Back from the Dead, a Post about Post-Collegiate Ultimate (Part 1)

By rip (that's right, I've still got access)

For some of you, the end of college seems ages away. For others, it seems way too close for comfort. As a person with a somewhat professional career (Auditing/Accounting) and a somewhat amateur ultimate career, I wanted to share some of my insights and offer you a glimpse of the club ultimate scene outside of Champaign (FYI, Goose and Jim run a damn good team in FC Champaign).

Author’s Note: I know quite a few readers are still upset over club sectionals. I’m still quite disappointed in how Beachfront won, and I don’t think either team would have felt good about winning or losing that game. But moving on…

Let me start by saying that my experience may not be typical and other alums who are also currently tearing up the club scene (Dave, Joel, Pat) may have different opinions, so when making a decision involving a club team, it may be beneficial to talk to more than one person. However, I have always been of the opinion that personal experience is far better than external advice.

After graduating, I took a break from ultimate in order to settle into my new job, new marriage and new house. (At some point, real life is going to compete with ultimate. Make sure you know your priorities before that happens. Making decisions will be much less stressful that way.) In order to keep my throws from getting too rusty, I looked for random pick-up games. I first found this one group of high-school kids near my first apartment. While playing with them gave me a significant ego boost, it did nothing for helping me stay competitive with the big dogs.

It wasn’t until winter when I found a decent pick-up game. In that, I got somewhat lucky. I found a group of people who knew what they were doing, and some were involved in the local ultimate scene, ultimatechicago.org. I got talked into signing up for a mixed spring league that I hoped would get me ready for club tryouts come May. The team I played with was a random mix of masters players (many of which were Illinois Alums), recent college grads, college players and a high school player. Playing on such a team was a vastly different experience from playing on Illinois.

Given that we had no experience playing with each other, no set plays, and no set defenses, it forced me to immediately communicate with my teammates to learn how we fit together to win games. I also had to assess who the throwers were, who the main cutters were, and who was looking to actively switch on defense as well as recognizing the same characteristics in my opponents. At the same time, I also had to assert my role on the team. This type of experience directly translates to the club tryout experience. (Side note, I can now add Chicago Spring League Championship to my list of accomplishments. Taste it Cozza, Denis and Bill Finn.)

I went to the tryouts for the Chicago Club teams: Machine, Haymaker and Beachfront Property. At the tryouts, we ran a set of drills that many of you would find familiar, e.g. break side cut to, Randy Moss, Triangle of Death. Then we were put in 3 v 3 games and 7 v 7 games. Here’s where playing with a group of people you barely know comes in handy. The teams are random, and you have to work with your teammates as well as stand out in order for the tryout to be a success.

Yes, Illinois Ultimate attracts a diverse group of athletes, but our ultimate schooling is virtually identical. Playing with others who learned the game under different schools of instruction only enhances your ability as an ultimate player and your ability to deal with different/bad calls or situations during a game. Not to mention that it broadens your exposure to a variety of offenses and defenses and effective strategies for defeating said offenses and defenses.

I didn’t make Machine, which was a bit of blow considering that I bribed Joel, but I found a home playing with most of the Beachfront guys. So I continued the tryout process with them.

to be continued…

3-Week Report Card

BAM- Were already three weeks into our spring season. We have three weeks till our first tournament, and less than three months until conferences. The realization of just how long a college ultimate season is should be setting in right now. The wear and tear can be pretty tough to deal with, and taking time off now is better than hurting yourself and taking time off later. Keeping your mental focus can also be a daunting challenge. We put in a lot of time during practice and out of practice and the demand on your schedule may get frustrating. It is important to remember that your teammates are going to be there for you, so you should be there for them.

I've talked to several people about where we are now in relation to past years and how we are developing as a team. I thought that I would put together an Illinois Ultimate 3-week report card, in an attempt to self analyze and reset my own focus.

Throwing: It doesn't seem like people are pushing themselves to improve during the throwing drills. Right now the isolated wrist snap drills are helping us improve the most because of a lack of learning from the break mark drills. We can all experiment a lot more to see how the mark reacts to certain things and try to make the defender make mistakes that you can capitalize on. I think that everyones throws can improve. If you don't think you have something about your throwing that you can improve on, I bet you $20 that Walden can find something your really bad at.

Marking: Throwing and marking go hand in hand. I feel like people are comfortable with their level of marking, and don't make a conscience effort to work on them. We aren't very physical and a lot of us lean and bend over all over the place. Austin and Kennedy are our two best markers and they never move their upper body with moving their legs. We talk about striking on inverts and arounds, but striking does not mean sticking your arm out and trying to hit the disc, it means shuffling around so that your hand will be in a good spot and you won't have to extend awkwardly and lose your balance.

Offense: There is no point in ringing the alarm bells yet. However Friday night a five stall scrimmage pointed out a ridiculous amount of deficiencies. We need to be better at making contested throws and contested catches. There is no team that we will play at regionals that won't be all over us. We aren't going to be wide open all the time, so being able to run our offense despite pressure is what matters. We aren't timing or meshing our cuts together very well and it seems like we get tunnel vision sometimes. I'm not particularly worried about these things though because I believe that the timing just takes work and the tunnel vision will be fixed once people become very comfortable with the offense and know where to expect there teammates are going to be.

Defense: Not physical enough. I'm not going to pretend like I'm good at defense, but we talked about how we have had very few foul calls during practice. That needs to change. When we play good teams they are going to be tight, and they will use contact as a way to stay close to you. Its not that we need to "try harder" we just need to grow a pair and start getting in each others space. Related to defense is our transition from offense to defense. Its pretty terrible right now and I don't have anything nice to say about it.

Overall I believe we are on the right track. Each of my concerns can be fixed by people taking pride in what we do at practice and trying to improve themselves everyday.