Sunday, March 1, 2015

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.


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.
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