Ultimate Under the Lights

Sam and I spend most weekends away at Ultimate tournaments, and three nights a week out under the lights at UW-L coaching the women's team.

The team is finished with tournaments for the season, but we're taking advantage of the nice weather and keeping up light practices.

We coach a great group of women, and it's always exciting to see them out on the field having fun and improving their game.

Good Will Hucking

Well, another Hallowinona has come and gone, and another team from La Crosse has enjoyed themselves thoroughly.

Our theme this year was "characters Robin Williams played." We had a couple Genies from Aladdin, a Patch Adams, Mork, a couple Mrs. Doubtfires, Sean McGuire from Good Will Hunting, and more.

We didn't win much, or at all, actually, but we did have a good time and played some pretty crazy points.  It's nice to have your 22nd and last tournament of the year be so fun and completely non-stressing.

And now, curling!

Ultimate in the news

While our local Ultimate group tends to play in more fun-side than competitive-side tournaments, there is a growing world of competitive, and even professional, Ultimate out there.  Sam and I are heavily involved in officiating national-level events, but we don't even get paid for that.

Here are some recent articles about competitive and professional Ultimate that come from pretty well-known sources like Time Magazine, for example.  Enjoy!

Time magazine, "Ultimate Goes Pro"

NPR, "Ultimate Frisbee Puts On Its Game Face"

United Airlines, Hemispheres, "The Ultimate Question"

Curvy lines

Yeah, so, enjoy the zebra and the kilt.

A man and his dog

In May, Sam and I once again attended Camp-I-Wanna-Huck-It, which is an Ultimate tournament at a summer camp.  We always enjoy the combination of Ultimate and campfires, old cabins with bunk beds, silly games, and camp food.  This tournament is great for Millie too because she has fields and forests to roam through and lots of people to play ball with.

Ultimate women

I just spent the weekend with the UW-La Crosse Women's Ultimate team at Ktown Throwdown in Kenosha, Wisconsin.  This was the ladies' last tournament of the season, and it was wonderful to watch them play with the confidence and skill they had developed over the last few months.  The team had a winning record of 5-2 over the weekend, and the two losses were close, well-fought games.  Congratulations to Galaxy!

I love coaching women's Ultimate for the same reasons that some mothers love that their daughters play Ultimate: it encourages confidence and camaraderie.  I also love knowing that the ladies I coach are probably smarter than many other athletes.  But most of all, I love that women who play Ultimate are just plain awesome!

What does the fox say?

Everyone's heard of the song "What Does the Fox Say?" by Ylvis by now, right?  Well, Bonobo Handshake decided to make this our theme for Hallowinona.  We had the requisite fox, and then a bunch of other animals to join in the fun.  We also had two jokers not participate in the theme and show up as a Guy in a Kilt and a Guy in a Sombrero.  Guess who wore the kilt.

Despite the fact that two of the four fields we played on were approximately half the normal size, we managed to have a great weekend, possibly even winning one game (It was the last game, and everyone was being silly.  At a costume tournament, why not?)

day 14: success

A few weeks ago, I wrote a proposal for summer Ultimate leagues and submitted it to La Crosse Parks and Recreation.  Today, Sam and I met with the person in charge of adult programming at Parks and Rec.  Based on our discussion, it looks like La Crosse will be getting an Ultimate league next summer!  Exciting!

Today's workout:
YMCA Iyengar yoga class

weekend activities

Sam and I were flown out to Buffalo, NY this weekend to Observe the DIII College Ultimate Championships. Thanks to the five weeks of recordbreaking rain they'd had, the field site had to be moved to a smaller space, which meant that instead of five rounds of games on Saturday, there were eight. And more rounds meant more Observing!

Sam worked 12 games over the weekend and I worked 10. We both came home very tired and very sore, but we had a great time. All of the teams worked very hard, and it was obvious they appreciated our presence on the field. That's what makes it really worthwhile.

Driving home from the airport, we heard on the radio that there had been a tornado in La Crosse while we were gone. We were lucky that it hit 10 blocks south of us and we didn't come home to a missing roof or a tree on the house.

a new season

The Ultimate season has officially begun, and we are well on our way to playing/observing several tournaments in a row.

This past weekend was College North Central Regionals. It was supposed to be held in Appleton, but northern Wisconsin has had nothing but rain and clouds for the past two weeks, so the ground was too soggy. The D1 (bigger school) divisions were moved to Madison instead, where the ground was less soggy, but the wind was ridiculous.

We observed six games, including Women's Finals and a bunch of games that decided who would or would not go to Nationals. I gave one Personal Misconduct Foul for a guy who responded to my call with "you should pay attention to the game." Other than that, the games were pretty clean and the players seemed to genuinely appreciate our presence on the field.

Once again I tracked the number of points total in each game and calculated the absolute least number of miles we ran. The absolute least we could run would be 70 yards per point, the length of the field between the endzones. Of course, this ends up being a ridiculously inaccurate number, especially in windy conditions when teams are just hucking up and down the field. But the low number for the weekend is 4.5 miles. I think I would at least triple it to get a better idea.

i bleed orange

Sam and I were Observers (Ultimate's version of referees; we run up and down the field watching for travels and fouls, and rule on any such calls when asked by the players) for Central Regionals this weekend. We became certified Observers as another way to extend our Ultimate careers as we get older and our bodies cannot handle two days of sprinting on hard ground.

I do not know where we got that idea that Observing would physically be a step down from playing, but it is wrong. This weekend we both Observed eight games each. As a player, I would maybe play six. And Observers do not get subs. We get seventy seconds between points, and whatever time-outs are called. I did some very basic math, and I ran at the very least twelve miles this weekend, and seventeen miles would not be unrealistic. This on nothing but bananas, trail mix, and croissants.

The result is massively tired bodies, horribly blistered toes (the trainer was very impressed with mine), sore muscles, and yet, the desire to Observe again as soon as possible. Sure, you can mess up calls, players may swear at you, and you run all day, but you're involved in the growth of an awesome sport, and you get to be around some of the most talented teams in the country. It's worth it.

ultimate in japan

There have been few posts about Ultimate frisbee this summer, mostly because we have unintentionally attended about six fewer tournaments this year than last year. But that doesn't mean we didn't find a few places to play while we were in Japan.

On a lovely afternoon in Osaka, we joined UFO (Ultimate Frisbee Osaka), a group of ex-pats and Japanese, for a game of pick-up in the tall grasses alongside the Yodogawa River. It had been years since I'd played with this group, but there was at least one person I knew still playing.

A week later, we begged our way onto some alumni teams at a tournament in Maishima, just outside of Osaka. Sam picked up with the Tibets, Kyoto University's alumni team (and the team I used to practice with), and I joined Kaede, Doshisha University's alumni team. The Tibets did alright, but Kaede won the tournament. And yes, I stood a full head taller than any of the women I played with or against.

old school ultimate

With the growing popularity of Ultimate frisbee comes a growing number of new books dedicated to the history and techniques of the sport. Sam, however, went out and found one of the oldest books about disc sports, "Frisbee: More than a game of catch," published in 1984 and now out of print.

This books includes wonderful pictures of people dressed in leg warmers and short shorts demonstrating a variety of throws used in freestyle, Ultimate, double disc court, guts, disc golf, and any other of the many ways people played with Frisbees back in the day. It's hilarious.

The author also provides us with this poem he wrote extolling the wonders of a Frisbee:

The Circle
by Billy Bloom

The circle which I speak about
Is tossed and sometimes rolled.
To watch this colored object fly
Is pleasing to behold.

It spins and hovers like a tiny
Planet in the sky.
It falls to earth as gently as
An oak leaf from up high.

When gliding through the air it is
A spacecraft from afar.
The minds which guide its perfect flight
Are from a distant star.

But then you hold it in your hand:
A plastic dinner plate.
It must be good, for all men know
The Frisbee feels no hate.

hammer!

Ultimate frisbee season is well over now, and I haven't touched a disc for at least three weeks. It's cold and the holiday season has set in. I was looking back at photos from some summer tournaments, though, and found this one that I love. It's a photo of Ben practicing his hammer throw. I caught him right after he released the disc, and it looks like it's gonna be a nice toss. Ah, how I miss the hammer.

rainbow parachute

Kindergarten and Ultimate frisbee spirit combined at the Potlatch tournament this year, when NICE brought a parachute for their fun game to share. After the drinking portion, we all sat underneath and did some break dancing.

observing

At high levels of competitive Ultimate frisbee things can get heated, and the Spirit of the Game which usually suffices for players to self-referee becomes a little shaky. That is why there are Observers, referee-like people whose job it is to be an on-field reference and argument decider in the case of unsolvable disputes. Other than in and out of bounds, in and out of the endzone, and keeping time between points, the Observers make no active calls; they must be asked by the players to make a ruling.

Sam and I went down to a college tournament this weekend to be certified as Observers. We spent six hours in a classroom Saturday, discussing the finer points of rules, positioning, and Observer duties. Then we observed experienced Observers at work on the field. On Sunday, we each Observed four games. After passing two tests and one on-field evaluation, we became certified.

It's completely different playing in a game of Ultimate than it is Observing a game. You must concentrate on a several places, actions, and players at once while running to position yourself in the best line of sight for any forming play which might involve a foul, pick, or anything else. It is both physically and mentally tiring. But it is lots of fun, especially when you get to be the authority on a field with a bunch of haughty college kids.

Potlatch Day 3: finished 2nd in G bracket, 94th overall, tourney record of 4-5. Showered at Microsoft and saw our friends off. Now to the Olympic Pen.

Potlatch day 2: One win and two losses. Party at Redhook brewery where 2500 people ate salmon and drank beer. The line was 2.5 hrs long.

We finished the day 1-2. But we had tons of fun - Sam ran an obstacle course with the Back to the Future team, and I was declared Prom Queen.

wisconsin on my mind

This weekend was my third trip to Wisconsin in as many weeks. Sam and I have now memorized the route and where the good rest areas are. The most recent trip was for the Cooler Classic Ultimate tournament in Delafield, just outside of Milwaukee. As usual, we played with the Madtown Boozehounds. We did quite well at this tournament, ending up tied for 7th in the B Bracket. It might not sound like much, but we only aspire to finish in the upper half of the rankings.

There were two highlights of the weekend. First, we were camping at a nearby state park. At about 10:30pm we got hungry. So we ordered pizza from Marty's and an hour later they delivered it to our tent in a truck with a warming oven in the back. How cool is that?

The other high point was during our second round bye on Sunday morning when we cheered TBA, an Open team from Minneapolis, to a win by playing fantasy Ultimate with their players. They thanked us for our enthusiasm as we left to go play our next game.

Lastly, it seems that someone at the ISTHMUS, a newspaper from Madison, spends their day searching blogs for mentions of Madison. My post Madcity Madtown from last week was listed in their Miscellany section on Thursday, August 7. The quote: ""Madison is quite possibly the most bike-friendly place I have ever traveled."

Slowly, I am becoming famous.