to truly carry any weight. Going into this weekend they were ranked 15^th and we were pulling in the 20 spot. Michigan got their first break VERY early in the game taking the lead 1-2. I may or may not have freaked out a bit… Our O-line sucked it up and made the next point count. One of the best D’s I’ve ever seen was made by Austin, Kennedy broke the mark to Neal and we were back on serve. Not long after Kennedy boosted a mammoth shot to Dane, who flipped it to Mark and it was Bernie time! The next point we put up a junk stall nine ball and Alex did some magic to come down with it. We had a halftime lead 8-5. Our halftime chat was us being stoked about ourselves. We had each other’s backs and our amazing sidelines had everything else.

The second half would be the most challenging moment of ultimate in most our careers. Be scored right out of half, and the sidelines were so loud they ended up dropping an in cut and we erupted in pure nastiness. UM managed to get a break back pretty quickly and on the ensuing Illinois O point we punched it and capped it off with a SICK 360 spike by Sid, who apparently has just been pretending to be injured all year because he is still really good at doing Sid things.

I think the dagger in the heart was our next break. On the goal line we threw one over our iso’s head and Mark Hirschmanzillazadehscrillaholla came down with a miraculous score. 13-9 our O-line takes the field, we turn it and with the help of the sidelines play some of the best O-line d all season. Michigan has absolutely nothing to throw too and they end up putting a swing pass to no one, giving us the disc with about 10 yards to go. O-line does it. Next d point Dane decides to be a handler and puts a big boost out to Neal for the break and the win. MSU was next.

We had to regroup and turn around for another big game. MSU broke us immediately which was a very sobering moment for the squad. Kennedy’s nice throws got us a break back and then one, 3-1. MSU got a handblock on their next d point and put the game back on serve. Sid’s very tricky throws lifted the O-line over the hump. The next D point Mark caught a score and then proceeded to do a headstand, nearly breaking his back, and held onto it for the break point. A few more monster throws by Kennedy and some calm offense put us into half with an 8-4 lead. Coming out of half time Sul toed the line for a score. The next point was all Neal Phelps. He got a bunch of D’s, several of which he threw down with a little attitude. Eventually the overwhelming defense helps the line score the break. At 12-5 our D-line takes the field. The wind was doing some fun things the whole game, but our D-line was essentially going upwind. After a team D, Kennedy picks up and puts THE GREATEST THROW OF THE WEEKEND right into the wind to a pretty open cutter in the back of the endzone, but it wasn’t to be, MSU took it a went downwind for the score, 12-6. MSU manages to get two breaks in a row, they were hustling because they knew soft cap was going to come on soon. They continue to huck it everywhere hoping to close the gap before cap, they got as close as 14-11. Our best line goes in heading slightly upwind. We have the ball in the redzone trying to punch it in. The pass misses its intended target, but Neal really likes to win so he cleaned up the trash.

We three-peated as Great Lakes Regional Champs!!!! Road Trip to Boulder Colorado

2011 Conference Champions

The first ever Illinois Conference was this weekend in Rantoul. Vets of the Illinois program remember Rantoul fondly. It is commonly known that the four winds of the world converge on Rantoul. The forecast called for rain but fortunately it held out through our first round game against ISU.

The Illinois team is pretty familiar with the faces of ISU and was pumped to get their first shot at Stanley the Gnome since Whitesmoke. The Dline ripped open the game to 4-0, from there the olines traded into half. We had a nice chat about the ridiculous number of turnovers we had in the first half but really to no avail. The Dline got one more break, thanks to Dane's turkey call, on the game and the oline didn't falter, the game ended on cap at 12-6.

SIU Full Tilt was next on the schedule. A team we were a lot less familiar with. As the game started the heavens really began to open up and the rains came down... I mean sideways. Standing on the east sideline was brutal with the rain coming straight at your face. The game started despite the conditions and SIU grabbed their first o point. From here Illinois opened a 6-0 run, that was capped off with freshman Crayon scoring, and eventually settled into half with a 7-2 advantage. The second half was all dline. Mark caught a Callahan, aka an Autochevron, Sidrys caught a floater over everyone and Chevtom lived up to his name.

The final game of the day was Chicago, a team that features two Illinois alums, Coach Zubair and player Kurley. Fortunately the game was over without much difficulty. We went on a 7-0 run to take half and coasted to a 13-7 victory leaving the fields to chants of R-A... N-T-OUL.

Sunday morning we got a bye thanks to the TD reorganizing things due to the ridiculous Saturday weather. Sunday had lighter wind, sun and no rain. It felt like the best conditions all year. We opened against Northwestern who we had played at Huck Finn when they were missing some big players so this time around we expected a much different game. Colin Reid opened the game by putting the oline on his back and making a big layout grab 1-0. A nice catch by JR and some great D by Kennedy gave us a 4-0 advantage. AJ Nelson played well and helped Northwestern stay in the game as we traded into half 8-3. The second half brought our cleanest ultimate of the weekend. Sul skied people with ONE HAND!!!!! Dane had a sick pair of bookends, and DMac got the wind knocked out of him for the game winning catch.

Eastern Illinois was on the plate for the Championship. This was Eastern's second year in the series. They thought a zone would be a good idea, it wasn't. We opened a 2-0 lead, traded to 4-2 and then closed out the half 8-2. Eastern was pumped coming out of the half and tallied a 4-0 run bringing the game to 8-6. The oline cleaned it up, and the dline made it worthwhile. Eastern didn't seem to go away as they threw another one. Halvies made a great throw to Papi on the next o point, and then Gibby did some things to help the Dline get the game to 12-7. We traded with them from there, the oline had some good moments especially Halvies throwing things and Austin catching an upline as he called his shot. With the score 14-9, the Dline wanted to take the Championship point and did.

Team dinner at Dos and it was official. Illinois Ultimate wins the first Illinois Conference Championship!

Alumni Weekend

With the series on the horizon, Illinois Ultimate Alumni made their way back to campus for the annual Alumni game. Last year the Students stomped down on the Alumni and the Students mentality was that this year would be no different.

The Alumni that showed up were a competitive group, with several players still active in the game and a large majority of them wanted to win the game.

Sid strategically decided to start going upwind on offense, and the Oline fortunately punched it in setting up the Dline to cash in on a down wind break. Up 2-0 and with last year on our minds it almost seemed as if Illinois already thought the game was in the bag. A few points into the game the Complex Fields closed and we moved from our nice field into the Arboretum which had already seen a long day of hat tournament beat them up. The Alumni maintained focus and managed to put together 5 breaks in the first half.

Half time was pretty awesome. Our Dline came out of half with four straight breaks to put it on serve and soon after took the lead back from those old guys. We were receiving on 13-11 when the Alumni broke the Oline for the 6th time, and a few points later put the game on serve at 14-14. The pendulum swung all the way to universe point at 16-16.

Universe point with the Alumni...awesome. The previous night I had told Walden I expected the game to be about 15-5. The Alumni won the game as soon as they made us run hard, no matter what the final score was the fact that we had to use more than 90% of our energy to beat them was frustrating.

True to form we moved the disc pretty well for a few passes before turning it over on a shot to the endzone. Joel unloaded a deep shot to Charlie and the Alumni pulled the W, making the overall series 1-1.

Even though losing was infuriating and I attribute our loss purely to us being stupid, I feel the Alumni deserve some props for working the whole game and playing pretty well.

Pat Stephens broke Papi's ankles, and roasted almost every matchup he had, Zubair's super sniper bombs were still locked cocked and ready to rock, Charlie was a tough threat deep, Joel Koehneman was poaching on a ridiculous number of incuts. Walden's give an goes were pretty much unstoppable, Jim Haan looked like he never had a knee injury, and Goose's desire to win definitely leached into his teammates. Everyone else who showed up played really well, and I thank them for taking the time to rock our dojos.

2011 Alumni Roster:

Joel Koehneman

Pat Stephens

Stupca

Goose

Walden Nelson

Matt Kurley

Kyle McKinley

JonO

Pavan

Jim Haan

Charlie O'Brien

Paul Ripsky

Zubair Abdulla

Paul Holze

The Road Ahead

End of 2011 Regular Season USAU rankings came out today. Based on their Algorithm we are number 26 in the Nation.

To qualify for Regionals the Illinois Conference has 6 bids:

Division I Regionals
6 bids: IL (1175)
3 bids: EPL (1051)
2 bids: IL-III (460)
2 bids: MI (1117)
1 bid: EGL-Dev (182)
1 bid: EPL-III (61)
1 bid: MI-III (242)
0 bids: IL-Dev (n/a)
- waitlist: MI, EPL, MI, {IL, MI, EPL, IL-III, MI-III, EGL-Dev, EPL-III, .

To qualify for Nationals the Great Lakes Region has 1 bid:

Region	Total Bids (20)	Auto Bids (10)	Region Str Bids (4)	Team Str Bids (6)
North Central	4	1	1	2
Northwest	4	1	1	2
South Central	3	1	1	1
New England	2	1	0	1
Southwest	2	1	1	0
Atlantic Coast	1	1	0	0
Great Lakes	1	1	0	0
Metro East	1	1	0	0
Ohio Valley	1	1	0	0
Southeast	1	1	0	0