Seeing the field

I was watching a highlight reel from Atlantic Coast regionals, and saw a lot of what I guess I would call inside-lane hucks to a parallel receiver.

Nate Castine rips one here:

Hayley Wahlroos was highlighted doing the same thing this year for Oregon:

When I first started playing ultimate, I had no idea how to see the field, but pretty soon I figured out (or was maybe told?) that if you're on the far sideline, that's a good spot to run deep from. So the flight path of the disc in relation to the route of the receiver looks like that on field A (whereas the two above hucks look more like that on field B):

As a result of that, it conditioned me to think that good deep cuts come from spot X when the disc is in spot Y, when the defense is forcing Z. However, as shown above, a good deep cut can still come from spot X when the disc is in spot Y when the defense is forcing...uh, -Z.

It's been fun watching some parts of the Illinois practices this fall, where kids who have never played before will do things like throw OIIO breaks without realizing it, just because they see a possibility of getting the disc somewhere and recognize that if they throw it a certain way, they can get the disc to that spot. Granted, it may not have tight spin [yet] or anything, but...it's the creative thought that counts, here. Another thing that almost every rookie does at one point or another is throw to an upline cut on the around side (field C) instead of an upline on the invert/force side (field D), which is traditional.

Is there any advantage to waiting to throw an upline until you can throw a "force side" throw?

1. It's the norm, so it's expected by the receiver.
2. It's easier to put out to space (if it's not, maybe you shouldn't be throwing it)/there's a bigger window you can hit.
3. It's a "force side" throw, so an "honest" mark is unlikely to block the throw.

Disadvantages:

1. It's the norm, so it's expected by the mark/defender.*
2. Stall count gets higher as you wait (the difference between 9 and 10 is a turnover) (this can be negated if you throw it sooner and put touch on the throw, provided space is present upfield).

Advantages to throwing an upline while the receiver is still in the "around" portion of the cut:

1. It's not the norm, so it's not expected by the defender.
2. If you wait too long, the mark may react to a call to go more straight up and take away the "force side" upline throw (heaven forbid the dead side of the field opens up).
3. Stall count is lower.

Disadvantages:

1. The window to hit your receiver is likely smaller.
2. It may be nigh impossible to throw due to the position of your mark.

I'm sure I could fill up the list with more pros and cons for each throw. But after some simple picking apart, it seems to me it still makes the most sense to throw uplines to your receiver on the upfield side of your mark (assuming the receiver is cutting from the breakside; "hardest" uplines from the breakside are a different discussion entirely). But it's always interesting to me to see new players try it the other way. Obviously, they try it because they think it can work. Maybe it can. Will the game ever shift towards a majority of these throws over the way upline throws to a receiver coming from the breakside are currently thrown? I doubt it.

Sometimes a "good" team gets scored on by a "bad" team because of a "lucky" throw. What if people worked on "lucky" throws and got really good at throwing them, so they were a sustainable option? The game would have to evolve defensively. Right now, defense is dictated by the way offense plays. Yes, you can switch a team out of a vert stack by throwing a junk look or whatever, but the defense is generally conditioned to position themselves based on their historic understanding of how a team plays offense/how most teams play and understand the game. The most basic example is downfield defenders positioning (generally) on the "force side" of their defensive assignments, because generally throwers look for easy passes on the open side (if every thrower tried relentlessly to break the mark and ignored open side cuts, perhaps we would play defense differently). A more complex example is a defender at the front of a vertical stack in the endzone faceguarding/standing almost on the breakside of his/her defensive assignment, because in many vert offenses a common play is a quick break throw to the front of the stack. Players are getting better at throwing and developing a wider range of release points/flight paths, so defense has to adapt accordingly to account for these things. I'm interested to see what the game looks like in ten years; is the rate the game is changing more exponential, or logarithmic?

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*This may actually be an advantage, and a lot of simple yet effective vert stack plays are based off of this idea of getting the mark/defense to assume you are attacking the live side, so that you can get an easier break throw to score/move the disc off the sideline.

Nationals Thoughts

With the fall season underway for Illinois, it's about time I wrote down some scattered thoughts about nationals.

Things unrelated to our team:

• Food trucks = great. I was sad that they weren't there for all of the weekend. I had a great soup-thing on Friday and a fantastic pulled chicken sandwich on Saturday.
• The Kansas women had some pretty cool dark jerseys. Oregon's women had a nice kit as well, as they usually do. I didn't like Stanford's whites. Too busy. I liked the Carleton darks and UBC whites. Didn't see too many other women's kits.
• On the men's side: Texas A&M darks were too much, but the whites were fantastic. Florida State had the best universal kit (white and dark together). UNC was pretty meh. Oregon was just okay. Colorado Texas, Pitt, and UMass were classic, clean-cut. Yngve was talking to me the other day about how everything is shifting with jersey designs now given the front number requirement. UCF had some decent enough jerseys but I feel conflicted about the solid circle print with the number inside, seems a little odd.
• The catered dinner for the players on Sunday was decent; it was nice to have warm free food after sitting in the rain.
• Sitting in the cold rain to watch windy ultimate is kind of taxing. The things I do for love...
• The men's final was hard to watch. UNC ran away with it from the beginning. The women's final was epic. Even with the wind, I was still hooked on what was going on every point.
• Jesse Shofner is awesome and maybe even a bit scary and probably faster than me *Somewhere Jon McKoy says: "Of course she's faster than you, everyone is faster than you."* *I miss Jon.*
• Watching Pitt lose Sunday morning was equal parts exciting and saddening. I love the machine that is the Pitt program. I love that the game is business for them. I also love that UCF just showed up with big hearts (after losing to teams like Illinois earlier in the year...) and cruised into semis. I love that UCF ran sprints after losing in semis.

Things kind of related to our team:

• Earlier this year McKoy and I were having a discussion and he mentioned how I wasn't anything special, I just had "horses" (him, Pro, Jarred). The Maryland game definitely swayed this argument in McKoy's favor. I can recall at least four terrible decision hucks that I threw to one of these three, and goodness me, they dragged everything in. I'm not sure I even had a turn the whole game. Here's to the horses. I'll never forget being on the east sideline about 30 yards out from the south endzone putting up this awful blade backhand thing to a crowd of people and having Jarred jump perfectly and save me for a goal. It felt good to win a game. I remember thinking afterwards, "Okay, so, we do belong here. This is it. We can compete."
• ...then we played UNC and even though we technically put up more points on them than anyone else they beat (obviously not Oregon on Saturday) over the long weekend, I'll be darned if it felt like they were just toying with us the entire game. It was like they had this "Okay, well, I guess we have to play this team, so, like, I guess we will," mentality. I think we tried to guard Nethercutt with at least four or five different individuals throughout the game, and he would still get the disc, and he would still throw pretty much whatever he wanted. It was fun to play in the stadium against a team we knew was good (although at this time I still thought Pitt would win it all).
• Saturday morning, Oregon knew if they didn't get wins they'd be done, and gosh they sure played like it. We had a couple of miscues, but they were fired up and really, really quick. I enjoyed my matchup with #66, he was a good guy who definitely got the best of me a few times.
• Florida State was a good game, maybe one of my favorites of the tournament. We were right with them going into halftime, and they pulled away at the beginning of the second half and that was all she wrote. Their top three (Larocque, Roney, Holcomb) were all that the hype said they were. Larocque and Roney could put the disc wherever they wanted and were athletic enough to be multidimensional threats. Holcomb was a total workhorse downfield. We lost this game and it was hard to swallow I had one more game of college ultimate left. I remember talking to Walden saying I wasn't ready to be done, and he said something along the lines of how it's a journey everyone must take.
• The Cincinnati game was a lot of fun. Early on Marty threw a low pass downwind that I failed to scoop out of the dirt, and I remember being a little worried. Somewhere, Illinois picked up the pieces and put them together for one last ride. Pro was a monster; they knew he was going deep every point and they still couldn't stop him. I literally heard people yell "That's the play!" and then Pro would catch a goal.
• It was tough to be done but it was nice to end on a win. RIP, college career.

Pool Party

Well, our pool is tough.

This is kind of a funny statement, because any pool we'd be in would be tough. These are tough teams. In theory, the 20 toughest in the nation.

I like our chances. We start off with Maryland, which I think is good. [I don't want to count out any teams or overlook anyone, but UNC, Oregon, and FSU could all have been top seeds in their pool in a slightly different universe. We can certainly create our own luck and energy, but our best chance to build momentum is through a good game against Maryland.] Then we have a nice break to eat (and digest!) lunch before taking on UNC to close out the day. I can dig it. The next day starts a little early but I like that too, and I like that we play both games back-to-back that day. We don't even have to move fields! How convenient.

I do firmly believe that anything can happen on any given day in any given game. I also believe there are few people who can run with Pro and McKoy. Unfortunately, many of the people who can run with those two are at Nationals, and some are even in our pool.

Two weeks from today will be my last day at a tournament as a rostered college player. That is a sad thought, but it will be time to move on. Until then, though, I aim to make these two weeks count. The goal, I believe, is to escape pool play and play in a meaningful prequarter on Saturday evening. We have two weeks to watch a bunch of film. Thankfully, there's a lot on UNC, FSU, and Oregon. Good stuff. One step at a time.

24

All times are approximate, but some are accurately based on the time stamp of Wilson's tweets.

3:00 PM, Saturday, April 25

We're stretching after going 3-0 on the day. I have a Jimmy John's sandwich (#1, the Pepe) in hand from the platter that the parents brought. Sarson remarks that I must be in heaven, going 3-0 and eating Jimmy John's.

3:15

I have a conversation with Stupca about today and tomorrow. He says I know what I'm doing wrong with my throws, I just need to figure it out. I mentioned how I wanted to try his visualization process again tonight with throws. He tells a story of his college nationals the one year he played for Illinois, and his mental state. He tells me it doesn't matter if I don't sleep, my body can run on zero or six or less hours - it's more important that I give my mind time to cycle through important thoughts. Or something.

3:55

Books and I are hungry and upset that no one is taking charge of organizing team dinner. Apparently Books didn't get any Jimmy John's. Poor guy. We're about to go rogue when McKoy finds a place. I make a reservation. We roll out to shower at the hotel.

5:40

We're in my car in the Motel 6 parking lot. Team tensions are high. Why backtrack 20 minutes northwest to the fields to eat at Toni's when Thunder Bay is right next to our hotel? The GroupMe votes.

6:15

We finally order at Thunder Bay. Stupca, ever pedagogical, advises me against the "fresh" salmon. I opt for a pork chop.

7:00

My pork chop disappoints me. It is dry. Kate picks the chicken off of her pizza and gives it to me. Extra protein. Perks of being engaged to a vegetarian/pescetarian.

7:05

Kate keeps giving me the chicken off of her pizza. I think I have had enough chicken. I have a dry pork chop to finish.

7:07

Kate I love you but stop giving me the chicken off of your pizza. Cons of dating a vegetarian/pescetarian.

7:50

The team cannot decide on an ice cream place. Mark, Books, and I head to the one with the most votes, some local joint, only to find out on our way their that it has closed down indefinitely.

8:05

Mark, Books, and I head to Coldstone. Mark has a strong desire to split a 4-pack of ice-cream sandwiches. These are quality sandwiches, mind you; two cookies stuffed with flavors of Coldstone cream in between. I was hesitant until I saw them in the packaging. These are serious sandwiches.

8:08

Northwestern arrives. There is little to no tension, conversation is friendly.

8:15

After standing in line for roughly ten minutes (the recommended thaw time before consumption on the plastic packaging containing the ice cream sandwiches), we pay and have them professionally cut in half backstage by a jovial Coldstone employee.

8:17

Two bites in to our sandwiches we realize we should have gotten water, too. The cookies are soft and delicious, the ice cream magnificent, but man we were thirsty.

8:19

We ask Bruns and NUT players in line if they can ask for glasses of water for us when they pay. Tensions rise, like, 1%. Bruns gets defensive.

8:21

Bruns comes through huge and gets three glasses of water for us. Peace restored.

8:23

Some dad got his kid with the "DEEZ NUTS" joke. Classic. All of Coldstone probably hears and probably chuckles.

8:28

I sit with Bruns and try to get the skinny on Michigan State. I simultaneously just enjoy the company of a good friend while I eat ice cream. I like being friends with my "enemies" on the field. It makes me fight harder to get the best of them. I also like ice cream. It makes me fat.

9:15

I reorganize my things at the hotel.

9:48

I text Kate goodnight and make my first attempt at sleep.

10:05

I ask McKoy if it was a typo when he said "guck you Matt West" prior to Easterns when I messed up as travel planner; he was flying in Thursday instead of Friday and I hadn't prearranged a ride for him. After a little discussion, we realize that was a typo. The "g" was not intentional.

10:07

I hear, like, three people start to snore/sleep-breathe. How do people fall asleep so fast?

12:29 AM, Sunday, April 26

I wake up and check the time on my phone. Jarred is usually an intense snorer, but I can't hear him tonight. Sleep attempt #2.

3:30

I wake up. It's quiet. I know I'm not going back to sleep. I try, but I end up checking and re-checking weather, score reporter, anything on my phone. I lie in bed awake until

4:28

I start to get up. Today's the day. I grab my glasses, put on my pants and coat which rustle more than I'd like, and head to Denny's. I had to push Jarred out of the way of the door but I don't think I woke him.

4:40

I get the ultimate skillet and a small orange juice. My waitress is very pleasant.

5:05

I pay and go to the bathroom. I read texts from the past week from a variety of people. My little brother, Marty, other friends; I look at old blog posts I wrote after D-III regionals in 2013 and 2014.

5:15

In my car in the Denny's parking lot I think some thoughts. Today is the day.

5:30

I re-enter the hotel room and interact. McKoy asks what I got at Denny's. A few long-winded sentences in he cuts me off, saying, "This is the worst story ever." It's good to be back to reality. Today is the day.

6:00

Books, Mark, and I head to McDonald's for breakfast. After deliberating between the one in the Wal-Mart and the one we went to the day before, we are pleased to see the non-Wal-Mart one has no line. I get a small coffee.

6:50

Walden runs up and high fives us. I go to the bathroom and see a kid in a Deus Vult jersey leaving the bathroom. I say "I don't know you but good luck Valpo," and then say "I guess he didn't hear me..." but he pops back in and says "Thanks!" Cool.

7:05

I throw a bunch of hucks to Mark. I feel okay.

8:00

We start our game against Eastern Michigan. They're not half bad, but their zone is loose and we can patiently work through it.

8:14

Books runs up to me and rhetorically asks, "How many turns do you have?" knowing the answer is zero. I try not to think about it.

8:something

After some deliberation on a pick call, I catch an incut and turn to huck it and blast the disc into the Indiana-Michigan State endzone, one field over. So much for no turns on regional Sunday.

9:45

We won't be playing Michigan State; Indiana wins. My scouting info from Bruns about State is irrelevant, and I only know things about two players on Indiana.

10:15

We've scored four goals straight on Indiana, starting with a hold and breaking three times.

11:25ish

14-5 Illinois, receiving on O going downwind. I've walked my guy out as I like to do, so I run straight under to Marty, he hits me, I turn and bomb it to Pro. Classic. Game.

11:38ish

I sprint over to see how Valpo is doing while trying to eat a roast beef sandwich from Jimmy John's (#2, the Big John). I can't really eat but I feel out of it and know I need food. Things don't look good for Valpo against Olivet Nazarene. Olivet has scored and celebrated, Valpo looks down. There's an extended discussion that's obviously about soft cap/hard cap/time. I can't stay and fear the worst, and run back to warm up for Michigan.

11:45

It turns out Michigan is actually going to be Notre Dame.

11:50orsomething

Notre Dame closes it out. We're running an attack drill one field over. Johnny reminds us to focus on us, not the game or victory or whatever next door.

12:05ish because I guess our game started late

The game begins. I've never lost a game to go. We start on D for a rare change of pace.

12:10

Kurt catches me on the sideline and tells me Valpo had a crazy win over Olivet Nazarene, rattling off four straight points to win after the cap confusion. This amps me up.

12:24ish

We get our first break.

12:35

We get our second break. It's 6-3.

12:39

I look off a bump to Prayag to huck it to McKoy. It feels good.

12:59

I glance at Stupca's clipboard. It's 10-3. This is the moment when I know.

1:21

As offense stands on the line, I reckon I can bust deep off the pull since I've been fighting for unders. Marty says he's feeling his downwind puts. I do a brief dance off the pull and run towards the endzone. The disc goes slightly out of bounds out the side of the endzone and I can't reel it in. I land hard on my side with my arm extended and am a bit slow to get up. I take an injury because I didn't trust myself to play good defense, I was a tiny bit winded and sore from impact. I feel lame.

1:25

I go back in the game and throw a huck to Pro. It feels good.

1:30

15-7 Illinois over Notre Dame. I'm 1-0 in games to go, and have now won an open tournament.

1:45ish

After getting a Spikeball set, taking the rainbow picture, taking a million other pictures, and etc, I sprint over to see how Valpo is doing. I run up to see North Park score and celebrate, and Valpo lines up with their heads down. I'm hurt. I can't celebrate with my old friends. I feel weird. I go away before I can really interact with much of the team.

2:30ish

I stop by Valpo to say hi and goodbye. They're doing the "Bill/Pony" type game against Kalamazoo. I see Jesus shoot a pretty backhand to Gabe and they score. It's fun. I say goodbye and head to Wendy's.

2:45

Books comes to the conclusion that winning is fun and obviously ideal, but losing hurts more than winning feels good. Interesting. I think I agree with this. We stop at Wendy's and head home. It's a good car. Books and I make Mark answer a bunch of questions about cars. We're going to nationals.

Rankings

...matter.

Also, rankings don't matter.

20 teams go to nationals. Only one of them can win. Only eight make quarterfinals. Does it matter who the other 19 or 12 teams at nationals were?

It matters to those teams, but it's probably program dependent. In my eyes there are four categories of programs (who appear at nationals more than once). Teams that don't go to nationals, periodic qualifiers, perennial qualifiers, and title contenders.  If you're a periodic nationals qualifier, that probably means you're like Illinois. Some years you qualify for nationals, some years you don't.  The next steps above that are the programs who are always at nationals. Maybe they miss one year out of ten or so. Some years they'll contend for a title, others they won't. Carleton, Wisconsin, Colorado, Pittsburgh, Texas, Oregon, Florida...this list changes every couple of years, but these are the programs where if they didn't qualify for nationals, you'd say "Oh wow, _____ missed nationals this year!" However, just because they're there doesn't mean they're favored to win or even make semis. Obviously after that it follows that there are the title contenders. This has, potentially, the quickest turnover of the categories. You can go from being a title contender to finishing T-13 in a short time. For a few years, Wisconsin and Carleton were in semis and sometimes the finals, and the past few years one or the other hasn't made it past pre-quarters. (Note: this is somewhat shoddily fact-checked but I think it's legit; ideally I'd graph nationals finished over the past ten years; that would be awesome, actually...coming soon!)

In my mind, it's hard to move from not qualifying for nationals to winning a title. If the sport keeps growing and we hit a certain point of parity it will be possible, but until then, I think you have to migrate through tiers and give your guys experience. You have to taste nationals before you can beat Pitt at nationals. Once you're a perennial qualifier, you could jump from finishing T-17 to winning a title (Colorado got knocked out in pre-quarters before winning the title). I do think though that a program that can't consistently get to nationals will have a tough time winning a title until they can at least consistently get to nationals.

[That being said, I don't think the goal of quarters is unreasonable for us, provided we win the Great Lakes region. Obviously a team's nationals results mean the world to that team, it just means less and less to outsiders the higher the number by your name is.]

Anyway, today or yesterday or whenever it happened Cincinnati pulled out of Huck Finn after the USAU rankings had them at #14 in essentially the second-to-last set of rankings that can realistically be impacted by regular season results. They've gotten a lot of flak from the ultimate community, or certain groups in the ultimate community. All day I've been trying to answer the question "What would I have done in Cincinnati's shoes?" I still don't think I have an answer. Michigan isn't quite comparable to Pitt, but at this point the chalk would probably pick Michigan to win the region based on their regular season results compared to ours (and ignoring !history! or whatever...). So, if our region has one bid locked and we think we can keep another by dropping a mid-level tournament...I don't know what I'd do. I guess my point of rambling for the first few paragraphs was to say that if Cincinnati takes a bid from the Southeast and gives it to the Ohio Valley, that still leaves the SE with four bids. If all SE teams make semis, then we can make the case for Cincinnati truly "robbing" a "deserving" team of the chance to compete at nationals...but at that point, that's all it is, right? Just theoretics. The title contenders will go to nationals and contend for a title. All the rest of the teams are just there to experience nationals. You can make the argument about "Any given Sunday..." but Cincinnati figured out a way to [potentially] get to nationals and they're going to take that route. I'll still cheer for Lehigh in the Ohio Valley (nothing against Cincinnati, I just want to see a DIII team slay it) and I'll cheer for Auburn in the Southeast. Heck, I want to go to nationals. I'm sure those guys do, too. I don't fault them for wanting to do what everyone who's not on a perennial qualifying team wants to do.

Easterns is this weekend and it would be awesome to crush teams and turn heads, but realistically all that matters is figuring out how to play so that we can go undefeated at regionals. I think the Great Lakes getting two bids is outside the set of possible outcomes right now. Let's go.

Injuries

As I sat out from practice this past week I was left wondering if I would be in this position now if I had just taken the time to recover fully in the fall. I had strained my hamstring after Illinois Invite in October and instead of doing the smart thing and resting it and bringing it to full strength before returning to playing, I returned too soon, not only playing on it in practice but playing a full tournament on it as well at MLC. What would have been a 3-4 week injury went to a nagging season long one, preventing me from playing 100% when I was able to play and in my current situation, putting me on the sidelines for the next 3 weeks.

So why was it that I felt I needed to return sooner than I should have? Why was it that I played on it when I should have just sat out and continued strengthening it? Was it the pressure of tryouts and showing Stupca that I wasn’t a total scrub? Was it the pressure of my teammates?  Looking back to last year we might be able to see that team culture can have a lot to do with how one responds to injuries. There was a negative stigma about being hurt last year and this can help drive people to come back sooner than they should. Another driving factor is not wanting to let the team down. When injured you get to sit back and witness all of your teammates putting in work while you focus on recovery, its hard not to feel the desire to join them. This feeling is especially amplified around tournaments. You train all year for these few tournaments and having to sit on the sideline watching your teammates go to war without you is just rubbing salt in your wounds.

For an example, lets look at Greg’s injury progression from last year. Greg injured his knee at practice in the early spring and sat out for an extended amount of time letting it heal (good!). Greg then sat out for the majority of our first tournament before deciding to jump in during a close game. During the one point was in, he chased down a huck and re-aggravated the injury, putting him slightly for longer (bad). Come Easterns he was able to play a majority of the tournament before once again re-injuring his knee during the last game. This put him out until regionals where he eventually went for broke during our semifinal match up against Northwestern was able to play one point before getting scored on and falling back to square one once again.

The moral of this story and something I wish I would have considered more in the fall, is taking your full time to recover. You know your body, you know if you are healthy enough or not. If its even borderline something that could potentially sit you out for the rest of the season, take care of it the first time. Don’t risk injuring it again especially in a situation that doesn’t matter as much as regionals does. I believe all that Greg did was due to his love of the team and wanting to be able to help them win, but sometimes we need to step back and consider what really matters in the long run. Even though it may be hard to sit out as you watch your teammates grinding through practice and putting in the work, you have to think about the end result. Although it may suck to miss a regular season tournament, its better to do whatever it takes to ensure you can play when it matters come regionals. In my case I’ll be out for the next 3-4 weeks working on bringing my hamstring back to full strength. Its going to hurt not being able to play at Centex but if I can ensure my health for the rest of the season it will definitely be worth it. And in the meantime I’ll be doing everything within my power to expedite the healing process.

Geeking Out and Knowing Your World

We're going to try to make this blog-thing work again.

Personally, I'm very excited, as I've been reading the content of this site for years. Long before I came to Illinois I had creeped around Al Gore's Internet and found this place, back in the day when school was easy and my ultimate experience minimal. I'll never forget my first exposure to ultimate on the internet: Nick Lindeke, one of my first captains at Valparaiso, sent an email to the new members of the team in the fall of 2010 saying: "one of the best things you can do to get better at ultimate is to Geek Out on ultimate." He sent some links to the USAU, RSD, Match Diesel's history about Henry Callahan, and a few others. He left off the links to The Huddle and some other key sites, but hinted that they were out there, hoping some people on the team would put in the effort to find them on their own.

I really wanted to get better at ultimate, so I tried really hard to Geek Out. think I found most of the sites Nick had hinted at, and many more. It became a hobby - a borderline obsession - to fill my mind with the wisdom of Jim Parinella and Lou Burruss, to have a little fun with Brodie's trick shots (the first one came out the spring of my freshman year), and to eventually become a regular reader and financial supporter of Skyd Magazine. To bring things full circle, I had read quite a few posts on the Illinois Ultimate blog by Bruns and Adam Wright before I had even considered graduate school, let alone Illinois. I forget how I first found this site, but I did, and would periodically read it until...well, now.

Anyway, in the airport before Warm Up I had a conversation with Bruns during which we talked about "knowing your world." Even here at Illinois there seems to be a surprising lack of knowledge of big names in the sport. Example: when we played Texas A&M at Warm Up I'm not sure how many people were aware that Matt Bennett is this very-much-talked-about, crazy-but-talented thrower (at least before the game; it becomes pretty apparent in-game as soon as he touches the disc). Now hear me out: there's a fine line between having some knowledge on an opponent because you've done your research and being afraid of an opponent because you've taken your research too seriously. You have to be careful to avoid paralyzation due to idolization. It's just a game and you have to want to win. As far as knowing the big names, though, I think it's safe to say most people know who Brodie Smith is, and as the sport reaches a younger and younger audience people will know the (recent) past Callahan Winners and past college national champions before choosing a school to attend. But what about Jim Parinella? A few years back Hector Valdivia wrote a piece for Skyd Magazine about the younger generation and how they don't know Alex Nord. I may be one of the last people of my "generation" who know of Nord. Do people know what city DoG was based out of? JAM? Who is Kenny Dobyns? Do you know? I hope some people know about Andrew Fleming's catch in Prague, 2010.

Names are just a small part of the picture of this world I think we should know. Also, I can't be too harsh on Illinois since I come from the end of the spectrum where I'd probably rather sit alone and read old ultimate blogs than attend a social gathering. Well, sophomore year MattWest was all about that life, anyway. But I wonder how many people on Pitt read extensively or consult external resources outside of practice. Do they know the culture, or do they just throw and run a lot? Have they read Lou Burruss, or do they just know their reset looks and that's enough? This is kind of a serious question that I wonder about. Obviously, if I had an hour to spend either throwing or reading, it's more beneficial to throw (in most scenarios). Do you need to read opinionated stuff on strategy and culture to be a better player? I'd like to think it helped me on my journey. Actually, I know it helped me.

I guess I equate it to the relationship between academia and industry. We need thinkers and dreamers to push the boundaries of what we currently know. The doers test what we think we know, and see if we knew it correctly. The doers apply the knowledge, make it practical. If there are no textbooks, then there are no guidelines for the people who go out in the world and make things happen. We need people to write, update, and re-write these textbooks. If there are no doers, and everything is theoretical, then what's the point? One without the other is pretty useless. Some people are more inclined towards doing, others towards philosophizing. I'd like to think everyone should do a little bit of both. You should know the history and culture of something for the same reason you should know the history of your country, of the world; experience is the best teacher, and it's nice to get free, easy, second-hand lessons in experience by learning about those who came before you.

In ultimate, knowing your world means knowing who the best throwers are so you can learn from their technique. It means knowing who won last year's national championship so you can attempt to understand what makes a strong program. Or so you can understand how a program falls apart. A lot of the base knowledge for knowing your world can be found online, by Geeking Out.

To close things out I wanted to resurface some old posts on this site that helped shape me. I know some of the authors and don't know others. Sorry I'm not sorry I'm a bit of a creep. I don't necessarily agree or disagree with everything in these posts, but they were ones I enjoyed reading and learned from. Sure, this stuff is opinion in some senses, but that only adds more to my knowledge of the sub-world of Illinois ultimate.

• This is me Rambling
• Rags to Riches: Adam Wright (I'm guessing that "some dude on JAM" is Idris Nolan? I think Walden likes to use him as an example...)
• Case Study: 2012 (thoughts on the last sentence: at this stage in my life I can't imagine taking a trip to DI Nationals for granted)
• For the Improving Player
• FIN.

I have about three months left of college ultimate (that is arguably the saddest thing I've ever typed). I plan on Geeking Out for the next three months and many more to come. Join me, if you want, as I write about things that come to mind about the sport, thoughts on tournaments, thoughts on strategies, differences between DI, DIII, and a range of Club teams, and so on.

Side note: I thought it was funny and a bit meta to come across this post years ago. Reading a blog post about wanting to be an ultimate blogger and thinking about how I would like to do the same thing some day. Side side note: I'm pretty sure this dude has been an observer in some games and I see him around and think it's odd that I know who he is because of some blog. Either that or some observer looks like him.

Lastly, Moses Rifkin is probably, like, my hero - the person I aspire to be most on, around, and off the ultimate field (he was recently in the news for teaching social justice/leading discussions on privilege in his classroom, even though he's a physics teacher - awesome). He's been called an ideal teammate by many. I owe that to Nick for challenging the Valpo team in that email to, among many other things, know "all about Moses Rifkin and why he is awesome." Thanks, Nick. You're awesome in your own right.

Know your world.