tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-79940392024-03-15T18:09:18.575-07:00parinella's blogparinellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03802604259779936852noreply@blogger.comBlogger237125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7994039.post-21819740275296449392020-02-11T14:26:00.000-08:002020-02-11T14:26:10.541-08:00The Lake Wobegon Effect, or Why Most People Are Above Average
<br />
“<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Welcome
to Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking,
and all the children are above average."-- Garrison Keillor </span><br />
<br />
More generally, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority">illusory superiority</a> is the tendency to overestimate one’s ability compared to
others. For instance, it’s widely quoted that 80% of drivers think they are
above average in driving skill, and we all pooh-pooh those other dumb people who
erroneously think they can somehow defy simple math. However, there is a
perfectly rational reason for this to be the case.<br />
<br />
For something like height that is easy to measure and easy
to compare, you would probably find that close to 50% of people think they are
above average. But what about more complex skills like driving or intelligence
or soccer-playing? There are multiple dimensions in each of those. Person A
hasn’t been in an accident in 10 years. Person B easily maneuvers through city
traffic and can merge onto a highway seamlessly. Person C would win a race
around a closed course. In soccer, some players score goals, some pass the ball
well, and some play defense. Who’s the best? Well, the mother of the soccer
player who scores goals thinks that goal-scoring is the most important skill,
while the father of the defender thinks that defense wins championships, and the
grandfather of the passer loves the beautiful game and wants to see the ball
passed around. Who is best? “My kid!”<br />
<br />
Let’s say that each player can accurately assess how good
everyone is in each attribute. However, each of them thinks that the attribute
they are best at is twice as important as the attribute they are second-best
at, and four times as important as the one they are worst at (so, a 4x-2x-x
weighting). What happens now?<br />
<br />
Here’s a simple example with three players. Each is really
good at one skill, average in another, and terrible in the third, but is
average if each skill is equally important. Fairly evaluating each skill (but not
their importance to “soccer playing ability”), each player thinks that they are
the best. Similarly, each player is considered by one of the others to be the
worst.<br />
<br />
<table align="left" border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none; margin-left: 6.75pt; margin-right: 6.75pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-padding-alt: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-table-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-table-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-table-left: left; mso-table-lspace: 9.0pt; mso-table-rspace: 9.0pt; mso-table-top: 32.2pt; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184;">
<tbody>
<tr style="mso-yfti-firstrow: yes; mso-yfti-irow: 0;">
<td style="border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 54.25pt;" valign="top" width="72">
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 32.2pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly;">
Player</div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 44.0pt;" valign="top" width="59">
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 32.2pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; text-align: center;">
Scoring</div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 44.15pt;" valign="top" width="59">
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 32.2pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; text-align: center;">
Passing</div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 57.4pt;" valign="top" width="77">
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 32.2pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; text-align: center;">
Defending</div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 42.95pt;" valign="top" width="83">
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 32.2pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; text-align: center;">
Equal assessment</div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.0in;" valign="top" width="96">
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 32.2pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; text-align: center;">
Scorer’s assessment</div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.0in;" valign="top" width="96">
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 32.2pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; text-align: center;">
Passer’s assessment</div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 80.75pt;" valign="top" width="108">
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 32.2pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; text-align: center;">
Defender’s assessment</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 1;">
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 54.25pt;" valign="top" width="72">
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 32.2pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly;">
Scorer</div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 44.0pt;" valign="top" width="59">
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 32.2pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; text-align: center;">
9</div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 44.15pt;" valign="top" width="59">
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 32.2pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; text-align: center;">
5</div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 57.4pt;" valign="top" width="77">
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 32.2pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; text-align: center;">
1</div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 42.95pt;" valign="top" width="83">
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 32.2pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; text-align: center;">
5</div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.0in;" valign="bottom" width="96">
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 32.2pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">6.7</span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.0in;" valign="bottom" width="96">
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 32.2pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">4.4</span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 80.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="108">
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 32.2pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">3.9</span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 2;">
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 54.25pt;" valign="top" width="72">
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 32.2pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly;">
Passer</div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 44.0pt;" valign="top" width="59">
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 32.2pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; text-align: center;">
1</div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 44.15pt;" valign="top" width="59">
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 32.2pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; text-align: center;">
9</div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 57.4pt;" valign="top" width="77">
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 32.2pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; text-align: center;">
5</div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 42.95pt;" valign="top" width="83">
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 32.2pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; text-align: center;">
5</div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.0in;" valign="bottom" width="96">
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 32.2pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">3.9</span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.0in;" valign="bottom" width="96">
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 32.2pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">6.7</span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 80.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="108">
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 32.2pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">4.4</span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 3; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes;">
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 54.25pt;" valign="top" width="72">
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 32.2pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly;">
Defender</div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 44.0pt;" valign="top" width="59">
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 32.2pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; text-align: center;">
5</div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 44.15pt;" valign="top" width="59">
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 32.2pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; text-align: center;">
1</div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 57.4pt;" valign="top" width="77">
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 32.2pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; text-align: center;">
9</div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 42.95pt;" valign="top" width="83">
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 32.2pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; text-align: center;">
5</div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.0in;" valign="bottom" width="96">
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-top: 32.2pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">4.4</span></div>
</td>
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<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">3.9</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">6.7</span></div>
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<br />
What about the broader case? I did a simple simulation for this. I
have 10 000 individuals whose skills in three attributes are independent and
are uniformly distributed. As you would expect, 50% of them are above average
on each attribute and on the average of the three attributes. However, each
weights the importance of the skill in accordance with their ability in that
skill. <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>What happens now? As it
turns out, 74% of these people are now above average! The median person is now
in the 63<sup>rd</sup> percentile.<br />
<br />
Now let’s add in the illusory superiority bias and see where
we get. Let’s assume each person overestimates their skill by a mere 5%, so if
they are truly average, they think they are in the 55<sup>th</sup> percentile.
Now, 81% of the people are above average. <br />
<br />
How about a real-life example? Who was the best hitter in
the American League in 2017? I looked at three stats (batting average, home run
rate, and strikeout avoidance) for all 78 qualifiers that year, and compared
each player to the average qualifier in that stat. Using an equal weight for
the three metrics, there were about an equal number of above-average and
below-average hitters, as we would expect. But what if each qualifier got to
choose what stat was most important and which was least important, like in the
hypothetical example above? Then, the average player was suddenly 12% better
than average, and 57 of 79 (73%) are above average. Welcome to Lake Wobegon.<br />
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>parinellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03802604259779936852noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7994039.post-12000560436920734512015-04-10T06:58:00.000-07:002015-04-10T06:58:39.379-07:00How my team has done in every tournament I've played in since 1992At Nathan Wicks' request, I made a chart of all 239 tournaments I've played in the last 24 years and how my team did (1st place is at the top). It's split out by division, and Nationals and Worlds are highlighted.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFybDP2nOZEIzL2lBPSolvueG0vjWTc4UoSosGFGHEZdTIj33RFeQPScbqHBx3zAPd7Osra3-WOL_coVKPpCJQ4MYWNNdhv4oP0yVdJknypRR9aJYvVH1nuXgHIGrQVwzY11t_6w/s1600/all+tournaments+finish.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFybDP2nOZEIzL2lBPSolvueG0vjWTc4UoSosGFGHEZdTIj33RFeQPScbqHBx3zAPd7Osra3-WOL_coVKPpCJQ4MYWNNdhv4oP0yVdJknypRR9aJYvVH1nuXgHIGrQVwzY11t_6w/s1600/all+tournaments+finish.JPG" height="222" width="320" /></a></div>
parinellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03802604259779936852noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7994039.post-531596919714423312014-01-17T13:42:00.000-08:002014-01-17T13:42:09.538-08:00Live at skydmagazine.comI am now writing a monthly feature at skydmagazine.com. The first feature is <a href="http://www.skydmagazine.com/2014/01/why-im-still-around/">"Why I'm Still Around"</a>. In it, I trace my interest in playing over the years, starting out as an 18 year old who didn't have anything else better to do before going away to college, as a 20-something developing my game, as a 30-something at the top of my game, and as a 40-something waiting for death.
One of the things I touch on but didn't get to develop enough is that I get a chance or take the opportunity to chat more. For instance, I played with Zip for several years, but I've probably had more serious conversations with him the past two years (bar run, party at his house I crashed, goaltimate) than I did during our time as teammates.
DoG Masters and Beach Worlds 2011 also led to getting to know more people, and those have led to additional opportunities like playing with Los Zodiac at Paganello, where I got to team with modern luminaries Beau Kittredge and Bart Watson. Two quotes from Bart: "Beau on sand is like the rest of you on grass" and "So, what was it like to play before there was strategy?" I (and Alex) got on that team through our connection with Greg Husak of the Condors, who (along with Steve Dugan and Mike Namkung) played with DoG Masters at Worlds in 2008. Good quote from Husak after playing with us for a few days: "So, let me get this straight. Your offense is 'this guy cuts, then that guy cuts, and if he doesn't get it, this other guy cuts'." I guess the Condors offense was a bit more formally structured.
If you have any suggestions for future articles, leave them in the comments.parinellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03802604259779936852noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7994039.post-27561021099842120682013-08-26T22:19:00.000-07:002013-08-26T22:19:31.778-07:00Stat post for The HuddleWith all the stat posts at ultiworld.com, I thought I'd post an article I wrote for a stats issue of The Huddle which never got published.
<p>
Stats
<p>
In the early 1990s, my teams (Earth Atomizer and Big Brother) recorded every pass of the season, entering them in a notebook using a shorthand notation during games, and some friends and I would compile them afterwards. Among other things, we found that forehands were thrown away about 50% more frequently than backhands, about 60% of hucks were complete (except for a certain anti-stat hothead who went 4 for 16), and 1.5% of passes were dropped. We did use that first piece of knowledge (coupled with “scouting” observations) about forehands to decide to force forehand most of the time. But what else did we gain for all that time spent?<p>
I have come around to believe that for the time being, the concrete value of tracking individual statistics to predict or to evaluate is doomed by two things, context and sample size. We tried to make one adjustment for context, namely, separating out “tough games” from “chump games”. But then that fed into the second issue, sample size, since we now had fewer games to draw from. And was the line between “tough” and “chump” in the right place? Some of the games were tough because of bad playing conditions, others because we just played badly or exceptionally well in a game that would normally be a blowout, and still others because we had a skeleton crew. Oh, and some teams played zone and forced the handlers to pile up twice as many throws as usual (without, I hope you realize, playing twice as well). But we counted them all equally. <p>
(I should also add that “opportunities” is something that must be accounted for when trying to analyze. But it’s not always as simple as dividing by the number of touches. In the seminal basketball analytics book “Basketball on Paper”, Dean Oliver (now in charge of stats at ESPN) highlighted that player efficiency decreases with increased usage as the players who bear the brunt of the offensive load have to make plays that are closer to the margin. Furthermore, these players will also draw the toughest defenders.)<p>
But we could still tell who was good at completing passes, right? Well, as I like to say at my job where I analyze my company’s engineering performance, it depends. They recorded individual stats on last year’s NexGen tour. I was very excited to get this dataset, because every game was against a quality opponent, almost everyone played almost every game, and each game was a showcase and not just one of many in a long weekend. As it turns out, this dataset too suffers from some confounders such as the first half of the tour beings spent figuring out how to play together and what roles to settle into, but it was still the purest dataset I know of. For the complete tour, turnover percentage* of the players ranged from 3.4% to 12.4%. But for the most part, the guys at the higher end of the turnover range also threw a higher percentage of their passes for goals, while the low-turnover guys didn’t throw as many goals. Here’s the graph for all of them, split out by how often they touched the disc per point:
*They didn’t separate out drops from throwaways so we’ll have to use this instead of incompletion rate.
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitQAeGSXKvG3wJxd4S7jGX3j5uHZfi53hoirmo34cnV0DWQiaU_p26mkhJrUi2pzZL3MgXV71DxWLEFfj4j4NRT3pYGpfnVTcZZc7lFE9-YYdIfac_q1afZow74TQoDDoXQ7Id2w/s1600/NexGenstats.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitQAeGSXKvG3wJxd4S7jGX3j5uHZfi53hoirmo34cnV0DWQiaU_p26mkhJrUi2pzZL3MgXV71DxWLEFfj4j4NRT3pYGpfnVTcZZc7lFE9-YYdIfac_q1afZow74TQoDDoXQ7Id2w/s320/NexGenstats.JPG" /></a>
<p>Note also that the high touch players were in the lower left corner. I can think of two explanations for this besides them being conservative handlers. One, an in-bounds pull almost always results in an uncontested completed pass. Two, passes in general in that half of the field are typically easier to complete because the defense has to respect the threat of the long pass, and I think that handlers have a higher percentage of the touches there than they do closer to the endzone, where pass frequency is more evenly distributed. At the other end of the graph, deeps are going to be catching more of their passes near the endzone, resulting in relatively more opportunities for goal throws but also with each completion a little more difficult because of the reduced space. The risk/benefit of a few extra yards changes near the goal line as well. I wrote in “Ultimate Techniques and Tactics”, a book co-authored with Eric Zaslow and published by Human Kinetics and still available through your favorite Internet reseller, that being in the endzone instead of just on the goal line increases your chance of scoring as much as being 10 yards closer elsewhere on the field.<p>
I once set up a simulation of an offense where the players were equally talented (i.e., had the same incompletion rate per yard of throw) but had different roles in the offense and different throw choices. The first thing I noticed is that a particular player sometimes had MVP-level tournaments and sometimes had tournaments where he would have been benched. The more important point, though, was that the players’ stat lines resembled those of real teams such as NexGen, with some players racking up the goals and turnovers while others had lots of touches but few fantasy league stats. This leads me to conclude that much of the difference between the stat lines of any two players is not a difference in effectiveness but simply a matter of taste. (Note that there are still some players who stand out, either good or bad, but you generally don’t need a calculator to know that.) Two equally-efficient players can have drastically different stat lines due not to any difference in skill or on-field decision-making but to the difference in their roles.<p>
So what do these detailed individual stats (at this stage in our history, where we have only the stats of our own team against a wide range of opponents in vastly different environments) bring to the table? Accountability and self-awareness. Lord Kelvin wrote, “If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.” Simply being aware of your actual completion percentage on hucks should force you to contemplate whether you are making good choices. I remember going over each of my turnovers in a weekend (with the aid of the stat pad) and being shocked to learn how many of them were simply poor risk/reward decisions, and I was able to eliminate some of those.<p>
Lest you think I’ve given up on stats, I haven’t. But I think the payoff for now would come on analyzing team decisions. The first priority would be to get realistic baselines for performance. I routinely see people write that five turnovers in a game is typical or that drops never happen or that hucks are completed 75% of the time. While there are certainly examples of these happening, I would guess that they aren’t the typical performance. The other area I would like to quantify the value of particular scenarios. For instance, how much harder is it for a team to score off a deep, high pull vs a low pull vs a brick, and how consistent are good pullers at achieving good pulls? Could someone who is an otherwise bad defender still be a good D player simply by virtue of his pulls? On the offensive side, exactly how costly is it to rest one of your top players? How deadly is it to turn it over in your own half of the field? Might the Huck-‘n’-Hope offensive style actually be a reasonable strategy due to the long field left after a turnover? We might have opinions about those now, but until we measure these, we don’t know. parinellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03802604259779936852noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7994039.post-40913865674197898452013-03-01T12:01:00.000-08:002013-03-01T12:01:27.714-08:00Future of UltimateI'll be attending the <a href="http://ucpc.us/">Ultimate Players and Coaches Conference</a> tomorrow as a panelist for "the future of ultimate". Back in 2005, I blogged about trends in ultimate <a href="http://parinella.blogspot.com/2005/05/trends-in-ultimate-last-ten-years.html">over the previous 10 years</a>, <a href="http://parinella.blogspot.com/2005/05/trends-for-next-10-years.html">over the upcoming 10 years</a>, and <a href="http://parinella.blogspot.com/2005/05/trends-that-didnt-happen.html">that didn't happen</a>.
I have a feeling that the focus on tomorrow's discussion will be around the further professionalization of ultimate. This doesn't mean only whether the pro leagues will take off and how widespread they'll be, but what elite-level ultimate will look like. Will top players in 10 years still be attending Potlatch and Paganello and Poultry Days or will it just be unacceptable for them to risk getting hurt while wearing overalls? How much will decisions be about the players on the field versus the rest of the ultimate world or the spectating world? There has already been a movement toward less freedom, but how far will it go? Will Men's split off from Women's (and both say goodbye to Mixed) if a sponsor comes calling? Those were the kinds of questions that immediately popped into my head, and I brought up the topic at <a href="http://skydmagazine.com/2013/02/on-losing-our-mojo/">skydmagazine
</a>
But then after I got into a conversation with one of the other commenters, I realized that once again I neglected 95% of the ultimate out there by thinking only about the competitive season in the US (or in those places where they could reasonably expect to challenge the top US teams). So maybe I need to think some more about how summer leagues, youth camps, fun coed tournaments, and semi-competitive (i.e., playing tournaments without devoting all your spare time to the game) ultimate.parinellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03802604259779936852noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7994039.post-59052326561905342742011-07-07T08:40:00.000-07:002011-07-08T06:29:54.177-07:002011 mid-year recapLast year, of course, I had surgery in March and spent the rest of the year recovering. I managed to play in six tournaments anyway, but at only somewhere between 50% and 85%. I was still feeling a little stiff at Nationals, and I was definitely not at full strength due to the seven months of inactivity pre- and post-surgery.<br /><span class="fullpost"><br />But by springtime, I was back to 100%, though of course 100% ain't what it used to be. I did some sessions with a personal trainer through an online coupon, then I discovered a cardio/core group workout in town and have been going once or twice a week since then. Add in the usual basketball/softball/tournaments/other workouts and I'm actually feeling pretty strong these days (again, see above 100% comment).<br /><br />Because it was free, I applied for the World Championship of Beach Ultimate team, and got picked for the Masters team. When applying, I thought that I probably wouldn't go if selected, but once the selection actually happened, I got a bit stoked about it, so I'll be heading to Italy this August.<br /><br />My frisbee season kicked off at another Italian beach tournament, Paganello, which is like Spring Break but with a four-day ultimate tournament thrown in. I played again with the team known this year as Los Rabbit. We had 17 players, up from about 11 two years ago when we lost in the finals as Los Ox. (The team won last year as Los Tiger but I couldn't make it.) This time I spent the day in Milan on my way there and walked around the city. I'm always impressed by the huge churches, in this case the Duomo, which when built was supposed to be able to accommodate all 40 000 of the city's inhabitants. As always, hanging out with friends and taking part in the event's festivities are a large part of the tournament. We had cocktail hour at the seaside hotel every night, including one night where the hotel had a wine and cheese party for its guests (we assumed at first that there was a private function, but then we found out it was for us, fresh off a late game). The big tournament party as always featured lots of people wearing weird costumes to fit the theme.<br /><br />This was the tournament where I felt most like a role player. I belonged on the team, and I could have played more without the team getting worse as a result, but I could have also played less without the team getting worse. PT was fairly even in pool play (we never called subs), and I was moving and playing very well. Prior to the quarterfinals, for some still undetermined reason, I completely hit the wall and felt like I was running in very thick and deep sand. I couldn't even play without feeling like I couldn't make it through the point if we turned it. (I did get a layout block early but am pretty sure it was gift-wrapped for me by the thrower.) I took myself out of the game because it was so close and we had lots of options. I recovered a bit for the semis later that day but still felt pretty crappy. Even the next day after a relatively calm Sunday night, I still felt like crap, so in some ways, my performance in the finals should rank among my career highlights, even though I only played 4 or 5 points (about half of our O points), since I had to go all-out just to play (and I distinctly remember hearing myself breathing fast while running down the field). Anyway, got my first Paganello championship. Perhaps my biggest accomplishment, though, was in making my flight back despite the Italian transportation system doing its best to thwart me. Don't believe it when you hear "at least the trains run on time."<br /><br />A few weeks later was the White Mountain Open. Rain forced us to move to a multi-purpose sports facility in Quechee. But never before had I seen a combination driving range/inclined polo field. We started off the day with only 7 players and added two late in the first round. We played well enough through 1.5 games before collapsing. I had to start calling timeouts to give us some extra rest. (It didn't help me that I had done a particularly hard cardio/core workout the day before.) We got a few extra people on Sunday and that made a big difference, and we stormed back to take 9th place. At 13-13 in the finals we threw it away in their end zone, but Alex made the defensive play of the day. He ran "full speed" into an opponent and his girlish yelp of pain/fear threw off the cutter enough that he stopped his cut to see what was going on and the disc (which was in the air) hit the ground. We punched it in, then got a break to win 15-13.<br /><br />Next was the GM qualifier. One of the teams bailed and blamed the USAU for their not knowing what was going on, so we played only two games. Again I had a hard cardio/core the day before so was a bit fatigued, but it didn't matter. Our whole team played a bit sloppy. We won, though, and qualified for the GM championship, which is this weekend in Ohio.<br /><br />A few weeks later was the Boston Invite. The Masters RC was able to work it out with the TD that we could have a pool of Masters teams on Saturday, thus counting as a Masters tournament that will require one fewer team at fall Masters Regionals in order to avoid the anti-wildcard. We had our best day of DoG Masters in quite some time, winning all four games, including 15-10 against the Canadian team GLUM (who weren't at full strength). We played a team of Dominicans + Brodie + a couple other Americans in the 9-24 pre-quarters, jumped out to an 8-4 lead, and limped home to a 14-12 win. This put us in the 9-16 quarters against Mephisto. We were already starting to lose players and so did open subbing. We started out well, going up a break, and even had a second break but it was called back on a pick that the defender would have had no chance on, we turned it, and they didn't look back. We were then scheduled for two consolation games, but we were down to fewer than 10 people who _could_ play and nearly 1 who actually _wanted_ to play, so we discussed with the other teams and arranged it so that we didn't have to play and the teams who wanted to play could play.<br /><br />And as I mentioned, this leads us to today. We are seeded 2nd in the GM tournament, with a likely semifinal matchup against Surly. Top seed and defending champ Old And In The Way is most likely not going to be as strong as last year due to having to leave Colorado this year (and the rest of us will not have to acclimate). It's always a pleasant change to go from playing against young kids who are eager to lay out into you to playing against old guys who are even more afraid of hurting themselves.<br /></span>parinellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03802604259779936852noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7994039.post-55235756986610362632011-03-25T11:23:00.000-07:002011-03-25T11:34:01.909-07:00Value of a top playerI got a comment on the previous thread and posted a response but wanted to make a new post about it:<br /><i>I would like to hear your statistically informed opinion on the following thought experiment: assume that there are thirteen players of roughly average (on the scale of all ultimate players) and equal ability (compared to each other). The fourteenth is a player of outstanding ability--someone widely thought to be one of the best players in the game.<br /><br />They play a pickup game in which everyone is trying their best to win. What is the probability that the team with the elite player wins?</i><br /><span class="fullpost"><br />Hey, good question. I did some simulations about 15 years ago for a <a href="http://shelltown.com/~parinell/numbers2.htm" target="_blank">UPA Newsletter article</a>. I will use the chart in there to make estimates.<br /><br />(First, what is an "average" ultimate player? What is the average income between a homeless guy, Joe the Plumber, and Bill Gates? When you have such a range between high and low, "average" becomes a funny concept. I'll assume "average" is someone who would fit in nicely on a low-level regionals team.)<br /><br />Two teams that score at equal rates will of course win an equal amount of the time (with a slight advantage to the team that receives in the first half, but we'll ignore that). A team that has a 5 percentage point advantage (e.g., 40% vs 35% of the time they touch the disc, they score) will win 65-75% of the time (with the bigger advantage when the percentages are at the lower end). A 10 point advantage goes from 76-87.<br /><br />With the average groups, I'll assume that teams score about 30% of the time. Top Open teams playing against top Open teams in moderate wind might be around 50%. What effect does this awesome player have?<br /><br />First, I think the effect on defense will be less than on offense. He will get some poach blocks but since there is no star on the other team he won't be able to thwart their offense. Let's assume he gets 3 additional blocks but otherwise has no effect on their offensive efficiency (such a player at the elite Open level would be possibly the best player in history). Previously they were 15/50 in a game to 15, change that to 15/53, that's a drop to only 28.3%. To lower their % to 25%, he'd need to get 10 blocks a game.<br /><br />Let's pause for a minute and consider what a superstar team would do against this team. I'd guess 15-1 or 15-2 is a fairly typical score for a game like this, though there is a question of whether they are trying their best to win, if for no other reason than they have 4 games that day (but so does the other team, and I'll guess they aren't in as good shape so would be further from peak efficiency). If they had 5 turnovers, that'd only be 75%. So, adding 7 elite players to an average team would take you from 30% up to 75%. I suspect that most of the benefits come from the first one or two, and almost nothing from 5-7. (Dennis suggested 20 years ago that the highest marginal value is provided by the second player, because that gives the first player someone to throw to). So, to get those 45 percentage points, I'll say it's 14, 14, 9, 4, 2, 1, 1 for each added player.<br /><br />That puts the O efficiency at 44%, D efficiency at 28%. That means the O will score 15/34 times instead of 15/50. The other team will score 28.3% of 33 times or 9.3 goals. Set the point spread at 5.5. <br /><br />Using a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagorean_expectation" target="_blank">Pythagorean exponent </a>of somewhere between 4 and 6, which my earlier research has suggested, that gives an expected winning percentage of 87-95%. Interpolating my table would give an estimate of about 93%. <br /><br />Also, IIRC, a 40 point difference in RRI translated to a 1 point difference in expected score.<br /><br /><br /></span>parinellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03802604259779936852noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7994039.post-27328970818522170392011-03-08T18:24:00.000-08:002011-03-08T20:34:53.348-08:00Dorkapalooza, baby, Dorkapalooza!I attended the <a href="http://www.sloansportsconference.com/" target="_blank">Sloan Sports Analytics Conference </a> (SSAC) last week. I really wanted to go last year but wasn't sure when my surgery was going to be (it's a year ago tomorrow), and by the time I tried to sign up, it was sold out. This year I got in early.<br /><br />For those of you who have been under a rock these last five years, the SSAC, termed "Dorkapalooza" by ESPN's Bill Simmons, brings together bigwigs from across professional sports and focuses on what the data can and cannot tell you. Somewhat surprisingly, it seems that much of the focus is turning toward the squishier side of things. One talk suggested that they could predict achievement and likelihood of arrest for NFL players based solely on what they said during pre-draft interviews. (I missed most of this one, but they had one dimension that was Distrust and two that dealt with how players handled nuance.)<br /><span class="fullpost"><br />The biggest problem was in trying to figure out what to attend. Except for the opening and closing panels, there were always five sessions going on at once. (Some or all of these will eventually appear on the web site; all were filmed.) The big ones were all panels with a moderator and four speakers. My favorite panel was the Referee Analytics hosted by the Sports Guy and featuring noted bad-ref-hater and Dallas Mavericks' owner Mark Cuban, longtime NFL ref Mike Carey, controversial author Jon Werstheim (who claims that most of home field advantage is due to referee bias), and sabermetrician Phil Birnbaum (who has rebutted (and confirmed) many of Werstheim and co-author's claims on his <a href="http://sabermetricresearch.blogspot.com">blog</a>). Cuban muzzled himself a bit for fear of being fined yet again by the NBA (this was a frequent source of joking during the panel) but still managed to let his opinions be known. One of his pet peeves is that he feels (and Werstheim's book "Scorecasting" asserts as well) that NBA games are not called consistently over the course of the game. Carey couldn't stress strongly enough that in the NFL, a foul is a foul is a foul (though he did differentiate between grasping a jersey at the point of attack and doing so away from the play). Another interesting point brought up was whether refs profiled based on past history and whether it's more fair to do so or not. <br /><br />The opening session was moderated by Malcolm Gladwell, author of the book "Outliers" which focused on talent and how people become experts. His book cited the "10 000 hour rule", that a person (who is talented above some threshold level) still has to do focused practice for 10 000 hours to truly become an expert. I calculated that I have only about 6000 or so hours of ultimate (counting games as 1 hour and practices as 2 hours, figuring that much of the time I'm at the field is down time). So does this mean that there are no experts at ultimate or other amateur sports? I've often wondered (not that it's even a meaningful question) how the best ultimate players rate compared to other sports, each within their sport. Obviously ultimate players aren't as good at ultimate as Tiger Woods is at golf, but where would they fall? My gut feel now is that it's somewhere around scratch golfers or low single-digit handicap (pros are 5-10 better than scratch), which is to say pretty damn good, but with inconsistencies and weaknesses and probably no aspect of their game truly world-class. (There are something like 25 million golfers in the US.)<br /><br />Anyway, good discussion at this panel, which included Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey (one of the founders of the conference), NYG DE Justin Tuck, former NBA coach and current announcer Jeff Van Gundy, and training scientist/CEO Mark Verstegen. It was pointed out that talent can be a curse if the talent possessor relies too much on the talent during their development and doesn't hone the other skills that will be necessary when he gets to a high enough level. (In some cases, like with Tracy McGrady, talent alone might be enough to be a perennial All-Star but still be considered an underachiever, and that if he had had "a desire to practice", he could have been one of the best ever.) I really liked a quote from Van Gundy: "Soft, stupid, or selfish. You can be ONE of these, but not TWO." The most amazing statement I heard was that the panel thought that intelligence was more necessary for defense than for offense, the reason being that stupid players will make mistakes that are easily exploited and if this is on defense, the whole D will fall apart. This contrasts with my image of ultimate, where the guys who can run but don't know the game or aren't skilled get put on D, while the O players have to recognize patterns and feel the flow of the game and identify the open field space. I felt that intelligence is more useful on offense to do these things and to be able to recognize those defensive mistakes as soon as they happen and punish them. Perhaps this again speaks to the immaturity of ultimate, that "punishing mistakes" is not a given for elite players.<br /><br />There were a couple underlying themes throughout. One is that the pro teams aren't especially interested in ranking the players from top to bottom with a single metric but are more interested in the marginal production they will have on their team in a particular role. Mike Zarren of the Celtics maintained that the Kendrick Perkins trade actually made them more likely to win this year and was not a trade for future considerations (and that they felt really bad trading him since they all liked him so much, but hey, it's a business). Another theme was that you need not only play-by-play data but inside information (blocking schemes, pass coverage responsibilities) to make sense of what happens on a lot of plays, and that pro teams are hoarding this information (except for baseball, which is doing amazing things with Pitch F/X, Hit F/X and Field F/X). A final theme, mentioned above, is that teams are trying to get analytics on what might be better thought of as psychology. How can a team decide whether Player A or Player B is more likely to develop based on their personalities? They are trying to quantify this to improve their drafts and their development systems. This was a big topic in the opening panel. I felt that the panel seemed to place too much of the blame on the players when they fail to develop to their full potential and not enough on the coaches or on the specific player/coach/organization interaction. I'm not sure how they would measure this, but how much of an organization's success at "developing talent" is due to making smart personnel picks and how much is due to having a good organization? What if JaMarcus Russell had been picked by the Patriots instead of the Raiders?<br /><br />One final theme is that all the panelists were gracious except for Aaron Schatz of Football Outsiders, who seemed irritated that all these idiots were preventing him from being known as the smartest man in football and that all these little people at the conference would deign to bother him. I talked to Mike Carey for several minutes one-on-one at the reception and discussed my own observing experiences and asked him how they deal with certain tough issues like profiling. (He said that they call everyone equally but did admit, I think, to focusing more on certain matchups where fouls were more likely to occur.) I chatted for several minutes with two of the golf panelists. (Mark Broadie, who developed the "strokes gained" formula, told me that all handicaps actually have about the same first putt distance on average but the pros will be hitting it to that distance with their five irons while the hackers are doing it with their chip shots.) I chatted for a couple minutes with basketball stat guru Dean Oliver about ultimate (he is friends with some West Coast ultimate players). I made acquaintance with one of the MIT Sloan students whose team won the AECOM business case contest and he was friendly.<br /><br />Another favorite topic was on the "optical tracking" in the NBA. They put three cameras per half-court in a few arenas and captured 25 frames per second and so were able to track where everyone was all the time. Some interesting stats they came up:<br />A tip-in attempt is 22 percentage points lower in shooting average than a putback.<br />Every 1.5' in extra shot distance costs 1 percentage point.<br />A contested shot is 12 percentage points lower than an uncontested one from the same distance.<br />Defenders space themselves from the shooters close to optimally, so a shooter who steps back costs himself as much by having a longer shot as he gains by being more open.<br /><br />I really enjoyed listening to Mark Cuban, who seemed to be on every panel. As befits a self-made billionnaire, he seemed quite sharp and tech-savvy and any fan should love to have him as his team's owner (though the Mavs do not use statistical process control on their metrics, he said). I do have to admit that I don't like the "game experience" that Cuban and other places offer these days, with the nonstop lights and loud noises that aren't part of the game-viewing experience. He seems to feel that it's about way more than just the game, that he needs to offer entertainment (in addition to a quality team playing basketball) in order to draw in fans and keep them. If you want to talk about the game, you can do it afterwards.<br /><br />I was never quite sure from what perspective I was supposed to be listening during the conference, whether as an individual ultimate player, as an ultimate team leader, as a regular sports fan, as a wannabe sports stats nerd, or as an engineering metrics and stats guy. One of the presentations on some analytics software would have needed to have been modified only slightly to be presented at work, and they seemed even to have borrowed their "Analytics Maturity Model" from the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI), which specifies best business practices for engineering organizations and with which I deal with frequently (we're undergoing a CMMI appraisal right now, in fact). I do occasional little studies with baseball or basketball stats (most recent one was to examine whether NBA players and coaches target round scoring numbers like 40 or 50 points (they do; there are about 50% more 50-52 point games than would be expected based on the number of all other high scoring games) but nothing too rigorous or involving too much database diving, though I keep telling myself I'll start one day (and could even justify the time as professional training).<br /><br />All in all, it was a fun and worthwhile use of $275 and a vacation day. I brought home some insights, possibly some tips for work, and a heightened interest in sports. I did not bring home any ideas on the ultimate ultimate stat, and indeed have come to the conclusion that this stat is impossible to obtain due to sample size and context issues, but there is still hope for evaluating some strategic questions.<br /></span>parinellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03802604259779936852noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7994039.post-68689736172510048992011-01-14T10:19:00.001-08:002011-01-14T10:32:48.114-08:00Hall of FameThis will be short.<br /><br />1. Congratulations to all the <a href="http://www.usaultimate.org/news/ultimate-hall-of-fame--class-of-2010-announced/">inductees</a>, but especially to old teammate Jeremy Seeger. Seeger was phenomenal in so many ways. He was the best I saw at reading the disc, was a great disc-catcher, had superb throwing form, and was versatile enough to play anywhere on the field, in addition to the normal great qualities you'd expect in a Hall of Famer.<br /><br />2. Dobyns should be in the Hall already. The few teammates of mine that have offered an opinion to me agree. I understand why there is debate and agree that negative spirit/sportsmanship/cheating/whatever could be enough to push someone below the qualifying line, but my opinion is that his impact was so great that any reasonable evaluation of his negatives would be outweighed.parinellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03802604259779936852noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7994039.post-34336313374594223152010-12-01T07:12:00.000-08:002010-12-05T12:00:58.510-08:00Two links<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuTSngCDtWai4HDYrcw5KJfdENnmlIUtgX1bxyTspVPQuzaMnAHCVPST2aQseVnjnQNzPFW9omo840jgz6964R5iDPVDy6XcT0XYwhNXu-VgRPcl7CsqPw_Y_ULOVrcnxFyPPatw/s1600/lou_pump.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 275px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuTSngCDtWai4HDYrcw5KJfdENnmlIUtgX1bxyTspVPQuzaMnAHCVPST2aQseVnjnQNzPFW9omo840jgz6964R5iDPVDy6XcT0XYwhNXu-VgRPcl7CsqPw_Y_ULOVrcnxFyPPatw/s320/lou_pump.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5547290637165080194" /></a><br /><a href="http://www.advancednflstats.com/2010/12/motivation.html" target="_blank">What motivates athletes </a>. Article is about professional athletes, but it applies to ultimate players, too.<br /><br /><a href="http://winthefields.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Cheating</a>. I read it all, but still can't figure out whether he is advocating or confessing <br />or mocking or making atonement. I'm not nearly as offended as I thought I would be when I saw the title "How to Cheat to Win". (Of course, it's much better to cheat to win instead of cheating to lose by two.) Very interesting stuff, some of which could have come from even the most honest player who has been around.parinellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03802604259779936852noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7994039.post-29941013876579872522010-11-02T14:27:00.000-07:002010-11-05T18:52:35.583-07:00Nationals 2010<i>"'If I wasn't done before, I'm done now.' ... I think there's a good chance I've played my last competitive ultimate game, and I can live with that, but I'll be really disappointed if I can't golf or play softball." </i><a href="http://parinella.blogspot.com/2009/11/year-in-jim-epilogue.html" target="_blank">Me, November 6, 2009</a>.<br /><br />Ok, I guess that wasn't accurate. Another year, another Nationals.<br /><span class="fullpost"><br />Physical report: Hard to estimate exactly, but I felt like I was at 80-90%. I haven't yet regained explosiveness on a first step. I didn't feel slow when sprinting but I didn't feel like I was lighting it up, either. In fact, I'm not ever sure I reached "top speed" on the weekend. I felt like there was a chance that any muscle in my legs might seize up at any moment, but never did during the day, only at night (and frequently during the night). At times I felt weak, at other times out of shape, but I made it, playing pretty much all the O points again, though with a less primary role. This was definitely the strongest I've felt all year. My neck muscles are sore now, and though I'm not aware of doing it, I'm told I still look pretty stiff doing certain things out there.<br /><br />Wife and son stayed home this year. Just me and 1500 of my closest friends.<br /><br />Tournament was fine. We could have done a little better, could have crumbled and done worse also. Our most important pool play game turned out to be our first one against Real Huck. It was hot, humid, and windless. We got one break early in the first half, had another break called back on something dubious or possibly just unrelated, and that was it. The O held serve the entire first half but got broke coming out of the half, again a little later, and once more at 14-13. This game turned out to be for 2nd place and the much easier crossover in the quarters.<br /><br />Next up was Boneyard. The D's inadequacies continued, aided by the continuing lack of wind. Boneyard's hucks didn't seem to come on particularly good cuts, but due to good matchups or throws or something, they caught them anyway. O had one bad streak in the middle of the first half but otherwise played well. 15-9. I wasn't all that worried, as though we were 0-2, it was "a good 0-2", as I told others. There was still a lot of familiarization and improvement left to do.<br /><br />Final game was against Rumble. I can't remember any specifics of the game, just that it was clear before the end that we would win. Some threatened to retire on the spot if we lost or if the D didn't play better. Though it was tempting, it was more important to do well, and we got that first W.<br /><br />Friday first game was against #1 seed Beyondors, though that seed wasn't justified since they left behind most of the guys who were there last year. This game was tight. We got an upwind break to take half 8-7, were close to about 10-9, then ran off a few to win 15-10 and clinch a realistic chance to win in the quarters, as this guaranteed that we wouldn't match up with Surly.<br /><br />Second game was uneventful. They were winless, and we were locked into 3rd place. Both of the other games in our pool mattered, with Boneyard taking out Real Huck for 1st, and Beyondors outlasting Rumble to make quarters.<br /><br />Onto the quarters then. We once again were paired against Glum. Though they had beaten us four in a row dating back to 2009 Regionals, each of those games was winnable, and we hadn't faced them in a game as important as this, so I thought we had a better than might be expected chance. We started off ok, though our second goal was a crazy quadruple helix hammer from Karlinksy to me. The D had several opportunities for a break but couldn't convert, and the O hit a rough streak that proved to be the difference. The game was a little chippy, but already the details escape me. I don't attribute this failing memory to age or having been there a thousand times but instead to it being Masters and me just not caring as much.<br /><br />The beer tent was already closed by the time we made it over there, so we just headed back to Siesta Key. We wanted to catch the beach, but felt obligated to pull into Mr. Big's. I had made the mistake on Wednesday of stopping there "just to see who was there" on my way back from the captains meeting, and due to a couple carbombs and a couple Guinni, I didn't make it to the grocery store, and as a result, we ate McDonald's every day for breakfast. This night, there was the usual crowd but they were in the parking lot. We said hi, walked in, and kept on walking out the side door and sneaked into the car. They eventually saw us and I almost had to run one of them over to avoid them, and off we went to the beach.<br /><br />There, tragedy struck once more. While we were swimming, Alex's hat disappeared. I assumed that he had merely left it in the car or back in the room, because that is how he rolls, but he kept insisting that he had had it. Eventually he was proven correct. Thus followed a sleepless night worrying, but we learned that his hat was safe and sound and indeed became so popular that it decided to start a <a href="http://www.facebook.com/flaminghat" target="_blank">Facebook page</a>. Please friend it.<br /><br />To add insult to injury, someone pranked our room by getting in and locking the bedroom doors (they were the kind with the push-lock). We couldn't pick the lock, and ended up sleeping on the pullout couch in the living room and on the cushions from the couches. I wouldn't have slept well anyway, as I was waking every half hour or so to cramp.<br /><br />Consolation games on Saturday. This was the first time since 1991 that my team was eliminated with a full day of games yet to play. (Lost in quarters in Open a couple times but those were first game Saturday; Open semis losses don't count either since there is only one game on Sunday; would have to be pre-quarters loss in Open (or worse) or quarters loss in Masters (or worse).) We played. We tried to get the second game for 7th/8th place played to 11 instead of 15, but our opponents insisted on 15, then started pulling our lame and/or bad travel calls in the second half. It was irritating enough to make me fired up and I got loose finally after previously trying merely hard enough to avoid getting hurt.<br /><br />On Sunday, I actively watched the Open finals for the first time in years. I'd been "consulting" with Ironside this year, attending about a dozen practices, mostly just offering observations to their coaches and trying to find something worthwhile to say occasionally. It turned out to be a lot harder than I would have thought, to come up with something actionable. If I had been paid, I would have felt like I was ripping them off. But I did feel somewhat invested in the team, and so in the finals, every looked-off open throw or broken-off cut or blown deep coverage really hit hard. Revolver played a great game, Ironside didn't. It will be a good learning experience for the team, remembering what it was like to know that it was theirs but they just didn't take it. Historically, these are the exact circumstances in Boston (A team just misses, B team doesn't make Nationals after maintaining its distance from the A team for a few years) that lead to a major shakeup, but I suspect that this won't be the case this time.<br /><br />I don't know what's next. I was glad to be able to play again, and occasionally play well. As I said several times, I am 45, and I did just come off major surgery seven months prior. Unlike previous years, I don't have strong feelings either way about whether to keep playing, or to just get the band back together one more time for Grand Masters, or see if there is enough interest in the 2000-2006 DoG to get something going. It's all good. As the great poet Bill Belichick says, "It is what it is."<br /></span>parinellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03802604259779936852noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7994039.post-52903719448360409432010-07-17T16:29:00.000-07:002010-07-17T17:46:24.397-07:00Back on the horseLast weekend saw my return to ultimate with the Grand Masters Nationals in Boulder. As you know, I had some tingling in my arms on occasion dating back to last year's GM tournament, then there was that little temporary paralysis thing after regular Nationals, and finally a four-level cervical laminoplasty to decompress the spinal cord on March 9. I had eased into things in the four months after surgery, going to Disney World, doing a tiny bit of exercise, a couple games of softball, a round of golf, snorkeling/diving, and a bunch of soccer in the yard with the boy, which can actually be a bit taxing. The most I ran was a set of about 10 20-30 yard striders, just enough to get to a full stride but nowhere near a full sprint.<br /><span class="fullpost"><br />So I went into the tournament unsure exactly what I could do. I promised my doctor's office that I wouldn't dive (not that I'm ever really flinging my body around). I ended up hitting the ground maybe three times, once catching a pass and twice after the pass aided by my defenders, but never too hard. <br /><br />On Saturday, I definitely eased into things, playing maybe 1/4 to 1/3 of the points (we had something like 18-20). Even more than usual, D was very hard. I never could sprint or accelerate very hard. At times it felt like I was running in water because my legs were so weak. I lost between 5 and 10 pounds over the last six months as my muscle mass pretty much disappeared. I saw a picture of myself from behind and was amazed by how slight I appeared. Offense wasn't nearly as bad, as I could pick when I wanted to run, and I figured out that I really didn't need to sprint so hard as often as I usually do. I even ran deep a few times.<br /><br />We cruised through Saturday. The winds really picked up in our last game, and I had a couple throws that showed a lack of practice. I hadn't thrown very much this year either; I hurt my arm or shoulder throwing the softball a couple weeks prior and it had hurt to throw a forehand so I took it easy. This weekend, too, I took it easy, staying away from pulling and overheads, which figured to put a little too much stress on the neck/shoulders.<br /><br />I really didn't even feel very tired after Saturday. When I woke on Sunday, my quads were sore, but not fatigued. The lack of real sprints makes it a lot easier on the body (I can see Alex and Dennis nodding as they read this, having been aware of this their entire careers).<br /><br />Sunday was again hot. I noticed that today in Boulder it hit 103, close to an all-time high (though it appears that the records might only date back to 1990). Quarters were against Atlanta's Ball & Chain. Our O clicked, scoring nine times without a turnover, and we got enough breaks to win 15-8. We did notice that there D was putting more pressure on us in the second half. I was back to full-time O duty, playing all nine points as a receiver, though much less often as a primary in the play.<br /><br />Semis were against the local Old and in the Way. Alex underthrew me deep on the first O point, thus removing the pressure of knowing we hadn't had a turnover all day. We still scored, then got a break a couple points later. We gave the break back at about 5-5, but then got it back on a misread and took half, 8-7, receiving to start the second half. OAITW's D was definitely better, forcing us to take more passes than in any other game, though we still managed to score on 6 of 7 points. I don't remember the specifics of the rest of the game, but we gave a break back at maybe 11-10, then two in a row at 12-12 before getting one last goal to make it 14-13. They then had an overthrow on the last point, but one of their other receivers was alert enough to track it down, and a couple passes later, we were eliminated. Overall, 2 breaks for in 13 chances, 4 breaks against in 15 chances. <br /><br />The team played well enough on the weekend, though it's always disappointing to lose, especially when leading by 2 in the second half.<br /><br />I was able to contribute a lot more than I expected to. Other than the wind game, my throws were sharper than I thought they'd be, and I was able to get open a lot more than I thought I would, though I found that certain cuts that relied on a good first step didn't work. It didn't feel like other first tournaments of the year, though, since I tend to feel exhausted and winded and sore in those, and in this one I was just weaker, as if I had aged five or ten years suddenly.<br /><br />Well, it's good to be back and out there.<br /></span>parinellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03802604259779936852noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7994039.post-41148816265034649542010-05-28T07:49:00.000-07:002010-05-28T07:51:58.083-07:00Field VisionI have a new column on <a href="http://the-huddle.org/issues/29/learn-to-think-so-you-dont-have-to-think/">Field Vision</a> up at the Huddle.<br /><br />Here is the opening paragraph as a teaser:<br />How do we make decisions? In many real-life examples we create a list of choices and features, maybe take some data, rate how each option stacks up in each feature, and coolly select the optimum choice. In ultimate you don't have the time to go through this whole process. You have to rely on your trained inner self to figure out what to do based on internalized guidelines.<br /><br />Comments? This was based on a presentation I gave at the Ultimate Coaches and Players Conference in 2007.parinellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03802604259779936852noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7994039.post-11949761445395650702010-04-12T05:41:00.001-07:002010-04-12T05:43:42.263-07:00Now on the HuddleI will be among the many authors on The Huddle this year.<br /><br />My first piece is titled <a href="http://the-huddle.org/issues/28/chain-the-new-dog/" target="_blank">"Chain: The New DoG"</a>.<br /><br />Comments about this or the other articles welcome here.parinellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03802604259779936852noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7994039.post-72783836926715900212010-04-02T08:01:00.000-07:002010-04-02T09:34:47.659-07:00post-post surgery<A href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlibwh1o11i6FTBL1OnPOu8_FV-B0s363ddOdi-J3MgAeFHTk5LiSUgoUGVoFiEDx7fc0RF1aicMY6QF7F_8VT2RyMV_21IJdu6MmufYYR3U2KTsmdeHSpnJDfv5RhPT-lAHhCww/s1600/IMG_0287.jpg"><IMG id=BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5455577432695921090 style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlibwh1o11i6FTBL1OnPOu8_FV-B0s363ddOdi-J3MgAeFHTk5LiSUgoUGVoFiEDx7fc0RF1aicMY6QF7F_8VT2RyMV_21IJdu6MmufYYR3U2KTsmdeHSpnJDfv5RhPT-lAHhCww/s320/IMG_0287.jpg" border=0></A> It's now been 24 days since surgery, and I return to work on Tuesday. I plan to go back full-time, but I will have to see whether I will be able to work from home occasionally or if I would want to scale back temporarily to a 32 hour week.<br /><br />I am feeling remarkably well. <SPAN class="fullpost">I've been taking about half of the allotment of pills (Oxycodone and Diazepam), one of each twice a day, but those are probably not necessary at this point, just a little help. We had a few friends over last weekend so I stopped taking them 8 hours prior so I could have a few beers without worrying too much about side effects. When I picked up my prescription, I had to ask the pharmacist several times and in several different ways about the interactions between alcohol and those drugs. His first answer was "don't", but as many of you have probably experienced with injuries and doctors, I eventually said something to the effect of "I am planning to do a stupid thing. What can I do to minimize the effect of this stupidity?" <br /><br />My neck is still a little stiff and sore. It hurts a little to yawn, as it seems to stretch the incision. I was having a little difficulty swallowing for a few weeks, partly because I don't chew my food enough, but that seems to have finally passed. I had the staples removed after two weeks. It was a little painful to have them pulled out (see 15 second video at bottom). The cut seems to be doing ok. Sleeping hasn't really been much of a problem. I am aware of waking up once or twice a night to shift positions, and I frequently have weird dreams, but overall it's about the same. I've been more tired than usual, and was taking 2- or 3-hour naps for the first two weeks on most days. The last few days, I've gotten up at my normal time and have struggled to get out of bed. I think as long as I go to bed early these next few weeks, I should be able to manage a work schedule. <br /><br />The weirdest part of the recovery is what passes for exercise now. If I walk faster than about 2 mph, my neck (both muscles and what feels like the spine) gets sore. Just this week I started riding the stationary bike in order to get my heart rate from about 75 bpm to about 100 bpm. The other day, I was playing Mario Kart Wii while riding the bike, and noticed that as I was trying to drive faster in the game, I was pedaling the bike faster, hard enough that I actually broke a sweat. I don't think my body is ready for that yet, though, so will need to back off. There is no exact timetable, but I'll be able to do more stuff gradually. I don't know yet when I will be able to run. There is a chance that I would be able to play at the GM event in July, assuming we are going to be able to put together a team, but wouldn't be able to contribute more than a token amount. <br /><br />In general, life has been a lot slower these last few weeks. I've been home by myself for most of the past week and a half and haven't felt the need to rush around very much. Usually I am incredibly micro-efficient, but now am willing to take four trips to the car to carry in groceries where normally I would take them all in at once. I don't know if this lingering will carry over once I return to normal life, though. I've been trying to be "productive" in my down time, not necessarily getting anything done, but trying to avoid useless surfing or excessive game playing. <br /><br />All things considered, though I would rather have skipped this whole thing, I've been pretty lucky with it.<br /><OBJECT class=BLOG_video_class id=BLOG_video-6b3920f8a62a84c8 height=266 width=320 contentId="6b3920f8a62a84c8"></OBJECT><br /></SPAN>parinellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03802604259779936852noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7994039.post-69370282657750983572010-03-24T19:50:00.000-07:002010-03-26T07:29:59.789-07:00A Pound of AdviceI was looking at some of the Huddle stuff and remembered that one of the best pieces of advice I ever published came when I queried my teammates in 1998 or so on the little things that made them better. Some of the answers are dated or pithy, but I think most can still apply. Enjoy.<br /><br />Question 1: What single event or realization was most important to your development as a player? <br /><span class="fullpost"><br />Lenny Engel, aka The Guy With the Horns, #58<br /><br />My development as a player on a team bound for a National Championship was a realization of the importance of knowing the strengths and weaknesses of the players around me. The team earlier had broken into fairly distinct groups of offensive and defensive players and I found myself on the defensive squad. My strengths were clear to me and I assumed my teammates but it was not until I began to understand the strengths of my teammates on the defense that I began to make greater strides in my own game. I believe the rest of the defensive unit similarly began to improve because collectively our understanding of each other increased. This greater understanding of our individual games identified the team's gaps created by our weaknesses. Once we began to fill these gaps we began to have greater success. It was at that point that new defenses became easier to assimilate into our repertoire and our ability to change defenses in mid-point improved. This was more than mere experience. I believe there was a conscious effort on the team's part to learn about each other's game. It was more than identifying someone fast to cover a handler or be a point in the zone, or someone tall to play deep. Understanding the nuances of each other's physical and mental skills played a large part in our ability to create and then implement new defenses. Knowing each other as well as we did enabled easier communication and movement. We could identify a team's weakness earlier and focus on it by creating opportunities for the person having the best ability to expose the vulnerability. Our team of seven individuals was capable of playing a very complete "team" game. Our own weaknesses remained hidden because each of us complimented another's strengths and covered a weakness. At our best, in the 1995 and 1997 Nationals, we forced teams to play to our strengths while rarely exposing our weaknesses. We were able to play the dozen or so different defensive schemes at almost any point in a game. Our understanding of each other made much of the defense's success possible and improved my game and utility on the field.<br /><br />Steve Mooney, aka Moons, #00<br /><br />Quitting soccer and taking up Ultimate. Hell, in soccer is filled with short fast guys who don't use their hands. <br /><br />Michael Cooper, aka Coop, #28<br /><br />I've often reflected upon what it is that has made me a good ultimate player. Ironically, I was initially drawn to ultimate for its non- competitive aspects. I had never considered myself particularly athletic, despite an enthusiasm for sports or rather activity in general, but have come to admit that I do in fact have abilities that are well suited to playing disc. One of these is understanding the gestalt of the game, which allows me to anticipate the flow both on offense and defense and react accordingly. Of course, being six feet tall, and loving to run and jump, helps too! As for things that have made me a better player over the years, I'd say they are a single- minded commitment to training (some say this has resulted in the rash of injuries I’ve endured over the past several seasons, but I don't fully agree), a willingness to learn from others and fit into a team concept, and a desire to push the limits of my body and mind (the rush from which for me is one of the prime reasons I continue to play). In terms of rising to the elite level, I'd say, "Don't do it too soon". The experience I've gained on teams other than DoG, in situations where the onus is to make things happen, has been invaluable. One of the important realizations I made after making the transition to the top level was that it is not possible to be totally dominant--everyone is skilled. When covering someone, I attempt to take away their first choice, and maybe their second choice, and let them beat me with their third option if they can. The other important thing I've found is that it _is_ possible to maintain one's integrity at the top, and still play to win. <br /><br />Bob Lobel, #8<br /><br />It took me some time to make the realization that there is really very little difference between players who are at the top level of the game and those at the next level. As a younger player looking up, the difference seems huge and insurmountable. I remember looking up at Jay Seeger, Kenny Dobyns, Steve Mooney, Dennis Warsen, (as well as many others playing at the elite level) and thinking, "what does it take to get there?" and "how could I possibly compete at that level?" As I came along and improved, the athletic differences became more subtle, and my confidence in my abilities allowed me to make the transition to the next level. So when I look back at where I was and how I evolved as an ultimate player, I now realize that the athletic differences between the elite players and those at the next level are very few. The important factor in making the transition, therefore, is developing confidence in your abilities, and realizing that your athletic abilities are comparable to those of players you look up to. Oh yeah, you need to train hard, too.<br /><br />Jordan Haskell, #70 <br /><br />When Earth Atomizer (the most overachieving team in ultimate history) started taking stats. Shortly after we started taking stats, people started looking at, or even just remembering, their own turnovers and actually analyzed them. Most people, after looking at their turnovers, were of the mindset of "what the heck was I thinking when I threw that!!". The team attempted to eliminate or minimize those type of turnovers and we were much better for it. Personally that went a long way in helping my game as well. The game is not hard, just complete passes and leave the turnovers for other people. <br /><br />Watching Ricky Pretzfedler play handler. He was always calm, cool, and collected with the disc. Never concerned about the D. I wanted to be more like that. <br /><br />Getting Cut by Earth Atomizer: I was a fat load but thought I could play. I quickly realized, after getting cut, that I was fat and slow. I lost 30 pounds that winter and came out "Gangbusters" in the spring. I was a new man with new inspiration. The rest is history. From being cut by Earth to......<br /><br />Billy Rodriguez, #19.<br /><br />No single event was a watershed for me. Rather, the opportunity and willingness to play lots of ultimate, anytime, anywhere, made me a better player. Although the chance to watch and learn from some of the greatest players in the game -- Kenny Dobyns, Pat King, Dave Blau, Steve Mooney, Jeremy Seeger -- has been a huge positive factor, it was the four years of playing on mediocre teams at small tournaments in places like Denton, TX, Hunstville, AB, New London, CT, that had the biggest impact on me. I think most of the best players in the game at some early point in their careers just played and played and played. <br /><br />Alex deFrondeville, aka The Count, #1<br /><br />The single most important event in my frisbee career was probably getting cut from Z (the Boston team in 1988). I have engaged in some fruitful speculation to wonder what might have become of my Ultimate career had I made that team, and, let me tell you, it's not pretty. Instead, I made Earth Atomizer that spring, went to Nationals twice with them, and then was part of the Earth-Big Brother merger, then DoG, and the rest, of course, is history.<br /><br />Jeff Brown, aka Dick, #34<br /><br />My first layout block (from behind/reach around, I still remember it vividly). It was during a Philly summer league game. I had never played organized ultimate and never laid-out. I guess it was a pretty good block because the team went crazy. I figured I should keep doing stuff like that...<br /><br />Jim Parinella, #88<br /><br />Figuring out that I could throw it away just as well as anyone else. When I was younger, I used to play in fear of making a mistake, so I wouldn’t get involved in the offensive flow as much as I could have. I looked at players on good teams and the good players on my team and was in awe of them, often without good justification. Eventually, I learned to have a healthy disrespect for them and a healthy respect for my own game, and it was suddenly a lot easier to play. One particular moment that stands out was being with MGUS for the first Cuervo series. MGUS had some good players, but no one that I was in awe of, and I thought we were going to get crushed when it counted. But we beat Windy City and New York pretty handily to qualify for the finale, and should have made the finals against the best teams in the country. Then I realized that it wasn’t so tough after all, if only I got more involved.<br /><br />Eric Zaslow, aka Zaz, #6<br /><br />My rise to DoG's ranks and the continuation of my career have been slow and steady (much like my play). When I think back on more than twenty years in the game -- longer than anyone else on DoG -- I see a continual growth. There have been no epiphanies, just a commitment to improving. Perhaps the most formative moments came in 1984 when Marc Cote and I used to go out to the high school football field and throw for distance for 45 minutes each day, between math and physics. Important there, too, was that Marc could always throw farther than I. That made me want to get better. <br /><br />Zaslow’s Alter Ego, aka ZAE, also #6 I entered college with a nickname far cooler than my actual self. Without this moniker, I never would have gained acceptance at one of the most socially competitive schools (Dartmouth), and would have completed my school days as an academic and athletic outcast. <br /><br />Question 2: What is it that you do best that others could improve if they knew how? <br /><br />Zaslow<br /><br />My strength is my backhand, particularly the pull. When I pull poorly, I know why -- usually a lack of focus, which keeps me from maintaining good form. Knowing when you haven't gotten it right is the essence of learning, or so Socrates would say. Keep the inside-out slant! <br /><br />ZAE<br /><br />One must learn how to mask one's mediocrity.<br /><br />Rodriguez <br /><br />I think there are three things I do well on the field. First, defensive positioning is SO important to good defense. If you use your feet and your head to get to the right place relative to the offensive player, you've done 90% of your job as a defender. Blocks are great, but when a thrower looks off a pretty good cut because the defender is in the right place to make the throw look a little iffy, that wins games. Second, I time my cuts pretty well. Many players don't understand that you need to be open both at the right place AND at the right time. It's what NFL people mean when they talk about receivers who run crisp routes. A lot of people have the speed, agility and quickness to get away from someone; but you’re not truly "open" unless you do it at the right time. Finally, I think I stay focused well. I think what separate good players and great players is not skill, but focus. The talent on most of the top teams is fairly equal. But the team with the most players who are willing to dig in and push themselves for an entire cut, an entire point, an entire game... that's the team that will bring home a championship.<br /><br />Brown <br /><br />Take control of the defensive situation. Force the offense to do what you want them to do instead of reacting to them. And above all, never lay back or lose focus on the field, always stay energetic and always be on your toes. <br /><br />de Frondeville<br /><br />Lead the cutter away from the defender. When someone is cutting somewhere, throw <br />the disc so that the cutter will get there first. For instance, if someone is <br />cutting straight at you, typically their defender will be behind them, but on one <br />side. Lead your man slightly to the other side when you throw it, so the defender <br />has to go around your player to make the block. I'll often flare my cutters even <br />when they're running straight at me. This also applies to a side-to-side cut. Lead <br />your cutter with a little bit of float, so that he has to run to the disc. Don't <br />alway try and throw the disc to hit him on the money, because you lose a little <br />margin.<br /><br /><br />Ted Munter, #17<br /><br />Watch the game with a purpose. Most players yell for their teammates or just casually observe until they get in again. But every time you're out is an opportunity to watch the players you are likely to cover or who is likely to cover you. I try to look at one or two specific things. Where do they like to throw from and what kind of jukes do they make? This might not get blocks for you, but you can try to take the player out of his or her comfort zone. More importantly, I think, it helps you focus both on the sideline and when you are in the game. <br /><br />Mooney <br /><br />Listening. Sure, we all fill a room with drivel. But if you listen to input, then you have something to say in the next huddle. <br /><br />Question 3<br /><br />What do you know now that you wished you knew five years sooner?<br /><br />Zaslow<br /><br />What I know now, that I wish I knew ten years ago, is that club ultimate is fun. Back in college in the late eighties, I had a real distaste for the club scene. I witnessed a lot of foul play, and this kept me from joining a club for several years. I think I would have gotten better sooner -- at a younger age -- had I been exposed to a more enjoyable club scene. I thank Dave Meyers for encouraging me to get out there and mix it up with the boys of the Northeast. Another thing I have learned through playing with such talented teammates is that each of them has analyzed every tiny detail of the game. Good play comes from the best application of basic principles (throw complete passes; get the disk; try to prevent your man/woman from getting the disk) to a myriad of situations. If you know that everyone on your team is thinking this way, then you will know that when you come off your man on a gambit, they'll get your back! Or, if you pass up the glory play, they will notice, and appreciate, your poise. <br /><br />ZAE<br /><br />Bill's trysts; that Deborah Norville would wind up on "Inside Edition"; two words: Mach III; the miracle that is Parker Posey; how big a role confidence plays in sports, arts, politics, society; the fate of talk show also-rans Tempestt Bledsoe, Keenan Ivory Wayans, Magic Johnson, Carney Wilson, Chevy Chase, Mark Walberg, Gordon Elliot...; and what one night in Brentwood would do for mass media, race relations, and public jurisprudence in America.<br /><br />Rodriguez <br /><br />The thing I wish I knew years ago was how great the weight room is for you. Lift, lift, lift. Lift some more. <br /><br />Brown<br /><br />The game is mostly mental and most players don't sprint. Sprinting is the key to O and D.<br /><br />Munter<br /><br />I wish I had known to move to Boston five years earlier. And I didn't know until recently how important it is that a teams top players lead by example. Sounds obvious, I know, but when I was one of the top players on my former team, I wasn't always in shape, or didn't always believe in my teammates. Playing on DoG as a bench/role player, I see how central it is that our best players are not only the most skilled, best athletes, they also want it the most and prepare--mentally and physically--as hard as they can. I often hear captains of teams talk about needing to find a role for their players. But the best player on your team has a role too. You can be the kind of star who makes the team better--think Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Jerry Rice--or who, despite all your skill and athleticism brings the team down.<br /><br />Mooney <br /><br />That it's not about winning... it's about having Billy Rodriguez on your team.<br /><br />Haskell<br /><br />Just how hard it is to stay at the top. How everyone will come after you when your on top. Just how much fun it is to beat those teams and how good it feels to win. That "championships" are a fleeting thing. When I'm seventy I gonna wish I had more. <br /><br />Question 4<br /><br />What is the most important thing you would tell a player hoping to make the jump to the elite team level?<br /><br />Chris Corcoran, aka Cork, #25<br /><br />The best advice that I would give an up-and-coming Ultimate player would be to focus more on the mental aspects of the game. When you're on offense, think about where the other 13 players on the field are. Realize where the good cuts are and when it is your turn to cut. When you are on defense, also think about where the other 13 players are. If you can't shut down a player's every cut, decide where the most dangerous cuts are, and shut those down.<br /><br />de Frondeville<br /><br />It's better to be noticed than to blend into the background.<br /><br />Zaslow<br /><br />Right now, kids graduating college are much more in-the-know about disc, about strategies, and about conditioning than I ever was (am?). There are many sophisticated and talented prospects. But beyond the basics (and the basics get expanded each year), a player must have an internal fire and personal desire. Only you know the true strength of your conviction. For me, I was never in doubt about wanting to play. I don't feel like I'm forsaking the rest of my life when I put in the hours at the track and stadium (of course, without a rest-of-my-life, this statement has little weight!). As far as strategy for play is concerned: COMMUNICATE! Use the resources around you! Your teammates can help you learn, and you can help them. This holds for strategy sessions and for on-field play as well. We all know to call the disk up when it's thrown. Also call out switches; poaches; what the opposing defense is, if you've figured it out; what your defense is if people are confused; who is breaking long; who should be. If you don't know what to do, ask! When everyone knows what's up, everyone can respond to it. Also, negative information needs to be communicated, preferably in a positive way. <br /><br />ZAE<br /><br />``Pringles, pizza, and plenty of rest.'' That way, the player will be fat and slow and no obstacle to my fulfilling my own selfish goals. <br /><br />Brown<br /><br />Learn the difference between running hard and sprinting and the difference between a good throw and a bad choice and a bad thrown and a good choice. It is a game of choices and players must understand the difference between good and bad choices.<br /><br />Munter <br /><br />Don't get fooled by rhetoric. Talk is cheaper than a White House liaison, so don't say "this is the year" if you don't mean it. It doesn't matter if your goal is winning it all, making it to Nationals, or just making it to Regionals, you need to believe in yourself and your teammates. You can't kind of want it, because the team just above you has more skill or more experience. Winning Nationals is great, but primarily because it confirms that the goal you have set for yourself has been achieved. The worst feeling in Ultimate is watching some other team play the game you wanted to be in thinking about how your own team underachieved because they didn't prepare or didn't live up to their promises as teammates. To improve, to make it to Sunday at Regionals when last year went home on Saturday, to make it to the semi's at National's after going 2-3 at the big dance the year before, is HARD. You might hear first time parents say they wish raising that first kid was only as difficult as they had dreamed it was going to be. But getting up in the middle of each night with junior turns out to be something for which talk and imagination cannot really prepare you. Just as it's easier, even more fun, to be single, it is more fun to just hang out with your friends and repeat last year's performance. No hassles, no worries, no potential disappointment. If that is what you want to do, admit it and enjoy yourself. But if you get to your goal together, then the sore legs, the tough practices, the rushing from work, and the long hours will all be well worth it.<br /><br />Haskell <br /><br />The game is much easier than we make it out to be. Use your head. The mind is a powerful thing. Just complete your passes and leave all the turnovers for someone else.<br /><br />Mooney <br /><br />No, really... we're good guys, we're supportive and caring, and you'll have a great time on our team. Please... play with us... PRETTY PLEASE WITH CHEESE ON TOP. P.S. I'll carry your bags and buy you beer.<br /></span>parinellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03802604259779936852noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7994039.post-48980916085121174722010-03-14T16:17:00.000-07:002010-03-14T17:12:19.884-07:00post surgery<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgdAdzCe3zR0unD2oC8gfvc-llZ4y44m_OsDUS3bBO9VnAIdLWjlACGsiHUmyGBXbD4Rtn7e9aUSOc-G19fb0KlpxwWmphVUTC4bFq7dMwaEd__K7wN8zsgGPcwHV46F3f2yR_3w/s1600-h/sun+after+surgery+2.bmp"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgdAdzCe3zR0unD2oC8gfvc-llZ4y44m_OsDUS3bBO9VnAIdLWjlACGsiHUmyGBXbD4Rtn7e9aUSOc-G19fb0KlpxwWmphVUTC4bFq7dMwaEd__K7wN8zsgGPcwHV46F3f2yR_3w/s320/sun+after+surgery+2.bmp" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5448645947303770434" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8ccg0P9yDZrtUUEHWbyX5Ig7pp1JNQZe1-LDoI9naVTRfAobim__MCXuiO4Oe6skHWWCOPYq0rmLNv2dl4cUm7s2L3HLlS6oBja5C0_D9LFt6VZQkNc-9QnbEdQTcVymF2Bam_g/s1600-h/sun+after+surgery+1.bmp"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8ccg0P9yDZrtUUEHWbyX5Ig7pp1JNQZe1-LDoI9naVTRfAobim__MCXuiO4Oe6skHWWCOPYq0rmLNv2dl4cUm7s2L3HLlS6oBja5C0_D9LFt6VZQkNc-9QnbEdQTcVymF2Bam_g/s320/sun+after+surgery+1.bmp" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5448645941163396706" /></a><br />I put a few photos up on Facebook, but things appear to be a success. The surgeon really had nothing to say to me after the procedure, just something he does a few times a week.<br /><br />Procedure: C3-C6 French Door (or Double Door) Laminoplasty. He didn't do anything else while he was in there, hoping that all the syndromes related to the central nervous system were related to the compression on the spinal cord.<br /><br />Work and disability: Wow, they just don't want to get on record ahead of time for anything. I tried to ask how they would handle if I could only do part-time temporarily when I come back, and they all said, "We'll see." I said that there are two real dangers with being out for a long time: one, that they'll really suffer without me, and two, that they won't.<br /><br />Tuesday: Surgery was pushed back to 11, so I had to show up at 8. Had to do a special antiseptic cleaning of everything but hands and genitals. At a little before 11, they gave me the first of my antibiotics and anesthetics, and I don't remember a thing for the next six hours. Apparently, they include an amnesiac in that first batch, derived for use on children in ERs.<br /><br />Around 5, I woke up in a bed, with a view of a hallway vaguely similar to the view of the hallway from my desk at work. In my mind, I was working on a spreadsheet on my laptop, and somehow realized that I had to hurry up and finish it and save it because I didn't actually have a laptop. Then they took me to my room where my family could see me. My parents had had to go home by then to pick up the boy, but they returned with him later that evening. I was doing great at this point, feeling no pain but also not feeling like I was on drugs. Alex also came by to heckle.<br /><br />I surprisingly slept well through the night, being switched once to sleep on my side. And they woke me every two hours for my vital signs. My pulse rate broke one of the Western Electric Rules, with eight points in a row above my historical average (based on the Novemember hospital stay) but other signs exhibitied normal variation. Root cause is probably a general decrease in health the last four months due to lack of exercise.<br /><br />On Wednesday the pain started in earnest, though still it was never terrible. They asked for the pain on a scale of 1 to 10, and I suggested that they whack incoming patients in the ankle with a hammer and say, "ok, that's a 7, keep it in mind for later." THey typically didn't get my jokes. Nor do most, I guess, but that doesn't matter, because I'm usually the main audience for them anyway. They removed the cathether (I took a picture of it just to see it, but deleted it immediately because even I don't want to see a picture of that), and later on took out the IV. They still had a drip bag attached to the incision, and that bag continually filled up slowly. Managed to pee (it hurt due to the cathether, but that went away after about a day). Ate real food starting with lunch, though they told me to eat softer food. Wife came in and left, parents came in, co-worker came in and said by a vote of 5 to 3 that they had a card for me, Bim stopped by too because he was bored. Otherwise I chatted with my nice roommate who was in for a knee replacement. Did a lot of Facebook checking and appreciated all the well-wishes. They took out the pain button and gave me pain pills. Jordan Haskell also made an appearance.<br /><br />Thursday was check out. They just needed to verify that I could walk up a couple stairs and that the X-ray looked ok. I also talked to the occupational therapist, but she was so good-looking that I couldn't concentrate on anything she said. She pulled a Constanza moment on me, when I mentioned that real men didn't use loofahs, and she said her fiancee used one. My neck was and is a little stiff, though it felt in part that it was due to lying on it with a brace in the same position as much as it was due to them making a four-inch cut and retracting the muscles in my neck. (I mentioned, and maybe it's the truth, that most of the recovery of surgery is not due to what they are fixing, but to what they need to do in order to go to what they need to fix.)<br /><br />Made it out at about 1, took a nap in the afternoon. I've generally been feeling a little better each day, a little less pain, a little less frequent with the pain pills, but I am also now at the point that I'm bored with the whole recovery process and wish it to be done.<br /><br />Finally got a shower yesterday and another one today. Took off the bandage after each one and got a couple photos today which I will share. Enjoy.parinellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03802604259779936852noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7994039.post-65352271622019638812010-03-06T04:38:00.000-08:002010-03-06T05:56:36.260-08:00spinal surgery<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPrLnWGgwNuwajRXc7hyphenhyphenEvmepjOXhnr6_v4iDMXz87hVUgmIKlICFwFoeYvWK8mU3slZpFVqQr2uM1gEVRmnG0SHhJtdQkLTMOcFBJFMk379wdmbcIb3G0-BnY0D0Rzyr3m93FFQ/s1600-h/cat6.gif"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 416px; height: 219px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPrLnWGgwNuwajRXc7hyphenhyphenEvmepjOXhnr6_v4iDMXz87hVUgmIKlICFwFoeYvWK8mU3slZpFVqQr2uM1gEVRmnG0SHhJtdQkLTMOcFBJFMk379wdmbcIb3G0-BnY0D0Rzyr3m93FFQ/s320/cat6.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445518672291118706" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigCVT-UCiZngHyZRcavzIvcxk0WGbVMp7Z4kSgUFuVtW68AKW-9ToEiPr93GavHbYlexkYoDjthnTHh-2sPMTLJQErESACUCjJVrNxoHG1uDcrkcvs3oWCGAietZC_xVUaUPSNWA/s1600-h/mri+56.gif"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 416px; height: 252px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigCVT-UCiZngHyZRcavzIvcxk0WGbVMp7Z4kSgUFuVtW68AKW-9ToEiPr93GavHbYlexkYoDjthnTHh-2sPMTLJQErESACUCjJVrNxoHG1uDcrkcvs3oWCGAietZC_xVUaUPSNWA/s320/mri+56.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445518666432381394" /></a><br />So I finally will be getting my surgery in a few days, on Tuesday. They will be doing a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laminoplasty" target="_blank">laminoplasty </a>on C3-C6. <a href="http://www.esurgeon.com/scripts/content/playmovie.html?filename=laminaplasty&returnpath=treatmentoptions/neck-laminoplasty.html" target="blank">Here</a> is an animated video. The short story is that they cut through four of the vertebrae in my neck, cut a notch, swing it open, and create a larger spinal column so the cord has more room to move around.<br /><br /><span class="fullpost"><br />As I've been told, I have a complicated neck. I have bone spurs, a herniated disc, a very narrow spinal column to begin with, and another term or two I can't translate into English. I mentioned before that I first had symptoms last summer, culminating in the Trauma on the Beach, and that I had been asymptomatic since then. However, in the last month or two, I've had <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mhokpnwZQU" target="blank">twitching in my calves </a>most of the time, and after exercise I feel unnaturally warm. The calf twitching has been with me for many years, but previously only showed up after a full day or two of ultimate in hot weather. I had always thought it was due to depleted electrolytes, and maybe it was, but perhaps it's due to this. I've also had calf cramps at night dating back to at least last fall, and a few other things that I won't bore you with.<br /><br />I ended up getting three official opinions. The first two were from neurosurgeons and recommended the laminoplasty, which goes in from the back of the neck. The third was from an orthopedic surgeon and recommended a complicated anterior-and-posterior approach, but after consultation with his neuro team, he too switched to this procedure. I recently read a <a href="http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/515415" target="_blank">medical article online </a>where the study was to send the same five cases to 30 spine surgeons and see how much variation there was and whether that variation was predictable. For the case that seemed most similar to mine (Case 4), all recommended surgery, 22/30 recommended fusion (20 of which wanted to use plates and screws; mine wants to use thread), and about half wanted to go in from the back. What that means for me, I don't know, other than there isn't a single right answer. (In the simplest case, a one-level herniation, there was almost complete agreement. The others, less.)<br /><br />I'll be in the hospital (New England Baptist) for about 2 days, out of work for 2-3 weeks, then will have various shades of green lights at 6-8, 12, and 18 weeks (on average; my mileage may vary). I have had precious little contact with the doctor himself, and interactions with the office were less than perfect. I mentioned this to the hospital during my pre-op screening, and they said they had frequently heard that about this doctor's office (which is run independently from the hospital). My final opinion on this office will depend on the success of the surgery, but these people are clearly used to being in a seller's market and don't have to worry about their next meal. {Insert right- or left-biased comment about American health care system here.} {I find it informative that in none of the three consultations or in my decision-making did the cost ever enter the picture. The cost to me is the same, and I have no idea what the full cost will be (well, I have some idea, maybe $20K). And since I'll have maxxed out for the year, I might as well get that Botox I've always wanted.} <br /><br />And here are some additional pictures. One is the MRI, side view and a slice through the 5/6 disc. The other is a CT scan through the sixth vertebra, I think.<br /><br />PS. HoF comments still welcome.<br /></span>parinellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03802604259779936852noreply@blogger.com47tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7994039.post-67407955632343208982010-02-26T13:32:00.000-08:002010-02-26T13:49:01.371-08:00HoF -- what next?If you still want to comment on the viability of any of last year's candidates, go to the <a href="http://parinella.blogspot.com/2010/02/hall-of-fame-discussion.html" target="_blank">previous thread</a>. There were so many comments, and some of them were just the same vitriol (I promise to delete any post that I feel detracts from the thread; you can disagree with me, just don't be a boor), that some felt it wasn't worthwhile to add their comments.<br /><br />How would you like to see the HoF process change? <br />SCALE: What do you think of the concept of a voter giving a number for each category and adding them up? How would you structure such a scale?<br />TRANSPARENCY: Consider the ramifications of your suggestion, but what level of public display should the votes and discussions have? The <a href="http://upa.org/hof/selection_process" target="_blank">selection process</a> is public (though not too many appear to know all the steps) but all votes and vote totals are hidden. Should the <a href="http://upa.org/hof/peer_review" target="_blank">Peer Review </a>totals be publicized? Peer Review voters?<br />MONEY: This receives zero funding from the UPA and receives little or no effort from paid staff of the UPA. Should staff be involved in this?<br />VOTERS: In the first year, a small group that came up with the idea made the elections. Afterwards, there was an appointed committee (the Vetting Subcommittee, the ones who do the grunt work) plus all HoF members who cast the final votes. What would be a viable alternative?<br /><br />Comments welcome.parinellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03802604259779936852noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7994039.post-46346604112376231042010-02-19T09:12:00.000-08:002010-02-19T09:14:36.991-08:00hall of fame discussion is still going strong on previous threadBump.<br /><br />If you have a new topic to discuss related to the HoF selection process, enter it on this entry. Or please go to the <a href="http://parinella.blogspot.com/2010/02/hall-of-fame-discussion.html">last one </a>to comment there.parinellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03802604259779936852noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7994039.post-64260576390343516852010-02-07T09:06:00.001-08:002010-02-07T09:10:00.928-08:00Hall of Fame discussionOpen board to discuss the Hall of Fame. Toad, you are welcome to add new thoughts, but you have made your point known, and so will be deleted if you don't cooperate.<br /><br />To the rest of you, one topic as originally framed by Jacob on rsd is of particular note. I'll repost it from the <a href="http://parinella.blogspot.com/2009/12/hall-of-fame.html" target="_blank">previous post</a>:<br />1) Should the leader of the best team of all time be excluded (even <br />temporarily) from the hall of fame if he demonstrated poor enough <br />sotg? <br />2) If the answer to question # 1 is "yes," then was Kenny Dobyns' sotg <br />poor enough to warrant exclusion? "<br /><br /><br />Other topics are also welcome.parinellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03802604259779936852noreply@blogger.com127tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7994039.post-51274701141951384102009-12-28T14:32:00.000-08:002010-01-15T09:33:24.039-08:00Hall of FameThe UPA announced the <a href="http://upa.org/media/2009HOFInducteeclass_release" target="_blank">latest class </a>for the Ultimate Hall of Fame. Before we get to the main course, I wanted to express disappointment that for the third straight year, less than the maximum number (five) were elected. I think it's time to rethink the logistics of the final vote. Currently, the voters select up to five names from the Slate of Eight and the top five that get at least 60% of the votes are inducted. <br /><span class="fullpost"><br />Disclaimer: I was on the HoF Committee from 2005-2007, mostly because I was interested in the logistics and there was a vast shortage of people who were willing and available to do the work. I was the liaison for the Open Peer Review group, and cast my vote according to the voice of the reviewers. I have gotten to know some of the voters a little, and my impression is that they care a lot about spirit and character, but none could be characterized as "spirit zealots". <br /><br />Any issues that arise are due to it being such a difficult process to come up with a Hall of Fame, especially in a sport like ultimate with no stats and no extensive media coverage. Players are spread out over time and geography but are asked to review all prospective candidates. One of the players inducted this year had his peak in around 1975, but 44 year olds are also eligible for the Hall. And in the old days, fewer teams made Nationals or made cross-country trips, so it would be harder to evaluate players from other regions. <br />There is also an issue, in my mind, <br />On rsd, jacob tried to bring a discussion to the discussion when he wrote:<br />"The only issues are: <br />1) Should the leader of the best team of all time be excluded (even <br />temporarily) from the hall of fame if he demonstrated poor enough <br />sotg? <br />2) If the answer to question # 1 is "yes," then was Kenny Dobyns' sotg <br />poor enough to warrant exclusion? "<br /><br />This, of course, was followed by poorly-spelled diatribes on refereez and dischoops, and one whiny "of course Kenny was great, I knew him myself" supporter.<br /><br />But these are exactly the questions to ask, and they can really be extended to the second best player on the third best team who was kind of a cheater but an otherwise nice guy, or whatever.<br /><br />Despite him being a prick and a petty, bitter little man, I would have expected Kenny to sail in the first time he was under consideration. Gewirtz, him I thought would be the poster child for how big of a jerk you could be and not get elected.<br /><br />(Regarding "jerk", I don't think it's simply a matter of whether someone was an ass. Some of my best friends are jerks, but that shouldn't be held against them here. If a baseball player doesn't speak to the media, that should have zero bearing on his HoF worthiness. If his surliness made him a bad teammate and caused him teams to underperform, maybe you count that. In ultimate, how much did a player's jerkiness affect the fairness of the contest?) <br /><br />I guess there is a vaguely similar issue with the baseball HoF. Barry Bonds was an inner-circle HoFer before he ever took steroids. Rafael Palmeiro is a bordeline HoFer even with steriods (he has the career value no doubt, but is a little low on peak value). Mark McGwire has a solid HoF career and had some star years before steroids, but would it have been enough without steroids? (I'm assuming that taking steroids is neither automatic grounds for dismissal nor completely irrelevant, but instead is something that should be taken into account.)<br /><br />I saw one especially good quote from a baseball writer. "Dock them slightly for character issues if you must, but ... if, 20 or 30 years from now we have a Hall of Fame that doesn’t include the undeniably best players of their time, you have a pretty useless and irrelevant Hall of Fame." <br /><br />Other issues, besides there not being enough inductees each year:<br />1. "Era". One of the guys elected this year had his peak in about 1980, others under consideration were still building their cases well into the 1990s. The eligibility was based on age, not years after retirement since you can always keep playing, but we are mixing together players from a lot of eras. I know the peer groups might be trying to address this, but it seems to be inconsistent with how it's applied.<br />2. Women. Only one was put forth on the Slate of Eight this year. The women who were recently elected played significantly later than the guys who have appeared on the ballot or were elected. Again, I don't know what the right answer is, but there is an inconsistency.<br />3. Public discussion. The UPA did put out a call soliciting comments on the Slate of Eight, and those comments were reviewed by the final voters before making their decision. But there ought to be a public discussion group somewhere, not that it would be required reading for the voters, but so that things can be discussed logically and coolly (as least as much as this is possible on the Internet). Some baseball website created a Hall of Merit akin to the Hall of Fame, and they have discussions on all prospective candidates.<br /><br />Discuss.<br /></span>parinellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03802604259779936852noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7994039.post-70813528713894439102009-12-08T10:41:00.001-08:002009-12-08T10:43:40.701-08:00my neck<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS4Mw8Shg98gJ2fbwAe5Sxy9S8nu5Zvf5r7GqPTr6TSZw7yF2S1XjnZeRo50U53NR3uxMbgKPqRf_fXDGOiWttwJAg__RYICK8el5Zda7chyYXQnBBU493I1EKczEoxzSD5qmWFQ/s1600-h/MRI+diagnosis.gif"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 242px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS4Mw8Shg98gJ2fbwAe5Sxy9S8nu5Zvf5r7GqPTr6TSZw7yF2S1XjnZeRo50U53NR3uxMbgKPqRf_fXDGOiWttwJAg__RYICK8el5Zda7chyYXQnBBU493I1EKczEoxzSD5qmWFQ/s320/MRI+diagnosis.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5412937838891038306" /></a><br />Doctor today recommended a laminoplasty on multiple vertebrae. Still gathering opinions.parinellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03802604259779936852noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7994039.post-85110942412091719292009-11-06T14:33:00.000-08:002009-11-06T17:06:26.594-08:00The Year in Jim: Epilogue"If I wasn't done before, I'm done now."<br /><br />In the finals of the Grand Masters tournament in July, Alex caught a swing pass near the sideline. I was about 10 yards in front of him, being fronted, so I faked a step in and bolted long as he hucked the backhand. Because of the thin air or his poor touch, I had to keep chasing after it and laid out for it. I caught it a split-second after it hit the ground and put it down*. But as I got to my feet, I noticed that both of my arms were tingling.<br /><span class="fullpost"><br />* - I knew it was down and never considered calling it up, but I somehow had time to turn around and notice my defender pointing down before I did anything with the disc. Maybe I was paying attention to my hands. I later asked the observer whether he would have called it up, just to see what he said. He said it was down, but maybe he was just covering for himself.<br /><br />At Regionals, down 6-4, we had turned it and I noticed DJ of GLUM was looking to throw it into the endzone, so I dropped off my guy. He threw it, and I had to take an awkward angle to the disc to try to block it. I missed and ended up hitting the ground. Once again, my arms were tingling, and I headed to the sideline for a break.<br /><br />Around the same time, a similar feeling happened when I landed funny playing basketball. In all these cases, there was a sharp hit and an immediate sensation which began dissipating immediately and within about a minute I was back to normal.<br /><br />Then at Nationals, it happened at least three times, but this time I didn't have the sharp hit. Once, I simply reached out suddenly to try to block a throw, and twice, I was simply running hard. The last time, my last point, I was sprinting to make a jumping bid at a block, but as I swing my arm down to jump up, my arm isn't responding right, and I am unable to jump. By this time even _I_ have become a little suspicious of what's going on (unless it's debilitating, I generally don't seek medical advice; even for nagging injuries, I don't do a whole lot except for occasional ice and ibuprofen and maybe rest; I considered it a major step this year when I bought several pairs of new shoes to combat nascent plantar fasciitis). I mention this to a few people over the next few hours, and tentatively make plans to see a doctor when I get back, when I get around to it.<br /><br />That night, I end up at the beach after the bars close, and I'm standing next to Alex, no doubt spewing about something. Two of our friends see us and decide it'd be funny to tackle us (and I have to agree with that), so they rocham to see who gets whom and charge us. I see tje charge at the last second but can't prevent it and end up flat on my back. However, my legs immediately feel very heavy, and I realize that I can't get up. As soon as I am aware of it, I try to wiggle my toes and find that I can, and then I begin the struggle to get up. I can finally move my arms and legs after maybe a minute but it's like pins and needles, times 100. I can sit up a little bit, and can sorta flop my arm over. It takes me probably five minutes before I am able to stand under my own power. Never in this time range did I have any change in mental faculties, no shortness of breath or seeing stars (well, I guess I could see stars since we were outside and it was a clear night). Eventually I'm ok, and fortunately someone finds a doctor in the group and he interviews me and determines that I'm not in any imminent danger of paralysis or death, but that I really need to see someone as soon as I get back.<br /><br />Over the next day and a half, I'm sore, though not appreciably sorer than I would be any other year, and my arms and legs feel a little weak. Additionally, my arms feel a little weird. I have a little trouble sleeping so take some ibuprofen.<br /><br />I go to my PCP on Monday afternoon and describe my symptoms, she calls a specialist to discuss, and they set me up with X-Rays and an MRI. Within an hour of the MRI, I get a call at my house suggesting that I should probably go to the ER this evening instead of waiting until the morning, since the doctor would "hate to see a young guy like me paralyzed." (He quickly added that he'd hate to see any age person paralyzed.) We arrange for the boy to have a sleepover, and get to the ER at about 8. Now, I didn't really think there was any imminent danger, and they didn't whisk me to the front of the line, but they put me in an uncomfortable neck brace and make me lie down, where I stay for the next 8 hours or so. I tell them I had an MRI at another hospital, but when they finally see me four or five hours later, they ask me if I have the MRI. My wife has to then drive to the other hospital to get a CD of it (they don't share information electronically) so they can look at it. The resident on call is somewhat apologetic but otherwise the staff isn't all that attentive or sensitive to the fears of this patient. I eventually see a neurologist at about 2 or 3 in the morning (or was it 1?), and he's half-asleep. (The reason I was directed to this hospital was that the other one didn't have a neuro staff working.) After looking at the MRI, he tells me I can go home but they'll give me some steroids or other anti-inflammatory to reduce the swelling in my spinal cord. He goes off to ask his "spine guy", and comes back and says in a monotone, "Our spine guy got kinda excited when I said I was sending you home." "Is that excited happy or excited agitated?" I reply. "Yeah, he wants you to stay here tonight. How are you with that?" What do you think, bucko? Oh, after he leaves, the nurse comes back and says, "So, you'll be having surgery in a day or two, is that right?" Huh, how about that.<br /><br />In another hour or two, I get some more X-rays and then get ushered upstairs to a room, where they finally remove that cursed neck brace and I can get to sleep for a bunch of hours. I get woken up at about 9:30 and am told that they are scheduling a CT scan as soon as they can. Around 2 they come in and tell me that it will be at 4. At 4 I am picked up and taken to the CT area, where I am propped up without a word for about 40 minutes. Finally I get taken in, the tech apologizes and says an emergency had to get screened, I jokingly say "but I was here first", and we get the CT scan done. Unfortunately, the "team" doesn't have time to look at it before their shift is over, and I have to hang out until "first thing in the morning" to get the results.<br /><br />At about 10, I'm told by a nurse practitioner who is trying to make me think she's a doctor that they'll be letting me out that afternoon but that I'll need surgery and that the attending neuro will talk to me after he's out of surgery at 1 or so. At around 3, after hearing nothing, I'm a little upset at the lack of attention. In 36 hours of an expensive hospital stay, I've had 10 minutes of diagnostics, 5 minutes of an NP, a bunch of vital signs readings (I made a control chart of my pulse rate), and a whole lot of waiting. Luckily I have my laptop and there is wi-fi, so I am able to keep in touch with the team and let them know what is going on, and my wife has spent a lot of time at the hospital with me, though she was also trying to do work. It's just annoying that they tell me so little and leave me waiting for long periods of time past when they said they would do something. I called the patients advocate line to pre-complain about my bill and the lack of attention, and I almost never bring my complaints to the authorities, generally just keeping them to those within earshot.<br /><br />Finally, sometime after 4, the team (attending, sleepy doc, and NP) comes in, and I learn that I have two of my neck vertebrae compressed against each other and there are spurs and there is some impingment on my narrow spinal column. The fluid that I thought I heard the MRI guy say was there is not there, but there is swelling, which will have to subside over the next few weeks prior to doing anything. I'm lucky that I'm not paralyzed, I'm told. I ask whether that's "lucky like there was a chance that I could have been paralyzed, or lucky like 'I'm surprised you're NOT paralyzed'", but the attending doesn't seem to understand my question, as he apparently has not been briefed on how to handle levity. (The nurses who frequently came in were personable.) There is no fracture, I'm stable, I'm in no immediate danger, but I'll need a laminectomy. I'm confused about a lot of it but he is staring so sullenly I don't know what to ask. They write nothing down and discharge me with instructions to wear a (more comfortable but still not fun) neck brace and take the OTC medicine of my choice for pain and schedule a surgery consult for the next week or two, which apparently gets scheduled for December 8 without telling us.<br /><br />There is a wide enough range of outcomes per teh Interwebs that I can't tell what to expect from post-surgery without more detailed knowledge of my specifics. I have the MRI and CT Scan and have sent out copies to a neuroradiologist friend who will share it with his colleagues, and I'm going to get a second opinion. I think there's a good chance I've played my last competitive ultimate game, and I can live with that, but I'll be really disappointed if I can't golf or play softball (not to mention what would happen if I get another traumatic hit prior to surgery and end up paralyzed). <br /><br />Ooh, I get shivers just typing that sentence.<br /><br /></span>parinellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03802604259779936852noreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7994039.post-86406805605216750252009-11-03T15:18:00.000-08:002009-11-04T10:40:49.083-08:00The Year in Jim: MastersSo, back to DoG and Masters. I had already missed two tournaments. I quietly put my name on the roster, and eventually word got around. I got sincere "Sorry, it would have been cool, but we're glad to have you back." Both were true. The idea of a 44 year old playing a cutter role on a Nationals contender would have been cool, but it was also nice being back in my comfort zone, both as a player and as a teammate. I was actually relishing the idea of being a bit player who could focus on going all out every point, but I also enjoy the challenges of being The Man.<br /><span class="fullpost"><br />I had been doing some training already. Besides the Ironside practices, I did the weekly team workout, and was doing a lot of microexercises. I did a set of 50 no-weight squats every day, would do various reps of other exercises when I had a minute to spare, would hold up my computer bag while walking to build up arm strength, little stuff like that. Those all stopped. Later, I would return to doing some workouts, but not right away.<br />I played in the championship of the Ultimate Showcase a couple weeks later. It was really odd being on the same field with some of the Ironside guys. Only one of them said anything at all to me at all related to my having been with them just before, but hey, what do you say to <i>Jim Parinella</i> after you just cut him? I played poorly, or at least caught poorly, though it was windy. I must have had three drops, maybe even four, in the first half-dozen points, plus a throwaway, a block, a goal thrown and a goal caught. I think I was turnover-free the rest of the way, adding two blocks and some goals, but didn't do anything of real note.<br />My first tournament back was Boston Invite. We lost a couple winnable games on Saturday and had to win a game to stay in the 9-16 bracket. I was a little down and played uninspired that day, happy and sad to be back. On Sunday I felt good, though, and helped beat Open Nationals qualifier Pike in our B quarters. That was definitely fun, and I felt like if I had played like that in tryouts maybe things would have been different. We then had Pony next, and started off in a similar vein with me getting open at will against the best defenders on a team that thought it could be at Nationals, but then age 44 kicked in and Pony played better and took control of the game. But it was a fun morning, with the team's best game in some time.<br />Next up was Grand Masters in Denver, which was like Masters, but without even that level of defensive pressure. It was hot and at altitude. We had two games in a row on Saturday where I felt every day of my age and then some, but otherwise I had another very good two days of running. I did get lazy at times with setting up cuts because I knew either that they were going to screw up the coverage or I could just outrun them if they didn't. This actually might be a key point in assessing my real ability to play at a Nationals Open level. It is often said how smart of a cutter I am. It has become more often the case that I punish defensive mistakes rather than just being able to shred regardless, so if a defender plays solid positioning on me and continues to adjust based on the changing flow, I might never make a real cut. But let him suddenly find himself on the wrong side of me because he didn't adjust, and I'll make a devastating cut and catch the goal flat-footed. So if you're young and fast AND you know what you're doing, I might have some real difficulties. That wasn't the case at GM. There were times I found myself thinking, "ok, I need to set this guy up, drive him out a little, act like I'm coming in and make him bite, and then go deep....nah, I'll just sprint deep." After all, those were old guys I was playing against. Some of them were even 44 years old! <br /><br />So our O had a great time out there, not just me but Coop, Simon and Will all played well. It was basically our starting O line from the regular Masters team.<br /><br />Next up were two coed tournaments, Hingham and Summer League. Most of Hingham was against bad teams. One team (hardly fair to call it a team, just some counselors from some camp) threw more Callahans than goals and gave up more points than points played (there was a two-point cross-gender huck rule). We had a decent game in the semis, and a good game in the finals against a mid-Regionals-level coed team. I felt very mobile again this game. I mused later that perhaps I am beginning cold-blooded in my old age, in that as long as the sun is out and it's warm, I am lively, but if it's only 60 or less, I am pretty lethargic. (The first day of Nationals disproved that, though.)<br /><br />Summer League was pretty good, as far as I can remember now. We played in the semis against the Andover High recent grads. Jackie had coached the girls' team there last year and I met some of the parents (who are probably my age). One of them said to me, "It must feel good to be able to keep up with these young kids." Never one to take a compliment well, I responded, "Keep up with? I'm blowing by them." She looked at me strangely, as she should have, nodded, and walked away. But that's how I felt. None of those kids knew enough about how to play, even if they are serious players, so even though sometimes when I had to cover them I was often just trailing them, offense was still pretty easy.<br /><br />These were all great training experiences for me, much better than an Open tournament with Ironside or 2000s DoG. The sheer number of points played and the increased role in each dwarfed any increased level of opposition. That's partly why I've recommended that aspiring players slum around some. (Probably the bigger reason is to get time playing a bigger role and expand their repertoire and to get more experience in points where they have to play well or the team will lose. I feel this outweighs the possible bad habits they might pick up.)<br /><br />At Sectionals, the hard fields contributed to my lackluster performance. I had really wanted to play well against Ironside but it was the fourth game of the day and I just didn't have it. I beat one of them deep but I couldn't catch the crappy trailing throw. Breaking the tradition of bad Saturday/good Sunday, I didn't feel better on Sunday, and thus the team didn't do any better.<br /><br />Clambake did manage to have a couple games in it. This was a harder to classify performance. Typically, I either have it or don't have it on a given day, but there were moments of both here. We had some real struggles moving the disc when I was out there trying hard but just not getting any separation, and times when things went well.<br /><br />At Regionals, Saturday was one of those days again, another day when I was glad I wasn't out there embarrassing myself in Open. Sunday started off well. I burned one of their players early deep and threw a deep pass in the first few points and I felt good. But the team just fell apart. In the game to go, by the time I actually got to play, the game was essentially over, so it didn't matter.<br /><br />Nationals, once again. I didn't get good sleep in the couple days prior to Nationals,and when I got up on Thursday, I felt run down. It didn't help that the temperature was going to exceed 90, but despite a good, early warmup, I just never had it in my legs all day. I'm not saying that I'm worth 4 points a game (Bill James once found that the value of a (baseball) superstar is far less than anyone thinks, and I would definitely be psyched if ultimate could one day have enough data to put a number on this), but I feel that if I had been moving well, we'd have beaten GLUM instead of losing to them. <br /><br />Day 2 was much better. The quarters were the highlight of the tournament for us. Our O had only 2 turnovers and 1 break and we won 15-13. I didn't feel quite as good as at some of the other events this year but with strong performances all around, we did well.<br /><br />The semis were pretty good but a half-step down for me. I had one full-field sprint for a goal but otherwise have nothing specific I can add about my play. It was certainly a game we could have won, something that no one would have thought possible after Thursday's play. We got broken twice to start the game, then there wasn't a break either way again until 13-11. Surly then scored on their only upwind point of the game, and then we got broken on our second upwind point of the game, and it was over. The 3/4 game was a throwaway, notable only for it being the only time we ever played the Condors and joked with them throughout the game.<br /><br />Coop played great for us all weekend and deserves the team MVP. After being afraid of what he would be able to contribute, he did it all for us and was unstoppable throughout the tournament. Props also to Marshall Goff for solid and sometimes spectactular play handling. I'd go on, but after all, this is "The Year in Jim."<br /><br />The team was one point away from not even making the quarters. After beating Ball and Chain Friday morning, we thought that guaranteed us a spot. Only during the last round did we realize that if we lost and Boneyard beat GLUM by exactly two, the three-way tie would go to the second tiebreaker, total point differential, and all we could think of was that we had suffered a blowout loss to Surly, and how lucky we were that we had gotten a break at the end to beat Boneyard by two (rather than trading out on serve to win by one). So we're watching that game while we're losing big to Troubled Past. In the TP game, we started out on serve, got a break, Al threw a hammer OB, we get the break back, Al throws another hammer OB to the other side, and they take half. After another break, things spiral and we start looking ahead to the quarters. Except that it's close on the next field. But GLUM is winning or at least has the wind advantage, until I look over at 13-13 to see Boneyard cheering in the upwind endzone celebrating their go-ahead goal. I next look over to see Boneyard cheering the ensuing turnover, and see them catch the goal that gives them the dreaded two point win. Meanwhile, we're down 13-8 and then 14-9, and we watch dreading that every turnover is going to be the one that keeps us out of the quarters by a point. But we manage to get 3 straight to make it 14-12 prior to losing 15-12, and then we hurry over to tournament central to figure out what's going on. Several teams are gathered around to see what's going on. I quickly add together our scores and get -2. A GLUM guys tells me that his team is also -2, and thus our team would finish behind theirs in a two-way tie, so if Boneyard was at -1 or better, we were out. But a quick add shows that Boneyard is -9, and I add GLUM's total to confirm that they are -2, and so I let everyone know what I found, and for about 15 minutes, this is the official word (GLUM, us, Boneyard, respectively, for 3-5), and we play Beyondors in the quarters for the live stream. I confirm with Will Deaver that overall point differential is indeed the second tiebreaker, so we start to mentally prepare for the big game. Eventually, though, when they do the official adding together, they announce that GLUM is really -6 and thus we are 3rd place and play OLDSAG in the quarters. I am torn at this point. I wanted to play the Condors, but I also wanted to improve my chances at making semis (and thus avoiding the consolation games), so do I tell them they added it wrong? Eventually, I decide not to, but go over to see the scores one more time. I then discover that when I got to the final game, I had GLUM at -4, then went and added 2 for the Boneyard game to get -2 instead of subtracting for -6. Geez, now THAT should embarrass me more than any slowness or codgerdom I show on the field. I try to track down Will to apologize for thinking him stupid but he is ignoring me while talking logistics to some other guy and I continue on.<br /><br />I'm glad that we were on the live stream for the quarters, allowing my wife and my parents to watch it, up to the point that the feed went out at 13-12. Two interesting anecdotes from that game. After maybe the second O point, I hear my defender Paul Bonfanti asking someone in the next tent over how I had broken him that point. He is told that the throw went over his foot, so I shout over that I will throw the next pass at where his foot is supposed to be, knowing that he will be lifting his foot to the new place. Sure enough, I have the disc on the line and throw underneath him on the break side, and he gets a solid foot on the disc. Luckily for me, it pops up into the air behind me, I turn around and catch it, and continue playing. I let him know after the point that I am so used to getting footblocked that I instinctively know where it will go, while others get so flustered after it happening that they bury their heads and have no bid at the second chance.<br />Late in the game, at 13-12 I think, Alex has the disc about 10 yards out and on the backhand sideline, I am a couple yards outside the endzone, so we make eye contact, and I cut away for the blade for the goal. As he throws it, the two of us and at least one teammate on the sideline flash back to a hammer in the 2000 semis against Condors that some may remember from the second Above and Beyond video. This one, however, was not so high that it melted from being too close to the sun and not so far that I had to keep running after it and not in the air for so long that I had to think about it, and I caught it. (To this day, I'm still not sure the right way to catch that pass in 2000. It's possible that reaching out with one hand is the best way, though I can't imagine having the balls to do that at a late point in the semis.) My defender shakes his head in disgust and says, "Who throws that?" Here, I thought it was obvious.<br /><br />Next in the Year in Jim: Epilogue. I promise that there is a cliffhanger.<br /></span>parinellahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03802604259779936852noreply@blogger.com2