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.