Working Up Through the Ranks

Two weeks after our monumental victory in the humble confines of NUCL B Division, the Wild Bunch made an appearance at the A division finals. This time, we had a larger, more competitive contingent. The news of our prior conquest had spread like, well, not exactly wildfire. More like sputtering incense. But either way, we had all of our best players - except no Mike Pomeroy this time. He was out of town. I knew that I should have been comforted by the knowledge that we had essentially traded one great player for five or six decent players. Even so, I was not feeling confident.


While the Northern California Ultimate League was not filled with powerhouse teams, there were some talented players scattered among the ranks of corporate, local, and some college teams from all around the Bay Area. We had had a tough time with the lower group of teams, how would we fare against the upper bracket?

In short, not well. As I recall, we may have won a single game, maybe two, but the better teams mopped the field with us. We had no one that could cover their taller receivers. I could do a decent job of defending against shorter players, but these teams had more than one or two throwers. In fact, it seemed like, on some teams, every player could actually complete a forehand. Multiple people could throw overheads.

We could not match that. Even though I was mostly a middle, often I defaulted as being a bail-out handler. Only, I still wasn’t very confident in my forehand while faced with a decent mark. And I could only throw it accurately for about 15 yards. We saw a lot of force forehand and some zone. We were toast.

I think our last game of the day was against the team from NASA Ames in the south bay. They pretty much ran roughshod over us. I do remember being matched up time and again against one particular player on their team. He was a little taller than me, with curly brownish hair. He was athletic and fast. He also had no qualms about launching full field hucks and laughed just about the same whether he completed them or not.

At some point, during maybe the third or fourth point where he covered me, he took advantage of a break in the action to introduce himself, “My name’s Russ. Good game, huh?”

Maybe from his perspective. His team was batting us around like a cat playing with a mouse. And they were having fun. I was back to being frustrated. It had been a long day, and my mood wasn’t helped by the fact that this smiling, laughing jerk was keeping up with me pretty easily. Sure, I’d catch a pass or two, but he was making me work hard for each reception. I wasn’t used to having to set up my cuts. Also, clearing out more often than getting open was growing old fast.

By the end of the misery, I had introduced myself to him and decided that, all things being equal, he wasn’t such a bad guy. At least he was having fun, and he did hand me a consolation beer after the game.

We were sitting on the fields after all the games, just bullshitting between teams, when the captain of another team rode his mountain bike towards us. He stopped in front of me and said, “Dude, what’s up? I’m putting together a new team for regionals. I want you to play for us.”

I hesitated and then glanced around. Apparently, he was talking to me.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Uh ... Bill.” Was this a joke that some of my teammates had concocted?

“Well, I’m Dan here’s my phone number. We’re going to start practicing in a couple of weeks. Give me a call soon and I’ll let you know when and where.”

“Are you sure? Me? I mean, I play for the Wild Bunch.” I was mad at myself that I’d even entertaining the notion that this was a serious offer.

“Yeah, I know. I also saw you running up and down the field all day leaving everyone in the dust.” He was chuckling, “Yeah, I’m sure. Call me. Soon.”

I wasn’t exactly certain how to feel. I already had a team. Sure, I was mostly frustrated, but we were getting better, slowly, fitfully. Who was to say this other team would even be a step up? Or more importantly, more fun?

I talked about it with Mike. He pointed out that the Wild Bunch had pretty much peaked at the NCUL B tourney and that I spent more time discouraged by lack of commitment and talent than I was content with the team. He also reminded me that he was getting ready to head off to Cornell for graduate school in the fall. I visualized what that meant for my future satisfaction on the field. After about a week, I called Dan. He told me the practices were going to be on Stanford’s campus starting the following Saturday afternoon. He gave me directions, laughed at my hesitation, and hung up.

That Saturday, I drove the 45 minutes to Stanford, found the fields and arrived about 10 minutes early. I was the only person there. I still wasn’t quite getting the hang of this “Ultimate Time” phenomenon. I sat in my car, full of doubts and fears.

Should I even think of abandoning the Wild Bunch? I was their captain after all. For whatever that was worth.

What kind of team would this be? Would the players be cool? Fun? Any good?

I consoled myself with the thought that maybe I’d be so much worse than everyone else that they would cut me. Then I wouldn’t have to decide which team to play for. I wouldn’t have to decide whether I was willing to drive 45 minutes south for practice versus riding my bike five minutes from my apartment.

As the other players’ cars started pulling up, I figured I’d soon have some of my answers.

One of the few things I remember about that first practice was that I immediately recognized one of the players. It was Russ from the NASA team. I felt comfortable enough to start throwing with him as the remaining players trickled in and started warming up. Russ seemed to know quite a few of the other players, while the only other person I knew was Dan “The Bum” Harrington, the captain of this new ship.

The practice went surprisingly well. I was definitely the least skilled player, but not the least athletic. There were some older players on the team that had great disc skills, but they weren’t going to strike fear in the hearts of opposing defenders. At least, not with their cuts.

I practiced with the team a few times in June. They mentioned that there was a tournament coming up in Golden Gate Park in July. I actually knew of the tourney ahead of time. The Wild Bunch had asked me to play with them one last time. They figured it would probably be the last time they played together as a team. There wasn’t enough cohesion to hold it together any longer. I knew that the new team, which had taken the tentative moniker of El Lunche, would have plenty of players. When I told them I was playing with my old team, one last time, they weren’t too upset.

Dan said to me, “Well, do whatever you want to do, but you’ll get to play in more games with us.”

I knew that, but I also knew that I felt like I owed my old team something for taking me in when no one else wanted me.

El Lunche did fairly well in the tournament, I think they made the quarter finals against a field that included some very good west coast teams. I distinctly remember them taking their warm up lap down the length of the polo fields just so they could circle me and my zero-win team with a light hearted “We told you so - we’ll see you next week” chapping.

In some kind of weird ultimate fate kind of thing, our final game of this tournament was the one I recounted much earlier in this blog. That was when the scraggly Wild Bunch played the scruffy Chico State team. That was when Worm and I first met. Of course, at that time, he didn’t introduce himself as Worm, he claimed his name was Tom, or maybe even Thomas. Whatever. Either way, if I had played with El Lunche, I wouldn’t have met the Worm then. The entire direction of Bay Area ultimate would have forever been altered. Probably for the better, but we’ll never know for sure.

After the tourney, I practiced with El Lunche, making the drive down to Stanford two or three days a week. I was learning things about the game as much from watching as from any formal instructing or drilling. Dan was a captain mostly in the vein of wanting to surround himself with as good a group of players as possible, that wouldn’t get too uptight, and would allow him to throw hucks at will. Russ and I were two of the youngest players on the team. Our job was basically to play defense, run around a lot, and cover the pulls as quickly as possible.

Our first major tournament was Labor Day in Santa Cruz, 1988. There were two aspects of the tourney that I loved. First, since none of the good teams had seen me play before, Dan wanted to use it as an advantage - and also as a chance to showcase his big throws. If we were receiving the pull, our first play was always the same. Someone would catch the pull and they would swing the disc to Dan immediately. He would then rear back and throw the disc as far as he could down field. I would have already started running hard as the pull was caught. I think it went for a goal every time that first day. I love the memory of Dan laughing and clapping his hands as he gleefully skipped down the field past the startled opponents. For my part, I was mostly happy that I caught the damn throws. But I was also quietly satisfied at the number of times I heard the other team saying, “Who the hell is that little guy? Who was covering him?”

Second, one of our pool play opponents was none other than Acme, the “higher level” players from the original San Francisco conglomeration. The same guys that wouldn’t even give me a look in the Fall. I had never beaten them, not even in loose pick-up contests in the park.

As we warmed up before the game, I walked up to Dan. He was joking around with some of our other teammates. They were playing some weird game consisting of throwing high, blading tosses into the wind, trying to steal the hat off someone’s head, placing hat on own head, and catching the original toss. Or something like that. Either way, they weren’t exactly deeply focused on our game coming up in ten minutes.

“Dan ...”

“Watch out! Damn!! That shouldn’t count, he’s on the field and doesn’t have a hat on.”

“Whatever. No points. My turn.” Dan gets no sympathy for his obstructed miss.

“Uh, sorry,” I mumble, “Hey, um, Dan do you know this next team?”

“Yeah, why?” He’s distractedly watching his opponent scramble for a hat while trying to track the plummeting throw.

“They are pretty good. This could be a tough game.”

“What? These guys? Forget it. They suck. We’ll crush. My Turn!!” And he’s off.

They do suck. We do crush. At the end, I have that sweet satisfaction of the game closing hand shake. Victor consoling the outclassed, out-played loser. With the team that recently cut me. That is one sweet position to be in.

Unfortunately, that was the highlight of my season with El Lunche. We made it through sectionals, qualifying for regionals. The odd thing for me was that we had picked up some players just before sectionals - players that hadn’t practiced with us, hadn’t trained with us, hadn’t played with us. I didn’t understand why we were adding people at the last minute when we had been told that team unity was key to success. I remember heading down to Santa Barbara for regionals wondering how it would compare to my experience at college regionals just a year and a half before.

Well, it was very different.

I remember us winning a few games. On Saturday, Russ and I played pretty well. We did our job. We played hard defense, we ran around a lot and we didn’t have many turnovers. The first day went well enough for us to be in pretty good position for progressing further.

Our first game on Sunday was against Chabot College. I know that doesn’t seem too impressive to anyone now, but back then (before they had transformed into Las Positas College) they had come off of a college championship a couple years prior. They sported a few crusty veterans and a solid college team of athletes. We knew it would be a tough game, but it seemed we expected to win. Me? What did I know? I had never been to Santa Barbara, had never experienced club regionals, had never seen this level of intensity in ultimate. I just expected to keep playing defense and running until I couldn’t stand up.

That was not the way it was to be.

I played a few points early in the Chabot game. I ended up covering a guy they called Rojo. He was, naturally, a red head. He was also very fast. And relentless. He also was a very competitive but fair opponent. While chasing him around the field, I remember him slipping out little, “Sorry about that” mumbles regarding momentary jostlings and “Nice D” comments on well covered cuts. He was focused on the game, but he seemed to be a nice guy as well.

The game was tight well into the second half. As the score increased, I noticed the time between my points on the field increasing as well. I couldn’t understand it. The basic problem, as I saw it from the sidelines, with my many ... months ... of admittedly limited experience was that they were out-running us. If we weren’t going to play zone (which we had hardly trained for) then Russ and I should be getting some significant minutes. At least, that was the way I saw things.

Unfortunately, that was not the way the captains saw things. I guess they felt that they needed to rely on their veteran players. Some of whom had been with the team from the inception, some of whom they had cajoled to join at the last minute. They must have felt that the crunch time belonged to experience and savvy over youth and speed.

They were wrong. I distinctly remember watching as, yet another, cutter got blown by for the block, failed to pick up on transition defense, and watched the goal get scored by his man. I was sickened on the sidelines.

We lost. The team was upset. Dan was sad that his dream of forming an upstart team had failed. I was pissed.

What the hell!?! Did I spend the time driving down to Stanford for dozens of practices for this. Did I run my ass off and try my hardest to be basically left out of the significant minutes of our final game? Apparently ... yes.

As I drove the five and a half hours back up to San Francisco, I wondered to myself what my future in Ultimate looked like. Did I want to sacrifice so much for a team that wouldn’t use me? Would I rather play for a team that desperately needed me but couldn’t satisfy my need for reasonable competitiveness? At the end of 1988, I wondered what ultimate would be in my life.