"Do You Know Who I Was?"

Something New

2006-06-23T12:34:00.000-05:00

The winter of ‘90 - ‘91 was a little disconcerting. There were mumblings and grumblings from just below the surface of the ultimate community in the Bay Area. Talking to Tom, he apprised me of the actual implications of the possibilities.

These were the facts: the Boot had underperformed at sectionals and regionals, Tsunamis was aging and needed new blood, East Bay was stagnating and needed to start looking in a new direction. The Boot roster was a smorgasbord for either team. There were certain players that had not yet gotten full competitive exposure, but were certainly ready to start contributing in a big way to the lucky team that corralled them.

Sometime in late December 1990 or early January of 1991, I got a call from the captains of East Bay. They wanted to have a kind of “friendly” scrimmage on a Saturday at Stanford. They thought it might be a good way to tune up for the coming season and, maybe, become a little more familiar with each other.

I was in a quandary. I knew what the basic idea was. It was a preliminary tryout for a new team. I was reasonably sure that they - the powers that controlled the East Bay team - had earmarked me for the team. They did, after all, call me directly. The bigger problem, for me, was this - I liked the team I was playing on. Sure, The Boot hadn’t performed up to its potential last year. Sure, there were a few players that, maybe, weren’t exactly going to strike fear into the hearts of other teams at Nationals. But it was the group of guys that I had been with through thick and thin for two years. We had experienced some highs and many lows. And we had almost always had fun.

Wasn’t that what this was all about?

Tom and I talked about it. As he pointed out, we were committed to nothing if we just invited both team’s rosters to come down for a day of scrimmaging. All we were saying, essentially, was, “It’s a nice day in January, and we feel like playing ultimate.” I hesitantly agreed.

Deep down, I knew what the result was going to be. After all, the teams had played against each other enough times to know. There were certain players on East Bay that I would be more happy to have on my sideline rather than match up with them across the field. But I also knew that there were going to be casualties. Players from both teams that wouldn’t be included. They would be left out and, basically, told, “You helped us get to this point, but we’re going on without you.”

I didn’t really care about the East Bay players that got left out. But I literally lay awake at night wondering how to justify excluding some of my favorite teammates from The Boot.

The fateful day in early January arrived. Not all the Boot players showed up. I guess some of the East Bay players had opted out or seen the writing on the wall as well. Either way, we still had a relatively big turnout - certainly enough for two complete squads in a couple of long scrimmages on Stanford’s Roble field. I formally introduced myself to the East Bay captains. We methodically distributed the players close to evenly from both teams according to handlers, middles, deeps, defenders, throwers, height, and speed. They had obviously given a fair amount of thought to this beforehand since they had a definite sense of the strengths and weaknesses of most of the players on The Boot. I had a more organic kind of sensibility. I hadn’t been as precise in my categorization of the East Bay players. In fact, there were some of their players that I had little more than a passing knowledge of. If they weren’t fast and relatively short (in other words, someone I would have typically covered), or if they weren’t their big, game-breaking players, I realized that I didn’t have much of an impression of them.

We cycled through the scrimmage, and the skill and intensity level was already beyond most of the practices that we had ever had on The Boot. And this was January. I found myself struggling to cover on defense and having to work hard to get open on offense. While it was not exactly personally encouraging, it was an eye opener. If we could rise to that kind of weekly intensity, what would the game time performance be?

The teams mixed politely on the sidelines. There were a few heckles and cheers thrown out for consideration. Overall, the impressions from my side were mostly favorable. But I still wondered how the potential new team would be picked and worried about the Boot players that would be left out.

Tom was more direct in his assessment. “If we don’t do this, we are definitely going to lose Dave Smith, Seth, Dilly, and Teddy. They are going to play for South Bay or East Bay.” Left unsaid in his accounting was the fact that he, too, would probably jump to one of the top teams. He saw the writing on the wall. I had to be driven kicking and screaming to read the large print.

As a result of that day in early January, it was decided that a team comprised of both East Bay and Boot players would attend the Tempe New Years Fest in late January - early February. It was time to see if we could actually play together in tough conditions against other teams.

If I remember correctly, the roster for that first run was open to all players on both teams. The phone calls (no email back then) leading up to the tourney showed a distinct trend. None of the Santa Cruz kids would be making the trip. The geographic separation that had been stretched taut in holding the Boot together had finally snapped. This new team would be composed of players north and east. South Bay would reap the harvest of the Santa Cruz talent.

The Saturday of Tempe finally arrived. The fields were no more pleasant than ever. The heat was still merciless for so early in the season. The competition was still tough. But our team did well. It quickly became apparent to me what the East Bay contingent brought to the table. They had a better sense of strategy, they had a core of better handlers, they were a little more experienced overall. And they were tall. Very tall.

The Boot group brought our own valuable assets. Fierce defensive intensity, youthful legs and a willingness to hurl our bodies after any disc tended to add fire to the East Bay methodical approach. We also added another intangible but equally important element. We had fun. We knew how to enjoy playing, how to goof around between games, how to liven up a bye time, and how to make most any team dinner or drinking session something to remember - or maybe forget if you were on the wrong side of the jokes.

As Boot players, we may have been a little self conscious of our talent or experience on the field, but in the realm of chapping or joking, the East Bay guys were down right lame. At least most of them. But they were willing to learn, as befitted their generally high educational backgrounds.

I think we managed to win our pool on Saturday, playing under the name of ... Purple Avengers? ... or something equally strange. Sunday, we went into our quarterfinal and I felt the old anxieties from pervious seasons welling up. We just needed to win the game. Battle hard, don’t give in, fight for every disc ... just about every disc cliche was playing on an endless loop through my head. The East Bay guys didn’t seem too concerned. Of course, they had a habit of winning quarters and losing in semis, whereas we generally lost in quarters and watched semis.

We won our quarterfinals match pretty easily, I believe. I know I was a little shocked and also a little giddy. That wasn’t so bad. Our offense rarely seemed to get bogged down mainly because our handlers were a good mix of possession workers and, especially with Barney, a few big throwers. And we had the deeps to win the fifty-fifty discs down field.

Our reward for winning our semifinal ... we got to play New York. Big, bad, legendary New York, New York. While it would not be their full squad, and they would certainly not be in top form, they did not like losing - ever. It would be my first chance to see them, let alone play against them. I knew nothing beyond the fact that they were the reigning national champs, having won the trophy twice in a row, and the fact that they were said to be intense to the point of cheating. I knew nothing about any of their players.

We took the field with an attitude of nothing to lose. It was our first tournament as a team. Indeed, it could very well be our last tourney as a team. They were expected to win while dismissing all challengers with ease. They didn’t know us, many of us didn’t know them.

The game was surprisingly tight. Early on, I remember lining up against them on defense and taking the shortest guy on their team. Seemed logical to me. Height for height. I think either Dave Barkan or Andy Gould said something like, “You sure you want him?” Of course I was sure. He may be thick, but I’d run him into the ground.

I sprinted down on the pull and it became clear that he was one of their main handlers. NY was feeding him the disc and I was surprised by how quick he was. As the disc moved down the field, he was lengthening his cuts and their throwers were getting a little less precise. Finally, after having been beaten for three or four completions, I saw my opening on a swing. I closed, launched, and snuck in for the block. The sandpaper Tempe fields greeted my arms and chest, my teammates cheered wildly. Energized, I bounced up and sprinted down field. We scored the point.

Later in the game, the score was tight and New York was making some shaky calls. Tempers were rising as it became clear that we were not going to back down and they were going to loose only over our dead bodies. The game was beginning to feel more like regionals than the second day of New Years fest. There was a small crowd gathering as our game lasted longer than others in the round. People were migrating over to see New York getting challenged.

I had been alternating covering a few of their handlers, but the shortest one, Kenny, was giving me the biggest trouble. He was dangerous with the disc, but he would also bust deep if I fronted him too much. He caught a couple of scores on me and made sure I knew he relished the moment. I was determined to make a play.

I think the situation was something like this: they were in a stack, the disc had stagnated near the middle of the field, the count was getting up. Kenny faked out and cut back on the break side. I had stayed home on his out cut because I could see I had tall help down field. As soon as he cut in back towards me, I turned and launched for the disc. They had been throwing most of their passes before or immediately as a cut was started. The down side, as a defender, was you had no time to react. As Worm has told me countless times, “You can’t be reacting out there. Either you know where the disc is going, or you’re going to get burned.”

I heard the “UP” call after I was in the air and had already seen the inside-out disc heading for me. The simple act of reaching out and knocking it down was almost anticlimactic compared to the difficultly of being in a position to get the disc. The block got a big response from the crowd, but we lost the game.

Afterwards, Kenny introduced himself and congratulated me on getting a couple blocks on him. I appreciated his sportsmanship, but I remember thinking to myself, “I get a couple blocks on a lot of players.” Which was true, way back then. I just didn’t realize that I got these two on Kenny Dobyns, whose talent and intensity I would come to both hate and admire in the coming years.

Yes, the new team had not won the tournament, but we had made a good accounting of ourselves. And, maybe more importantly, we had fun together. It wasn’t quite as wild and goofy as being with the Boot, but then again, winning games does compensate for some things. It was beginning to look like this group might just fit together.

Losing and Winning

2006-06-06T22:53:00.000-05:00

Despite The Boot’s poor showing at Sectionals, our team outlook was relatively up-beat. Never a group to brood or ruminate, our collection of a couple of has-beens and a bunch of never-weres dove into our few remaining practices before 1990 regionals with determination and passion. One particular practice, the weekend before regionals, sticks out in my mind.

We were gathering at Stanford’s intramural fields planning for about 2 or 3 hours of some intense drilling, a bit of strategy, and a light scrimmage. Our numbers were distressingly low as the start time of practice approached. I was still the figure-head captain, and some of the little things kind of got to me occasionally. If any of my old teammates are reading this, they are either laughing knowingly, or screaming at their monitors, “‘Some’ things, ‘Occasionally’!?!”

OK, so I admit it, I am a little uptight, especially when compared to the vast majority of ultimate players. Still, to this day, I can’t quite grasp the concept of, “ultimate time.” I mean, what is the point? Just show up on time and finish on time. Seems easy to me.

Needless to say, in 1990, as a neophyte captain of a team trying to scratch our way to our first nationals, I was not thrilled with a late start for our last practice heading into our do-or-die tournament. I think I was pacing around the fields as Worm and a most of the rest of the team warmed up their throws or stretched.

“It’s most of the Santa Cruz boys that are late,” Worm pointed out. He was trying to minimize the range of the guilty. “They were probably all crammed into Richie’s car. Not exactly reliable transportation.”

He was right of course. Richie’s car had somehow been christened with the name of The Tuna Boat. It was a big, old, beaten up Buick or Oldsmobile. If properly packed, it could fit a starting seven of UC college kids without too much cramping. It was also prone to road trouble and oil leaks.

Just as I had given up hope and decided to start the practice shorthanded, the thumping bass, spitting gravel, and roiling dust cloud announced the arrival of The Tuna Boat. Skidding to a stop as the doors were thrown open, an overwhelming mixture of sensations rode a blast wave onto the sidelines. Laughter, dust, a cloud of pot smoke, and burning engine oil, were the background to a visual medley of grins, arms, legs, field bags, and launched discs.

The Boys had arrived.

Richie, Seth, Teddy, Kenny, and Walter all tumbled out of the vehicle. I think Seth already had his cleats on and was loudly proclaiming that his team would “CRUSH!” in the scrimmage. Richie was giggling and, upon seeing my expression, explained it all away by saying, “Billyeeeee ... come on ... Hot Box in the Tuna Boat! That’s all. Just a little love. A little Box. We’re here now so let’s get to it!”

How could I stay mad at these stupid, silly, talented punks?

The practice went well, relatively tight. People actually appeared to listen as Barney and Dan reviewed the basic approaches of our offense and defensive sets. They pointed out that regionals, being in Bellingham, Washington on the outskirts of Seattle, was most probably going to be cool and wet. We weren’t much of a zone team, but we could use it effectively on defense occasionally and our offense worked surprisingly well considering how few experienced throwers we had.

The concept of being sure of every catch and reigning in the risky throws under wet, windy weather was brought up. For a team playing all its practices and the vast majority of games in northern California, cold, wet weather was a foreign phenomenon. Generally, from mid-May to mid-October, it will not rain one day in the greater San Francisco Bay Area. Not once. That makes rain practice a little difficult to come by.

At this particular practice, someone, I can’t remember who, had a brilliant and fun idea. As we gathered for the final scrimmage, two big buckets of water were placed at quarter points along the longitudinal middle of the field. The game was typical ultimate, except it was make-it-take-it. Also, the scoring team had to dip the disc in the nearest bucket of water to start the point. Additionally, if any subsequent passes were completed near a bucket, the disc had to be dunked and play continued seamlessly, stall-count still ticking.

As play progressed, each team would helpfully point out when the other team was required to dunk the disc in a near, or relatively near, bucket. Shouts of, “Dip-able!” were soon raging for just about every throw. I remember Seth screaming down the field, “Dip-able! Dip-able!” as Kenny Leiserson tried to fight his way to the nearest bucket with Worm hanging on his leg as the stall-count escalated.

After the practice, Barney had, “one more thing to say.” Yet again. Groans all around. But this time, he was brief and to the point. I don’t remember everything his pep talk included, but I do recall this - he stated that getting this team, The Boot, to nationals - simply qualifying - would be a more satisfying achievement for him than winning it all with Flying Circus five years before.

At the time, I thought he was either loony, or employing a little hyperbole in an effort to psyche up the troops. Either way, I hoped it worked. We needed all the help we could get.

We flew into cloud shrouded Seattle with energy and hopes overflowing. Saturday morning, we walked out onto some beautiful fields at the base of a massive granite tower and surrounded by green pine forest. As I gazed way up at the eagles effortlessly riding the thermals near the face of the granite wall, the rain started. Most teams began moaning and scrambling for their rain gear, we started laughing with multiple shouts of, “Dip-able!” ringing out up and down our sideline. We were in a positive mind frame. Now we had to play the tournament of our lives.

Our first game was against Santa Barbara. Our greatest conquest at the previous year’s regionals, but not exactly the team you want to play first in a 16 team double elimination format. As I headed out for the pre-game flip, a few of the Condors came up to me and half-jokingly whined, “What the hell happened to you guys at sectionals?” Our fourth place finish at sectionals had resulted in this match-up. A game that neither team was eager to start off with.

It was nearly as intense as last time. Neither team gained more than a two point advantage, the lead changing hands a couple of times. The wind and wet contributed to a sloppy, slow game, but the effort was all there. As the cap approached, they were up something like 10-9. The details are fuzzy, but I remember a critical layout block - probably by Mikey G that would have given us the disc within a few yards of their endzone. There was a call. An argument. The whole game had been intense but clean. Noone wanted it to be decided on a contested call. In the end, the Condors retained possession. The cap was on. We needed the point to extend the game. We didn’t get it. They scored. We were in the loser’s bracket with no more room for error.

To their credit, most of their team seemed genuinely distressed that we had lost a brutal first round match-up in a controversial way. We were trying to re-focus and concentrate on our next opponent.

We were wounded, but not done yet. We re-grouped and took our frustration out on, I think it was a Humbolt or Portland team. We crushed them. I don’t remember our next opponent, Salt Lake City? Pheonix? Either way, we won that game handily and closed out our first day of regionals better than we started.

Next morning our first game is against ... great ... the Rhinos. They had been beaten by Tsunami or LA in the front door semis. Double elimination brackets close out quickly. They lose and drop down to face us. We win and crawl up to face them.

It was heated and physical on both sides. The rain had cleared, so the athleticism of both teams was on display. Both teams were desperate. We knew from the year before, that we could beat them. I doubt they thought we could pull it off twice.

I recall one particular play that summed up the game. It was near the end of the game, score close and each team waiting for the break it needed to get the upper hand. We have the disc, but their intense man defense is starting to grind us down a bit. They are getting closer and closer to lay out blocks. I am towards the back of the stack, having just cleared and knowing the count is getting high. I simply plan on doubling back and streaking in for the disc and a new ten seconds. As I plant and turn, I see Kenny with the disc, trying to work his marker, but with a little of the “deer in the headlights” glaze to his eyes. He was young back then and not as confident with his breaks at such a critical point.

I also see that Worm is breaking to the open side on a direct comeback cut. His defender is practically on top of him. As Kenny releases the disc at “nine”, I notice the poacher from the front of the stack. He is vectoring directly into the path of the disc. Worm’s defender has launched in front of him for the block, the poacher has launched sideways into the throw, Worm launches directly into the collision point of both defenders. From behind, and in slow motion, all I see is the disc disappear behind a wall of the black Rhino shirts as if the gates of fate had closed on our chances to win. Worm is akimbo in mid-air, legs and one arm flailing. I can’t see his left arm. The whole mass of bodies crunches to the ground and I begin to rotate to cover my man. I hear a cheer. From our sideline. I whip my head back around. I can’t believe my eyes. Somehow, Worm has the disc in his hand, and the both Rhino defenders are trying to figure out how it got there.

Later, Kenny described what he saw, from the thrower’s perspective:

“The count is way high, and I am looking for a bail-out. I see Worm coming back down the line. He’s covered, but I don’t have any other options. I throw it hard and kinda high, hoping he can shield it with his body. Then I see the poacher. I’m screaming at myself and praying for a miracle at the same time. I see both Rhino guys get in front of Worm as the disc gets within reach. Then I suddenly see Worm’s arm. I can’t see any of the rest of him, but I can see his arm snaking through the gap between the defenders. He snags the disc just as they all collide. I don’t know how he ever saw it.” Kenny is laughing and shaking his head.

Worm says he never really did see it after he launched. He just reached out where he thought it might be ... somewhere behind a guy or two. Sometimes you get lucky. Some people seem to create the most unbelievable luck.

After that play, it seemed to me that the two teams were playing a different game. The Rhinos were struggling to keep their head above water, we were swimming for the finish line. We won again. The previous year, we had been their only loss at regionals on their way to nationals. This year, we closed out their season. We were elated and relieved to still be in the hunt. They couldn’t believe it.

Next game was against Seattle. Back then, they were a good team, consistently just below the top teams in the region. They also had a reputation for choking in big games. Since I don’t remember any high levels of anxiety entering the contest, part of me believes that we may have entered the game a little overconfident. I know, that sounds crazy for a team that had never achieved much of anything, had never won a tournament, indeed, had finished fourth at sectionals. What can I say. We were young.

Either way, the weather started to turn sour at the beginning of the game. Seattle, led by crafty veterans like Baird Johnson, Troy Frever, and CVH, loved the foul conditions. The worse the better for them. For us, we didn’t seem to adapt from our successful run and gun approach in the Rhino game to the control game we needed. They beat us, but I don’t recall it being a blow-out or a close one. Either way, we were out again and Seattle moved on to play

Eventually, we later heard, Santa Barbara managed to climb through the back door to join South Bay and LA at nationals. We didn’t see it firsthand for a couple of reasons. One, the weather had turned nasty - cold, windy, and wet - no fun for spectating. Two, our flights home weren’t scheduled until the next morning and we had a lot of drinking and partying ahead of us.

That night back in Seattle is basically a blur except for a few indelible images imprinted on my cerebral cortex. I know that we started the night kind of quiet and reflective at a nearby microbrew pub. I know that we soon shook off our disappointment and began celebrating the fun season that we had finished. I think we wandered out of the pub in the wee hours of the night. I am sure that we found our way back to our hotel, but were still too amped up to think about settling in for the night. I have fragments of memory that mostly convince me that, at one point in the evening, Brian From Hell had gotten so out of control, some of the guys thought it would be best to drag him out of the hotel. Only a couple of problems with that. One, Brian wasn’t eager to be escorted out of the building. Two, we were on the second or third floor.

I remember seeing Brian being physically dragged by his legs down the hallway. Being dragged, feet first, down at least one or two flights of steps. I remember being both repulsed and fascinated that his head, bouncing down the fire exit steps, wasn’t cracking open like a coconut. I don’t remember the end of the night or how we managed to wake up for our flights the next morning. Suffice it to say, The Boot had their fun.

After returning to the Bay Area, most of us felt like the season had been cut short prematurely. We had been hoping to still be playing in late October. I guess that is what makes the Humbolt Harvest tournament so attractive. A bunch of teams unwilling to acknowledge the end of their seasons, get together in the quiet forests of far northern California and play and party for the weekend after regionals.

We took a reduced roster team hoping to have some fun and maybe win. I drove up in a car with Worm, Barney, and Trish - Barney’s then girlfriend. I remember that Trish wasn’t too keen on ultimate or ultimate spew. Worm made occasional polite conversation with her. Barney and I spent the entire five and a half hour drive talking ultimate non-stop.

As I recall this, I shake my head and laugh at my then-self. But what can I say, I was passionate and driven for something like I had never been for anything else in my life. I can still feel the elation and enthusiasm these days, but I know I would not be able to sustain it continuously for more than five hours while sitting in a car. Ahh, the energy of youth.

The entire team, all 12 or 14 of us, crashed in Arcata at the house of a friend of Seth or Teddy. I only remember these particular sleeping arrangements (sleeping bags on the floor packed in like sardines throughout a cramped living/dining area) because of one particular resident of the house.

Our car arrived late, after 11:00 PM. I figured everyone would be asleep and we would have to sneak in quietly so as not to disturb our teammates or the owners of the home. As we opened the door to the living room, I remember noticing the low light, general quiet, and seeing a lot of prostrate bodies. Then Seth realizes we are settling in and says in his typical subdued way, “Dudes!! Welcome!! Check this out! Teddy, wake up! Where’s that cat?!”

Teddy rouses himself and looks around, rubbing his eyes. Just about everyone else is opening their eyes at this point.

“Here Fetch Cat! Here Fetch Cat!” Seth is crooning, “Come on kid, show ‘em what you can do.”

Out of the shadows comes a skinny, gray, ruffled body.

Seth frantically seizes some small object and tosses it across the room. The cat, as if imitating a guided missile, immediately leaps around and over multiple sleeping bags and bundles of clothes. It pounces on the object (maybe a wad of paper) and picks it up in its mouth. The cat then proceeds to directly return it to Seth. Dropping it next to him and backing away it is apparently waiting for another throw.

We are tired and sleepy, but we are suitably impressed. This cat fetches. After numerous subsequent tosses of various objects, there was no doubt. This was the Fetch Cat. We naturally adopted it as our weekend mascot. Making constant references the next day at the fields about, “Dude, Fetch Cat would have had that” or, “Make like Fetch Cat!” Generally, I like cats. I love dogs, but I like cats. This cat was great.

As we returned to our crash pad after an undefeated Saturday, the house was quiet. We stumbled and bumbled through the front door calling for our hero/mascot. We were greeted by the long, sad face of the owner. We got the bad news. Fetch Cat had been hit and killed by a car that very afternoon. Right out in front of the house.

We were strangely devastated. It was only a little cat that we had met the night before. But it had become part of our team culture and rhythm for the day. We offered sincere condolences and quietly grieved.

It was at least five minutes before the first joke was vocalized. “Maybe Fetch Cat shouldn’t have tried to fetch the toyota.” Then, “Who’s idea was it to tie the stuffed mouse to the bumper?” Multiple variations on the same theme. Luckily, Fetch Cat’s owner had left by then.

It wasn’t as if we didn’t care. But the need for mourning was low and the love of humor was high with that group. Why cry when you can laugh? It was, at times, a frustrating group to play with, but we taught each other a lot about what a team should feel like.

After many years of playing, I have often thought back on Barney’s speech at our last practice. I thought he was crazy at the time for saying simply qualifying for nationals could be more satisfying than winning it all, depending on the team you go with. I have been on teams where winning was expected, demanded. I have been on teams where winning the game-to-go was cause for jubilant celebration and tears of joy.

Going to nationals with that Boot team would have been incredible.

Here is the final Boot roster for 1990:

Alan Rudy
“Barney” Bruner
Benny Tanzer
Billy Layden
Bryan “From Hell” Plymale
Chuck Godin
Dan Harrington
Dan “Dilly” Peltz
“Big” Dave Smith
Jeff “Box” Bourncamp
Ken Leiserson
Kyle “Kansas” Shepard
Mark “Newt” Newton
Mikey “G” Geluardi
Pat “Hobanski” Hoban
Peter “Watsonville” Deutsch
Raymo Santangello
Richie “Dads” Zlatnich
Seth “Wahh” Blacher
Teddy Wardlaw
Tom “Worm” Glass
Walter Dodds
Wes Sanford

Learning Lessons

2006-05-23T17:54:00.000-05:00

For the first few years of playing ultimate, I kept a list of all the tournaments I attended each year, noting the location, dates, record of games won and lost, and other trival stuff. I wish I still had that lose pile of pages these days. I find that some memories that used to be easily recalled through idle remembrance, are now so dusty and tattered that they are frayed in the very act of recalling, if they can be summoned at all. Even so, there are a few trends a can remember from those early years.

We used to play between 10 and 14 tournaments a year, many more than most club teams seem to play these days. I don’t know why this is. There are more tourneys than ever to choose from, but it seems that most teams aspiring to qualify for Nationals tend to play less than we used to. Maybe that is just my personal experience over the past seven or eight years.

We played a large number of those tourneys in Santa Cruz (notables being Cal States in mid-May, Labor Day, and usually at least one, if not both, of sectionals or regionals.) For people that have never had the pleasure of playing at the UC campus high above Santa Cruz, you should seriously consider it at least once. It is one of the most beautiful field sites at which you can play. The party is (or at least, was back when I was going to such things) fun with a good band, good beer, and a few stories to be had for the adventuresome. And, with the recent rise of west coast ultimate in all divisions, is nearly guaranteed to be competitive.

We did very little in the way of off-day training. Most all of our conditioning was done before and after practice. Sprints, plyos, calisthenics, we did that together, as a team. I’m not sure if the top teams were doing the same thing back then, but I know it is far different now.

There was very little competition between regions. By this, I mean that most of the west coast teams spent their entire seasons playing against west coast competition, the east coast teams stayed on their right coast, and the mid west teams had to choose a direction, usually east. Back then, the Boulder Fourth of July tourney was the first and only chance for regional powers to face off before Nationals.

Of course, back in 1990, I hadn’t even heard about Boulder. In fact, I had only the vaguest idea of other great teams outside the west. We had all we could handle trying to beat the second tier west coast teams (Oregon, Seattle, East Bay, Boulder, Santa Barbara, San Diego) let alone, Tsunami or Iguana the only true National contender teams west of the Rockies. I longed to play in those big games where everyone was watching and people would know the team you played for.

Tom and I often joked that if only we could start winning some tournaments, some of the ultimate women would, maybe, start to notice us. We were, painfully, aware that there was plenty of party mixing between the top men’s teams and most all the women’s teams. Also, there was the phenomenon that local men’s and women’s teams tended to hang together. Unfortunately, The Boot was not a Top Team and was local to no particular place. We came from multiple cities, we often practiced in obscure, out of the way places. We had no “sister” team. We were like the ugly step-sisters, doomed to mop the floors while the elite attended the ball. Of course, this was just a little added motivation for us.

After The Boot’s second place finish at Solstice, we attained a bit of fleeting notoriety in the Bay Area. We had a couple more late try-outs at practice. We carried ourselves with a little more pride. We thought we might actually be getting somewhere.

We may also have been taken a little more seriously by our competition at our next tournament - Labor Day in Santa Cruz. As I recall, we played with new found confidence, but in the end we reverted to our old habit of losing in the quarters. But, we did show signs of playing better.

Instead of losing faith or being disheartened, we managed to channel our defeats into motivation. I think we truly felt we were on the verge of breaking through. At this point in the season, we were poised to make our move. We felt we had the team to actually make a run at that elusive and competitive third bid out of the huge western region. We had the young defense, a strong offense anchored by the throws of a few veterans, the constant disc movement of our exceptional Santa Cruz kids, and a few big receiving threats.

When I recall my role on the team at this point, I remember myself as being a defensive middle. I played most all the defensive points, covering a handler or middle from the opposition, usually someone that was short, fast and/or ran a lot. On the transition, I was expected to run. Run and keep the disc moving with middle continuation cuts. My throws were steady, as long as I didn’t try to do too much. Basically, I wasn’t a threat with the disc. Actually, more of an annoyance for the other team.

It may be hard for those that know me now, but I was actually a pretty good defender back then. I used to layout for anything close and often got the block. I also could run with just about anyone. And I often got matched up against some very good players.

For history’s sake, here is a list of a few the people I was trying to cover in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. They weren’t necessarily the best players in the region, or even on their own team. But, if you were to ask others that played with or against them, they could tell you that they were all great players in their own ways.

Tsunami: Bob Sick “Bert”, Kenny Kirsh

Iguana: Jeff Landesman, Cliff Marhoffer,

San Diego: “Bullet”, Clif Smith

Santa Barbara: Aengus Wagner, Sean Daddy

East Bay: Dave Barkan, Jesse Cortez,

Oregon: Jon King, “Wheels”, Jay Jannin

Seattle: Troy Frevor, Sean Federbush, Pete Barnow

This list is by no means complete, just the names that I could recall without hypnotic induction.

I am proud to say that I tried my best to defend against these players. Occasionally, I was successful. Often, I was not. They each taught me something about playing ultimate. Some of them, like Aengus, Dave Barkan, Jon King, and Jay Jannin, also taught me about being a good sportsman, a good teammate, and a better person.

Perhaps the most difficult player to cover in this group was Bob Sick, or Bert as he was often called. He was fast, as many players are, but he also had an almost inhuman ability to cut quickly. The phrase “On a dime” is often bandied about in sports. In my experience, Bob Sick could cut on the edge of a dime. He also had a quick, low throw that he threw to the break side (forehand or backhand) at will. I remember hating covering him, but trying to learn with each humiliation. I thanked the ultimate gods when he left the Bay Area for Florida. “Let him be someone else’s nightmare,” I thought when I heard he had moved.

Of all these players, one of them struck me early on as a possible role model. He was a player that seemed to have the same strengths and limitations that I had. Yet, he had managed to win the respect of his opponents and, more importantly, the respect and trust of his teammates. Sean Daddy, from Santa Barbara, may not make it into the Ultimate Hall of Fame, but to me, he appeared to be the definition of a hard working player that was competitive, fair, fun and maximized his talents. No one ever wanted to cover him. Not because he would score goal after goal or throw glory hucks or cross-field hammers. No one wanted to cover him because he never stopped running, he never turned it over, and he stuck to your hip on defense. That was the player I wanted to be.

With this team, with this new found confidence, and a clearer vision of the kind of player I wanted to be, I entered that fall series in 1990 with excited anticipation. Barney had talked to us about striving to qualify for Nationals. He had expounded on the level of sustained commitment and focused intensity that it would take to break through. I heard his words, but didn’t really understand. I wonder how many of us really had any idea. Barney, and maybe Dan, were the only players on the roster that had been to club Nationals. The rest of us respected them for that achievement, but had little clue on how to follow their lead.

We headed into sectionals that year, held in Davis, with high hopes. We expected to battle East Bay for second place. Some of us even harbored lunatic ideas of usurping Tsunami as the top team in Northern California. Why not? I looked at those guys and saw a bunch of older (late 20s early 30s) guys with fading athleticism, strong skills, and a tendency to be unfocused in our games against them. I saw an opening, a small and wavering opening.

The weekend didn’t work out quite that way. We ended up fourth - worse than the year before. We lost to East Bay in a bitterly contested semis, then we lost to a young but determined Davis team in the third/fourth game. We had lost some of our confidence and energy in our one point loss to East Bay. Davis, led by an always intense Steve Joye, were determined to knock us down another peg. They succeeded.

The Parinella Effect

2006-05-12T12:31:00.000-05:00

Sorry to you loyal few readers. I have been so swamped that I haven't had time to run off at the keyboard lately. And next week, I'll be on business in California, so no posts from there.

One funny thing. A while back, I added a site meter to see if anyone was actually reading this or whether it was more of an on-line diary. I was pleasantly surprised that there are actually others out there besides Jim, Alex and Luke looking at this melange of rememberances.

Either way, I was even more surprised when I saw a sharp spike in the hits after Aprils Fools this year. Turns out, Jimmy P dropped a single link to the blog. It was embedded his own post recapping ShortFatGuys this year.

I guess Jim's readership is a tiny bit higher than mine. See if you can spot the day the link went up. (Hope this graph from the site meter shows up properly.)

In the mean time, somebody tell Worm to get off his lazy ass and start posting the funny stuff (Luke, you're just the man for the job).

The New Kids

2006-04-28T09:54:00.000-05:00

In the summer of ‘90, The Boot was trying to find a way to break through into the upper crust of the West Coast elite ultimate scene. We had a few exceptionally talented players, we had picked up yet more promising college graduates, and we still had the best of the veteran vanguard. Yet we still weren’t quite where we wanted to be.

As we approached June, we had also suffered some losses from our roster. Apparently our surprise success from last season had helped us in recruiting, but it had also attracted the attention of the vultures. The top Bay Area teams had swung their greedy gaze towards our team and had identified some potential reinforcements for their own stalwart ranks. We lost Dave Lippy, John “Truth” Knuth, and Will Debello to the hated Tsunami. Russell had headed south and was playing with the disgusting LA Iguana. Dante had ... drifted off in other pursuits. On the plus side, we picked up Mikey G. from Santa Cruz, Kyle from Kansas, and Raymo from ... outer space. We also got a couple of tryouts from back east.

Practice that summer had been moved to Half Moon Bay high school as an acknowledgment to the fact that the geographic center of the team had been drifting slightly south. It also happened to be within five minutes of Barney’s new home. Very convenient. It was an hour drive for just about everyone except the lucky, local one.

I remember one practice in particular. We are warming up on a bright and surprisingly warm summer afternoon in the middle of the high school football field. An unfamiliar car pulls up in the adjacent parking lot and two obvious ultimate players emerge. They quickly gather their stuff and head confidently towards the sidelines. I’m looking around our team for someone to acknowledge them as familiar. No one does. All eyes are on the new pair.

One of them is short, not much taller than me. He’s got thick framed, geeky-type glasses, longish hair, and an easy smile. The other is about five foot ten, rather heavy in frame, and looks pretty serious. In fact, he reminds me a little of Fred Flintstone.

They drop their stuff and cleat up. As they are exchanging greetings with some of the crew, they lace up and pull some plastic out of a bag. They seem ready to start playing, only I don’t have any idea who they are or what they are doing at our practice.

“I’m Billy,” I say extending a hand. “I guess you are here to play?”

Fred Flintstone takes charge, “I’m Danny and this is Benny. This is the Boot practice, right?”

A little bewildered I respond, “Yeah. Uh ... how did you know where to find us?”

“We just moved out here from New York. Albany and Birmingham. We talked to Raymo and he said this was the team to play on.”

Raymo hadn’t made it to practice that day. In fact, he didn’t make it too many of the practices that season. Yet, he was still a very competent player, and a great guy to have at the party. While Bryan From Hell and Dante were like sharks with the women, methodical and efficient machines, Raymo was more of a wolf. He was a little hairier, a little friendlier, a little less efficient. He was often more successful picking up the scraps from other’s attempts than from taking down the prey by himself.

In any event, he had apparently convinced these new college grads that The Boot was the new-wave team in the Bay Area. Raymo had originally had come from the upper New York state area, so he must have had a line on these guys. Either way, that was some sales job. Now we just had to find out if they could play.

I can’t remember the exact circumstances, but I do know for sure that within the first half hour of that practice, a gauntlet was thrown down. I guess there might have been a couple of sly comments or open ended questions directed to the two newbies. Something must have triggered the pronouncement. Or maybe it was just the bravado boasting of the new kid trying to establish his turf. Either way, I remember Danny (the Fred Flintstone impersonator) announcing to the team in general that he could beat any of us in a full field sprint.

Now, you have to understand the circumstances. Here is this guy that is ... thick framed. Not heavy like average American heavy, but still, when compared to the typical top ultimate player’s build, he was large. Anyway, he is challenging all comers to a 70 yard sprint.

At the time, The Boot had a few players that would be some of the fastest players on most any teams in the west. Seth was just beginning to refine his combination of strength, speed, agility, and confidence into the presence that he would wield for a number of years at the top-most level of play. Mikey G. had just come out of UC Santa Cruz, but he was blazing fast and had some crazy defensive intensity that spoke to his internal competitiveness. And then there was me. I was not as young as Mikey G. and not as flashy or talented as Seth, but at 25 years old, I could still fly. It was really the one thing I had going for me. I could run fast - for a long time.

And here comes this blowhard, east coast college kid with a bit of a spare tire claiming he can beat any and all of us in a race.

The three Boot players looked around, nodded to each other, and gathered on the nearest endline. Danny, or rather “Dilly” as his preferred nickname, strode confidently out next to us. For a brief second, I considered the possibility that there might be more to this punk than met the eye. Maybe he could beat one or even all or us. Well, I was determined that it wasn’t going to be me. I think the rest of us must have been thinking the same thing.

With the sound of a, “Three, two, one ... GO!” we were off. Dilly finished fourth out of four. Maybe three steps separated him from the slowest of our trio. He seemed shocked and only slightly embarrassed. Benny heckled him from a full field away. We instantly knew we would like the Benny kid. We weren’t sure about Dilly. But he was certainly fast ... for a big guy.

By the end of practice, we had a better idea of what, exactly, had fallen into our team lap.

Benny was a pretty good player. OK disc skills. Good defensive intensity. Not as fast as maybe might be required at the top level, but he looked like he’d give his all. Besides, he was hilarious. His razor tongue and searchlight wit could hunt and destroy most anyone or anything without hesitation. His biggest target was himself - which always seems to sit well in a crowd - but given a little provocation, he could whittle down the biggest tree trunk of an ego to a shredded toothpick.

Dilly was big. Big all around. As stated before, he seemed to be too large to have the speed and hops that he evidently had. His throws were huge - and often. His ego was almost equally well developed. He was used to being the big fish in the little pond that was upper state New York college ultimate. He hadn’t had much exposure to the national level, but he was sure he could take on all comers there too. And he could laugh. While he maybe wasn’t as funny as his sidekick Benny, he was obviously smart. And he could take a good chap or two - or three.

After a few beers at the local burrito place in Half Moon Bay, I think both Worm and I figured they’d be perfect for The Boot.

By mid-June, we had started to put some of our pieces together. We had a core of intense, young defenders that could run forever. We had an offensive unit that relied on the speed of some of the youngsters to keep the disc moving, the big throws of the veterans and Dilly, and the receiving talents of “Big” Dave Smith, Kyle when he wasn’t injured, and Raymo when he could be enticed to show up, along with a few others.

We headed up to Eugene, Oregon for the Summer Solstice tournament. We weren’t sure what to expect, but we definitely aimed to break out of the cycle of “lose-close-pool-play-game-then-lose-tough-match-up-in-quarters” pattern that we seemed to be stuck in.

Saturday, I think we actually managed to win our pool. While the competition at Solstice wasn’t quite National caliber, there were some pretty good teams there. Combo teams and unusual mixes, but still most all the best players from the west, plus a few select others from around the country. It was a “fun” tourney, but you wouldn’t try telling that to the reigning, multi-repeating champs, the Long List of Whores (LLOW). Mostly a conglomeration of former and current Chicago studs, they were seriously talented and had an attitude to rival New York at their height. This was their once a year chance to gather their diaspora and reassert their male dominance.

Saturday night, I experienced my first Solstice party. Different from other tournament parties in many ways. First, it was located dozens of miles away from the fields, from Eugene, from ... well just about everything except trees and mountains. Second, it was a camping-only party. There were no hotels, motels, or even homes nearby. Everyone camped out within hearing range of the band and remote from everything else. Last, the isolation and the beautiful surroundings (a huge clearing in the middle of endless pine forests draped across rolling hills) was eminently conducive to both romance and “what-the-hell” excess.

That first year, I didn’t really avail myself of either the romantic or the bacchanalian opportunities. I was, maybe, a little too focused on ultimate. The Boot was finally looking like we could actually make some noise beyond the quarterfinals.

Sunday. Our first game was against a Las Positas /Chabot College reunion team. They had some serious club players (including Rojo and Kerry Karter) and some recently graduated and current college players that had won college nationals a few years before. This was the game we were always losing.

Not this tourney. A combination of too much intense defense, too many big throws, and too much Dave Smith finally smothered the LPC/Chabot team. One play though, at the end of the game, probably changed the face of the tournament. Towards the very end of the contest, Worm was breaking back towards the disc for a score in the near corner of the endzone. Covering him was Kerry Karter. A stalwart on the Tsunami teams of the late 80's, KK as he was known, was tall, athletic, and fiercely competitive. As these two “take-no-prisoners” players converged on an important moment in the game, we all held our breath.

Worm made the catch, but KK, in the aftermath of his huge, launching (and late) shot on defense, landed squarely on Worm’s back and drove him, shoulder-first, into the ground. After the dust had settled, The Boot had scored a crucial point, but had lost Worm for the rest of the tournament. A badly separated shoulder is an ugly thing. His shoulder was hanging down near mid-chest. It was one of the few times I actually heard Worm vocalize pain. After we carted him off the field, his spectating girlfriend drove him to the hospital.

We were without our defensive captain, but we had a three point cushion with two to play.

We barely won. But win we did. “Bye, Bye” quarterfinals loss. One monkey off our backs.

In the semifinals, we faced Roadside Trash. Mostly East Bay players with assorted friends and ringers thrown in. They were definitely talented and I am sure they were happy they weren’t on the other side of the draw - facing LLOW and their invincible army.

I only remember a few specific plays in this game. One, because it affected me directly, one because it was one of the most spectacular plays I have ever seen.

About mid-way or a little later in the game, I was playing defense on Jesse Cortez. He was a scary opponent, capable of beating you with quick squirrely cuts, big throws, or by bolting deep and skying you for the score. Somehow, I am matched up on him. And I am (barely) holding my own. As he cuts across the field for a give-and-go pass, I am trailing him, but the throw is a little too close. I lay out, full extension, hoping to get a single fingertip on the disc. Jesse senses the bid and dives back for the disc. He got the catch. I got a dislocated right shoulder.

This wasn’t the first time for me. It had started with a fateful play way back in 1988, but had gotten worse over the years. I was now at the point where it wasn’t a shock when I felt my arm and body separate from each other in an oddly unnatural way. But that did not diminish the pain. And this was a particularly painful one. I lay, writhing on the ground for a minute, then was helped off. Not knowing any better, and bowing to my competitive instincts, I was back in on defense a few points later.

The second memorable play of the game I was only witness to. I am sure that anyone that has played ultimate for a while at a competitive level has seen plays that they wish had been captured for posterity. “Why wasn’t someone filming this!” I have often asked myself, or others, immediately after one of these stupendous plays. The fact is, we have all seen brief moments of athletic transcendence that were shared with only a few other people out of the entire population of the world.

I used to think that this somehow diminished the importance or even the reality of what I had seen. A kind of, “If it didn’t show up on millions of re-run highlights on SportsCenter, then it couldn’t be important,” mentality. I am now well beyond that. I have been privileged to witness enough of these moments to know that a special part of the beauty is in knowing that you and only a select few others, of all the billions on the planet, were granted the memory of a particularly beautiful moment in space and time.

Towards the end of our semifinal game, I don’t know who was more surprised. Us at being so close to winning, or Roadside Trash at being so close to losing to us. Either way, it came down to the wire and we desperately needed a defensive stop and score. They were working their way toward a goal, abandoning their freewheeling, huck-happy offense of earlier, they had reigned it in and were struggling to advance the disc. The Boot defenders were young and fired up. We were giving no ground. We wanted the disc, and we wanted it now.

My mind frames the memory this way:

Roadside Trash is working the disc mainly with swings and throws to come-back cuts on the sidelines. Our defenders are all over them, but can’t seem to get the disc. Finally, they see an apparent mismatch with one of their taller deeps guarded by Mikey G. Mike is no taller than me, five foot six or seven at best. But he is scary fast and extremely intense. He is right on the tail of the tall receiver as he cuts back for a big 30 yard gainer. The throw is solid and fast, right to the receiver’s chest. Mikey sees this from his vantage two steps back and slightly inside. Instead of pulling up and getting ready to set a strong mark, he decides he can get the disc. No hesitation. He accelerates and launches simultaneously. As the receiver, who is at least six foot two, slows down to cushion the impact of the oncoming throw, he has no idea of what everyone on the nearest sideline is seeing. Mikey is vaulting over his inside shoulder, screaming past him horizontally in full layout, and reaching down for a disc that is five feet off the ground.

He makes the catch, not just the block. He catches the damn disc. He then lands six feet in front of the intended receiver in an explosion of grass and dirt. Disc in hand. Never came close to contacting his opponent.

No one immediately believes what they have just seen. Indeed, I still sometimes wonder if it was really physically possible. A moment's hesitation is followed by an immediate gasp, a few cheers, and multiple exclamations of “Holy Shit!” or something similar from the crowd.

I think that defense took the last of the wind out of their sails.

The Boot won the game. “Finals, here we come!”

I was a little nervous before the game. I had never played in the finals of a decent sized tournament, let alone managed to win one. In fact, I doubt that many of our players at that time had played in the finals of a Club tourney. And here we were, playing the Long List of Whores. Every one of their players was battle-hardened from years of contesting and winning big tourneys everywhere, including Nationals.

As we approach the field, the sidelines are slowly gathering spectators from other teams. It is going to be a nice night with the latest sunset of the year. The Whores are gathered on the far sideline, either lounging or carousing, not a butterfly to be found in any of their stomachs.

Meanwhile, as I am warming up my throws in mid-field, I hear this loud, brash voice yell, “Who’s the captain of this runner-up team?”

I catch the disc and start walking towards him, “That’s me.”

He looks incredulously at me, does a dramatic double-take, and says, “You can’t be the captain - you’re too short.”

He adds, looking all around, high above my head, “Where’s the real captain?”

I can take the chapping, and it is actually kind of funny. My introduction to Mike O’Dowd.

For those too young to know of him, Mike, also sometimes known as MOD, was one of the major characters in ultimate in the 80's and 90's. He captained Windy City the year they won Nationals - and subsequently spiked the Nationals trophy. He preached an in-your-face, testosterone laced brand of disc. And his teammates were more than willing acolytes.

The game starts and The Boot comes out on fire. Our offense has been clicking all weekend and the youthful defense, even with a drugged and drinking Worm on the sidelines, is hounding LLOW’s slower veterans. I think we manage to open a 3 or 4 point lead at one point near half-time. In particular, the combination of Barney hucking to Dave Smith is killing them.

Then, they start adjusting. They are actually buckling down and taking this game a little more seriously. They certainly don’t want their growing streak of Solstice wins to be interrupted by this team of upstarts and nobodies. And, eventually, a combination of inexperience and exhaustion started taking the wind out of our sails. Despite our best efforts (Mike G. had a few more highlight-reel blocks, I dislocated my shoulder at least twice more getting blocks, Seth was terrorizing their entire D squad), we couldn’t hold on. They beat us 19-17 or something close to that. We were disappointed to lose, but the crowd cheered us as worthy underdogs none the less.

Then the hard reality of the trip home set in. Worm was practically hallucinating from hospital prescribed pain-killers and team inspired beer. I was nearly delirious from the exhaustion of playing so much and the pain from multiple shoulder dislocations. Kristin (yes, the same Kristin from earlier in the blog - see here and here), couldn’t drive a stick shift. Worm’s girlfriend, Amy. had a broken right foot in a cast. And we had a hard 8 hour drive home.

Eventually, between Amy and me, we managed to get all the way back to the Bay Area on Monday morning ... just in time to hit morning rush hour. It took us an hour and a half to cover the final 30 miles to make a total of 9 and a half hours of driving straight from the fields. They dropped me off at my office and drove off in my car.

It was a long day at work.

At That Point

2006-04-20T22:55:00.001-05:00

The club season has always been slightly lagged in the spring. The college kids are all gung ho and excited. The younger club players are raring to get started by having some fun before the seriousness commences. The older, creaky club veterans are wondering if they have it in them to get it going yet again.

In 1990, The Boot sent a mixed team to Davis for the mid-March Davis Ultimate Invitational (DUI). (Mixed as in, a variety of new and returning players, there really was no “mixed” division back then.) We had some of the core of the team and a few new tryouts. We lost in ... I think ... the semifinals. To East Bay - the team that had ended our season in 1989. We seemed to be finding our level, and it was, frustratingly, just below the top teams.

April Fools West. Instead of joining a “Theme” team or a reunion team, I played with another conglomeration of core Boot players and some new faces. Local wannabes and college kids trying to get their first foot-hold in the competitive club scene. We were their best option because we weren’t so good that our roster was set, but we had shown that we could compete with the big boys - almost.

The tournament was held at Stanford’s Intramural fields. By this time, I had been appointed “captain” by Barney. His reasoning was probably something like this. Billy doesn’t mind doing the grunt work like phone lists, practice announcements, and sending in tournament entry fees. Also, while many of the opposing team captains had too much history and a little bad blood with him, they didn’t know me other than “that pesky little guy that runs around a lot.” Therefore, they tended not to argue with me when I brought something up at a captain’s meeting. Finally, I was inexperienced and malleable so he knew I would listen to his advice about “our” opinion regarding seedings, fields, and byes. He still had the authority. I was just a handy puppet.

Before our first game on Saturday of Fools, I went down the roster and the invite list. There were a few people missing. Teammates announced one’s last-minute work duties. A late Santa Cruz car accounted for a couple more. No one seemed to know where the new tryout, John, was. He was not really a big loss. Not exactly destined to set the ultimate world on fire, he had simply been to enough practices that he had deserved a look in a tournament environment. Even I knew that he was a long shot to make the team.

We played well enough to come in second in our pool. We would have another difficult quarterfinal the next day - as usual.

That Saturday night, Worm and I headed to the party. We may have definitely been the “Two Most Desperate Guys in the Western Region”, but it wasn’t strictly for a lack of trying. We crowded around the keg in the middle of the Stanford eucalyptus grove. We mingled with our teammates. We cracked jokes and teased our rivals. Somehow, this line of action didn’t seem to attract the babes. Yet again.

Either way, it got late and we decided that I needed to figure out how to get us to a place to sleep. Dan Harrington had earlier offered to let us sleep at his place in Palo Alto. It was a great opportunity - proximity to the fields and a bed or couch to crash on. Unfortunately, there were a couple things working against us at 1:00 in the morning. One, Dan had left the party hours ago. Two, I had very, very little idea of where he lived. I knew that it was somewhere just south and west of the Palo Alto town center. I knew it was on the north side of the street ... whatever the street name was. I knew it was a light colored house near a corner. Basically, the sum total of my knowledge of where Dan lived was encompassed by dropping him off after a practice one time maybe a year and a half ago.

And we were drunk.

Not exactly favorable conditions for a restful night.

We quickly made the calculation that neither of us was fit to drive back up to the City with the idea of sleeping in our own beds. Therefore, somehow, we decided that it would be best to drive around Palo Alto at one in the morning on the off chance that I might recognize Dan’s house and on the assumption that he might have left the door open for us.

Not exactly rational thinking.

Here was the result. After what seemed an eternity, and was most probably almost an hour, I found a very likely candidate for what might possibly be Dan’s apartment. We were so tired, we grabbed our sleeping bags and walked up the set of indoor-outdoor stairs. I tried the door to the unit that might have been his. Locked. Damn.

We may have been exhausted, hungry, drunk, dirty, and sweaty, but we did not have it in us to simply start knocking on random doors until, by process of elimination, we determined which apartment (if any) Dan lived in.

We both sighed, looked around the concrete walkway, bright security light overhead, noticed the multitude of moths flocking to their phantom paramour, and unrolled our bags.

We slept, fitfully in the middle of the stairwell landing.

In the morning, we were greeted by Dan’s smiling, bemused expression as he said, “Hey, did you guys sleep out here all night? You could have just rung the bell and we would have let you have the bed and couch.”

We groaned. He chuckled.

“We’re going for a nice leisurely breakfast. Wanna come?”

Dan and his girlfriend stepped over us on their way into town. We rolled over and tried to slip back into our sleep-misery. Two hours before we had to be at the fields.

Here seems a reasonable time to recount an event that occurred towards the end of the 1989 season. Or was it the end of the 1988 season? Either way, it was odd and slightly funny.

Dan Harrington approaches me at the beginning of one of the tournaments and says, “Billy, I want you to meet my girlfriend. I think you already know her.” At this point in my life on the west coast, I am just about 100 percent sure that I do not know Dan’s girlfriend, whomever she may be.

As he motions for her to come over he says, “She says she thinks she knew you in junior high school. In Marin.” He turns to her as she is approaching through a crowd, “Andrea! We’re over here.”

My mind is racing. Way back to Marin County days. My family had moved to Connecticut just after I had turned 13. Andrea? Andrea? The name is racing through my head. Just as I come to a realization who it is ... I see her walking towards me, big smile on her face. She is walking through twenty feet of space and twelve years of history. Here is Andrea Kelly. The beautiful blonde that I had a killer crush on in middle school. One of those girls that was so cute that you could barely look at her, let alone be any where near her.

A year or two later, when I was back home for the holidays, I pulled out a tattered and dusty middle school year book. Sure enough, Andrea Kelly. There she was. Cute as any girl in the school. And, as a bonus, she had even signed her picture with that ubiquitous curvy script that all girls had back then. It made me giddy to look at it.

“It is you!” She says shaking my hand. I am dumbstruck. We have all known the cute, button nosed high school honey that, ten years later, is auditioning for “before” pictures in weight loss advertisements. And, we have known those rare, few high school wall flowers that developed years later and came back to a reunion with a vengeance, mostly with the motive of showing every guy “what they could have had.”

Andrea was neither of these. She was the shy cutie, that blossomed into a beautiful, intelligent, and fun woman. She also happened to be a hell of an ultimate player. At least I can say I had good taste when I was 13 years old.

She was a mainstay on the Santa Barbara Lady Condors for years and ended up participating in some of our silly after-tournament games. She broke a thousand hearts along the way. But always smiling and laughing.

Back to 1990 Fools.

Sunday morning, Worm and I drag our aching, dirty, sleep-deprived, slightly hung-over, dehydrated and malnourished bodies to the fields. This was not exactly unfamiliar territory back then. Along with the rest of the team, we assemble on the fields and start seriously warming up for our quarterfinal. In between drills, already sweating and a little tired, I am talking to Worm and Barney about possible strategies. Glancing over Barney’s shoulder, I recognized John Smallberries strolling in from the parking lot. Smile on his face, bounce in his step, cleats in hand. No apparent care that he has missed the first day of his tryout tournament.

Now, Barney is already in a bitchy mood because, by all rights, we should have won our pool the day before and guaranteed ourselves an easier path. A few stupid mistakes and missed assignments at crucial moments will make a veteran captain quite frustrated. Especially when we are trying to impress possible recruits as much as our tryouts should be trying to impress us.

John walks into the spinning buzz saw - The Irritated Barney.

“Hey guys! Great day to play, huh?”

“Where the hell were you yesterday?!” Barney is practically spitting.

“Hey now,” he is holding up his hands and starting the backpedal step. “I couldn’t make it over the hill [from Santa Cruz]. My car broke down and I couldn’t get a ride.”

Barney’s not buying it, “Oh yeah? That's funny, I asked all the UC kids. They said they called your house but you didn’t answer. In fact, they were late because they drove by your place looking for you.” Barney is slowly advancing on him.

“Yeah, well ... actually... I wasn’t at home when my car broke down.” If this guy was back pedaling any faster, they’d have to test his blood for performance enhancers.

“Where exactly were you?”

John is getting a little red in the face now. The whole team has stopped warming up to watch the mid-field interrogation. “I was ... I was ... at my girlfriend’s place.”

Pressing relentlessly, Barney is now actually prodding John’s chest with his index finger, “And where is that?”

“Uh, actually, um ... Palo Alto.” He spills the ugly truth.

“Palo Alto! Jesus Christ! Where in Palo Alto?” Not happy.

John mumbles something half intelligble.

“What?!”

“College Avenue. All right! College Avenue! Satisfied?!” His admission lies there like vomit, stinking and slightly disgusting.

“Holy Shit!” Barney is in complete disbelief, “You mean you were here, yesterday morning, within 4 blocks of the fields, and you couldn’t manage to get your lazy ass to the fields for your only chance to make the team!?!”

The rest of us are slightly amused, slightly sickened by his apathy and weak attempt at concealment.

Then he drops a line that Worm and I have repeated, without exaggeration, at least 100 times since that day.

“Listen,” John decides to try to go on the offensive, “I feel like, at this point in my career, I’ve earned the right to take some time off if I feel like it.”

This coming from a third or fourth year player that has had a couple of undistinguished college seasons and a couple more scrubbing around with the local pick-up team.

“At That Point” in his CAREER. Did even the greatest of us, let alone this loser, really have a career in ultimate? Was he fucking joking? No. And that is why it was, and still is, so damn funny to me. Worm and I have used that line, or more simply the initials, A.T.P., for any manner of ridiculous excuses or outrageous claims for more than 15 years:

“Dude, how come you didn’t stretch with the rest of the team?”
“Hey, I’m ATP You know?”

or:

“What the? How come your cleats are off and you’re sitting down, we’ve got another 3 points in this meaningless pool play slaughter.”
Sliding Ray Bans on face, “Yo! ATP.”

It still brings a chuckle and a smile. You could still probably spring it on most any of those old Boot players and they would laugh at the reference.

As you might suspect, The Boot lost in the quarterfinals (again) and John Smallberries somehow did not make the final cut.

2006-04-16T23:25:00.000-05:00

Yes, the real story about that night. Kristen(the cute/short woman) was throwing back the old grand dad whiskey like it was water. Billy was on fire. Funny, charming and nice. Kristen was loving him. I was trying to draft off of him. You know, just like lance armstrong in the Tour de France. Let Billy do all the work and take her at the end. When it was suggested we sleep in the same room, I felt good about my chances to hook with the young hotty. Billy was one step ahead of me. As we were walking to the hotel Kristen suggested that we have switch it up and have boy/girl sleep together in the beds. Before she could finish her sentence, Billy blurts out "SHORT PEOPLE SLEEP TOGETHER" I was stunned...........I needed a standing 8 count............wow, there was nothing I could say. Billy played it perfectly. I thought, O.k. at least I get to sleep with Jen. Well, I get into bed and Jen is all the way on the other side of the bed. She has 3 layers of clothes on. She wants no part of me. So, there I am, staring at the ceiling. Praying Billy is not getting anything. Then.........I hear some noises...................a little kissing...........maybe a little more. Oh no, the worst possible situation. I am in the same bed as a woman that may not like men(nothing wrong with that) And Billy is taking this young hotty 5 feet from me. Short people sleep together. What a perfect line. I had a new respect for Billy. I was bitter for about a year. But, Billy will have more stories about kristen.

Into The Rhythm

2006-04-13T22:38:00.000-05:00

Back to 1990.

March rolled around and I had a brilliant idea. I decided that it might be a good idea to invite Tom to play with ShortFatGuys.

[Note: I seem to write with the same convention that I use in conversation when referring to Tom aka The Worm. Namely, I tend to call him Tom when I am talking about things outside of playing ultimate or ultimate parties. He is, after all, my friend, and despite his continuing denials over the past two decades, I believe that he would secretly rather be known as Tom or even Thomas. And I will let you all in on a tightly held secret - he is not exactly the same person when alone versus when in a large group of partying lunatics or blood-seeking adversaries. Then, of course, there is the necessity to call a spade a spade. Therefore, in situations where the stories are outside of personal connection or cogent empathetic reflection, he will be known as Worm ... or The Worm. You will have to ask him yourself if you want to understand the subtle, yet important distinction.]

Anyway ... 1990 Spring. ShortFatGuys. Frostbreaker. Gainesville, Florida ... again.

My side of the phone call to Gary went something like this:

“Gary! Hey ... what’s that? Yeah, of course I’m coming to Frostbreaker.

Yep, I am really looking forward to it. No, I don’t have a girlfriend! Do you? Listen, I’m just chillin’ for a bit. No, I’m not in a “slump.” I’m focusing on my career.

Hey, by the way ... I know that you usually extend all the invites, but ... well, that’s nice of you to say, but really, it is YOUR team.

Either way, there’s this guy out here that I think would be a good addition to the team.

Yeah, he’s a good player. Yeah, he is cool. Not a hot head. He can party and have fun [Boy, can he!]

What? Yeah, I think he would be a perfect fit.

There’s one little problem. Hey, relax. It’s just that he doesn’t really have enough money to be able to afford the flight, hotel and rental car.

Well, I was thinking ... that’s a little harsh ... I was thinking that maybe ... hear me out ... maybe the team could get together and pitch in. Just a little from each player. I swear I think everyone will be happy they contributed. That’s all I’m asking. Put it out there and ask around. I’m willing to make up the difference.

OK. Thanks, I appreciate it. If it works out, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.”

And that was that. ShortFatGuys extended their first no-strings-attached “scholarship” for a worthy teammate, and Worm was on his way.

Gainesville in March. Worm and I arrived at the team motel to much fanfare and bravado. Mostly, I received the fanfare based on that one spectacular and anomalous sky from the year before. [In fact, I kind of rode the legend of that story for a few years before everyone realized that I was never going to duplicate that magnitude of a feat again. But it was a good ride while it lasted.] Worm came in with the bravado.

Understand, he had been through the hell-fires of Chico State ultimate. He had been subjected to the heights of derision and the lows of the worst underhanded machinations. He knew one of the most important aspects of group interaction - go in demanding the kind of status that you want. If you want to be the quiet, nice guy ... act a little like Billy. If you want to be “That Guy” - the guy that makes things happen, for better or worse - stand up straight and act like The Worm. He was so much The Worm that nobody even asked me whether he might have any other name until late on Sunday night. He was The Worm, and they simply nodded and accepted. It fit.

We didn’t party too much that firsst night. West-coasters on East coast time. You aren’t all that tired, but you know that you’re going to have hell to pay with the early wake up call in the morning.

That Saturday on the fields there were a few developments:

First, ShortFatGuys was a better team than we had ever been. Fewer Wash U players (only the hard core still remaining including: Melissa, Steve Votruba, Gary and me) and more up and coming Boston players.

Second, this year, we had Worm. He was throwing himself around the field with such typical reckless abandon, that he inspired (or shamed) the rest of us to try harder. It worked. We were playing better, winning more.

Third, Jen was back and her younger sister was tagging along for her spring break. By this time, most of the ShortFatGuys had figured out that Jen was great to hang out with, nice to look at, and undisputably brilliant, but was basically not interested in any of the Guys. Her sister K., all 20 years, five feet, and 100 pounds of her, was also very cute. And she seemed to like guys. More than just a little. She also seemed determined to enjoy her spring break even if it meant drinking a little alcohol to loosen things up.

The year before, I had imbibed enough beer on Friday night to lubricate my brain into a twisted sort of perversity. There were about six of us hanging out in one of the motel rooms. I got the idea that it might be interesting to pull out the Gideon’s Bible and read a few passages. I happened to open to Leviticus. The text struck me as so strangely absurd, that I started preaching out loud to anyone and everyone in the room.

If you are not familiar with your basic Bible, and I certainly was not, Leviticus is good Old Testament fire and brimstone, “Thou shall” and “Thou shall not” preachifying. Lines similar to, “The beast that has the cloven hoof but cheweth not its cud shall be an abomination and ye shall not eat it,” that is basically Leviticus - but there are hundreds of pronouncements like that. I gather that it is where most of the rules of Kosher are derived from. All I knew at the time was that it read like the script from some crazy segment of Monty Python. I was soon bouncing around from bed to bed, choosing passages at random, and casting my commandments about to the giggling few.

That’s generally as crazy as I ever get at an ultimate tournament.

Back to 1990, after the games, Saturday night found the ShortFatGuys partying at a local beer hall with a pool table. I vaguely recall large quantities of beer, lots of poorly played billiards, K. drinking lots of Old Grandad - straight out of the bottle, and some sweaty dancing. I was not in the mood to recite out of the Bible this year. Instead, I was thinking it might be a great chance to break my ever growing streak of ... well ... um ... not having sex. Not even close to having sex. Nothing in six months. Zip. Nada. Hardly a peck on the cheek goodnight.

As I watched K. literally crawl under the pool table after a puppy that had strayed into the bar, I had the proverbial angel and devil sitting on my opposing shoulders. She was really cute, she had been very affectionate, even flirtatious, with me all evening, and her inhibitions were ... ah ... swimming in a golden haze of alcohol. On the other side of the equation, her older sister was staring absolute daggers at me from across the room the entire night.

As we all made our way back to the motel, K. swayed along beside me and inquired as to my sleeping arrangements from the previous evening. As we neared the motel, I mentioned that Tom and I had been sleeping with Gary and couple other guys from the team. She allowed how it was stupid that she and her sister had two beds in their rooms to themselves and there were a bunch guys without enough beds. I think Tom had the guts to suggest that, maybe, we could share their room with them. K. seemed all for the arrangement, Jen was less than enthusiastic, to say the least.

As Tom and I scrambled to grab our bags and slide into their room before the offer was rescinded, I’m sure that the sisters had a word or two about the soundness of the sleeping accommodations. As we entered the room, Tom and I had generally accepted that we would be spending yet another night as bed partners. Then K. announced:

“Two girls. Two guys. Separate beds. I don’t want to sleep with my sister. That’s a waste!”

I calmly thought over the situation. I considered the dimensions of the beds, the size of the four people involved, the general disposition of like-sized anatomical parts such as arms, legs and torsos. I determined that it might be best if K. and I shared the smaller bed near the window and Jen and Tom could have the larger, more comfortable, sleeping platform. After listening to other, varying opinions, I quietly suggested as much to the group. It was generally agreed, by all involved, to be the best solution.

We all slept very well that night.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

ShortFatGuys didn’t win that year. I believe we lost in the semis. It was fun though. And Worm had been a big hit with the team. Between his sick defense and his scary partying, he was firmly entrenched on the roster from that day forth.

Sweet Flight

2006-04-10T18:01:00.000-05:00

1990 ...

Tough year in a few ways.

First, my college girlfriend had set off for the Peace Corps in the fall of ‘89. Subsequently, most of 1990 can be qualified as the time when Billy became one of the two “Most Desperate Guys in The Western Region” (Worm, of course, being the other).

Second, the ultimate season didn’t end up quite the way I had hoped it would.

Then again, there were some funny times as well ...

January 1990, Dan Harrington rallies the Boot troops for a tournament in Arizona - New Year’s Fest. I am so completely consumed by ultimate at this point, that this actually sounds like a good idea to me.

We go. The fields are hard. Not hard as in, there are bare patches and it hasn’t rained in a week or so. I mean hard as in, there are patches of grass scattered among the gritty plains of dirt and stones. Hard as in, it hasn’t rained in ... oh ... four months. Anvil hard. And dry.

We cram the entire team into a single Super 8 hotel room. 14 guys, two beds, one toilet, one shower. I remember waking up in the night, stepping over random prone bodies, hoping to not wake anyone or break anything, just trying to forage my way to the bathroom. Will Debello, who had been sleeping nearest the window sporting the air conditioning unit, woke up in the morning completely drenched in the condensation that had built up and trickled down the panes. This was a typical hotel set up for much of those early years playing ultimate.

We ended up playing the LA Iguanas in the quarterfinals. Another loss. I was getting sick of losing to those guys. Jim Daddy with his perfect, imperturbable hair. “Big” who was so damn ... well ... big and lanky. Rich Gallagher who never seemed to make a mistake. Scott (Forgothisname) was a scary psychopath on the field. “Bullet” was a little Napoleon, badgering, bullying, cajoling, harassing. They did have “Goggles” on their team, and he was a nice guy both on and off the field. And Jeff Landesman played that role of "The One Fun, Cool Guy on a Team of Dicks", but I didn’t have much love for the rest of them.

The biggest highlight of that New Year’s Fest was not on the field, not on the sidelines, not at the party, and not at the team hotel room.

It was on the flight home.

As the majority of our team piled onto the Southwest Airlines flight bound for Oakland, we realized that a large number of the East Bay players were on the same flight. While we were disappointed with our (customary) loss in the quarters, East Bay had a worse tourney than us. They somehow managed to get stuck in a stacked pool on Saturday, losing multiple close games. Then, on Sunday morning, they lost to some up and coming college team. The result, before they had righted their sinking ship and began winning games, they had dropped to the “C” pool. Which they won.

Now, we would probably have lost 7 out of 10 games to East Bay at the time, but our path was easier and fortune smiled on us with a one point win where they had a one point loss. We lose in the A quarters. We’re not happy about it, but at least we are not them.

On the two and a half hour flight home, I am sitting next to Dan Harrington. He seems to slowly be developing an evil grin and mischievous twinkle in his eye. About half way through the flight, he gets up from his seat and wanders towards the back of the plane. The inter-aisle ribbing between teams has been subdued but persistent to this point.

After some time, Dan sits back down with a Cheshire Cat grin. A few minutes later, there is this announcement delivered by our cute, young stewardess over the intercom system:

“Ladies and gentlemen, it has been brought to our attention that there is an ultimate frisbee team representing the East Bay area on our flight this evening. We would like to congratulate them on their victory in the C Division of the annual Tempe New Year’s Tournament. Bravo and well done.”

There is an instant, collective groan of chagrin and embarrassment from East Bay, but it is overwhelmed by the spontaneous applause and calls for “Stand up!” and “Take a bow!” from The Boot players. We are giddy and wiggling with mirth. They are squirming and slouching in their seats. There is a short, quiet smattering of applause by a few underwhelmed passengers. Boot 1 - East Bay 0.

Great way to finish a lousy tournament.

Flying back from that Tempe tournament in 1990, I was missing skin from multiple areas of my body. I was dehydrated, sunstroked, scratched, bruised, and generally not happy. I vowed that I would never make the flight back down there.

If I recall correctly, I made that very same vow for the next seven years. Each time, it was definitely my last New Year’s Fest. Who needed to subject themselves to that kind of abuse and torment? Apparently, I did. Or at least, playing ultimate was important enough for me to annually forget my better intentions and re-enlist for the inevitable punishment.

Fools

2006-04-07T14:55:00.000-05:00

I was a little bummed when we won our quarter final game. I realized it would be another 2 hours before we could drink any beer. I thought Bomb would crush us quickly and the beers would be flowing. When Paul Ferrari got the block at 12's I was really worried. We might not be drinking until late in the afternoon. Thank god we threw some swill and were able to excape the semi's with a loss.
Billy, cork, pablo and I were 3 beers deep about 1/2 hour after the game. We starting hitting on at 23 year girl who was hanging on the sidelines. She informed us that she recently broke up with her boyfriend because he played too many video games. After several lame lines, we decided to back off. For some reason, for 20 years Billy and I have never been very successful with women at ultimate tournaments. Swilling beers and telling the same jokes over and over has never really impressed women. huh? Still, hanging on the sidelines making fun of other people never gets old. I have a feeling Billy and I will be in our 70's heckling and telling the same jokes at some random tournament. I am hoping we can go to Ottawa to make a few more stories that we can laugh about in 20 year from now.
worm

Report From 2006 April Fools East

2006-04-07T12:47:00.000-05:00

Breaking form by not writing about things that happened eons ago....

But I did want to mention the results of playing in April Fools East this past weekend.

[Yes, that is this weekend, as in April 2006, not April 1986]

Jim P. has already recapped the tourney from his perspective here.

Here is my quick take on the affair.

For me, ShortFatGuys encompasses some of the best things about playing ultimate.

There are old familiar faces. There are new young faces.

There are the same old (yet still hilariously funny) jokes. There are always new stories.

There is the joy of playing for playing's sake. There is the rush of adrenaline that comes with competitiveness and fighting for victory.

There are moments of acheivement and excitement. There are debacles on the sidelines and in the shotgun races.

I was pleased that I personally could still get around on the field without embarrassing myself against the youngsters. I was shocked at how effective some of the Old Guard still is (Jimmy P., Coop coming out of retirement, Cork, Bim, Simon, Gary, Pablo, Paul Ferrari with his sick layout block at the end, and of course Worm). The Goff brothers (Adam and Marshall) are still too young (read: under 40) to be surprising in their abilities. And of course, despite what else we say, we would have been crushed without the young studs: Hunt, Matt, Chris, Jay, Jorah (almost an old man).

I want to take a moment to thank all my teammates from this year. And, for that matter, for each of the previous 20 years of various amalgamations of ShortFatGuy squads. Thanks for always having a healthy mix of striving for glory tempered with a dose of perspective and desire to have fun.

We'll win it all next time!

And if not, then we will have the most FunFunFun.

(Since I can't seem to add a photo directly to the post, here is a link for this year's team photo.
Gary is holding the sign on the left, I am on the right. Only two original ShortFatGuys left. Worm is not shown.)

Welcome to the World

2006-03-28T23:11:00.000-05:00

Sectionals 1989: Truthfully, I can’t even remember it. I know that we hoped to come in second, behind Tsunami and ahead of East Bay. I believe we ended up third, behind East Bay, squeaking past Davis. Worm will have to fill in the details.

Regionals: The West was still one, big, monster of a region. Picture everything west of Kansas, north of Mexico, and south of Canada. That region happened to include: Boulder, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, Davis, Los Angeles, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Seattle, Portland, Santa Cruz, and San Francisco. Canada wasn’t yet part of the UPA, but still, that was a hell of a region. Three teams go to Nationals.

The tourney was held at Stanford, on the Intramural Fields near El Camino Real. Being a low seed, our first game was against Portland. They were the Oregon Donors that year. They were known to be an up and coming contender. They surely didn’t know us. We didn’t know them at all, except that they had Ronar.

Ron “Ronar” Oliner was a legend based on his performance at the 1985 Nationals. If I remember correctly, Barney told me that he had scored 15 of Flying Circus’ 21 goals on their way to winning the finals. He was huge, about 6 foot 4. And cocky. And, as both teams finished warming up, you could see that his teammates seemed to have ultimate faith in him.

First game of regionals. 16 teams, double elimination. No excuses. Got to win when it counts. We’re playing on the field near the restrooms and the parking lot. The west edge is a mixture of dirt, sparse grass, and gravel

Oregon opened the game with a series of points that mainly revolved around finding an opening for a huck to Ronar in the endzone. He pulled most of these down for easy goals. But our offense is clicking and we are matching them score for score.

I’m realizing that all the college kids are just starting to get their footing at the club level. Their throws are not only better than I personally could have imagined at their age, most of them are better throwers than me on that day. And they can run. Oregon definitely has the experience and talent advantage, but we have legs and some serious defense.

Somewhere near half-time, we have burned through our taller defenders trying to stop Ronar. Worm, at six foot even and maybe 175 soaking wet, matches up with him. In the next couple of points, the Oregon throwers force a couple of hucks into a covered Ronar. Perfect placement and float might have worked, but not these. I think Worm got one block, perhaps a poacher got another. We may or may not have managed to take a one point lead.

Regrouping on the next pull, Oregon starts working it up with a sequence of shorter throws trying to catch a look at an open huck or a long bowling alley come-back. Seth, Teddy and I are doing a decent job up front of making most of the throws difficult, denying a few cuts in each sequence. Worm is backing the hell out of Ronar, making the long throw a little risky and daring the come-back. Finally, after a swing, the sideline opens up and Ronar is churning up the alley for a full 30 yard under cut. Worm is trailing right behind him, but with Ronar’s bulk and flying elbows there is virtually no opening to get around him. Perhaps Ronar slowed up a bit just before the catch, or maybe Worm had a huge burst. Either way, the disc never got to its target. Twisting and stretching, Worm launched around and in front of Ronar. His hand slipped in and batting the disc away as he came crashing down and skidded along the gravelly dirt. No foul call - no contact. Just a burst of cheering from our sideline, a look of disbelief on their sideline, and a bloody and dusty Worm gathering himself up off the ground and trotting towards the forming stack.

We score. We have the momentum. They have not only lost their cockiness, they are starting to get on each other. Ronar isn’t even on the field for the next offense. The Donors are starting to consider the possibility of losing. We are starting to believe we can win. Hell, we don’t have anything to lose we’re seeded 13 or 14 out of 16. We’re too young and dumb to think of playing conservative now. And the captains let us go. No last minute “Old Man’s Offense” like last year. The Boot is winning or losing with the group that got us there.

We win.

The news of the upset spread quickly throughout the tourney. I think every team, with the notable exception of Oregon and perhaps their next round opponent in the loser’s bracket, was psyched that we were advancing in the winners bracket. Some might have truly been rooting for us, we were a fun team, when we weren’t drunk and heckling. But mostly, everyone saw the draw open up wide on our side of the bracket.

Next game was against Phoenix. Neither team knew each other, but they may have been a little wary of us. We didn’t care. We were on a roll. I remember the game getting a little testy. Some calls and an argument or two. Our defense picked it up and we were two and oh heading into the next round of the winner’s bracket.

LA Iguana waited for us under the shade of the eucalyptus trees. They had surely marked their schedule in the morning, aiming towards the expected first test during this round against Oregon. Instead, they get us. They are practically salivating. We, on the other hand, are familiar with this opponent. And it is not working in our favor. That loose energy and exuberance that carried us this far flees into the corners of the woods. The Iguana bats us around and tosses us aside.

We are one loss away from elimination.

Going into the next game, you have to appreciate the difference between the two teams. The Santa Barbara Condors are legends. At that point, in 1989, I think they had qualified for every Nationals since ... well ... since there was a National Championship. They have a mix of battle hardened veterans and experienced college players from the dominant Black Tide squad. The Boot has ... well, we have a couple of veterans that have been in big games, but always lost. We have one veteran that has won Nationals. We have a bunch of guys that have recently been cut from other teams. We have Worm from Chico and a bunch of college kids that are psyched to still be playing in club regionals. On paper, it is no contest.

As they say, that’s why they play the games.

It was an epic struggle between two teams desperate for a win. We were playing to get closer to our first chance at Nationals. They were playing to maintain a chance at their god given right to Nationals.

The game was to be played to 15, cap at 17. No time limit.

Most of the game has faded in my memory. How we managed to be so close at the closing points, I don’t remember. I do remember that I ended up covering Aengus Wagner most of the game. At the time, he was basically royalty in west coast ultimate. Not only was he a great athlete, but he was also known as a great sportsman and generally fun guy. The fact that I was even trying to match up with him was a thrill for me.

When the score was 13 all, we pulled to them. I ran down on the pull, especially wary of Aengus knowing they would probably be looking for him in the crunch. I remember how he tended to run with a short, inefficient gait. Lots of strides. Shuffling more than loping. Either way, he was fast. He could cut quickly. And he could catch anything and never seemed to throw it away when it really counted.

They start working it up the field with a sequence of swing throws looking for continuation and give and gos. Aengus is on fire, cutting for every other throw. If I manage to cover him, his clear cut is a serious option. I felt like I was chasing a chicken around the field - sometimes closing off a throw, only to be caught overplaying and broken on the opposite side.

He is schooling me, but I am not giving up. We need this turnover. They need this point. Badly.

They work it all the way up the field. Aengus is cutting cross field with me on his tail again. Yet another button-hook and he is heading back for a dump-swing. I can’t let him get it. The thrower looks him off. As he plants and turns to clear out, he slips. I am right behind him. I jump over him to avoid stepping on him.

At this point, everything slows down. He is still sliding, but scrambling to his feet. I am above him, trying to look for a place to safely land. As I come down, my foot clips his leg. I am tumbling towards the sideline. He is gaining his footing and heading for the endzone.

I start running before I get to my feet, he is trying to find the clear spot for the score. There is a quick swing to the sideline farthest from me. The sideline Aengus is breaking for. I am at least five yards behind him running as fast as I can to close the gap but still feeling like I am slogging through quicksand.

The front endzone corner opens up and the soft leading throw goes up as I accelerate past the thrower. Aengus is alone, but I am closing faster than the disc. He breaks hard right to meet the throw just behind the goal line right inside the cone. Staggering, I lunge for the disc. I miss by more than a yard. He claps the disc for the score. 14 - 13 Condors. Game to 15.

And then ...

... well there are turning points in all lives. Moments when things happen that resonate quietly but persistently throughout a life. Moments that may seem fleeting to one party, but may make all the difference to another.

This was one of those moments for me. In fact, I am almost afraid to attempt to commit it to written words, because I can’t do it justice. All I can do is state it simply, and hope that anyone else who has been in a similar position can appreciate the circumstances and the implications.

At the instant he caught the disc, Aengus, sweating and exhausted from the effort of not only that point, but of the entire game, indeed, the entire brutal tournament to that point, looked down to confirm that he was in the endzone. Goal.

In the next second, as I slid to a stop near him, he handed the disc to me. As the rest of his team was celebrating the crucial point, he looked me straight in the eye and quietly asked me, “Do you want to call a foul on that.” He indicated our entanglement seconds and a lifetime ago.

Here was a virtual ultimate god asking me, a nobody grunt player on a nobody team whether I wanted to take back the precious goal he had just worked so hard for. Of course I wanted to call a foul. I wanted to do anything that would get us a second chance at that point. If I had uttered the word, “Foul”, I truly think he would have not contested and taken the disc back twenty yards to where he slid and I jumped.

Instead, somehow, I overcame my selfish instincts and managed to do the right thing. I considered the situation, thought about the circumstances, and decided that it was all incidental in the sense of unintentional and unavoidable. It only took a moment, but it was a struggle.

“No foul. Nice goal.” As much as I hated myself for getting burned for such an important score, I admired Aengus for what he was willing to do to be sure that there was no question of the legitimacy of the outcome. He would rather lose than win dishonorably.

That simple act of sportsmanship has followed me, indeed sometimes haunted me, for 17 years. It has impacted the way that I attempt to conduct myself on the field whether winning or losing, whether playing a simple league game, or competing at Nationals or Worlds. It is like a benchmark that I strive - and sometimes fail - to maintain.

What would I have done it that situation?

What would you have done?

The Boot won that game.

My teammates play out of their heads to tie it up and then to push it into overtime. Game point, Ron Cootes throws a long bender up the sideline to Worm sprinting for the goal. He’s fighting to keep himself between the defender and the disc. It’s a good throw ... except that it is coming straight out of the sun. Hesitation. Uncertainty. A prayer and a lunge. Goal.

Final score. Boot 17, Condors 16. Three hours. One legend of a team losing their second chance. One upstart team staggering but still holding their dream upright.

I remember the combination of elation and exhaustion that swept over me at that moment. Two more wins, and we are going to Nationals. I recall the post-game handshake and the genuine wishes for “good game, good luck” from the Condors. After our brief and subdued group celebration, I sank down my back on the field, thankful for a moment to recoup.

Through my closed eyes, I notice the eclipsing of the sun as someone walks up next to me. Holding my hand up to block the sun, I squint at the silhouette of Andy Gould, the captain of East Bay.

“Game time is in, uh, five minutes. Who’s flipping for the pull?” He smiles.

East Bay has been on the sidelines for at least half an hour, watching in amusement as we beat ourselves near to death trying to scramble past Santa Barbara. They are rested and warmed up. We are worn out and beaten up. Nagging little injuries are slowing some of our veterans. Our kids have nearly reached the end of the adrenaline wave that they have been riding all weekend.

We begin playing less than ten minutes later. Game to 17 cap at 19. No time limit.

It was a battle of familiar enemies. We all lived in the Bay Area. Their roster tended to come from the City and Berkeley/Oakland, ours from Palo Alto and Santa Cruz. We had played against them a few times and never won. We felt they were kind of old and slow. They knew we were mostly young and dumb. They had better throws, we had better defense. They were more organized and strategic, we were going for it with the attitude that we had nothing to lose.

Once again, the minutiae of the early points is lost to me. I know that it was close the whole way. So close that it got to 17 all - going to the cap. Again. At this point, the game is past the three hour mark. We are running on fumes, desire and guts. They are playing as if their lives depend upon it. Indeed, one ultimate season would end in the next few points and one team would be within one step of their first Nationals.

We score. We are pulling to them 18-17. Game point. Despite huge layouts and pressure man-to-man, they flawlessly work the disc into the endzone. 18 all. Next point is everything. They pull to our best offensive unit. We work the disc to within 25 yards of their endzone. The disc gets swung to Ken Calloway.

Ken is a late addition to the team. A Nationals champion of Barney’s on Flying Circus, his knee brace and slightly soft mid-section speak to the fact that his peak days are past him. But his throws have been instrumental in us getting this far. Indeed, it seems like every player on the team has done something, at some point to help the team. A complete team effort.

Ken looks up for the continuation cut. Seth is blazing open to the near corner of the endzone. This has been something of a coming out party for Seth. If anyone in the club scene knew him before this weekend, it was as a slightly goofy, speedy college player. Here, he has matched up against the best that we have seen and more than held his own. Since I had the pleasure/misfortune of covering him at practice, I knew he was a nightmare. I was only too happy to see everyone else find out.

One pass more. The throw goes up. It’s a little behind Seth, the East Bay defender is tight. Seth slams on the brakes and strains back for the disc. Block!

East Bay picks it up and immediately starts moving up field against our game, but struggling offensive unit. Score. Game. Season over.

Standing on the sidelines, my head drops to my chest and my legs give way.

In two must-win games, we played over six and a half hours. We won by one. We lost by one.

Dejected and spent, we slowly gathered on our sideline. Eventually, someone, probably one of the Santa Cruz kids, yelled out, “Where’s the damn beer! Let’s start drinking and heckling!”

At first, this seemed almost blasphemous to me. We had just lost a heart breaker when we had the disc to win. We had worked all season and fell short by a game and a point. Shouldn’t we be depressed and angry? I was. A little. But, also, there was in me a growing appreciation for what we had accomplished.

We were a completely new team, less than a year in the making. We had maybe six players that had played in a big game in club ultimate. We had a bunch of crazy college kids and some players like me, that had been drifting along the fringes of the sport.

And we had fun. A lot of fun. No major political infighting. No simmering personality struggles. Just a lot of intensity. A lot of team devotion. And a lot of laughs.

I sat on the sidelines and randomly heckled the game-to-go as Oregon, coming all the way up the dirt road beat a tired East Bay team. We had the dual satisfaction of knowing that we were the only team to beat a team going to Nationals and that we probably influenced the outcome by running East Bay for all they were worth. I drank a particularly tasty beer and toasted my teammates. 1989 was one of the most satisfying seasons I ever had.

Making Strides

2006-03-20T22:15:00.000-05:00

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?

Learning to Walk

2006-03-15T15:15:00.000-05:00

The spring of 1989 saw a reorganization of the team formerly known as El Lunche. It seemed many of the crusty veterans from the previous year didn’t have the drive or the desire to begin their ultimate season in April. This was when “The Kids” would have their chance. The team was still Dan Harrington’s, but he had ceded many of the strategic and personnel decisions to others - one of whom was Bart Bruner.

Bart, or as he was more commonly known, Barney, had a big time background in the sport. He had won Nationals with the Flying Circus in 1985, had subsequently moved to Santa Barbara and played with the mighty Condors for a few years. Having returned to the Bay Area, he fell victim to the cliquish and petty politics that often permeates many big city ultimate scenes. The reigning Bay Area power, Tsunami, wouldn’t give him a look. He had rubbed some - many - people the wrong way. Those people happened to be making the roster decisions on the team of choice.

Therefore, Barney was taking a different path. Unlike Dan Harrington, he was serious and focused and he had a bit of a chip on his shoulder. He was trying to build a team up from scratch. A team that would consist of mostly young guns with a few wily vets. A team to beat the big boys with a bunch of unknowns or the overlooked.

He was hoping this would be that team. We had the proper starting ingredients. A slew of raw newcomers and green college kids, a few big throwing veterans with some big game experience, and a team-wide desire to have fun. We even had a name. We were now officially “The Boot.” The moniker was homage to the fact that just about everyone on the team had been cut or denied by another team. We were the booted, the leftovers, the dregs. We were also pretty fired up to prove them all wrong.

We entered the spring tourneys with an evolving roster. Even so, our pecking order in the competitive Bay Area ultimate scene soon became established. We were slightly better than the majority of teams, but we were a measurable step down from East Bay, who were themselves a large step down from Tsunami.

Meanwhile, a small tremor could be felt in San Francisco - and neither the Ultimate scene, nor the tourney party scene would ever be the same. The Worm had arrived from Chico State.

I had recognized him at a few pick-up games in Golden Gate park. He was his usual dirty, grass-stained self even after these casual Sunday gatherings.

“This guy’s career isn’t going to last long,” I thought to myself, “but he sure is a great defender right now.”

I tried to convince him that he should play for us, play for The Boot. He was torn. His closest friends and former Chico State players in the Bay Area had cobbled together a team. They couldn’t offer quite the level of competitiveness that we could, but they could easily out-drink any other team ... possibly in the country. I tried to appeal to his competitive nature. He wasn’t swayed. He decided to stick with his homeboys in his new city.

The Boot went to the Santa Barbara Classic on Memorial Day weekend. We were hoping to introduce ourselves to the some of the other west coast teams. We figured this would be our first taste of how we stacked up against the competition that we would see in the fall at Regionals.

We competed. We won the games we should have, we lost a couple of close games against teams that were expected to beat us. We eventually bowed out in the quarterfinals losing to the imposing squad of attitude, swagger, and talent that was the LA Iguana.

Worm’s team, Bitch and Moan, was in the B bracket. Here are some significant facts about that team:

-They had a small roster on Saturday morning of maybe 12 players, 9 of whom had played a competitive tourney before.

-They won the party by a wide margin on Saturday night, receiving the full spectrum from accolades to death threats by the gathered and departing crowd.

-They didn’t come close to losing a Boat Race.

-Their Saturday night heroics resulted in a measurably smaller roster on Sunday, with at least one possible alcohol poisoning cutting into their numbers.

After we lost in the quarters, I wandered over to see how Bitch and Moan was doing. They were scrambling for their lives in the B semis. Carried by Worm’s defense and Mike Chico’s throws, they held their slim lead all the way to the end.

[On a funny side note, Mike Chico reminds me of an odd but common phenomenon in ultimate - players that are better known by their nicknames than their real names. I’m not talking about the difference between people easily identifying Jerome Betis by his nickname “The Bus”. I’m talking about playing a sport, traveling, eating, and practically living with people whose real names you don’t know for months, years, or even ... ever. It was about a year and a half after meeting Mike Chico that I realized his real name was Mike Kerhin. That “Chico” came from his alumni status from that bastion of scholarly (and brewski) achievement - Chico State. I didn’t even think twice about it. What I mistook for his vaguely hispanic look was actually his slavic ancestry. What did a kid from Connecticut via St. Louis know about such things?

Think that’s bad? I know of one player, who shall remain nameless, that played on the same team as Worm for three years before he realized that his name was Tom. The exchange went something like:

Me: That sure was a hell of a block by Tom at the end of that last game.

Him: Who?

Me: Tom.

Him: Tom? Is there a Tom on the team?

Me: (incredulous) Tom Glass ... Worm?

Him: Oohh, Worm. Yeah, that was a sick block. (pause) His name is really Tom?

Me: You’ve been on his team for three years and you didn’t even think he might have another name besides Worm!?!

[Side note within a side note: It was actually about this time that I acquired my semi-nickname ... Billy. It’s all Dan Harrington’s fault. I had been known as Billy all through childhood. When, at the end of seventh grade, my family moved from Northern California to Connecticut, I made the decision to rid myself of the hated diminutive form of my name. Starting the beginning of eighth grade, introducing myself to a whole new state of people, I was officially Bill. And it stayed that way. Until I moved back to California and at the age of 24, Dan Harrington decided that he liked saying Billy more than just Bill. That was the end of that.]]

Anyway ... where was I? Oh yeah, Bitch and Moan staggering into the finals of the B bracket of the Santa Barbara Classic. I chose to watch for a few reasons. One, the A division finals were being played two fields over. But it was yet another in a seemingly endless string of finals meetings between Tsunami and Iguana. Athletic contests of will and pride frequently marred by tit-for-tat calls and minutes-long arguments. I didn’t have the stomach for sitting through that again.

Besides, Bitch and Moan reminded me so much of that scrappy old Wild Bunch team trying to finish out a string of playing way over their heads for just one more glorious victory.

My final reason for watching their game was as an academic exercise. Worm’s elbow had become a fascinating study in biology and pain management. It had become so swollen from repeated bashings on the unforgiving fields that he had, at first, thrown a small wrist band over it to cushion the inevitable, continued abuse to come. The wrist band had given way to a large elbow pad, but at this point, at the end of the weekend, it wasn’t even marginally containing the hanging fluid sack that was once his elbow. It was like looking at national geographic pictures of africans suffering from Elephantiasis. It was so large and floppy, that it did not even vaguely resemble a human body part. Certainly not a working elbow joint. It was both disgusting and fascinating. Luckily, it was on his left arm (or it was his left arm). This meant that neither his throws nor his boat racing had been significantly impaired. I don’t recall anyone asking if it hurt. I think everyone rightly assumed it did. It was more like watching a monk flogging his own back as Worm launched for yet another layout block, landing left arm first.

Bitch and Moan limped to the fields for the B finals. I was their waterboy and cheering section. I watched as they tried to negotiate with their competitors - Albuquerque. The offer was this: agree to a draw and both teams would split both the winner’s and loser’s purse. I think it was $200 and two cases of good beer for the winners, $100 and a case of mediocre beer for the losers. Split evenly, they reasoned, both teams would have a decent field party.

Albuquerque wasn’t buying it. They looked at the remains of the Bitch and Moan team, they looked at their own burly, testosterone filled teammates, they went for it all. They proposed winner take all, loser gets nothing. I don’t know if it was the baiting and in-your-face call-out or if it was the prospect of that much beer, but Bitch and Moan agreed.

And, of course they won. It wasn’t easy or pretty, but they won. The usual recipe: heroics from unlikely sources, stepping up and beyond for a few key players. Worm’s elbow actually deflated slightly by the ragged end of the game. I think most of the gallons of fluid had been forced through repeated blows to permeate the rest of his body. It was leaking out of the open gashes in his knees, sides, and head. Yes, scrapes along his head.

I remember the repeated cries from the Albuquerque players:

Warning: “Don’t throw it near that guy!”

Remonstrating: “What is wrong with you!?! I don’t care if the receiver seems to be open by 10 yards! Don’t Throw It!!”

Mumbling: “He’s got to take a sub at some point. Doesn’t he?”

The Bitch and Moan players rushed the field ... or more correctly, they rushed towards the tournament director that had the beer and prize money. Three cases of beer and $300. These same guys that probably had never felt comfortable in an algebra class had immediately done the higher mathematics to solve the equation: 300 hundred dollars = lots of good beer = lots and lots of bad beer. In an amazing display of organization and teamwork, they dispatched beer runners, food runners and ice runners. Within moments of sitting back to bask in their improbable success, they had a riotous crowd clamoring for their growing riches of cold beer and variety of muchies. Their victory party started there and didn’t end until ... I don’t even know when. Let’s just say they were well aware that Monday was a holiday and no more games were scheduled.

The cruel Monday morning light greeted the bloodshot eyes and pounding heads of Mike Chico and Worm. I, having much less to celebrate, was feeling healthier, more clear-headed, more awake, and generally less satisfied. Good thing I was doing the driving back up to San Francisco, 5 and a half hours away.

The drive down had been relatively benign. I didn’t really know either Mike or Tom, but they certainly knew each other from their days at Chico State. We exchanged casual get-to-know-you kind of questions and answers. Those two mixed it up with a few verbal jabs here and there, but we were all tired and the late night drive was generally quiet.

The drive back up was another matter. Worm and Chico got into the chapping and story-telling immediately. Their hangovers seemed to add a steely edge to the proceedings. They were brutal, pulling no punches. It was all in fun - but brutal none the less. I was lucky. They didn’t know me well enough to include me in the bloodshed.

Then we hit the traffic jam.

We were crawling north along 101 outside of San Jose. We were about seven hours into our 5 and a half hour trip. We were weary and depressed about re-entry into tomorrow’s work day. Somehow, the conversation had reached a comparatively thoughtful equilibrium. I think the topic was along the lines of dating prospects and relative effectiveness in different approaches for different types of women. In the midst of down-shifting for the three thousandth time in the last eight miles, I slipped up.

“You know, living in the Castro for the past couple of years has changed my perspective on some things. I mean, having guys blatantly and aggressively hit on you is not all that fun. Now I have an idea of what it might be like to be a good looking woman.”

The second before I uttered these words, I would have bet large sums of money that both Tom and Mike would be asleep within the next two minutes. Within microseconds of the last syllable of “woman” passing my lips, their ears perked up and their eyes instantly glistened. I believe they actually began salivating.

Mike was first out of the blocks, “Soooo ... now you know what it’s like to be a bea-UTIFUL woman, huh?”

Worm not far behind with, “That’s got to be tough, I mean how many times can you say, ‘I’ve already got a drink - thank you!’”

This being my first time in the cross-hairs, I made the fatal mistake of all newbie chappies - I tried to fight it. “That’s not what I said...”

“You must get sick of hearing guys beseeching, ‘Oh god! Don’t let me go blind now!’ as you walk by.” Worm is practically stumbling over himself to get the chaps out faster than Chico.

I’m squirming now, “But I ...”

“‘Don’t pinch me if I’m dreaming,’” Chico is crowing,”’Lord, I’ve done gone to heaven and I don’t wanna leave.’”

Worm immediately following with, “So, tell us. What exactly is it like being a drop dead GORGEOUS, bombshell of a woman?”

Now it’s not so funny. “Listen, I never said I was ...”

“Oh, don’t get all bashful on us now. What’s it like having guys constantly trying to pinch your ass and ask for your number?”

It went on. And on. And on. It was the most miserable two hours of traffic I have ever lived through. When ever they seemed to have lost momentum, when they had slowed down and not said anything for a minute or two, I thought I was finally off the hook. Then some song would come on the radio. Or spotting some woman in a nearby car would once again spur them on. Any excuse to re-enter the fray.

My ability to take a chap was forged in the hellish fires of that ride home. Never forget: One little slip-up is all it takes sometimes.

First Steps

2006-03-07T22:27:00.000-05:00

The year 1989 was full of highs and lows.

Sandy, the college girlfriend that I had moved out to California to be near, was leaving. She was heading off to the Peace Corp for at least one and a half, maybe two years. We had discussed this possibility before we even left college, but the reality of it still surprised me. We certainly hadn’t been spending much time together since I had moved to the Bay Area - graduate school for her, new job and ... well ... ultimate for me, had been virtual wedges in our bonding. The Peace Corp was basically the final, splitting, blow.

Ultimate had been a less than satisfying mistress. Sure, I was always excited to play, I even searched out off-season pick-up games in Berkeley, Oakland, and Palo Alto, when there wasn’t a dependable game in San Francisco. I was hooked, but not completely infatuated.

The end of the previous season had soured me a bit. All the team talk, all the personal sacrifice, and at the crucial juncture, I felt I had gotten pushed aside for a poorly conceived and eventually ineffective campaign of old guard versus new blood.

I played at least once a week in a pick-up game somewhere during the winter. The Golden Gate polo fields game had grown large and relatively competitive. Now that I was single again, I was particularly interested in the number of women that were showing up for the Sunday games.

As suggestions of Spring began hinting around the edges of things, I got a call from Gary back in Boston.

“Well, it’s that time of year again.” He was referring to getting the ShortFatGuys together for another tournament. Not only had “No Borders” back in 1987 not been our last tournament as players, we were still getting together as a one time a year team. Basically, ShortFatGuys had become a Washington University reunion team with assorted invited others joining in. What had started in Ottawa in ‘87, had continued in Gainesville, Florida the next March at the Frostbreaker tournament. Gary had thought it would be a good excuse to get out of the cold and to renew bonds with the small, but quickly dispersing crowd from college.

We lost most of our games that year, but we had fun and there seemed to be a general consensus that this could be an enjoyable thing to do every year. One notable moment from that otherwise forgettable tourney was the fact that my father came out to watch.

My parents had split when I was seven, but I had yearly contact with my father since then. He had moved to Tampa when I was still in elementary school, so many of my summers had been spent in the sandy, humid, hot confines of the paradise that is modern Florida.

He, personally, had not played sports since a less-than-enjoyable year or two in little league baseball had convinced him that physical exertion was not his ticket out of small town Vermont. He worked and studied his way through three stellar years of undergraduate work, three crushing years of medical school and ten subsequent years of combined Phd. research and multiple renowned fellowships in sub-disciplines to earn his fame as an eye surgeon.

He regarded his son’s involvement with sports as a minor distraction at first. Then, when my college grades were less than outstanding, it was a serious impediment. Finally, with me at the ripe old age of 24 and with the Lifetime Achievement Stopwatch ticking, this association with a hippie non-sport could barely be tolerated.

Needless to say, I was surprised when he mentioned he was going to be in Gainesville the Saturday of the tournament (he was giving a keynote address at an eye conference). I casually mentioned that he should swing ten minutes out of his way to see us play. I was shocked and a little dismayed that he actually said he might.

Towards the beginning of our fourth game of the day, I returned to the sidelines after yet another successful defense and score by our opponent. As I reached for a bottle of water, I recognized my father standing off to the side, sunglasses on, sport coat unbuttoned, tie loosened but still in place, arms folded across his chest. It was at least 85 degrees.

I downed the mouthful of water, walked over and shook his hand.

“Glad you came out.”

“Well, I was here anyway. Figured I might as well see what this sport was all about.”

I briefly explained the basics of the sport to him, trying to use the happenings on the field as illustrative examples.

It is at times like this - trying to introduce the sport while using a poorly played, B bracket, spring tourney game contested at the end of an oppressively hot day - that ultimate often seems silly to me. The spectator is usually completely unfamiliar with the most basic terminology that ultimate players breathe every day. They are often not even accustomed to watching live amateur sports of any kind. NFL Monday night football and Major League baseball, replete with slow motion replays, insightful color commentary, and backed by massive databases of statistics all highlighting the accomplishments of the top-most one percent of one percent of athletes - this is what the vast majority of America thinks of when the word “sport” is uttered.

That is not what my father got to witness first-hand that day. ShortFatGuys lost badly. If that wasn’t bad enough, neither team was very good. We had women on our roster, actually playing against the men on the other team. To top it off, what I had always thought of as a cool and witty team name sounded childish and ridiculous when explaining our scrubby, cotton t-shirt uniforms to my father. ShortFatGuys? Hell, the only team my father had ever rooted for was the New York Yankees. The mighty, serious, legendary, adulated, rich and successful Yankees.

What the hell was a ShortFatGuy? Why would you want to be seen wearing that on a shirt? The subtle humor and self-deprecation was just too much for me to explain. The question lay out in the open, observed by all and answered by none.

I had run myself ragged and launched heedlessly for the disc a dozen times. Although I did manage to get a number of blocks and a couple of highlight-type catches, I have to admit my motivation was as much to impress my father as it was to contribute to our losing cause.

As I recall, my father’s only comment at the end of the game was, “Your teammates don’t seem to be trying as hard as you. You should evaluate your level of effort with that in mind.”

With that, he left while we still had another game to play. He has watched a total of about an hour of my ultimate life. Despite the fact that he lives about a half an hour away from the Sarasota Nationals site, I have always been more relieved than disappointed that he has never managed to make his way over to watch a game or two.

So, when Gary opened our phone conversation in the spring of 1989 with that line, “It’s that time of year again” it wasn’t a complete surprise.

“Alright. Sounds good. Frostbreaker again?” I didn’t even feign hesitation anymore.

“Yep. Florida in March. Get your ticket, I’ll handle the hotels.”

That year at Frostbreaker was a little different. ShortFatGuys played our way out of the bottom bracket on the first day. We were still sporting a co-ed team, but the women weren’t really a liability. Also, the previous roster of Wash U alumni was dwindling while being replaced with more talented players that Gary met and played with in Boston.

One of the new women on the team was Jennifer Sokoloski, an indoor league teammate of Gary’s who was finishing up her astrophysical studies at M.I.T. So, on top of being a good athlete and more than a little attractive, she was not exactly dumb. I think much of the team’s ability to exceed our seed was a collective, individual effort to impress Jen. Whatever the reasons, we did manage to move up the pecking order, and our late-night carousing celebrated this achievement.

On Sunday, our quarterfinals game was against a team from North Carolina - the Irrates. I had never played against a team from North Carolina before, but we had been given unsought advice going in to the game. Many of their previous opponents had volunteered a scouting report.

“They are physically talented, with a few tall players and a couple of throwers. But watch out for their attitude.”

What did these people mean by that? I couldn’t exactly get a grasp on what they were saying.

“They will push the rules and they play really physical. Also, they call every travel - real, close, or not.”

ShortFatGuys against the Irrates of North Carolina. They had us beat on every front. They could out-throw us, out-run us, and out-jump us. We were struggling to score one point for every two they racked up. They had one particular player that was killing us. He was tall - maybe six foot two or three - and he was fast. When he was receiving, he was catching most of the goals. When we pushed him back to the disc with a taller defender, he started throwing long scores.

Finally, towards the end of the game, out of frustration and desperation, I decided to cover him. We had managed to score, and their stud was waiting at the far end of the pull. Our team of over-achieving, fun loving, and relatively short players was deciding how to defend him. Steve Votruba, as the tallest player on the team, had been given the thankless job of trying to cover their Machine most of the game. He didn’t seem all that eager to enter the fray again - but then again, no one else did either. I looked down our line, and compared it to theirs across the field.

“I’ll take him.” Did that really just come out of my mouth? The mouth attached to my skinny, five foot six inch frame?

Our other six players just looked at me, with a mixture of relief and pity. Gary said, “We’ll give you an ‘Up!’ call.”

The pull settled down as I glided in to a three yard deep cushion on the Stud. As the match-ups resolved themselves with the first pass or two, he looked at me, looked around the field, and looked at me again. He laughed and pointed at me, “Clear the deep!” he shouted. His teammates looked up and noticed the obvious mismatch. At least I had managed to keep him from touching the disc for the first three swing passes.

He took off towards the far goal as everyone else pulled in close on the far side. I put my head down just about the time I heard the “UP!” call from down field. I was two yards behind him and holding ground. At least he wasn’t going to beat me on speed. I glanced back and searched for the oncoming disc. It was screaming down-field directly over our heads and with not much float. But it was still high and gaining altitude.

Thinking I only had one possible chance at getting the disc, I took two more steps at a full sprint and launched as high as my diver’s legs would take me ...

When I was training in college diving, we had to get our standing vertical jump measured at the beginning and end of every season. My personal best was 36 inches. Not out of this world, but for a short guy, the contrast could be dramatic.

As I had experienced hundreds of times in diving, when your mind and body are completely focused at a precise moment, time does indeed slow down. It moves with a kind of syrupy, fluid grace that can sustain reflection and dissection.

... rising, I spun a hundred and eighty degrees, left arm outstretched above my head, hoping to disrupt the flight of the disc. At the peak of my jump, I felt that almost indescribably satisfying connection of plastic disc rim to palm. My hand locked on it reflexively. I remember looking down and seeing The Stud’s eyes looking up at me with a mixture of disbelief and shock. I remember pedaling my feet, trying to reach back down to the ground. I recall wondering when - almost indeed if - I was going to land.

Time collapsed in on me again as the tip of my left foot barely grazed the grass as the rest of me came crashing chest-first back onto the sandy field. I almost had the wind knocked out of me, but I still had the disc in my hand.

Shaking my head a couple of times, I gathered myself and stood up. The Stud set up his hectically aggressive mark. I didn’t even try to challenge it. I threw an easy dump to the first teammate that made it down field to me. I think we scored the point. I know we lost the game.

In the post-game handshake, we congratulated our camouflage-wearing opponents and wished them good luck. For the most part, they simply slapped our hands with a perfunctory, “Good game” and moved on. At the end of their line, their stud was waiting for me. He smiled as he sincerely shook my hand, “Hey, when you see that six foot eight monster on your team that skied me, give him my regards. That was a heck of a play.”

To tell you the truth, I don’t even remember the guy’s name, but it was one of the best compliments I ever received playing ultimate.

Gary subsequently made a sweatshirt for me with the iconic ShortFatGuy leaping upwards on the front and “Six-Eight Chill Monster” on the back. Over the years, I wore that faded grey sweatshirt until it fell apart in the wash.

Working Up Through the Ranks

2006-03-02T08:49:00.000-05:00

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.

Starting at the Bottom

2006-02-14T22:14:00.000-05:00

For the remainder of that winter, I played with the lower San Francisco team. After a few weeks of playing and talking and drinking after games in the park, I started to get the lay of the land out west.

Apparently, the top of the top was a team called “Tsunami.” They were the best players from all over the Bay Area and as far south as Santa Cruz. They were untouchable gods. Next step down was a team forming in the east bay with young guns and wily vets. Next step down was the new, competitive half of the San Francisco city crowd. They took the name Acme. I hated them.

Then there was us. The lowest link on the food chain. The Wild Bunch. We hadn’t taken the name immediately. There wasn’t much of a need for a name if you could never get enough people interested to go to a tournament. Hell, we could barely get fourteen people for a practice. Or even twelve. Usually a good, mediocre ten could be counted on.

While I was excited to be playing ultimate, I was not encouraged by the progress of our group. Never the same aggregation twice. Lots of wandering in and out of the loose gatherings we called practices. No real leaders beyond the guys that were willing to host a beer party at their house after playing. I was grateful to these guys for giving me a chance, but I wanted more.

Paul and his roommate had spent one long, rainy Saturday night teaching me to lay out for the disc. When it became apparent that no one beyond the three of us was going to brave the cool, wet conditions, Paul decided that a soggy, muddy field was perfect for teaching the art of launching for a disc. Throw after throw, time after time, he threw it beyond my reach and insisted that I catch it. Running hard, I would sometimes catch up with the overthrown disc on the small field without hitting the ground. “No, no! Slow down if you have to, but go hard at the end. Then launch.”

At first I was slightly hesitant, landing awkwardly, knocking the wind out of myself. He just laughed and said, “Try it again. Stop thinking and just do it.” By the end of the night, I had it. Or at least, I was getting close. I learned how to spread the impact over my torso. How to relax slightly, without allowing elbows or knees to hit first. I even began to enjoy the feeling of gliding along the sopping grass, disc in hand, smile on my face. Now I just had to incorporate making the play around another player. Baby steps.

I believe it was sometime in February or March when the pick-up games expanded to the polo fields in the western end of Golden Gate Park. On Sunday afternoons, there were increasingly large gatherings of ultimate players - men and women. The games were played with a fluctuating “first one back to the line” kind of hierarchy. Mostly, there was a continuous flow of players in and out of the lines. Generally, it was all men on the line, but when there were women, they lined up against each other. The days were cool and generally sunny. When it was rainy or unusually cold and foggy the turn-out was noticeably worse.

Occasionally, towards the end of the day, the game would evolve into a contest between teams mostly composed of Acme (those guys) pitted against the Wild Bunch (or whatever we were). At these times, the competition would start to heat up. Not nearly as much laughing and goofing around. It was a little more serious. There was still some bad blood between the few Wild Bunch players that felt slighted and there was a concerted effort on the part of the Acme players to prove that they had made the right decision to break off. Then there was me. I was still trying to learn the game, but I just knew that I could be as good as most of those damn Acme guys. I just needed a little coaching and some more experience. Unfortunately for me and underdog lovers everywhere, we always got soundly trounced. Never much of a contest. We generally celebrated excessively during the few times we managed to score. They just buckled down and crushed us even harder.

There were always women on the sidelines, mostly spectating after playing. They enjoyed the one sided contests. Mostly they dated the Acme guys. We earned their pity, but not much more.

Then, one Sunday afternoon, while the early, mixed game was proceeding, I noticed a new face on the field. There were always new people showing up. There was no shortage of players in the Bay Area, but there seemed to be a shortage of people that were willing to commit to more than one casual game every month or so when the weather was right.

This new guy was different. Not only was he better than most of the players out there, he also didn’t seem to have the ego that some of the Acme players sported. At one point he and I were taking the line on the same end of the field.

“Hey, my name is Bill.”

“I’m Mike Pomeroy,” he said shaking my hand and smiling.

“You new out here?”

“Yep, just glad to find a game of ultimate.” He was about five foot ten and completely ripped. Head to toe, no body fat visible. Not in an Arnold Schwartzeneger way, but in a rock climber way. Loose mop of blondish hair and light blue eyes. He wouldn’t have any trouble attracting the ladies.

As the point unfolded, I came to appreciate some of what he brought to the field. At this time, I was one of the main cutters for the ragged Wild Bunch. My five foot six inch frame wasn’t much of a deep threat, but they knew that I would keep running around out there until I got open. Once in a while, when one of the more competent throwers got the disc, I would break deep and hope for a long leading pass. I couldn’t do much if it floated, but I could beat just about anyone on the field in a sprint to the endzone.

So, as this particular point progressed with the usual number of annoying turnovers and slack defense, there was a chance for me to go deep. Mike Chico caught the disc on the left side at about mid-field. I was 15 yards down field in the center. I broke deep knowing noone would catch me. One of the Acme players was covering me and I was savoring the chance to roast him for the score.

I take off with one glance back to my left. Disc in the air and my defender falling behind. Just like I like it. No problem. All mine. Except, as I start accelerating to meet the disc, I am overtaken by a blur rushing past me on my right. Startled, I realize that it is this Mike guy, and he is pulling away from me like I am standing still. I, and everyone else, watch as he easily catches the score and quietly drops the disc, not even breathing hard.

As I look back on this moment, and many others when Mike and I were playing together, I can more completely appreciate his ability. When I was new to the game, say, in that long ago winter in San Francisco, I hadn’t encountered too many people that could outrun me. So, when Mike blazed past me with little effort, I was shocked. Now, thinking about it through the filter of hundreds of tournaments and decades of playing against thousands of opponents, I realize that there were only a few other players that made me feel as slow as he did. And mind you, I was still young and in shape back then. The various injuries were years in the future. Mike Pomeroy demolished the top speed I could ever muster.

And the best thing of all, he didn’t want to play with the Acme guys.

Once they got scorched by him in those informal games in the park, they knew enough to want to have him on their side rather than chance facing him when it might matter a little more. He wasn’t interested.

He had sussed out the situation, the various players, the attitudes and the expectations, he decided he would rather hang out with the low key losers than with the ego-inflated Acme players. Thank god. It was all the difference for me.

At this time, I was getting to the point where I was thinking that I might just give up playing. I wasn’t getting any better because I wasn’t playing with anyone that could teach me much more than I already knew. We were getting beaten consistently whenever we managed to cobble together a team to play in the one day Northern California Ultimate League (NUCL) [pronounced “knuckle”] tournaments (a group of mostly informal corporate teams around the Bay Area). I was starting to think that maybe I should concentrate on work with the occasional bike ride to stay in shape.

Then Mike Pomeroy waltzed into San Francisco. He and I and another infrequent ultimate player, Tom Asher, ended up being close friends and having many off field laughs and memories. But it was the fact that Mike was going to be on the field and at practice that kept me playing with the Wild Bunch. I remember multiple times when, during a heavily foggy day, I would ride my bike out to practice in the park and the only other players that would show up would be Mike Pomeroy and Leon. Leon was, at the time, in his late forties, married, with grown children. He played ultimate simply because he loved it. He played with the Wild Bunch simply because we were the only team that would have him.

It was during these times that Mike and I would start throwing and talking. Talking about how we wished we could play - the circumstances, the opportunities to compete. To prove that we could play with really good players and hold our own. That is what we wanted. Me even more so than him.

My playing days with the Wild Bunch and Mike Pomeroy culminated in our afternoon playing in the NCUL “B” division championships. A single Saturday afternoon round-robin that would determine the ranking of the lowest ten corporate, co-ed, and pick-up teams around the Bay Area. The top team would have a chance to play in the “A” division tourney two weeks later. Since the Wild Bunch hadn’t managed to win more than a handful of games in multiple weekends playing against these same teams, I wasn’t holding out much hope for greatness. Especially considering the fact that we didn’t even have our “A” team competing. Some of our better athletes were non-committal types that only showed up when it was convenient for them. Apparently, this particular weekend in late May wasn’t very convenient.

We had our usual assortment of enthusiastic guys that had never played much in the way of sports before ultimate. They loved playing, but the rudiments of 1) catching, 2) throwing, and 3) running were too much. They could all do one or two of the basics, but very few could do all three.

But we also had Mike Pomeroy this time.

It was surprisingly warm that afternoon at Roble field on Stanford’s campus. Tucked in a back northwest corner, Roble could only accommodate two full length and slightly narrow fields. You could squeeze another short field in if you were willing to truncate the other two pitches. This was the grand venue for NUCL B finals.

Somehow at this point, I guess out of sheer force of will on my part and general apathy on my teammate’s part, I had become the captain for our team. After our first game, which we surprisingly won, another one of the team captains came up to me.

“Hey, are you the captain of The Wild Bunch?” He is only half containing his obvious disdain for our team and me as a captain.

“Yeah. Why?”

“I’m Frank. Captain of the Hammer Heads. We play you guys in the last round today.”

“OK. So?” I’m not sure what he’s getting at and we have another game coming up immediately.

“Well, we were hoping to squeeze our game in against you guys earlier. What do you think?”

“I think that we have a game right now. I also think that we might as well stick to the schedule since there is limited field space anyway.” I am walking away to meet the rest of my team in the shade.

“Whatever. Maybe not now, but after the next round?” he’s pushing and I don’t like it.

“We’ll see.”

We play the next round, and shockingly, win again. Mostly our games can be summarized in a few phrases:

...Opponent turns it over. Mike Pomeroy breaks deep. Dan Handler or Mike Chico throw it long. Mike out-runs or out-jumps everyone for the disc.

...Wild Bunch has the disc. Bill runs around, fast, not stopping until his guy gets too tired to chase him. Eventually they throw a short pass to Bill in the endzone.

...Opponent tries throwing it to Mike Pomeroy’s guy. Mike gets a sick layout D. Mike or Bill break deep. Throw goes up. Score for the Wild Bunch.

So the day progresses. Improbably, we continue to win our games. Irritatingly, after each game it seems, Frank from the Hammer Heads keeps coming up to me, trying to squeeze our last round game against them into the intermission between succeeding rounds.

“Listen, what is the problem? Why don’t you just play us at the end when it is scheduled?” I ask him. Not only am I irritated, but I am dehydrated and exhausted. Its hot and we don’t have many subs. I don’t need this asshole in my face after every game.

He explains it all so reasonably to me, “We’re going to win this thing anyway and a bunch of us are supposed to be at a pool party this afternoon. We’d just like to get this out of the way and get to the party.”

Being the nice, understanding guy that I am, I reply, “Forget it! We’ll play you at the end like we’re scheduled. There’s no extra field space anyway.”

I can see that he is pissed, but I couldn’t care less. “You guys should either have figured on being late for the party or not shown up here.” I am walking away, too tired to deal with this any more.

“You little prick!” He is definitely not trying to be my next best ultimate pal.

We play our fourth game and manage to win. Apparently, Frank and the Hammerheads are, so far, equal to his boasting and have also won every game. Thus, the final game will be for all the marbles. Yes, the next hour or two would decide the Grand Champion of the NCUL B Division. The magnitude of the moment can not be overstated.

Unfortunately, it appears the unusual spring heat, lack of conditioning, and perhaps a little too much partying for some have taken a toll on the fearsome Wild Bunch line up. We are down to eight willing bodies. A couple of whom are mostly going through the motions at this point. A couple more of whom might as well be. This would be bad enough, but the other shoe falls just as I am rallying the troops to get out from under the surrounding shade trees to start warming up. Mike Pomeroy has had enough.

We’re doomed.

I am trying to be reasonable about the situation. It is hot. In the grand scheme of things, this one little game on this particular day doesn’t mean anything. It is certainly not worth anyone getting injured or, worse, heat stroke over.

I drop to my knees and beg Mike.

“Come on ...” [whine...whine...whine] “...we’re so close to actually winning a tournament...” [snivel...sob] “...look at what we have left to work with.”

We glance over at our line:

There’s Greg with the pony tail and glasses. He has managed to catch nearly 50 percent of the throws that have hit his hands. This is a good day. Next to him is Anthony. He can actually get open often and usually catches the disc. Unfortunately, his throw completion rate is hovering somewhere in the vicinity of 60 percent.

Jeff has some disc skills and some veteran savvy. His problem is getting his beer belly moving and then, changing direction without falling over. Mike Chico and Dan Handler are both solid. They have better throws than me and actually try on defense. The remaining couple of players fall somewhere in between.

I look at Mike, “Come on. We need you.”

He looks at me, “Listen, I would. I really wish I could. But I feel like shit. I’m trying to drink as much water as possible, but it’s almost gagging me. That can’t be too good a sign.” He has played out of his head for just about every point of the day. Many of those points were long, drawn out turnover fests.

As I stand up, looking down at Mike, I try to decide what the best course of action is. I turn and head out to the field. We’ll just give it everything we’ve got.

Frank walks across the field for the disc flip. His first words to me are encouraging. “Happy? Huh? Now we’re all late for our damn party.”

“Even or odd?” I ask, choosing to ignore him.

“You are such a shit. Why couldn’t you just have played us earlier?”

“What is your fucking problem?” I have just about had it. This is not the world championships for gods’ sake.

“Whatever, go back to your sorry team so we can beat you and get out of here.”

We lose the flip. They elect to receive.

On the line, I try to get someone else to cover barrel-chested Frank. He of one black glove on his throwing hand. I don’t really need that big galoot taking his frustrations out on me today.

No one else will take him. Fine. Fine. I’ll take him and run him until he pukes.

I sprint down the field and arrive a second after Frank claps the pull between his hands. I start the stall count and keep a half step off. For whatever else he is, Dan has told me that Frank can, and will, throw just about anything at any time. I get to about “three” when Frank rears back for a huge backhand huck. As I start to shift across to cut off the open angle, he lets fly. In his follow through, his backhand swings wide and crashes into my jaw.

A flash of white and a brief roaring noise in my head. I’m shocked not only by the impact but also in the sure knowledge that it was intentional. I try to shake it off as I step back.

Smirking at me, Frank leans forward and yells, “Foul!” right into my face. Then adds for good measure, “How do you like that you fucking pussy?”

The throw was complete for a score. Frank chuckles as he jogs down to the far end of the field. I’m still a little stunned by the whole exchange. I hold my right hand up to my cheek. There’s a little blood due to a scrape from something on the back of Frank’s Glove. All my teeth are in place, but my neck hurts a little bit. Then the adrenaline starts to take hold. We may lose, but I will do everything I can to smother Frank and his laughing scum teammates.

“What the FUCK was that all about?!” Mike Pomeroy, having witnessed the events from the sideline is outraged. He is hauling himself up by the tree trunk. He starts stiffly shaking out his legs as he sways out onto the field.

“Did I just see that? Did he just hit you? Did he really call you a ‘Fucking Pussy’?”

“That about sums it up.”

The rest of the Wild Bunch has gathered at our end of the field. The ones that saw it can’t believe it. The others are asking for details.

“Hey! You guys want a timeout or are you going to get on the line?” Frank yells. His team thinks it is quite witty.

The Wild Bunch, including me with a huge load of adrenaline coursing through my veins and a furious Mike Pomeroy, stalk to the line. Our hands go up. The hammer falls on the Hammer Heads.

I’m not going to lie and say we destroyed them. Also, it was no epic contest elevated to stratospheric heights by the force of wills battling for the dominion of Good or Evil. No, it was typically sloppy, with moments of minor brilliance. But we tried harder than we ever had.

Dan and Mike Chico play great. Anthony takes care of the disc by throwing mostly dumps and easy swings. Mike Pomeroy is simply a monster. He is catching everything whether it was thrown to him or not. On defense, I don’t know exactly how many blocks he had, but eventually he had to start poaching because they wouldn’t throw it anywhere near his man.

I had the exquisite joy of getting a couple blocks on Frank while shutting down many of his ridiculous spiral cuts that circle back and around the disc constantly. I also schooled him up and down the field mercilessly.

It all came down to next point wins. They are pulling to us. I don’t recall any particular words exchanged on the line. I think Dan said something along the lines of, “Let’s take our time, score this point, beat these fucks, and drink some beer.” We are all completely spent, but it was enough.

We slowly, agonizingly, push the disc down the field. Finally, there is an open receiver in the back of the end zone. The throw goes up, it looks good until a Hammer Head steps in front of it. With a quick swing, Frank gets the disc with no marker, he has a man sprinting down field, let’s it fly. In horror and desperation, I turn and start digging after the throw, “maybe it will float ... maybe ... something.” I just can’t allow us to lose. Not now. Not after this day.

I look down field, my cramping legs starting to give up. Mike Pomeroy, coming from nowhere, is leaping high over the complacent receiver. He comes down with the interception. With a quick flick, it is in Mike Chico’s hands. He throws a rocket of a forehand to young James five yards from the goal line. Bobbling it, James cradles the disc as he sinks to his knees to secure the catch. The stall count is mounting. There is absolute chaos in the endzone. I am staggering towards the disc from 25 yards away screaming, “Dump!” James has set the wrong foot as a pivot. He is desperately swaying back and forth, both hands on the disc as the marker presses, “Eight ... Nine ...” James let’s fly with a sky-high blade as he falls backwards.

I can still see the slow motion arc of that dying quail of a throw. It is knifing down towards a pack of at least five players all jostling for position in the endzone. I am sickened by the thought of the moment to follow. As all seems lost, I see a single hand rising above the crowd. There is a macrame bracelet on it. The disc punches into the palm and sticks like it is rooted there forever. The mass of swarming bodies collapses. At its center is ponytailed Greg, disc held aloft in a mixture of jubilation and disbelief. The dawning smile on his face is making me laugh as we mob him.

Mike Pomeroy crumbled at mid-field right after he saw the score. The rest of us are slapping Greg on the back and screaming in delicious victory. The Hammer Heads and Frank Hugenard walk off quickly. Now they can finally get to their party. I don’t have enough energy left to expend any on them.

For a couple hours after that game, we all sat around and drank cold beer and ate potato chips while laughing and recalling how great we actually weren’t. Mike Pomeroy began vomiting about 5 minutes after the game. We put ice on his head and gave him water, refusing to let him have any beer. That was the extent of our medical attention.

As the evening began to settle, cooling off the air, our players started heading off home. My head was swimming from a combination of too little food, too much beer, and the sweet taste of unexpected victory. Mike started coming around and we started laughing about various moments from the day. We drove off exhausted, buzzed and happy.

It has always been one of the greatest victories throughout my many years of playing.

Head West Young Man ... Whoa, Where do You Think You’re Going?

2006-02-09T17:46:00.000-05:00

The Utah desert is flashing by at 80 miles an hour. A blur of dust and smoky greys, browns, and distant pastels. No air conditioning in the car. Windows down to offset the oven-like heat. U2 blaring out of the speakers. It is September 1987 and I am off to San Francisco.

I am heading away back home. I had lived in Marin county, north of San Francisco, from ages seven to thirteen. I am familiar enough with the area to know that I love the geography and the weather. I know that Sandy, my college girlfriend, is living with her parents in the South Bay while going to graduate school. I also know that what seemed to be my best job offer came from a small civil/structural engineering firm in downtown San Francisco. When everything in the universe points in one direction, I eventually get the message.

Before leaving New England, I called Gary. “Yeah, I finally decided on the job in San Fran.”

He’s not too happy. He was hoping that I’d be moving to Boston and we’d end up rooming together while taking the town and the ultimate scene over by sheer force of will. That is, as long as we hadn’t torn each other’s faces off first. We get along great, as long as we are not confined alone in close quarters for long periods of time.

“Well, as soon as you get sick of it out there, let me know. I’ll help you find a job in Boston. They need engineers there too, you know.”

I appreciate his friendship more than I ever really tell him.

“You sure they have ultimate teams in San Francisco?”

“Yeah. Definitely. There’s a really good team called ... uhhhh ... Flying Circus out there. Great name.”

“Any other not-really-great teams?” I ask, being more realistic.

“There must be. You’ll find ‘em if you look around.”

Mind you, this is in the day before the internet, before news groups and web logs. This is still in the informational stone age. Ok, maybe not stone age, but not much better than the bronze age when compared to the resources that an aspiring ultimate player has at their disposal these days. Also, there was the fact that it was still a definite fringe, cult sport. Almost nobody had heard of it unless they had personally played. OK, that hasn't changed much, but it was even worse back then.

My job, my relationship, my unsettled housing situation were all much higher up on the priority ladder than some silly sport is. But, deep down, lying quietly in the dark corners of my self, was a small but strong desire to continue playing. I hadn’t quite scratched the itch completely.

After two months of living at my girlfriend’s parent’s house, commuting by train to The City, I was still trying to come to grips with life outside of college. As an immediate reminder that I was in the Real World™ now, I called my new boss the Friday afternoon when I first arrived in the Bay Area.

“So, when do you want me to start?”

“Well, immediately, if that works for you.”

Full of gusto, “Sure, that would be great.”

“Good, we’ll see you on Monday at around eight AM then.”

“Um,” I say, not wanting to be too much of a pain immediately, “Isn’t Monday Columbus Day?”

“Yes,” slight chuckle, “but we’ll all be working here if you want to join us.”

A mental slap of my palm to my head. You’re not in college anymore Toto. Columbus Day is just another day to work. Man, am I really ready for this?

“I’ll be there by eight.” Doh!

Once I moved up to the city and into my own apartment, I started to realize how much I liked this concept of getting paid to do what I was doing in college. As a huge bonus, I actually laughed to myself each night when I went home without homework. No problem sets, no papers, no long nights of frustration spent banging a keyboard trying to debug ten thousand lines of poorly conceived computer code. I was free after work hours and on weekends. This feeling of overwhelming relief at the lack of homework would stick with me for at least ten years. No joke.

Now all I had to do was find someone to do something with.

Sandy was too busy during the week - and also many weekends - to get together. I knew absolutely no one outside of work. I started riding my bike around Golden Gate Park, prowling for signs of an ultimate game.

One Saturday afternoon, sometime in January or February, I am riding my bike along the south edge of the park enjoying the brisk but sunny day. No more shoveling driveways for me. I glance into a glade to my right. I see an upside-down disc sailing through the air. A little high, a little wobbly. But definitely an ultimate throw. Someone in the dozens down there knows how to play.

I brake to a stop and quickly zero in on two guys throwing confidently back and forth. Pivots, forehands, backhands. No wobbly “beach backhands” or sailing, flailing back-over-the-thrower’s-head ducks. This what I have been looking for.

I pedal towards them, drop my bike to the side, “Hey there. You guys play ultimate?”

The one nearest to me, long brownish near-dreadlocks, turns and smiles, “Yep. Wanna throw?” That’s all the invitation I need.

After about an hour of throwing, catching, jumping, cutting, we wind it down. Ed and Paul are their names. They have asked me about my extent of playing ultimate, where I came from, where I am living. They have provided me with the information that, yes, there is a game here most every Sunday around two o’clock. They say I’d be welcome to stop by anytime.

I pedal home totally psyched. I have managed to find my niche. The sport I am psyched to play and a group of people with an instant common bond. Both exactly what I needed. I am looking forward to tomorrow’s game so much that it is hard to sleep that night.

The next day doesn’t go exactly as I had envisioned it. In fact, it is basically a kick in the stomach. I show up early and start throwing with the few people that are there already. I haven’t become familiar with the concept of Ultimate Time yet. Cleats on, legs strong, slight sweat starting up, I notice the gathering throng. At least 30 players mostly men, a few women. The skill level seems to vary greatly. As does the apparent athleticism and degree of fitness.

Just as I think it is about time to break up into teams to start playing, one guys speaks up. He says something along the lines that it is time for a change. Things can’t stay the way they are. Apparently, this huge, structure-less mass has been a single team. Apparently, there are players that feel that it is time to “get serious”, to “demand commitment” to “try to get far at regionals.” Apparently, there is going to be a splitting of the group. And it appears to be happening today.

The guy in charge, Jeff, is gesturing as he says, “Everyone that wants to be serious, train hard, and practice, head over here,” he is pointing to his near right, “Everyone that simply wants to have fun and goof around, move over there.” Indifferent wave to the far left.

Now, I have played sports my whole life. First baseball for eight years. That was overlapped and exceeded by soccer for twelve years. Five years of diving including all four years of college. I know that I am not going to be a professional athlete, but I also know that I can’t be satisfied without a competitive outlet in my life. I need it like food and water. I head over towards the “serious” group off to the right.

“Hey. Whoa. Where are you heading? Who are you?”

I hesitate, he’s talking to me? “I’m going with this group. My name’s Bill.”

“Yeah, well Bill, how long have you been playing?” Sneering skepticism.

“A little over a year. But I’m pretty fast and I was learning the game this last summer.”

Just as he suspected, “Well, that’s nice, but we’re not looking to take on newbies.” I am starting to bristle. “Why don’t you just head over there with those guys. Learn the game a bit. Then maybe you can try out with us.” He’s already dismissed me.

“Listen! Why don’t you just give me a look, then decide.” I am pissed.

“Right, well we already have to make cuts, so ... forget it.”

Shaking my head in frustration and anger, I veer towards the “loser” group. My pals from the day before, Ed and Paul are there. They are happy to see me. I am less than happy to be with them. But I suppose it is better than nothing.

Is There Ultimate After College?

2006-02-02T18:37:00.000-05:00

College ended and my days of playing ultimate were done. At least, that is what I assumed. Immediately after graduating, despite not having a post-college job lined up, I headed off for a five week trip through Europe. The first ten days were spent traveling with my girlfriend. After that, she joined up with some of her college friends, and I met up with my closest high school buddy - one of my original ultimate teammates. I managed to pack a disc with me and we actually tossed a few times in Amsterdam, outside the Black Forest, and on the French Riviera (although it was difficult to concentrate with the scenery exposed before our eyes).

After returning to Connecticut, I picked up my old summer job with an architecture firm in Hartford and started mass-mailing resumes to engineering firms around the country. I mainly concentrated on the Boston area (where Gary and other college friends were heading) and San Francisco (where my girlfriend was going to graduate school). As I anxiously awaited responses, I obsessively rode my bicycle - about 200 miles a week, as much as 120 miles on some Saturdays. And played softball on the company team (I think I was originally hired because I could play centerfield, my drafting abilities were merely a bonus for them).

In the midst of my employment turmoil, I get a call from Gary who has returned to Worcester to begin his own job hunt (a separate and very long story).

“Hey, how are you doing?” he asks.

“Well, let’s see. I just got done spending almost every dollar I have in Europe. I still don’t have a real job. My mother is charging me rent to live in my own bedroom. I’m not sure if Sandy and I are actually still dating while we’re 3,000 miles apart. And my dog is getting distressingly old. Other than that, I’d say I’m just fine.”

Gary, in his best casual voice, “What are you doing next weekend?”

“You mean other than trying to find a job and get the hell out of Connecticut? Oh, nothing.”

“Good. There’s a big ultimate tournament in Ottawa Canada. I’ve got most of a team together. Bunch of people from Wash U, plus some guys from around here. Wanna go?”

“Are you crazy?” Pause. Considering the alternatives. “How far a drive is it to Ottawa?”

“Maybe five hours. Tops. Out on Friday afternoon, back late Sunday night.”

I’m weakening, “I don’t know. I’ve got so much ... not ... going on.”

“Come on, we’re out of college.” Then he comes with one of the most ironic lines I will probably hear in my entire life, “This may be our last chance to play together. Hell, this will probably be the last time we ever play ultimate.”

That does it. He’s right. Why not go to this crazy No Borders tournament in faraway Ottawa to spend one last glorious weekend playing a game. Time enough to grow up once I get a real job.

In mid-July 1987, we headed up to Ottawa. Chris, my high school ultimate friend, is driving with me. Gary allowed him to join the team even though he never played college ultimate. It wasn’t until we got to Canada that I found out that we only had about 14 players, including two women and Gary’s older brother who hasn’t played ultimate for at least 5 years and never above casual pick-up level.

Our team name was a matter that Gary and I had actually talked about back in St. Louis. It was, at least to me at the time, mainly a hypothetical discussion of “What would be the best name for an ultimate team?” I think the closing reasoning could be distilled down to our final few thoughts.

Gary says something along the lines of, “You want a team name that isn’t too cliche.”

I added, “Yeah, but you also don’t want something too cutesy or , you know, so obscure that no one gets it.”

“Clever, without being too much of an inside kind of joke.”

“Yep. Something like that. Not too serious, not too stupid. And something you can cheer from the sidelines would help.”

Gary pauses, then switches tacks, “What would be the worst team to lose to?”

“What do you mean?” I’m not sure where he’s going with this.

“Like, when another team asks you, ‘Who do you play next?’ you can say, “The Titans” or you can say, ‘The Fluffy Bunnies.’”

[Actually, as an aside, I don’t exactly recall these conversations or many of these details I’m recounting, I’m just fleshing out the nebulous interstices between the moments I do recall. Hey maybe I can write a memoir and get on Oprah with that kind of attitude. But I digress. What prompted this aside is the fact that part of me actually likes the name of the team I just came up with, “The Fluffy Bunnies.” Think of the cheers. Think of the shirts. Think of the appeal to the chicks. OK, maybe not. But it is still kind of funny to me.]

“So, you’re picturing a scene where a team is coming off the field and another team is asking them, ‘Who did you guys just lose to?’” I’m asking as much as saying.

“Yeah, exactly! And that is the moment you want your team name to come rolling off their tongue. For them to have to admit they lost to ... I don’t know ... the Blind Nuns.”

Getting into the spirit of the contemplation, I jump in with, “Yeah. It’s one thing to mention that you just lost to a bunch of tall, athletic guys on Team Rambo.”

“While, it is quite another thing to admit that you are trudging off a field after being beaten into submission by a bunch of ... uh ... short, fat guys.”

We both look at each other. We simultaneously recognize the genius of the moment.

“The Short Fat Guys!” In unison.

“That’s it! No one wants to announce that they just lost to a bunch of Short Fat Guys.”

We were laughing and congratulating ourselves with conceiving of the greatest ultimate team name ever. Too bad it would probably never be emblazoned on a uniform.

At the hotel in Ottawa on Friday night, Gary hands out the dark green t-shirts that he has printed for the team. Across the chest, in spindly white lettering, “ShortFatGuys.” All one word. Underneath that, there is an outline drawing of a short, rotund, caricature completely horizontal, his stubby, outstretched arms about to snare a disc. His shirt straining to contain his stomach has no chance of staying near his waist band. I see it. I immediately recall our conversation late one night, months ago, and half-way across the country. I smile. I begin to laugh. It’s perfect.

We hit the fields the next day. I am buoyant with excitement. It is about 100 degrees. We win some, we lose some.

At the team dinner that night, Gary decides to tell the hostess that it is Steve’s birthday. Which it is not. So, at the end of the meal, as we are all sitting around relaxing, a large portion of the wait-staff clusters around Steve and, producing the cake and candle, begins the birthday serenade that we all immediately join in. It would become a ShortFatGuy tradition to last many years. One unlucky soul singled out for a surprise non-birthday birthday.

On Sunday, we scratch and claw our way into the quarterfinals. Unfortunately, our players are dropping like flies. We play the local Worcester team, Worm Town. It is a hard fought game. By the end, we have maybe 10 players standing. They win on the last point. The ShortFatGuys gather under a nearby tree for shade. Heads down, little moisture left to sweat out of our overheated bodies. We are spent and dejected.

Darren, the captain of Worm Town and, apparently, one of Gary’s local rivals back home, comes over to our circle. “Well, I just got done talking to my team.”

We all look up, not quite sure where this is headed.

“It seems that a lot of people are too hot and tired to play the semis. And some of us have to be home so we can get to work early tomorrow.”

Dawning realization that we may have an opening here.

“So, we would just rather, uh, forfeit our place in the semis to you guys. If you want to take it.”

Gary looks around at his bedraggled troops, “I’ll be right with you” he says to Darren.

“I’m hot.”

“I’m exhausted.”

“No way! I’m done!”

That’s the spirit! That’s the attitude that makes the ShortFatGuys ... short and fat.

“WHAT!?!” Gary can’t believe what he is hearing. “We have a chance to keep playing!”

“What time is it?” someone asks.

“Who the fuck cares what time it is? We can play in the semis. We have a chance to win this thing!” He is standing in the middle of us, slowly spinning so he can pin each person with his eyes. “Are you telling me you want to quit? Now?”

“Well, we didn’t actually win, so why should we keep playing?”

Now I’m up on my feet. This is making me sick. This is the last chance I have to play ultimate in my entire life and these little ninnies are willing to let two days of hundred degree temperatures and lack of adequate substitutes be an excuse? I am not going to let that happen.

Gary and I harangue our team, appealing to the lowliest metaphors and basest analogies that we can think of. We even try the inspirational and transcendent approach. We pull out all the stops. I expend so much energy that, by the end of our combined diatribe in the shade, I am light headed and wondering if I actually do have anything left for another game.

The team slowly concedes, one by one, to play on. I don’t know if I am relieved or fearful. We tell Worm Town. They tell our semis opponents of the change of plans.

Gary’s brother is going to sit this one out. Now, I probably wouldn’t mention this, except for the extraordinary circumstances surrounding this development. Jack had begun the weekend with a surprisingly dismissive attitude towards ultimate. As I have said, he had only a minimal amount of pick-up level experience with ultimate prior to the tournament. But he still maintained that ultimate wasn’t a “real sport.” “It doesn’t take any great skill or athleticism. Just about anyone off the street can pick it up and be good immediately.” That was his attitude before Ottawa.

He based his assessment on his long and distinguished involvement in martial arts - a real sport. After the first day, he conceded that some of the throws did take a certain amount of skill, but it was something that could be picked up quickly by anyone with a base level of coordination. He brushed off the fact that he struggled to cover the slowest of receivers on any team saying, “I’m just not familiar with the basic flow of the game. Give me a day or two and I would own most of these guys.”

By the time Sunday semis rolled around, Jack was completely spent. He was a pale, quivering mass huddled in the shade, clutching a water bottle. He wasn’t spewing much about how easy it was to play ultimate. Of course, he did end up getting admitted to the local Ottawa hospital for dehydration, heat exhaustion and severe electrolyte imbalance. He was in observation for three days before they allowed him to drive home.

But the important thing is, we showed him! Ultimate is too a real sport! Nyeah!

Semifinals. We are to play ... I can’t remember ... Electric Bus? Northern Bus? Yellow Bus? Magic Bus? Something Bus? I can’t remember. Anyway, Gary says that they are good. They won the tournament last year and are expected to win this year. They have a woman on the team, but she is as good as just about any guy on the field.

We have nine players still willing to drag their sorry carcasses onto the line. Gary and I are playing every point. He’s throwing. I’m running and catching. And trying not to throw it away. Towards the end of the game, when we still have a small, but real chance to win the game, we are playing defense. I’m chasing some rested son of a bitch around the field. He’s running like he knows he has plenty of subs waiting after this point - which he does. I’m running like a guy who has played almost every point in the tournament and I’m half delirious. They turn it over near our goal line. After a quick swing, Gary gets the disc with his backhand wide open. Standing five yards deep and all the way across the field, I gaze towards the far endzone to see who is cutting. No one. I look back at Gary. He’s looking at me as if to say, “Well? Are you going to cut deep or what?” I put my head down and take off.

My defender, sluggishly responds and starts chasing. “If he thinks he’s tired, he should try being me!” I am running for the open endzone, no defenders around, with all I have left. The long, scorching backhand goes up. I glance over my shoulder to track it. I shake my head as I look for another gear, “Does he really think I can catch up with that?”

I’m separating from my defender and gaining ground on the slowing disc, but I am also starting to feel like my legs are made of silly string. Just as the disc starts to settle about five yards short of the goal line - hovering about ten feet off the ground - my left leg buckles. I go down on one knee, still stepping forward with my right. That leg collapses as well. I am all alone, at least ten yards between me and the nearest defender. The disc is slowly settling two yards away from me. I am now on both knees, arching my back, straining my arms forward, head bowed back as if in supplication. “Please, allow me to somehow reach this one disc. That is all I want in life.”

I attempt to leap forward from my knees. My face plants with my hands slapping the ground beyond my head as the disc gently nestles in the grass two feet further down field.

Turnover.

I’m not sure if I actually managed to get my head up out of the dirt before they scooped up the disc and retaliated with a huck and score. It seemed very quick to me. It was the end of the game. They win. ShortFatGuys lose, again, today.

Later, Gary would laugh and compare the spectacle of my full field collapse with the penultimate scene in the movie “Platoon”. Elias bloodied and staggering, trying to outrun the entire Vietnamese army as the helicopters pull away. Down on one knee, up again, down on both knees, arms reaching to the unpitying god above as bullets riddle his convulsing body. I’m not sure I really like being the major role in that comparison.

I return back to West Hartford exhausted but happy. We didn’t win, but damn! was that fun. Now, to the business of finding a job.

But, that guy I met in Ottawa, the one that said he played somewhere in Connecticut and that I should call him. Where is that scrap of paper with his name and number? I scrounge through my back pack and find it. “Denis Cronin” it says, with a local phone number. On a whim, I call him a few days after No Borders.

“Hello, uh, this is Bill Layden, you gave me your number up in Ottawa. Told me to call you if I wanted to play ultimate in Connecticut.”

“Yeah, I remember you. Short, curly hair?”

“Yep.”

“Well we play in Whethersfield on Tuesday nights. Can you make it?”

“Sure!” He gives me the specifics. I’m rationalizing to myself, “Well, I might as well stay in shape until I get a job. Might as well play ultimate for a little while longer.”

I drive down to Whethersfield the next week, full of trepidation. “What if I can’t throw well enough? What if I can’t keep up? What if they laugh me off the field?”

As I approach the end of the directions, I turn into a parking lot. I catch sight of a white disc blading across a field. I see the receiver turn and throw a forehand. Ultimate players for sure. I pull up and the butterflies start their migration through my innards.

I lace up my cleats and head out onto the field. This is the first time I have ever tried playing with a bunch of strangers. I know no one. I’m nervous. One guy I barely recognize comes up to me, hand outstretched, “Hi, I’m Dennis. You’re Bill, right?”

“Yeah. Thanks for letting me come out.”

“No problem. We always look forward to having new players.”

[Digression again. This was the prevailing attitude when I started playing. This was in 1987. I know it was still like this, a feeling of open camaraderie and eagerness to bring new people into the fold, for most of the years I played. Over the years, I noticed a subtle but definite change in attitudes. Not quite as welcoming. Not quite as open. I am assuming that this is partly due to the “higher level” of the sport I was associated with for a number of years. I am hoping that this is not a sport-wide shift. It will be a sad day when the local town team is not willing to accept the unknown newcomer. Not willing to include them in the warm social scene while nurturing an appreciation and knowledge of the game.]

As people start arriving at the field, Dennis introduces me around. They seem like a nice bunch of guys. Some of them look very athletic, some not. Of course, I have already learned that you can’t necessarily judge an ultimate player by how they look. Some of the guys I have played against haven’t looked threatening, but once they, somehow, managed to get the disc, they could kill you with a deep, pinpoint throw. Don’t judge a book by its cover.

I meet the regulars. Dan Powers. Mike Farris. Mark Somebody-or-other. A guy named Love. Many others. They are all nice to me. They don’t criticize me when my throws go astray or when my taller opponent catches the disc over me. They are too busy having fun and giving each other shit. When they do notice me, they compliment me and encourage me. I’m relaxing and having fun. I’m running with more abandon. Being more aggressive. At the end of practice, one of the best players comes up to me. He is a little intimidating, wearing a faux viking helmet with horns and all. His name is Lenny Engle. He says, “Listen, you’re pretty damn fast, you should keep playing this sport. I mean it. Seriously.”

I know he is just trying to be encouraging, but it makes me feel good.

Hopefully, I’m going to be moving soon. I secretly wish that there is some kind of ultimate team where ever I end up. I think I’d like to keep playing. Recreationally at least.

My College Playing Days - Part 2

2006-01-26T17:15:00.000-05:00

I have burned out. Not from ultimate, but from school. Three and a half years of all-nighters, late-nighters and weekends spent studying. Now I don’t have anything left to give for the last, crucial half a semester. I’m spent. I watch most all my grades slide at least one full letter. I barely pass my electrical engineering class (an engineering school distribution requirement) to salvage my graduation status.

I miss qualifying for the diving national championships (Division III) by slightly over-rotating my final dive (a back one and a half with one and a half twists - my favorite dive) in our final meet. My total score falls short by less than 4 points out of the 500 point qualifying score. Almost, but not quite.

Then there is ultimate. Gary has figured out the funding system for the school clubs. Wash U may be a school that demands a lot of work, but they do have a lot of money. And they spend it. On their students. Gary heads off to the spring club funding meeting one night. I ask him how much money he is going to request. He says, “I don’t know, I guess I can justify asking for upwards of six thousand dollars.”

“SIX THOUSAND DOLLARS!! Are you nuts?!?”

“No, I and I think we’ll get it.”

Later that night, he comes back to the apartment with a slightly ambiguous expression on his face. “So ... did you get the six thousand?” I jab.

“No,”

“I knew you were crazy to ask for that much. Who do you think you -“

“I got ten thousand.”

“WHAT!?!”

Smirk on his face, “Ten thousand, I’m not kidding. And it was easy.”

“How? Who? What?” I’m not forming any sentences, but I am giddy.

“They go through the clubs alphabetically. Ultimate is near the end of the list. I asked for the six thousand. They asked for a budget and a mission statement. I handed them both, nicely type-written. All the budget figures were ... um ... slightly exaggerated, but not outrageous. Plausible.”

I’m shaking my head beginning to laugh.

“So, after they summarily grant us the full amount, I decide to stick around until the last couple of clubs are done.”

“Why?” I ask, not even really caring, just happy with the result.

“Because they were giving just about everyone, just about everything they asked for. I figured they must have a pretty big pot of money to be spending it so generously all night long.”

I’m nodding, agreeing with his logic.

“So, after the last request is granted and just about everyone else is out the door, I hear the committee discuss what to do with their budget surplus. Me and a few other savvy club reps immediately start requesting more money. I asked for an additional four to make it an even ten thousand. Simple. Granted. Done.” His self-satisfied smile never looked better to me. We both burst out laughing, sharing high fives, and immediately start planning to see how we can spend that much money.

We are only planning on going to three tournaments, all within driving distance. Kansas Fools and College Sectionals in April. Regionals is in Madison, Wisconsin in early May. At least ... we are hoping to qualify for Regionals. Transportation costs won’t be too high. I have my own car, but some of the people on the team will be able to rent a van to travel in now. All the gas will be paid for, all the meals. We book some of the best hotels in Lawrence for Fools. No slumming ten people to a room. For us, two to a room, we each have a bed. Not too shabby.

Fools is a new experience for me. Not only are there a bunch of college teams, but there are also club teams. I didn’t even know that ultimate existed outside of colleges. But then again, four years earlier, I didn’t know that it existed outside of my high school in Connecticut.

Also, the level of competition is much higher than I have seen before. But, we have been practicing. I have been practicing. The team is better than last year. I am a better player than I have ever been. Faster, surer catches, better field sense, better backhand. Not much of a forehand, but I don’t generally try too much with it.

I only have one enduring memory from the play on the fields that weekend. We are playing the dreaded Horrozontals from Kansas. They are ahead of us, but we are making a game of it this time. It is not a matter of them going through the motions, they are actually having to work to score, and to stop us from scoring.

One of the guys on their team has been consistently matching up on me on defense. He seems very sure of himself. I don’t care. I am nearly out of college. I have survived the four most difficult but rewarding years of my life. I am playing a game that I love, with a bunch of cool people, and we are having fun, even if we aren’t the best. I couldn’t care much less what this guy thinks.

But he keeps calling “Pick” and stopping play. Then he catches up with me. Now, I am relatively sure what a pick is, and I have been trying hard to avoid them. But I can’t contest a pick, so I try to shrug it off. After the fourth or fifth one, I start to complain, “Where was the pick?!”

“That guy, over there,” pointing and gasping, he indicates my teammate five yards across the field. “I had to stop because he was heading towards me.”

I’m flustered. I don’t think he can be right, but I’m not completely sure.

“That is such bullshit!” Gary screams from the handler position.

“Hey! Stay out of it, you didn’t see it,” responds Kansas Joel.

Play restarts, but now I am completely fired up. A short cut back down the near side towards the disc. I see it start to swing to the middle handler. Gary is going to get the next continuation pass. I am off. I plant, cut, and put my head down. Next stop ... far corner of the endzone. I can already visualize the soaring forehand that is going to be waiting for me. I am really starting to motor. The field has opened up and I glance back to see the continuation throw heading towards Gary. Time to shift to top gear.

“PICK!”

“What the FUCK!!” I can’t contain it any more. As I spin around, Joel is just sliding to a stop five yards away from me. “That is not a pick!” I am pointing at him and advancing. Not exactly intimidating, but I am pissed.

I hear a voice off to the side, “Joel, you can’t keep calling a pick every time that guy toasts you.” It’s one his teammates. Then I notice that multiple guys on their sideline are laughing. Not at me, but at Joel. He is not happy.

“Shut up! It was a pick. Anyway, I’d like to see one of you guys cover him.”

Who? Me? He can’t be whining about covering me. I have figured out that I don’t really even know how to play this game as a sport. There are depths that I hadn’t contemplated before. And this guy is whining about covering me? I’m flattered, but maybe he’s just not very good.

After the game (we lost), Gary remarks, “You sure used up their captain.”

“That guy Joel is their captain?” Me. Incredulous.

“Yeah. One of their captains. But you sure tooled him. Nice job.”

“Thanks,” It means a lot to me. Not much else working out for me these days, but ultimate is getting really fun.

My first ultimate party - Fools 1987. We didn’t stay too long. Enough to drink a fair amount. Enough for me to appreciate the unabashed enthusiasm of the Kansas “Bettys” - a first for me. I hadn’t seen an entirely women’s team before. Let alone multiple women’s teams unleashed on a party. We had a couple of women on the Wash U team, but I didn’t know that there was an entire women’s division to the sport. That added not a little interest for me.

College Sectionals, nearby in Illinois, and I can’t attend. I’ve got to spend all day that Saturday taking my EIT national examination for engineering registration, the first tiny step towards getting an engineering license. I can’t remember what I had to do on that Sunday. Funny, at the time I probably never even considered driving two or three hours for one day of (maybe) two or three games of ultimate. I laugh and shake my head recalling many times of doing far more outrageous things just for a little ultimate. It gets into your blood like an infection and it is very hard to cure.

Wash U managed to qualify for Regionals in Madison and we weren’t even the lowest seed. At least, I don’t think we were. We practice hard, mainly scrimmaging and a few drills. No real conditioning beyond play. We talk a little strategy, along the lines of the vertical stack on offense, forcing on defense, maybe even a little about zones.

We book our rooms at the Hyatt in Madison, make dinner reservations in some nice restaurant, load up our vehicles with road munchies, food and drinks for the fields. Maybe a few beers. Cars full of free gas, we head off north. Thank you Wash U budget committee.

The morning of Regionals is cool and rainy with some wind gusts. The fields are boggy and I can’t grip the disc well. I’m not the only one on our team having trouble with throws. We get beaten handily in our first game. Not that we expected to win, but a little better showing would have been heartening. Well, our next opponent is the University of Chicago. They don’t look any better than us. They lost their first game too. We fight hard, hold a lead near the end. A couple of tough breaks, they rise to the occasion. They win. We lose. Their inflatable Godzilla is dancing on the field. They are ecstatic. I can’t believe we don’t have any more games. Two and out? That stinks.

I must admit, after the years have passed, the dinner that night is more memorable than the actual tournament. Ben declaring as we walk into the Thai restaurant that he doesn’t, “know what Thai food is, but as long as it’s not spicy, that’s fine with me. I can’t handle spice.”

Ben is sitting immediately to my left, Gary is across from me. During the bustle of fifteen people at one long table passing many multiple plates of unidentifiable dishes back and forth, I’m mainly concentrating on grabbing what looks good, what might be good, and a little of that weird looking stuff. Everyone is talking, laughing, recounting the day’s events. Things start to settle down as the serious business of eating commences.

At one point, I come across something VERY spicy on my plate. Thinking of Ben’s declaration, I realize that I haven’t heard him speaking in the last few moments. I turn to warn him of the lurking possibility of those tiny, but potent, green peppers. He is staring straight ahead, his eyes unfocused, slack expression to the point where his mouth is actually hanging open.

“Jesus .. Ben, you alright?” No answer.

“Ben?” No response. I’m starting to get a little nervous.

“Hey you guys, I think Ben is about to ... I don’t know ... pass out or something. I think he ate one of those hot peppers.”

There is a quickly spreading realization down the table. A hush settles on our group.

“Ben,” I ask, “are you OK?” His head begins slowly turning towards me in odd, jerking increments. I notice that saliva is spilling generously over the precipice of his lower lip. It is cascading out, a steady stream down into his lap.

“Ben?”

Without focusing his eyes, without actually moving his tongue, and with minimal lower jaw motion, he breathes, “Maah mouff iii ahh hiahhh.”

“What?” I’m starting to laugh despite my better intentions.

“Maaahh MOUFF iiii ahhhh HIIIAHHH!” His eyes are starting to focus on me. I’m sure he can see the shudders starting to wrack me. I know he can hear everyone else starting to burst.

“His mouth is on fire!” Someone helpfully translates. We all absolutely lose it.

I’ve got a huge grin on my face as I write this, just remembering. I was rocking back and forth in my chair, fighting to breathe past the body encompassing roar at the time. Everyone was in various states of hilarity ... except Ben. He is starting to furiously gesticulate, mouthing weird unintelligible threats at each of us. Spittle is flying. We are not being very sympathetic.

Before any of us can actually die from lack of air, the owner hurries over to our table, glass of milk in hand. Ben eagerly drinks it down. Sadly, that appears to have helped substantially. Oh, well, all good things come to an end.

Funny how so many of my later ultimate memories are results of off field antics and follies. This was just the first of those many, many laughs.

I don’t have any physical keepsake from that Regionals. I didn’t buy a disc and long ago parted with the long sleeved black shirt with white checker board design. I have a picture of me and my sister on the morning before my graduation. In it, I am wearing that shirt. I had bought my first official ultimate tournament disc at that Kansas, a “Fools Fest 1987" disc with a cool half-foreground half-background jester design.

I actually paused just now and wished I still had that disc. I lost it long ago. Not realizing what it would be the harbinger of. I am nostalgic for that distant year of my ultimate awakening.

My College Playing Days - Part 1

2006-01-20T16:31:00.000-05:00

There have been times, in the years since college, that I wish that I had only known about ultimate as a serious sport sooner. I long to have the years back when I could have been learning a decent forehand, could have been refining defensive techniques, could have ... should have ... didn’t. That is not the way it was to be for me.

Sure, I had been shown the light during that first weekend of college, back in 1983. Ultimate Frisbee was actually known outside of my little high school in Connecticut. I found out that many other people around the country not only knew about the sport, but were actually far more adept at it than me. Those college initiations can be rough.

My next experience playing Ultimate was towards the end of my freshman year. Apparently, my loony roommate knew the game from his high school years in Houston. There was a campus-wide sign-up for spring intramurals and Ultimate Frisbee was one of the sports. My roommate, Donnie, came in to our room one day and asked me if I had ever played.

“Yeah, some in high school. Why?”

“Well, they are taking sign-ups for spring intramurals and Ultimate Frisbee is one of the sports. It’s one of the few sports that I will deign to play, so what do you say? Let’s cobble together a team and have some fun. Maybe we can meet some chicks.”

This, the meeting of “chicks”, “babes”, “honeys”, was always his number one priority. And he was shockingly good at it.

“Sure,” I said, not knowing exactly what I had signed up for. But I definitely knew that after a year of hellacious studying and squeezing in six-day-a-week diving practices, I was just about going crazy, I thought that it would be a nice break. Besides, we might actually meet some “babes.”

I set about recruiting some of my teammates from my failed intramural soccer team thinking that, hey, at least they will be able to run and will have some field sense. Donnie managed to round up a ragged assortment of guys, girls, and ... others ... from his friends in the fine arts school. Our team was secure with a semi-fluid roster. The team name and logo were decided after a particularly long night of drinking at the campus pub (ah, the days of being grandfathered in as an eighteen year old drinker).

We would be the “Happy Mutants.” Our uniforms were white T-shirts with a yellow smiley face sporting only one eye, dead center. Obviously, we were not taking this too seriously. But, after all, this was Ultimate Frisbee. How could anyone take it that seriously?

During those few intramural Ultimate games, I witnessed many of the emotions that would sweep through me in the years to come. I remember standing, staring at a particularly graceful pull as it settled over the far endzone. I recall much laughing and silliness. I remember moments of frustration and anger at perceived indiscretions and slights. I joyfully reflect on fleeting images of transcendence and accomplishment. All of this within the confines of, maybe, eight minimally competitive, very unskilled intramural games in a college much better known for its scholars than its athletes. And yet ... Reliving it now, I realize that these emotions and experiences were not qualitatively different than those I would have later. Perhaps only quantitatively different. The games may have meant little, but the fun and the effort were not so vastly diminished by the lack of import.

Where we placed in the final league standings ... I actually don’t remember. Not last. Certainly not first. We had fun. I had shown myself to be a pretty good player on a not-so-good team. I enjoyed myself.

After Donnie transferred out at the end of the first year (more hot women back at the University of Texas), there was no incentive to hold the Happy Mutants together anymore. Studies were burying me deeper. Diving continued to eat up any possible off time I might have. I had no energy to consider some odd fringe sport in my sophomore year. Seven classes one semester, six the next. My roommate figured that I spent roughly 76 to 80 hours a week either in class or studying. Ultimate didn’t stand a chance.

My junior year, I wanted to move off campus. My second year roommate would have been a good match, but he was way too busy trying to get his multiple math/systems science/electrical engineering/computer science degrees. He had no time to breathe let alone consider the possibility of hunting down an apartment in the local area. I scouted around for possible other roommates, but the pickings became very thin. My closest friend, Adrian, was so wrapped up in his fraternity that he couldn’t possibly move out of The House. My girlfriend (and oddly, her mother) were both keenly lobbying me to move in with her. But apparently, some deep seated instinct in me foresaw the coming debacle, and I opted out of that arrangement.

Now, who am I left with?

There is this guy Gary that I hang out with occasionally. He and I are on the same intramural soccer team - The Swamp Flies. We manage to get along most of the time. He is kind of annoying, sometimes, but he sure has cool frisbee throws. And he did manage to keep me sane through our shared calculus and computer science classes. He was funny, but he was a little too much like me. His girlfriend, Suzy, was my lab partner in physics my freshman year. Apparently, we decided that one decent game of Ultimate was enough to base a semester of cooperation on. It didn’t hurt that I always thought she was kind of cute. As long as she didn’t decide to break me in half like a twig.

Against the general consensus of everyone that knew both Gary and me - which was that we would be tearing each other’s eyeballs out in less than six months - we figured that this might work out. Two short, curly headed, slightly hyper, smart asses with acerbic wit and a stubborn streaks a mile wide - you might as well cage two shrews together. We signed a lease for an off campus apartment for our junior year. It would be Gary, Suzy, me, and Odd Brian - the computer geek. This would work. It had to. I had no real alternatives.

Junior year of college. Gary and I are living together ... without bloodshed ... despite the best predictions of the most knowledgeable. Once again, in the spring time, when the engineering problem sets diminish slightly, the swimming and diving team is quietly closing out their season ... Gary mentions that he has started up the official school Ultimate Frisbee Club. From scratch.

“What?!?” I ask. Not exactly sure if I should believe him.

“Well, I got a group of players together last semester. You might remember refusing my invitations to practice with us?” Actually, I did. “Well, I wrote a charter, and we are now an official club sport of Washington University.”

“Congratulations! I guess,” I say, not realizing how difficult this whole operation has probably been.

“You want to play with us this Spring?” Gary asks me.

This Spring? I think to myself. I have multiple term papers due. Uncountable number of engineering problem sets between now and then, plus, I am still going to be diving until early March.

“Um ... maybe.” I say. “How can I possibly fit this in?” I ask myself.

Often, Gary tries to cajole me out to practices. Once or twice, I acquiesce. I discover, in those few junior year practices, that I am faster than most of the people on the Wash U team, but less skilled. The only things I have going for me are my ability to jump relatively high for my height - a product of those years of diving, I guess - and my speed. I have only one reliable throw, a backhand. And it is an air-bounce backhand - always.

Towards the end of my junior year, Gary convinces me to go to a tournament, an Ultimate Frisbee tournament, somewhere in Springfield Missouri for something called College Sectionals. None of this means anything to me except that I understand that we will be playing frisbee against other colleges. What a novel idea!

We go. We lose. Not every game, but most games. I don’t remember the scores. I just realize that there are some people playing at other schools that are much better than any players I have seen before. Gary seems disappointed, but he actually played very well. He is much more accomplished in multiple throws than most anyone else there, but he doesn’t have anyone to throw to consistently. Athletically, we can’t match up against the other top schools - Missouri and the Kansas Horrozontals. Kansas in particular seems unbeatable.

On the drive back, I am excited. I may not be as good an ultimate player as I thought I was, but the flip side of that means that there is much more to learn and heights to climb. Ultimate as a fun competitive outlet - what a novel idea for me.

More Than a Few Can Play That Game

2006-01-13T13:58:00.000-05:00

It was a couple of days before classes started in my freshman year at Washington University when I noticed that there was a congenial mixer scheduled ... the engineering school’s Freshman Welcome Party and Picnic. Now, I imagine some of you are wondering, “Is he joking?” No, and the sad part of it is, I was eager to go. I’m a thousand miles from home, I know absolutely no one - with the exception of my roommate who I had only met the day before and whose suggestion that we, “finish a bottle or two of saki to christen our first night at college” I had misguidedly listened to.

So, I cart my aching head and queasy stomach to the fields on the other side of campus. I wander around, taking in all the geeks and outwardly normal appearing people that I am going to be studying with for the next four years. Sweat is already beading up on me in the heat of the St. Louis August day as I stroll past sign-up tables for chess club, math team, engineering council, and various engineering student groups. Then I notice a disc flying through the air. There’s a group of people throwing in the field behind the barbeques and T-shirt hawkers. I find myself drifting over there lured by the subtle beauty of an arcing disc against a cloudless sky.

There are about ten people running around throwing a single disc in an open area. It takes about fifteen seconds for my brain to register the fact, “they are playing ultimate.” My immediate follow-up is, “that’s our game.” I am still a little incredulous as I stumble down the small swale and through the trees until I am at the edges of the field.

“This can’t be. Who else could possibly know about this game?” I thought this was a secret ritual of a kind. Who else would play this outside of gym? How many gym teachers even knew enough about it to teach it to their students?

As a point is scored, someone on the field spots me and asks, “You wanna play?”
“Umm ... yeah ... sure.”
“Good, you’re on shirts.”
“Ok.”
I jog down to the line where the receiving team is gathering. “Hey my name is John I’m from Tennesee. This is Mark he’s from ... uh ... Colorado?”
“Yeah, Colorado.”
“”This is Suzy she’s from Massachusets.”
“Hey!”
“And you’re ...?
“I’m Bill ... from Connecticut.”
Did all these people from all over the country really know about ultimate frisbee?
“Well Bill,” says John, the apparent captain-by-default of our little band,”have you played ultimate frisbee before?”
“Yeah, a little.”
“Good. You have a forehand?”
“Uh ... kind of ... not really.”
“That’s ok, just a friendly game anyway. Get out there and run around.”

The first few points flow through me and around me in a kind of happy haze. At first, I’m just excited that other people ... people that I am going to be in school with, seem to know about this great game. Then, as the initial thrill wears off, I start to realize that there is a wide discrepancy among the players present. And, alarmingly, I’m not at the top. Sure, I’m faster than most everyone out there, but more than a few of these people have decent - or even phenomenal - forehands. They can throw it 25 ... even 30 yards. There’s even this one guy throwing the disc in this weird, overhand motion sending the disc blading and zipping to the opposite side of the field - UP SIDE DOWN! Who are these people? Who is that guy with that crazy throw that only a few people can catch?

Within an hour, the game begins to break up. Perhaps sixteen or seventeen people have cycled through the teams. Most apparently have had at least a little prior exposure to the game, some have not but were drawn by the spontaneous cheers and moans of momentary victories or defeats. My sneakers are completely grass-stained. My shorts and t-shirt are soaked with sweat and stained with dirt here and there. A couple of scrapes and raspberries adorn my knees and legs.

I am staring at the guy with the “weird upside-down throw.” He looks familiar, but I am sure I have never seen him before. He’s about 5 foot 6. Dark curly hair. Kind of skinny, but not completely without some muscle tone. Then it hits me, “That’s me.” Or rather, someone that looks a lot like me. Only with better throws.

As I drift near him, he says, “Hey, I’m Gary. This is Suzy.”
“Yeah, we were on the same team.”
“Oh, that’s right. The losing team.”
“Let’s not start that ...” Suzy bristles.
“Whatever, didn’t mean anything anyway,” Gary partially demurs.
I venture, “Hey, where did you learn that weird upside-down throw?”
“The hammer? At WPI.”
“WPI?”
“Worcester Polytech. In Massachusetts. I went there for science the past couple of years.”
“Are you a freshman or a transfer?”
“Freshman, I went to high school in Worcester. Just took the science and math classes at WPI.”
“Oh.” I was feeling way in over my head in more ways than one. It was a feeling I was to become extremely familiar with in the coming months.
“So, you’ve obviously played ultimate frisbee before, huh?” I hazard.
“Yeah, I’ve been playing a little over two years, Suzy’s played for, what ... year ... year and a half?”
“About that,” she agrees. Suzy is a sturdy, outdoorsy girl, a little taller than me, with dark blonde hair and strong, open features. I have already heard her off-beat laugh and a couple of roars of frustration during the game. She’s friendly and easy to be around. I like her.

I’m not too sure about this guy Gary, that appears to be her friend, or boyfriend. Sure, he looks a lot like me. And, yes, he is relatively witty, but there’s something about that look, that slightly intellectual superior attitude that I don’t really like ... apparently.

The whirlwind of college life quickly enveloped me. Registration for classes. Learning the layout of the campus. Struggling to establish a social life in the jumbled pecking order of strangers among strangers. Then, ominously and overwhelmingly, the magnitude of classwork and homework steadily building.

Somewhere, in the dizzying first few weeks of school, someone convinced me that I should try-out for the swimming and diving team.

I knew the soccer team was out. I was a competent player in high school. I could hedge off most wingers as a fullback and I could kick the ball surprisingly hard for a small guy. But I couldn’t score. I could never pull the trigger on the shot at the right time. I had spent the first two years in highschool as a striker/winger, and I could run fast enough and get open quickly enough to justify the position. But, once I had the ball I felt more comfortable passing it quickly and sprinting down field. If, by some mischance, I got possession of the ball near the opposing goal, as everyone else screamed, “SHOOT!” I would try to footwork the ball just one more time, or try for a little better shot ... and I would almost always, inevitably, lose it. Or kick it over the goal. Or just past the post. I had a dozen ways to just miss scoring. I was the king of “almost.”

My junior year in high school, my very astute coach noticed that I always drifted back too far on defense, even overlapping the mids. He, apparently, noticed that I was tenacious trying to get the ball, but didn’t seem much to want it once I had it. He put me back at fullback. All 5 foot 4 inches and one hundred thirty pounds of me at the time. I loved it. And I was pretty good. Not All-state good. Not even scholarship good. But good enough that our goal keeper liked having me back there and many opposing players got frustrated in not getting a decent shot off in a game. Soccer was my game. It was The Game. At least in high school. I had played for over eight years. I was a pretty good player. But Wash U’s team had just lost in the Division III championship the year before. I was a little intimidated.

I went out to the fields the first week of school - an undrafted (this was Division III) but also an unscouted walk-on. I watched a couple of practices. The coach was screaming at his players. They didn’t seem to be having a lot of fun. It was late August, so I knew that the season was a little ways away. I knew that the first few weeks ... hell weeks ... of sports are never fun unless you are on the top of the heap. But, I just didn’t have it in me. My serious soccer days were done. Hell, my serious sports days were done. The games were over, Real Life was verging. Might as well turn the page and move on to the next chapter.

I chose to be on the diving team because I needed a physical outlet and I figured the time away from studies would help my sanity. Also, the team was open to just about anyone that could handle the workouts. And they desperately needed divers. Good fit.

My First Exposure to Ultimate

2006-01-06T10:38:00.000-05:00

Way back in the year nineteen hundred and eighty-two, in the tiny state of Connecticut, in high school gym class, I was first exposed to a unique and compelling little game. I was a junior in high school, gym was a pleasant diversion from relatively intense studies. I was a competent athlete earning multiple letters in soccer, baseball, and diving. Sports were easy and fun, but I knew that my college future was centered on academics and not athletics.

Then I played this game in gym. Frisbee football, but no tackling. Pretty cool. I could throw a frisbee (backhand) reasonably well, I could run fast, and cut quickly, I could even jump a little. This game seemed to be tailor-made for me. “Too bad,” I thought, “It’s not a real sport.” I was under the impression that my gym teacher had made it up or found it in some dusty PE tome on how to pass the time.

In the second or third class of “Ultimate Frisbee” I had already sustained my first major injury - a concussion while going up for a catch against a much taller defender (my best friend). Both the injury and the size differential was to be a common theme for decades to come, although I had no idea at the time.

I talked about this “Ultimate” game with my friends in school. They agreed that it was pretty cool, “Maybe we should start playing on our own,” one of my friends suggested. We were a group of semi-jocks at the top of our class. Although among us there were multiple captains of the schools sports, they were the “secondary sports” - track, cross-country, swimming, tennis. We were all concentrating more on the upcoming SATs than on sports, but we realized it might be a fun way to blow off steam. We started playing during lunch at school. When we didn’t get enough people, we played a game we called “R-rated frisbee.” One or two people throwing high floaters to a scrambling pack of aggressive receivers. No rules besides: whoever caught the throw had waggle and bragging rights ... until the next throw. Great preparation for boxing out, learning timing, and reading the flight of the disc. Also, not a bad way to quickly learn the ebb and flow of winning and losing with dignity or baseness

We thought we were doing something new, something innovative. An older acquaintance that had graduated a couple years before us (for historian’s record, his name was Peter Craig) mentioned that this “Ultimate Frisbee” game was being played at the University of Connecticut. It barely registered with me except to spur us to one last push for glory.

During our throwing sessions before and after school, it became apparent that there was one group that could possibly challenge us for the “Ultimate Frisbee Champions of the Universe” title. They were the “burn-out” pot smokers that skipped classes and spent their afternoons in the pursuit of the zen throwing sessions and the cool tricks with a disc. I had watched them throw and noticed that some of them threw the “regular” (backhand) throw and also this weird cross-body “forehand” type throw. We started practicing it, but only a couple of us would try to use it in a tight spot. I was not one of them.

My senior year, 1983, there was a school-wide intramural competition in various sports. To my surprise, Ultimate Frisbee was on the program. My group of friends eagerly organized our team of nerdly-jocks, confident that we could take on all comers. We trounced the competition until the finals. Our opponents would be the “burn-outs”. We actually - miraculously - got permission to play the final game in the high school stadium, with a small crowd of maybe 100 non-Ultimate players in attendance. Little did I know that it would be the best venue and largest crowd that I would experience until another 10 years had elapsed.

Our team went down early, their skill with the disc was trumping our enthusiasm and aggressiveness. We were daunted but not defeated. The second half of the game witnessed our superior conditioning and athleticism slowly gaining on them. I believe we won by a few points. I distinctly remember running up and down the field thinking, “they can’t guard me any more.” The thrill of victory was ours. I still have that blue ribbon with “Conard High School Intramurals” emblazoned on the front and the little white card, hand lettered on the back with “Ultimate Frisbee Champions.” I will always cherish it as a talisman of my life that was to come.

We played through that summer after high school more as a way of having fun and saying good-bye to our youthful years. We knew that college would demand so much from us that we would not be able to play games and have fun. No more games at the colleges we were going to: MIT, Harvard, Syracuse, Dartmouth, Bucknell, and for me Washington University in St. Louis. We were soon to start “growing up.” At the end of our last summer of youth, there was one final, spectacular game played on the golf course across from Chris Berry’s house. They had closed the course: “One month of renovations and repairs.” We played Ultimate in the middle of the fairway of the fourth hole ... in a warm, torrential down-pour for about 3 hours. When we were finished, the demolition crew didn’t have much additional work to do. I am not sure I have ever had as much fun playing. I have a distinct snapshot in my mind of young Bob Berry making a 4 foot high diving block to save the winning point for us. I remember thinking, “No game will ever be this fun again.”

I may have been wrong ... but I am not completely sure of that.

2005-12-20T08:01:00.000-05:00

So, I come back from vacation and discover that people are actually reading this silly blog-thing. I don't know whether to be encouraged or disgusted.

Either way, since most of you are mentioning The Worm in your comments, I figured that I would throw out a quick Worm story.

Sit down kids and I'll tell you a tale of the first time I met The Worm.

It was a dark and stormy night ... no, wait ... that is a different story. It was actually back in 1988 in Golden Gate Park at a tournament that was so desperate for teams that they actually accepted my team - known as the Wild Bunch (hey, I didn't name it) - and Chico State's team. Both teams were so bad, that they had no chance to beat any other team but each other. In fact, in one game, we lost to Tsunami (the reigning powerhouse and national champs later that year) in a game where they all threw wrong-handed on every pass. They bageled us, Ouch!

In the final game of the tourney, Chico and the Wildbunch face off, both playing for our first win. I soon notice that, all in all, our team is actually more talented than theirs with the one exception of this particular guy who is throwing himself all over the field. He's getting a layout D, then sprinting the length of the field to make a ridiculous bid on a horrible throw, only to get it back with another sick D. The rest of his team is pathetic. We barely win.

After the game, he is completely covered in mud and grass stains. He is bleeding from both elbows, both knees, a hip and, improbably, from some spot on his scapula. I shake his hand and say, "You're a great player, but you have no respect for your body." He tells me his name is Worm and he is moving to San Francisco in the next month. I tell him that maybe we will end up on the same team at some point. Nearly eighteen years, hundreds of tourneys, and untold thousands of offended people later, we are both still playing this silly game.

The unbelievable thing is, he is still playing the same way - hitting the dirt every other point and still getting sick layout D's. Meanwhile, I am more at the stage of telling people, "Do you know who I used to be?" Interesting the way things work out.

2005-11-17T19:16:00.000-05:00

They say, "Those that can ... do. Those that can't ... teach." I'll add to that, "Those that can't teach ... start writing to a blog so that they can record a little of what they knew before they don't remember anything."

I don't think it is ever going to catch on as a common household cliche, but it sums up my current situation nicely.

2005-11-17T16:57:00.000-05:00

OK ... So Alex (over at http://countal.blogspot.com ) challenges me to write about ultimate back when the mighty allosaurus roamed the earth.

I think to myself, "I can do that. Uh, what was the stall count back then??" Actually, I am not old enough to have played before the stall count was lowered to 10, but I did play with Barney Bruner from by-gone Condor and Flying Circus days. I remember him recalling that when they lowered the stall to 10 seconds, he was thinking, "10 seconds!?! Now we'll never get a throw off!" Funny. At least it was to me.

Another mind warping recollection from those days. I used to think that Barney was WAY too old to still be playing ultimate. "I mean, look at him. He's still got the throws, but at the age of 32, you just can't get around the field like us young pups."

Now I'm looking back from the far side of 40 years old and still trying to chase the kids around the pitch. How pitiful. Or maybe not completely. I still get the occasional, "Man! You sure are fast!" But now, more often than not, it is immediately followed by, "For an old guy."

Ah, well.