Making Strides

At the end of May, 1989, The Boot received a large influx of players from UC Santa Cruz. Their season had just ended, and they wanted a chance to step right into club ultimate through the summer and fall. We were in the perfect position to welcome them to the fold. They mixed right in with our stable of current and recent Stanford players and brought a spark to the crusty vets.

Also, this was the one time I gave Worm a leg up in ultimate. Despite the emotional win in Santa Barbara, I knew that he couldn’t be satisfied playing with the local city homeboys. It hadn’t been enough for me. It wouldn’t be enough for him. I kept prodding him at various social functions when I saw him.
“Tom, come on, don’t you want to even try coming out to a Boot practice?”
“Maybe. I guess. I don’t know. Where are you practicing?”
“Milpitas,” I am reluctant to admit this. This is a good hour south of San Francisco.
“Milpitas! Why so far away.”
Scrambling to make it sound as reasonable as possible, “Well, a lot of the players are in Santa Cruz, some are from Palo Alto, then there are a few of us north up to San Francisco. Milpitas had fields with lights and it’s relatively centrally located.”
He is hedging, “I don’t know ... “
“Come on. One practice. See how you like the team. Then decide.” Hoping.
Hesitantly, finally, “Alright. What day, what time?”
“Wednesday. Practice starts at eight o’clock. Leave here by seven.”
“Get home by ... what? ... eleven?”
“Yeah, that’s about right.”
“OK”

That was that. He finally agreed to come out. Now I had to clear it with the team junta. There was a generally open policy at practice, but only for people that the captains invited. I was merely one of the scruffy little rookies on the team.

“Barney, hey, I ... uh ... I invited a guy to come out to our next practice.” I was a more than a little nervous, even over the phone.
“What? You? Who?” Scepticism running rampant through his voice.
“This guy Tom. From Chico. He moved to San Francisco this spring. He’s a great player. Great defensive player at least.”
“Chico? What’s his name?”
“Tom ... uh ... Tom Glass I think.”
“Any relation to Mike Glass?” Somewhat more interested.
I have no idea who he is talking about, “I don’t know, maybe.”
He’s thinking, “Alright, but our roster’s just about set now. He won’t get much of a chance.”
I’m relieved, “Fine. See you Wednesday.”

Worm and I drove down there that week. I remember that nasty, short, rutted field we played on in the elementary school yard in a bad neighborhood. I know New York, New York used to boast of the bad neighborhoods they played in. I know the Miami guys used to recount to me the travails of playing at the edge of a ghetto, on a field that was basically under an overpass. But this field was no picnic either.

In fact, I distinctly remember the practice where five - FIVE - of our team cars got broken into while were we practicing about 50 yards away. They started with the car parked furthest away and methodically broke the windows, stole the stereos, and picked up the loose items in the first five cars working their way down the line. My car was the next in line, not touched. I recall feeling guilty that I was so relieved that my teammates, and not me, had to deal with such a nightmare.

Anyway, Worm and I arrive at the fields. I introduce him to the gathering group as we quickly warm up and get ready to play. We didn’t do a lot of training or drilling in our practices. We didn’t know any better. We thought we had to play as hard as we could against our teammates to try to make ourselves and them better. It worked pretty well for us.

About half-way through the scrimmage, Worm poaches off his man on defense and hurls himself towards a throw intended for Barney in the endzone. Worm gets a sick, fingertip D, but not without landing on Barney. Elbow first. Right on his head. Riding him into the dirt.

“JESUS CHRIST!!” Barney is screaming as he tries to stagger up from underneath Tom, “What the HELL is wrong with you!?! It’s only practice!” He’s rubbing his head, walking in circles.

Worm has managed to piss off the one person on the team with the biggest veto power.

Everybody else that saw the play is thinking, “Great block.” I know they are convinced that we need this guy on the team.

“Sorry,” Tom looks like the guy that just got slapped by the prom queen.

“God Dammit! What the hell were you thinking?” Barney is clearly not happy.
“I saw my guy clear out ... turned ... saw you open in the corner ... started heading that way, then the throw went up. I went for the disc.” Matter of fact accounting of a split second moment.
Barney is finally seeing the big picture now, “Well ... dammit, be sure you do that to the other teams.”

Worm was on the team. As usual, we went to the local dive after practice.

Sutter’s Card Lounge. I believe that was the name. I certainly remember the inside. No windows. A pool table off to the left. A few hard-used booths. Some random scattered tables and chairs. A long bar with a few constant bodies. Smoke permeating the air. Juke box. And the ubiquitous stuffed toy “Claw” machine.

We habitually gathered here after practice, despite the work/school-night status and the inevitable late hour. We would pour in as a group, wearing shorts, sweaty shirts, grass stains and dirt. Some still with cleats on. I distinctly remember the night, one time after we hadn’t practiced for a while, when I got there first. The Santa Cruz boys, Seth, Teddy, Richey, Walter, all came in at once. The dead-to-the-world bar-fly woman in the corner heard their “Bouyaah!” arrival. She barely lifted her head up off the bar, just enough to croak out, “Here comes the smorgasbord!” and then dropped her head back down. We all hesitated, looked around, laughed, and started ordering beers.

We used to heckle and cheer the people that tried to coax a toy prize from the evil Claw machine. I laughingly recall Seth screaming out to one unsuccessful, but vaguely attractive woman, “That thing is THE DEVIL!”

Seth often screamed his pronouncements. We all laughed and toasted. She seemed somewhat mollified that we recognized that she had been unfairly robbed. Sometimes that is all it takes.

After a good night at Sutter’s, I think Worm was committed. He was the last roster add that year.

Incredibly, I am looking at a phone list for that team. Something I held onto over the years knowing I would want to see it again some day. I guess tonight it is. I know it isn’t the final roster, but it spurs remembrances of most of the players:

• Phineas Baxandall: I haven’t thought of Phin for years. He was a great teammate. Very athletic, capable of greatness, sometimes a little unfocused. Very fun.

• Jeff Borncamp: Great guy. At every practice, every game. Very quiet in this crowd. Funny stories for years. Maybe Worm will elaborate.

• Barney Bruner: I remember thinking that he was just about too old to still be playing. Yeah, he had a wicked backhand, and he managed to juke his way open more often than not, but ... seriously ... he had to have been all of ... 32 years old at this point. That is way past your prime for ultimate. [Very frightening to recall this as, at the age of 41, I am still trying to play in the Open division and compete at Nationals. Sad.]

• Jimmy Conners: All I knew about him back then was he preferred to play in a unitard similar to a wrestling uniform. He also had the best high release backhand ... ever. Got to know him better years after playing on the Boot.

• Ron Cootes: Older vet, but a serious speedster. We used to give him shit because he was so focused and serious. He wore high socks.

• Dante Anderson: Did he really play for us back then? How is it possible that we didn’t win more games? Or at least, how come we didn’t have multitudes of women hanging around our team?

• Peter Deutsch: For at least a year, I only knew him by the name Peter Watsonville (because he drove up from Watsonville for practices). Great guy, good middle, not flashy, but didn’t make many mistakes.

• Will Debello: Only guy on the team that weighed less than me. He was still playing for Stanford at this time. He had become a legend because of his performance at college nationals in ‘89. Ask any player that was there. Also, we used to try to get him drunk and fuck with his photographic memory. He was the first person in the world to commonly use the word “Sweet!” to communicate enjoyment.

• Tom “Worm”Glass: With him on the team, how is it possible that we didn’t win more games? Or at least, how come we didn’t win every boat race ... oh, wait, we did.

• Chuck Godin: Chucky. He was in seriously good shape for an old man of ... maybe 30. Loved the inside out throws.

• Dan Harrington: Soul of the team. Huge, conscienceless hucks. Occasional amazing defense. Wrote the funniest short blurbs for the team. [Sadly, this was before email, or he would have been more widely acknowledged for his genius prose]

• John “Truth” Knuth: Did he, too, play for us. It couldn’t have been for the whole season. He will show up later in this blog. One of the smartest teammates I ever had. Never read a whole book in his life.

• Me: Enough babble about me already.

• Dave “Lippy” Lipscomb: Raw, tall, fast talent. Would blossom later.
  

• Ken Leiserson: Little college kiddo. Nice guy. Easy to fuck with. He showed some potential.

• Peter Moyer: I had forgotten about Pete until re-reading this list. Not sure about his background. I think he was a friend of Barney’s and must have played on a pretty good team or two. I definitely, vaguely, recall the details of an altercation on the field. One of our opponents was getting seriously amped against one of our younger players. Peter strode out into the middle of it and pointedly mentioned that he would love to rearrange the face of the next person that said a word. Everything got very quiet. That was the end of that.

• Mark Newton: Tall, gangly, fast, high hops ... Newt. He and Jeff Borncamp used to hang out and do the craziest things. Ask Worm.

• Brian “From Hell” Plymale: A legend in many parts of the land. For many different things. Could write an entire blog about him and his exploits. As a teammate, he was great. Huge throws. Always smiling.
  

• Alan Rudy: Probably the one player on our team that pissed off more opponents than Barney. He was aggressive, physical, and tough. He also taught me the basic concepts of cutting. [Some might say that didn’t take too well, but he was good at it].

• Seth Blacher: Crazy kid. Looked like he might be pretty good if he stuck with the game. Funny both when he wanted to be, and when he wasn’t trying. The essence of Santa Cruz.

• Dave Smith: Big Dave. When he joined the team, it was like the gods smiled on us. Do they all grow so tall in Kansas? We didn’t care, he was on our team.

• Teddy Wardlaw: Goofy Santa Cruz boy. Could run like crazy. Had trouble catching and throwing that first year. Turned out to be not a bad player.

• Chris Yoder: Very cool for being so young. Always seemed like, win, lose, or whatever, he had plans for after the tourney.

• Walter Dodds: One of the most unique teammates I ever had. Soccer goalie for UC Santa Cruz. Wasn’t very fast. Didn’t cut particularly quickly. Had good, precise, low throws. What he was remarkable at was being middle-middle in the zone. He could lay-out instantly, four feet off the ground, for a throw trying to split the cup. Got more blocks that way than just about any player I ever knew. Really great guy too.

• Richey “Z” Zlatnich: Driver of the Tuna Boat. [see later blurb]. The epitome of the Santa Cruz surfer dude. Very funny. Very smooth low throws. Makes me smile just remembering him.

• Russell Zinner: Russ from the NASA team. Russ from El Lunche. By now he was a serious receiver and defender. Only downside was he loved the long throw a little too much. Was always glad he was on my team so that I didn’t have to try to cover him. Made practice hell though.

That was the bulk of our team heading into the Fall. Some of these players would go on to greatness, but at the time, we were mostly unknowns and beginners. But we certainly had some fun times at both practices and tourneys. That year, it seemed like we would make the quarterfinals of every tournament, and then would lose to a better team. We just couldn’t get over that hump. But we were some of the best hecklers on the sidelines.

Sutter’s Card Lounge is gone now. I believe they bulldozed it to make room for condos. It will always live on in my heart though. A place where a great group of guys bonded over a a lot of beer, many laughs, a desire to work towards a common goal, and the willingness to push each other as much as we could.

What else is a team ... really?