Mixing it up on offense

There are several ways to mix it up on offense so as to keep the defense honest. You can run different stacks, you can vary the emphasis on the long game, you can run set plays and counters, you can try motion offense or you can be deliberate, and other variations. How much do higher level teams do this and what form does this take?


In our heyday, DoG really didn't do a lot of this other than shifting the names in the four-person play. Then again, the offense was built around giving the cutter options and taking what was given, so any mistakes or adjustments the defense made automatically gave a new look to the offense. What made it work (beyond talented players) was that we could operate successfully in a couple different modes, the jam-it-up-the-line mode as well as cut-deep-and-put-it-out-there mode.

Now, we will shift from vertical to horizontal stack if it feels right, but we won't flip back and forth. Our long cuts are a little more deliberate, too, as it's kinda tiring to run deep if you're not going to get it.

But all this is a long way to get to the point of this post, how to rotate the usage of players for maximum effectiveness. Braess's Paradox says that in certain circumstances, closing a major road will actually lead to improved travel times. With the road open, it's in each person's best interest to take the main road, but it will lead to an increased average travel time. If instead a certain percentage took other routes, the lesser travel on the main road would prevent clogging and those who took it would be much better off, more than enough to make up for the extra time the others take.

This guy decided to apply these principles of networking to basketball, though the target could just as easily be ultimate. For a single possession, it makes sense to go to your best option, but if you go to it all the time, it will get clogged. I discussed this a little bit a few years ago, taking the idea of usage vs efficiency from the seminal work on basktetball analytics, "Basketball on Paper" by Dean Oliver (who also chimes in on a discussion of the linked article at APBRmetrics. The idea is that a player's efficiency decreases with increased usage (defined as % of a team's touches he gets when he's on the floor) as he has to shoot more on less than perfect looks and there is more defensive pressure applied.

So how do offenses deal with this, especially in the case where there is a clear "best play" (I'm less interested in what you do when every option is a very strong one)? Do ho stacks place their lane cutters in the same lanes as always but run the play to different people? (I'm presuming that teams call some sort of four-person play or a set play on every point; does anyone ever run complete free flow?) Do teams instead run counters, plays that appear to be the same as always but in fact the first cut from the main cutter is just a decoy? (In this case, you lose a bit of the benefit as the main cutter still gets fatigued.) What is the right amount of going to your lesser options in order to keep things honest?

Platitudes

"This is an important point!"
"Let's try harder out there!"
"Don't screw up!"
"C'mon!"
"@#$*&!"

Platitudes: an idea (a) that is admitted to be true by everyone, and (b) that is not true. - H.L. Mencken

I've never been much for huddle talks, in part because so often they are useless. Really, what action are you going to take based on knowing it's an important point? "Gee, I'll make sure I don't drop the pull then." And why the hell should we listen to that guy right now?


And yet, there is somehow the need for people to hear someone else speak in huddles or on the line. (Admittedly, this is better than the need for them to hear themselves speak.) Thus did I find myself a few weeks ago calling the line and then trying to bark out something inane yet reassuring. I felt like I did as a parent when I first screamed "I don't want to have to stop this car!" at my kid. I have a sense of the absurd, though, and I chuckled and simply said, "Platitude #3, boys. #3." and nodded my head sagely.

I've made some improvements since then. I try to say something fundamental, technical, and simple. Give the people one of our key concepts to focus on, one that might tend to trip us up otherwise. It may be a reminder not to huck too mindlessly, or to huck if it's available, or to move up the stack if there are a couple of dumps in a row, or to get on the mark if we turn it over. The tip is that it should be something concrete, albeit small, that they can do, something more than simply "play hard."

I'm tempted to credit this for our Grand Masters championship, just to provide a segue. We outlasted Denver's "B" team Yomo Fog Oho in the finals, 14-13. Semis and quarters also count as outlasting. Our 12-9 win over Ozark Hillbillies in the quarters was noteworthy because every single point featured the O team going downwind. The only breaks (and only turnovers we forced on D) came on the last point of each half, so with an upwind/downwind game like that, only counted as half-breaks since we didn't get the ensuing downwinders. Our O gave them plenty of chances (8? 10?) that game, but they couldn't get the upwinder.

I don't think we were broken in the semi, either. Overall, the O had a pretty good weekend. Factors:

1. The defense wasn't all that good. To be expected for a bunch of 40+ year olds, but it's also expected from 33+ year olds, and this seemed noticeably worse. Maybe the altitude had something to do with it.
   
2. Altitude. Overall it made it easier to complete passes. There were exceptions, of course. We had some long overthrows that just kept going, and we had at least three passes to space on the first day that didn't curve or float enough and fell incomplete. But there were other throws that would have been
   
3. It was pretty close to our regular starting O.
   
4. We kept the rotation small so everyone was familiar with each other. Unfortunately, this also meant that the D was a hodgepodge. Also hurting the D was the fact that we never had a chalk talk about what to do.
   

One of the passes I threw that would not have been complete at sea level is worthy of its own paragraph. At about 2-2 in the final, I had the disc on the line about 20 yards out on the backhand side. William cut under and started to clear inside, and then Simon filled up the line, but William's man poached off. I looked to throw something to William (scoober was an option) but he cleared out and continued to go downfield. I then turned to the dump, but nothing was open there, so I returned my gaze downfield, found William headed to the endzone on the other side, and threw a hammer. It made it there, but it surely would have been held up enough for a block attempt if there were more air resistance.

Saturday was just a day we could have lost the tournament, not one we could have won it on. Our pool had a first round bye, then our team had an additional bye since there were an odd number of teams in each pool, so we didn't play until noon (2 pm ET). I spoke for 3 minutes and 30 seconds on offense, including 17 seconds on ho stack, which we ended up playing on every O point on Sunday. (I also wasted about 15 seconds on zone offense, which we played no more than 2 or 3 points all weekend.) We knew this first game was dangerous, as our opponents were the underseeded Denver team (our finals opponent). They were local, and they already had a game in them. Luckily we had received some warning from Randy Ricks that this team was better than seeded, and we also got a hint from their dismantling of the Philly team in their first game. It was pretty chippy on both sides the first ten points, with rules misinterpretations and some arguments. I told my team to stop being douchebags regardless of how the other team acted, not that anyone listens to me about that stuff. We pulled away, though, and the game got less chippy. We were going to give them a 2 in spirit rating, expecting a similar score from them, but then the scorekeeper came up to me and wanted to discuss the spirit score. This seemed a breach of protocol, but I listened, and upped their score to a 3.

The next two games were foregone conclusions against the two bottom teams in our pool. I was already starting to fatigue from the first tough game and the altitude and being out in the sun and standing around, and took it pretty easy these games.

This left us with another tough game against Philly, which came in thinking they could win the tournament. Due to their big loss in the first game, they had to beat us by 6 in order to advance, and the wind had picked up by this time, making it mostly upwind/downwind. Brendan was playing his heart out that game for them, but it wasn't enough, and we clinched a playoff spot, first place, and then the game.

Prior to that game, there was a 15 minute lightning delay, which of course we spent hanging out on the field. The weather there was interesting in its own right. In New England, as Marshall pointed out, if you see lightning, it's an immediate stoppage and you take cover, since it's close. But at the fields in Denver, we could see lightning 20, 30 miles in the distance making its way in our general direction, and only knew to halt play because the man and his radar system told us it was too close. On Sunday, the wind completely shifted direction from the morning to the afternoon as a storm approached (but did not hit us).

It was a lot easier to play against 40 year olds instead of 23 year olds, although this also meant I got a lot lazier at times on my cuts. otoh, it's a lot sweeter to go downtown on a 23 year old, twice in the same game on the first pass off a walkup.

losers whine and winners get the prom queen

I've never had a post whose purpose was to link to another blog, but today, Joe Posnanski totally nails it. I discussed something similar a while back with Players make plays, but Pos' is pretty good.

Rerun: Rules for cutting

Rules for cutting was originally posted on July 7, 2005. This was a more concrete set of rules than the famous rules of "take what they give you, fake them into giving you what you want, fake until they give you something".

Anyway, the post:

1. Cut sharp.
2. Cut hard.
3. Cut decisively
4. Think, but only before or after the cut.
5. Know when to just run.


Cut sharp. Don’t round your cuts. Plant on one foot, push off hard, and go. The longer it takes you to change direction, the less separation you will get from your defender.
Cut hard. Don’t jog out there when you are actively cutting. One place where this is especially important is at the start of a deep cut. For your first 3-6 steps, go all out without looking up or back, until you’re near top speed and have some separation and can check back to see whether the throw is up and where it’s going. Further, cut hard when you’re the decoy in a called play, or else an astute defender will know that it’s a fake.
Cut decisively. As Idris said, “Oh, you had ‘em.” You really only have time for one or two efforts before you become a clog. Commit to something, if that doesn’t work, quickly try something else, and if you don’t think you’re open in the first three steps, get the hell out of the way.
Think, but only before or after the cut. During the setup phase of the cut, you might have a chance to think about what you’re going to do, and can try to manipulate the defender into giving you a straight path to the disc. But once you are in motion, you can only react. You need to internalize all the small details (defender body position, field space, playing conditions)
that let you know whether you’re open or not without having to think about it. After the cut, you can think about what it was that made it work or not so that you build up your experience, until eventually it will become more of an instinct.
Know when to just run. You need to learn when you can just sprint in a straight line and be open. Fortunat calls these “opportunity cuts.” These arise when you know that the disc has changed positions but the defender does not, because you have kept him busy enough that he can’t check in. But this also arises in the middle of a faking sequence, when you can recognize the exact moment that the defender has committed himself to another direction and you can cut behind him.

ADDENDUM:
I was thinking that I should have added a rule about clearing, and I noted that the book (page 52) has a fourth rule of "actively get out of the way when someone else has a better cut". These anti-cuts are basically just moving in the opposite direction from where you would cut. When the flow goes right, the anti-cut goes left. Simple English communication can help to achieve this, as players talk to each other to establish priority.

Rerun: Mechanical cutting

Mackey occasionally cites an old article of mine, so I thought I would get in the rerun business. I will begin to repost old articles, with addenda as necessary.

I noticed that it took me 50 or 60 posts to write something technical. Was I afraid of cannibalizing sales? Did it just not occur to me? Should "decision-making" count? Anyway, on June 14, 2005, three months into the blog (when I was making posts almost daily), I wrote Mechanical Cutting, reprinted below.
----
Mechanical cutting
I noticed that some of the tryouts this weekend cut very mechanically. They might fake, but then their actions do not depend at all on what their defender does. They don't even appear to be watching the defender at all.

Idris talked about this in his Oh you had 'em blog entry. Players just don't seem to realize when they're open. I commented there, "Bad players either plan too many fakes or else they get so caught up in trying to read the defender that they misread him. Instead, do a simple fake, expect that it's going to work, but be ready to do something else after 2 or 3 steps if you see that it hasn't worked."

Maybe the way to drill this is to have them watch real cutters and defenders and attempt to identify the exact moment at which the cutter simply needs to move in a straight line to get open. Anything a cutter does after that is at best inefficient and at worst the first part of a miscommunication turnover.

We sometimes say that a cutter has several seconds and several options before he has to clear, but that includes the setup time, which should occur before the disc is live.
1. The setup. As the disc is in the air to the new thrower, the cutter moves into position and might do a little bit of juking, but is basically trying to force the defender into a repositioning error.
2. The cut. Make a final sell and then go hard in one direction, making a commitment. THEN you evaluate whether you'll be open. When you get good, you'll know as you're making that hard move whether or not you're successful. If not,
3. The 2nd cut. Turn 90 or 180 degrees and go hard that way. If that's not open, clear. The only exception is when you're in an iso situation with a lot of field and the defender overcommits to the 2nd cut, and you are 100% guaranteed to be open in a good place if you return to your original direction.

I guess basketball players work on their fakes by themselves, repeating until they've internalized the sequences, but they will still need the feedback of whether their defenders are going to buy the fakes.
END

Addendum: in the ho stack, as was pointed out to me the other day, the thrower might want to give the lane cutter an extra cut before turning away, since there is still room for a 20+ yarder after a deep cut without poaching or clogging. I guess that is just the "exception" mentioned in point #3.

Also, what about when a defender really studies and learns an offensive player's moves? As mentioned in the post that spurred this idea, this can happen after only one or two instances, but what if a defender really learns the tendencies and internalizes them? (I mean, beyond just a simple bait.)

Man I love Paga (hey!)

I went to Paganello for the second time in my life. I'm not trying to hit any list, just taking the opportunity to have fun. And boy, was that fun.

It wasn't even on my radar a few months ago. I enjoyed myself when I went previously but apparently didn't capture the full Paga experience (for example, I went to The Barge only once and wasn't even aware that it was The Barge), so hadn't really had any supreme desire to return. I wasn't against the idea, mind you, but it wasn't a top priority.

But then Alex was going, and I had a good team to play on, and airfares got cheap ($400), so what the hell, I asked my wife if I could go, she said, "Sure", so I booked my ticket quickly.

I'll leave most of the details to Alex, since our itinerary was the same and we were on the same team and he likes going into excruciating detail. The summary:
On the field: Solid team. Apparently a few guys couldn't make it because they had World Games practice or had other commitments, so we were stuck with a team of 2008 Open semifinalists and me and Alex. Without putting a lot of effort into laying out strategy, we were nonetheless on the same page and played efficiently throughout the weekend, even when some players were hungover or still drunk (several players blew over the limit in the morning or early afternoon from the night before) (but of course, this didn't bode well for our hard man-to-man D).
Off the field: Solid team. We were very well represented every night at the parties and at the bar, averaging something like 3 or 4 am bedtime each night after starting out with room cocktails after the games (well, after a carbomb at the Barge).
The tournament was built for socializing, with 2-3 hours between games, nightly parties, a stadium field, and a late start time (no more than one game before noon).
I held up pretty well, although I did get a muscle tweak (groin, maybe) on my last point of the finals. In the end, we were just a little worn out to play well in the second half, and watched them score the final five to win. We probably could have used another solid player or two so as to allow for a little more rest in the finals. There was only a brief period for me in between "ah, finally wore off the effects of last night" and "gee, my legs are awfully tired".
blockstack.tv did a 20 minute podcast each night. The final one covered part of our final. Our game was supposed to start at 4, but between the under-14 exhibition game and the gladiator exhibition (a bunch of guys in gladiator costumes had a pretent battle), it was pushed back 20 minutes. The UTI guys had already been out there for 45 minutes getting ready, while we were much more laidback, shall we say, and took the extra 15 minutes and pretty much just sat on the line and waited. (I do have to confess to taking a 10 minute jog at 3:15 in order to get a sweat going, and also did about a quarter of the full active warmup.) Unless not warming up doesn't manifest itself until the second half, I don't think this cost us. We just made some mistakes in the end. Despite not having invested a lot in this tournament or in trying to win it, I was surprisingly disappointed in losing, probably somewhere around #15-20 of my all time losses. Right now, I'm pretty much over it, but it was strong at the moment, even a couple hours later on the medal podium. One of the good organizational things that make this such a popular tournament is that they call each team up on stage one at a time, culminating in the medalists for each division. Standing up there looking out as the penultimate group, well, it felt good but it also hurt a bit.
Asher Roth's "I Love College" white boy rap somehow became the song of the tournament, at least for me. I don't know, it just struck a chord.
Had some good food, too, though didn't do a four hour team dinner like I had the previous time.
And absolutely no sight-seeing. After having spent 11 days in Hawaii, and with some other things planned for the year, it was stretching it even making it to Paga. But boy, am I glad I did.

spirit, workouts, frisbee

The other night at indoor soccer, the ref was terrible. He seemed to get a majority of the contested out of bounds calls (i.e., which team did it go off) wrong, may have given us a goal on a ball that hit either the top post or the top of the net, and rarely moved from his standing position at center field. Now, this is just a coed B league (and only B because there was no C), so I'm not expecting him to be any better than we were, but I would appreciate a small amount of effort. But that is just the origin of the problem. The problem was how the other team reacted.

At first they just whined. We actually gave up a call that was obviously wrong in our favor, then watched them complain a few minutes later on a less obvious call. Shortly after that, they started to try to steal the calls by acting as if the ball was theirs. This led to me retaliating, twice. The first time, I deliberately kinda fouled a player from behind, leading to an OB ball in our favor and a resulting goal from the corner kick. The second time, it was a horribly blatant OB on them and their player ran to put it into play. I complained to him about his terrible manners, and he said, "Lighten up" and proceeded to crowd the ball on the kick in. So I kicked it as hard as I could right into him, and would have done so again on the rekick had he not backed up.

The way I see it, when they realized the ref sucked, they could have either accepted that each call would be a coin flip as to which team got it, or they could play as if there was no ref by dropping off when they knew it was our ball. It was not ok for them to whine and to try to steal the balls. (In case you didn't notice, this was a B league coed soccer game, albeit the semis of the playoffs.) I was very close to speaking to their team about it, both at half and after the game. I am again mad as I type this.

I've worked out more this winter than I have for many years. Been doing about one Tabata or pseudo-Tabata a week, often during my kid's swim class. I've varied the exercise, trying out the rowing machine, spinning bike, exercise bike, elliptical machine, swimming, and burpees. I'm not sure the rowing machine and exercise bike provide enough resistance. I maxxed out at about 400W on the rower, and while I got to 600W on one of the bikes, the resistance it provided was inconsistent and slow to adjust so I had difficulties with it. I don't have my own heart monitor so have used the machine monitors or counted heart beats and multiplied (but only at the end of workouts) and found my heart rate to generally be only about 165. (I hit 170 once after running on the treadmill.) I also ran two timed miles to see where I was. The latter was at a 6 minute pace but with a 15 second break with about a lap to go (due to a weak will more than a physical breakdown), followed by two quarters at 75s pace (after 5 and 3 minute breaks). (According to treadmill conversion charts, running on a treadmill at a 1.5 degree incline translates to a very slightly faster road time. And a 6:00 treadmill pace at 8 degrees is a 5:00 road pace (what I used for my quarters).

Also playing basketball most weeks, working hard there. Played some goaltimate over the winter, too, and finally got a chance on Saturday to play on something besides snow. That game couldn't have worked out much better. I show up to see Alex's team lose game 1 while he's muttering that they will have to mix up the teams soon. I join the other team and we win two more. At that point they agree to mix the teams, so I say that I have a big enough ego to think that I can make the other team win. Sure enough, I switch (along with another guy) and we win the next two. Someone then suggested that the two guys who switched to the new losing team ought to split up so at least one of them can get I win. I wonder aloud whether conversely, there was anyone who won all his games. (Someone quickly pointed out there was another guy who had done so.) Then we played a few more games but I can't remember how they turned out, other than I had a nice sweep catch called not a goal at 4-4.

I'm surprised at the variety of ways I will throw the disc at goaltimate. On the one hand, this is a bad habit, since I can get away with using just my arm on those short throws but in ultimate throwing without shifting my weight might be a bad idea. But otoh, it helps with creativity and in fast decision-making. Seve Ballesteros became an escape artist on the golf course because he grew up playing with only one club (a 3-iron, at that) and had to learn how to do everything with that club. (I'm not sure that's the right analogy, but I'm sticking with it.)

I was looking at my recent commentary on end zone offense and was wondering whether a typical elite ultimate team could benefit by using Frank's motion offense there without having to adopt the philosophy everywhere. Give and goes often work great as long as the space ahead is clear. If you keep the disc off the line you have enough space to keep multiple players behind the disc. You only need a few yards, and your goal-scoring cut has the additional benefit of not having to leave the receiver in position to make another throw.

Off to Paganello next week with Los Ox, one of only two US teams this year (the same number that Russia is sending and less than France). I was there in 2000 or so so I won't be doing any bucket list editing, not that I have a bucket list.

Kaimana Klassik and the 23 person paradox

I got back the other day from my second Kaimana tournament, the first being in 1998. Both teams had "Southern" in their name and were basically the same team, except only one other guy from the first team was here again.

The tournament was a blast. There was no need to leave the area for the whole tournament. Breakfast, dinner, and beer were at the site, camping across the street. Pseudo-Nationals format with 4 pools then power pools then elimination play. We stumbled undefeated through Day 1, winning but not covering the spread appropriate for the #2 overall seed. We had one last pool play game at 8:30 on Day 2, but were missing several players from too much partying the night before. This is the 23 person paradox for a casual tournament. If you have small numbers, say, 12, then the only valid excuse for missing a game or practice is if there is something legendary happening. When you have a few more, then the realm of excuses expands a bit, but it still has to be for a good reason. But when you get to 23, then pretty much anything goes, and you can even convince yourself that the team is better off if you took off that game (or day, Luke) because it's more PT for everyone else and you'll be fresher when the games REALLY matter.

So this presented an opportunity for me to test myself. I came into the tournament wanting to play hard, not efficient, and expected that with our pool of talent (the email list of talent was even greater, as the Kid didn't seem to remove anyone from it), we'd win 15-6 and I'd try to play 6-8 points a game. Instead, we'd win 13-11 (and have those 24 points be more like 35 with all the turnovers) and 23 felt more like 16 with a few part-timers. And we had to win this game (or lose it by one or two) in order to avoid getting sent to the B pool. So I laced them up, did what passed for an active warmup, and went out to play. I can't actually say that I remember much other than I played a lot and we staged a late rally to avoid relegation (and also won).

But then I was cooked. I played a couple points early and could hardly move, and then took off the next ten points while I chatted with Dugan, who had a bye but was at our field for some reason. I started to get my legs back and was rarin' to go when they turned it over at 7-7, half at 8, cap approaching. One of our players had the disc about 10 yards outside the goal and I saw him flip the disc over to a thumber grip. I said to him sternly, "No, Karl." He swung it to me on the open side, I got no cuts from anyone, so I went to swing it back to him, but got point blocked (it was probably going into the ground anyway). Score, 8-7, halftime, cap comes on, they score again to win. After a bye, we head over to the other fields (10 minute walk away, second time we had to head over there) and go down 5-1 to Voltron. Our offensive flow stands out as being terrible by this time, as a disproportionate amount of the time, whoever has the disc is looking at the endzone. Sure, with players coming from all over, there wasn't much familiarity prior to the tournament, but it never really meshed, as we never really discussed an offensive philosophy. (Perhaps there were too many potential cooks and all were afraid to tout their own recipe.) We stage a late rally but it is impossible to score quickly enough to overcome the hard cap. (Hard cap in effect for all games, including the elimination rounds, although apparently the women played with a +1 soft cap in their games, but whether due to different rules or different knowledge of the rules, I don't know). We're still in the quarters, though (one of the teams fell down to the pre-quarters, lost, and had to play a fifth game of the day in the B bracket quarters).

Quarters were against Philthy, who were looking much the worse for wear after a hard partying night. And with only somewhere between 10 and 13 functioning players, they needed everyone. Nevertheless, their offense at times featured an unbelievable amount of running. We were no longer a favorite to win or even contend for the tournament by this time, but we still had enough good players and experience that a run of wins wouldn't be out of line. But it didn't happen, and despite yet another late rally, we couldn't overcome a big deficit and lost at the cap, 14-12.

I was particularly irritated late in this game when we played a zone defense and no one on the sideline ventured more than 2 yards from where they started the point. Earlier in the weekend, I noticed players doing the same (and pointed out that the guy 30 yards away probably could not hear what was being said). I myself am generally not all that active on the sideline, unless not enough people are helping out already. There is much to be gained from having one sideline person talking to exactly one player on the field (and only that sideline person is talking to him, excepting perhaps if it's a deep and there is one guy on each sideline). Instead, it's "Tom, look at 34, now Fred, a guy is coming up behind you, ok, ok, force middle, 34 again, Tom, ooh, is that a travel, up, up" while Tom and Fred have to listen (or not, more likely) to several voices and figure out which words are for them. This isn't to pick on the Southern Dandies, as it is the exception that teams talk efficiently. But it's big.

Overall, I had a great time at the tournament. Lots of time to hang out, good opportunity to play. I was happy with my ability to move around, less happy with my throwing skill at times (although in fairness, I've only thrown goaltimate passes since October). Good group of guys who were genuinely happy to be there (one fellow even flew out there with wife and infant, rented a pop-up trailer, and left late on Day 2 to head back) and that rubs off. So thanks, guys.

Trip to the Big Island after the tournament was a lot of fun, too, but I won't bore you with too many of the details. One day exploring the wet Hilo side, including a trip to Waipio Valley, one day at the volcano (lava flow was outside the park, could only get a mile from the flow but watched it from there), 4 days on the Kona side. One 2-tank dive, several great snorkels, and a manta ray night snorkel adventure.

Hawai'i, and Hard vs Efficient

We bought our tickets for Kaimana, after some headaches along the way. We'll be spending a week on the Big Island after the tournament (3 days on the Hilo side, including the volcano, and 4 days on the Kona side at a TBD discounted luxury resort (yeah, recession)). From the time I started looking at flights, the price cycled between $600 and $900-1100 four times, and each time I missed the buying opportunity, I got sick to my stomach. The third time was especially painful, as I saw the fares and did a few other searches and got FF numbers and rejiggered and played whatifs, and by the time I hit "select flight", all the low fares had disappeared. We had almost resolved to paying an extra $900 for the three of us but waited it out, and at 9 pm on New Year's Eve, prices dropped again so I snatched them up. Fares are still at that price if you're willing to leave at 6 am.

I decided I'm going to play hard, not efficient, at the tournament. I'm playing with John Hammond's team, and it looks to have a lot of good players, he says, so I should have the liberty of burning my energy in short bursts without feeling like I have to be ready all the time for the team. My normal mode is to play efficiently. I spend a good part of my time doing purposeful walking on offense, and generally try to minimize damage on defense.

The two modes are not mutually exclusive, of course, but there are different mindsets. The downside of "play hard" is that you can play stupid, biting on fakes in order to make the big D, or being overaggressive on marginal throws. The downside of "play efficient" is that you can be too passive and thus let others make the turnover (and it can mask laziness).

Efficient play can work really well on offense if the team is smart and has the ability to reset at will. The team then flows as one, creates lots of open space, and punishes the poach (if there are fewer people moving around, it's easier to spot the poach and find the poachee who has moved to the open space). Hard play is more stereotypically frothy defense, but I prefer to think of it as good positioning like in basketball. I play hard at my pickup basketball game, especially on defense, constantly moving my feet and getting my body into position, not flailing with my arms. In indoor soccer, I usually play goalie, and I play hard there, too (though that doesn't involve running so much). I move around, run hard to get loose balls, diving even, and am willing to take a shot to the body to stop it. When I'm in the field, I tend to be more efficient, though I'm not as sure how to be efficient playing soccer since I don't have great control of the ball.

No love for the Coop cut

This week's Huddle discussed endzone offense. I liked Wiggins' talk about using easy breaks or non-break breaks.

Ostensibly, DoG's endzone offense has always been the swing/strike regenerative offense with the 45 degree "gut cut" thrown in as an option. However, we've always had an alternate that has never really been codified. This year at Worlds, we really started going to this option a lot, and finally named it after Michael Cooper, who perfected the shoulder shimmy Coop cut.

So what is this cut? It's just a quick step to seal off the defender, and cut directly in front of the thrower, no more than 3 yards away. Break or no break, it's very easy to throw a soft pass over the marker's arm. The only way the defender could block it would be to lay out before the throw is made. The cut is ideally made from about a foot inside the endzone.

Alex and I have always preferred the cut from the front of the endzone instead of the back. As the various Huddle contributors pointed out directly or indirectly, the cut from the back is a race to the cone and good solid defense (front, keep the buffer but not too much, don't get turned) can usually stop this while tiring out the cutter. The cuts from the front rely on soft break passes or the threat of the soft break. The horizontal cut straight across the field is tough to hit only if the pass is fast.

The key to the cut is that the thrower needs to be ready to throw. If the thrower sees the cut and reacts to it, it might be too late. He doesn't have to be sitting on the throw, although he can, but his weight needs to be set so that he can immediately move to it. For this reason, I don't think I would recommend this as a default endzone offense for any team other than ours (although Frank might like it because a power move can lead to a goal).

I hate "home" and "away"

When I'm playing, I'm on the field. I know which way an opponent's forehand is, even if he's lefty. I do not know on which side of the field my bag is sitting on. And we are supposed to have people on both sidelines anyway, so both sides are home.

While I'm here, I can't stand that back of the endzone cut. Especially the endzone drill that promotes it.

Hate it when the team wants people there 60 or 75 or 90 minutes before the game and at least 30 of those minutes are spent chit-chatting or lazy stretching or standing and throwing unrealistic passes. You can do a full warmup (including adequate throwing) in about 30 minutes if you are efficient. If you have some specific team thing or a special throw you want to add in, too, add 10 minutes. What's the big deal about getting there 20-45 minutes extra early? It's time wasted, energy wasted, and focus wasted. Those things ain't free.

My kid's soccer team had a drill using one ball where each kid was standing around 95% of the time before having about 5 seconds of "skill work". Hated it enough that I got up and left to go work out.

And now for things I like.

Jim’s Nationals report

Once again, this year’s Nationals is not like any other Nationals.

I wrote just prior to the event, exaggerating only a little, that 0-3 was a distinct possibility for our first day. I did believe that it was going to be a fight to get into quarters in a decent position (good seed or not exhausted). Our team was thin in numbers (18 players on Saturday, swelling to 20 for the rest of the tournament, minus injuries) and in talent (missing a lot of big names from Worlds and last year’s Nationals), and our performance earlier in the year (Worlds notwithstanding) was decidedly poorer than the previous year. In 2007, at Boston Invite we had a play-in to make top 8, then lost a one-pointer in the 9th place semis bracket; in 2008, we lost a play-in to make the second 8, and ambled to a 17th place finish. In 2007, at Sectionals, we lost a one-pointer to make the finals; in 2008, we finished 6th. In short, no matter how you looked at it, we were significantly worse than we were in 2007, when we battled to win it all.

But when the games started, this was not at all the case. We started off against Madison’s Old Style (#2 from the Central), which had beaten Surly in pool play at Regionals. We broke with tradition and insisted everyone get there early, to run a huck drill at 9:05 (game at 9:30) and then some endzone scrimmaging prior to the game. On offense, I made it a point to treat this game as an elimination game, and our offense came out and scored the first several times we got the disc. Before we knew it, we were cruising in for a 15-4 victory. “Huh,” I thought.

Next up was Miami’s Anejo (#2 from the South), with some of the old Refugees and some younger guys who apparently inherited their marking habits. This was a key game, we all thought, as a win would put us in good shape to be able to lose to one or both of the regional winners and still be in good position to run the table at the end. But they kept dropping the disc, and before we knew it, it was 8-0 at the half. They finally scored and mock celebrated, but the 15-4 final score was a good indication of the game. “Wow,” I thought, “these teams really suck.” To be fair to my team, we were playing solidly. Our O hadn’t been broken in 10 attempts (with only a couple turnovers even), and our D was converting their opportunities fairly efficiently. DoG’s best performances historically came when the O and D did their basic responsibilities (score and get turnovers, respectively) well but not historically so, but the D managed to convert their turnovers at a high rate.

With some room under our belts, we knew we could lose our next game to Troubled Past (#1 from the NW) without forcing us into any must-win games. They appeared to have about the same team as last year, when we beat them by 1 in pool play and 2 in the semi. But once again, they made mistakes and we didn’t, and it was soon 5-1 in our favor. I think at this point they backed off and conceded the game. (There was one point in here that one of our new guys came up to me and apologized for that last point. I had no idea what he was talking about, so he said he was getting into it with one of their players. “Which one, #3 or #77?” I asked him. “Don’t bother with them, that’s what they do.” But in fact #3 (my old friend Aaron) was not playing that game at all this year.) We continued to roll, although the O finally got broken at game point and then survived a multi-turnover point to avoid getting broken a second time (I was rooting for either team to score at some point as I just wanted to get off the field and not wear myself out). 15-8.

We had clinched a spot in the quarters and were already calculating necessary point differentials and tie-breakers. Our first opponent on Friday was Philly’s OLDSAG (One Last Ditch Shot At Glory, for about the fifth year in a row), who had surprisingly lost to Denver’s Double Black (SW #2) on Thursday at double game point. It was a little windier this day. OLDSAG didn’t play that well, and we rolled them 15-8. Somewhere late in the first half, I developed a big knot in my calf and removed myself. I went off wandering around looking for treatment, stopping at the Ironside tent first (Russ couldn’t take me), then to the Frisbee central (no massage until 1, just a tape guy, who told me to stretch it), then back to the field eventually. Coop’s wife Amy, who is a massage therapist also, worked me over after the game a little, and spread out the pain from a single spot to a much wider area.

Our final opponent had rendered this contest meaningless for us by getting smoked by Anejo in the morning game. They needed to beat us to qualify, but we had clinched first place. I thus planned to take the game off, but with our small numbers, when we began struggling, I got into the game, first as a fill, then more actively as the game continued to be close. We just don’t think it’s a good idea to blow games before the elimination rounds start. I think it was during this round that Mooney hucked a backhand upwind to me right over my head. I couldn’t pick it up at first, and when I finally tracked it, it started to fade away quickly and I just watched it hit. Hall of Famer Danny Weiss thought this a good chance to heckle me, so he did. Some Miami guys were also walking by and joined in, and all reminded me later when they saw me again. (In the second half of the Miami game the day before, as we lined up, I saw my wife in the far endzone walking away from the field. I yelled down to her right past our opponents, “HEY JACKIE! I’M CUTTING DEEP THIS POINT! GET A PICTURE!” They came down in some odd form of junk and left me uncovered, so I ran deep. The throw was perfect for a picture, and as I was chasing it down I saw Jackie 15 yards in front of me with her camera, but it was just too far to even make a bid, knowing that if I knew it was gratuitous I would hurt myself. So the Miami guys heckled me, “if you were 33, you would have caught it.” I replied that 41 would have been enough. I also threw into a poach which I saw but didn’t bother to care about. Those two plays seemed to make their day.) So I played a few more points, and we had our closest game of the tournament, 15-11.

After a brief break came quarters against Seattle’s Throwback (#2 from the NW) , which had backed into the quarters through a) beating Mileage which was resting their players and b) Old and In The Way losing a DGP game to Chesapeaked when they had the disc downwind at least twice to win. The win had picked up a bit so it looked like it might be an upwind/downwind game. We had the choice of sides, but Alex wanted to start going upwind for some reason. I felt this was a dumb idea, giving away the advantage like that, but he insisted, so I continued to humor him and let him choose side. Both teams scored downwind the first two points, and I started to worry. But then we broke them upwind, and downwind, and maybe upwind again. Before too long, the game was safely in hand. During the game, one of their players came up to me and said, “I’m from Alaska, and we were talking about Sarah Palin last night, and your name came up. Is it true that you’re a Republican?” I laughed, and said, “No, although I vote that way every election. I used to vote libertarian, but they’re wacko and soft on terror. I just dislike the Democrats more than I dislike the Republicans. Maybe that’s just because everyone in Frisbee and Massachusetts is a Democrat.”

Thus we found ourselves in the semis once again. This year, the pools went about to seed, and the higher seeds all won their quarterfinals, none of them all that close. We drew Mileage (S #1), who had been rolled by Throwback 15-7 in their final pool play game. We knew they had two big receivers and one guy who wanted to throw deep. We had lost Dennis to a hamstring pull in the final pool play game (he said it was the first time all weekend he had run hard for more than 3 steps), Simon was available only for limited use, and my calf was sore enough to limit me a little. Alex insisted again on letting them start with the disc going downwind, and they got two easy hucks for goals. We also moved the disc down fairly easily, although they were running a poachy defense. I may have outsmarted myself here, as I decided to try to counter this before it was effective, and went to an alternative play (catch-hitch-back to catch) on the next point. But then the pull was short and it messed up the timing anyway, and we had to scramble. I hucked a low pass, and Coop tried to intercept it before a defender had a chance at it, and it bounced off his hand, break for them. We tried the catch-hitch-catch again the next point, I think, but this time the pull was too long and it again broke the timing. Our stack didn’t adjust and we found ourselves too far downfield, and a forced pass later, they had the disc and quickly punched it again. After yet another misthrow and break, we finally got back on the board with our first upwinder. We really needed a downwinder here from the D, but they couldn’t muster a turnover on that point or the next and so we traded out to an 8-4 halftime deficit. We had one chance to seize the momentum shift in the second half, after our D finally got a break and again had the disc going downwind, but an errant huck spoiled it. We may have gotten broken again on the ensuing upwinder, and that was pretty much it, barring a miracle comeback. No turnovers for Mileage in the first half, and not a lot in the second half, either. They made the plays, created the breaks when they needed them, and we did neither. Not that we invested a ton of effort into the season, and we had awfully low expectations coming into the tournament, but it is still disappointing to go out like that. Especially when the team that beat us rolled over in the finals.

After drinking beer for a few hours at the field, I headed back to Siesta Key to get ready for the Hall of Fame banquet. I had done some work in coordinating the Open Peer Review group in prior years and so wanted a chance to meet up with some of them (some such as Mooney and Sholom Simon I have known for years, others I’ve really only dealt with through email). The banquet was a good blend of milling and listening. The presentation lasted about 90 minutes out of 4 hours allocated for the event. First Mooney presented a slide slow of ultimate then and now. There were some other generic speeches, then came the honoring of the inductees. Rob “Nob” Rauch, the other emcee, announced that individuals would not get a chance to speak but rather each class (there were five years of inductees to get through) would come up as a group after each inductee was feted. I was disappointed in this at first, but in retrospect that was the right decision as it would have just taken too long and taken away from the time spent conversing and celebrating. Besides the inductees, several had family and friends present (Jim Herrick’s 92 year old father was there, for instance). The stars of the show in this respect were the Glassboro State crew, which must have numbered at least a dozen to celebrate the induction of two of their players, Timba D’Urso and Frank Bono. Matty J was there to support Danny Weiss, several Godiva women supported Teens (Glo could not attend).
There were probably 80-100 people total, a nice showing.

I made it to the fields to catch the first goal of the Open finals. Although I played on DoG with 11 of Ironside and have played goaltimate and in the Boston Ultimate Showcase Series with about a dozen more, I didn’t want to be one of those hangers-on who inserts himself onto the sideline as if he were an injured member of the team. So I meandered and tried to catch up with some people I hadn’t seen much of. It’s amazing how easy it is to miss people or to see them for only a fleeting moment on Thursday and not again for the rest of the weekend. (Maybe not that amazing, since there are 1500+ people and players are occupied for most of the day.) I was definitely disappointed for the guys, although happy for my Worlds teammates Husak and Namkung, old DoG teammate Justin Safdie, and fellow blogger and long-time finals sufferer Idris. Congrats, guys.

One eyed kings

We joined a Grand Masters league this fall in Boston. 40+ for men, 35+ for women. I was surprised to find that there was enough interest to form 6 teams playing every Friday night for 7 or 8 weeks.

The level of play was higher than I had expected. I guess I was anticipating something barely above wheelchair ultimate, but most of the teams were reasonably skilled (somewhat expected) and occasionally athletic (not expected).

Our team had several of my DoGmates, and we rolled through the year undefeated, culminating in a too-close championship game 15-12 victory (tournament victory #115, if it counts), after we had jumped to an 8-3 lead. Our teammates generally started out unaware of our lineage. In our second game, one of our draftees pointed to an opponent and said, "He's the best thrower I've ever seen" and warned us that the other team was really good. We took those under consideration. But to their credit, they treated us like normal people, and played like it was another day at the office. And it was a fun group, as we all migrated to the local bar after the games.

Hmm, got another tournament this week, playing against just old guys, instead of against really old guys. We are going to be doing things a little differently this time, though I don't want to say what they are because we're going to need every last break. And it's quite possible that we'll deliberately go 0-3 on Day 1 to set up the greatest comeback ever. You heard it here first.

PS. None of us know nothin'. We all live in our own world and see things through our own eyes, and hear what we want to hear. The blogosphere gives others a chance to step into our worlds for a few minutes, but they still only see what we have seen, and not the world as it really is.

Worlds 2008: the play

It was fun. After discussing that we shouldn't play every O point in important games for several reasons, Alex and I did just that (except for him subbing himself out due to turnovers in the finals and me sitting out a stretch in the semis due to an injury). And I think I was called first in the play about 80% of the time.

One factor that allowed for this (for me, at least) was that our tough games were spread out (other than having semis and finals on the same day!; Open played Q's, semis and finals over three days). Monday against Canada, Tues afternoon against Japan, Wed morn against Aussie, and the semis/finals on Friday. The Tues aft/Wed morn combo actually did take a toll on me as I was less effective in the Australia game. The 0 goals/0 assists of course understates my contribution that game, but I was definitely feeling it (14 O points against Japan, 15 against Oz).

Canada really played us to make in-cuts, so I began cutting deep right away more often after our Tuesday game against them. We also switched to ho stack a lot more, in fact playing the entire finals in a ho stack. It wasn't "the" ho stack, since we still didn't employ the Huck N Hope*, but it was "a" ho stack. Still primarily a cutback offense, but the spacing was different. I'm not sure what we will do in the fall.

* - I did throw one not-quite HnH pass in the finals, caught the disc as the first lane cutter, then saw Husak cutting deep and I just chucked it. I meant to put it out to the side and let him run it down, but it hung and he boxed out and made the grab. It was kinda fun, actually, but don't let anyone know.

I'm really a bit at a loss to explain how I was able to keep being effective while others got tired. After being pressed by Dugan a little bit about what I did to keep in shape, I finally confessed that I probably did less training overall than the typical elite Open player does on his off-days. Genetics certainly helps, but it's really got to be in the efficiency. I paid attention occasionally in the Open finals, and the Sockeye cutters were running all the time, fairly hard, too. And it didn't seem to be totally mindless, either, which was the impression I got watching teams like Jam at 2001 ECC (where I commented that every other offense runs a lot more than we did).

Somehow, the "offense of the future" might feature coordinated mayhem. Pro football plays are designed to provide similar looks and starts and then mix it up. Individually, cutters today may give themselves two options and make a hot read, but it's not that hard to pick up from the sideline who the first and second downfield cutters are going to be from the way they set themselves up (or the way the others take themselves out of the way). When not in the play, I often try to mix it up by acting as if I am the primary cutter, but definitely not every time. So perhaps future offenses (at least on set plays) will do this extensively. (We've had endzone plays designed to be similar, and counters on set plays, but those were always the exceptions and were obviously set plays, not anything close to free form.)


Fantasy totals (goals scored and thrown only) for all 11 games: Alex 29, Jim 28, Husak 26, Ewald 24, Coop 22, Dugan 19, Stoddard 19, others.
Fantasy totals for 5 tough games: Husak 22, Jim 20, Ewald 15, Alex 14, Dugan 11, Coop 10, others.
Fantasy totals for 6 non-tough games: Alex 15, Montgomery 12, Coop 12, Stoddard 10, Zaz 10, others.

I threw or caught 8 of 12 O goals against Japan, 6 of 8 against Canada in pool play, 0 of 10 against Oz, 3 of 11 against NZ in semis, and 3 of 10 in finals against Canada. My cell phone rang 30 minutes after the Australia game. It was my wife wondering I was injured and had been taken to the hospital and nobody told her. I knew immediately what she meant, and fessed up to not scoring.

Our endzone O became a parody of hot box O. Our median goal pass length in some games was probably 5 yards. Coop was amazing with those cuts, though, just a head fake and a shoulder shimmy and he was open for that pass all the time, so much that I called out "Coop cut" once (with just a little pause in between words, so it was both "Coop, cut!" and "do the Coop cut") and everyone knew what it meant and would later use the phrase.

Both the O and D performed better in the first halves. For the 5 tough games, the O scored 22/29 (points, not possessions) (76%) in the first half, 29/42 (69%) in the second. D got scored on 22/40 (55%)in 1st half, 25/38 (66%) in 2nd (with the first Canada game being an exception for both teams; O was 18/21 (86%) in 1st half in other four tough games, and D was 22/28 (79%) in 2nd in other games) (although neither is close to significant at the 95% level; even if I exclude the first Canada game as an outlier, only the D ratio is close to significant (p=0.06 using Test of Proportions). I think the "normal" should be between 3/4 and 2/3.

I got hurt early in the 2nd half of the Oz game. I was jumping to make a block, and the receiver ran harder at it and ran into my rib cage, probably with his shoulder. At first I thought I just had the wind knocked out of me, but an hour or two later, it was sorta painful. I was watching the disc immediately prior to the block, but I didn't think the receiver had a real chance at catching it, so I was surprised to get hit. But he eitehr got there more quickly than I thought or he made a reckless bid. I sat out the next game against Germany (17-4; I was thinking about resting that game anyway), then played a limited amount the next day. I did manage to take another shot in the ribs that day, anyway, on an innocuous collision while playing zone D. In our last pool play game (17-10 victory), Dugan (who had injured his ribs earlier in the week, worse than I) laid out and reinjured himself ("if the ribs weren't cracked before, they are now"). He didn't play at all in the semis the next day, and was surprised to find that he could play in the finals after taking drugs and warming up for a long time. On Friday, the day of the semis and finals, it hurt me to jog (it wasn't a cracked rib at all, but the muscle or the cartilage between ribs or some such thing), and sudden, low-gravity turns and accelerations hurt more than just running (there was a little soreness due to bounciness, but mostly it has been confined to muscle exertions). I played, and then on the final point of the first half, I cut to the cone but didn't think there was room for the throw, so I pulled back, but the throw went off anyway, and I had to leave my feet for it. Here is a picture. Of course, I landed solidly on my chest, right where I was injured. I told Alex I planned to sit out the second half unless we needed me, as we were up 9-5 at that point. But then we gave back one break, and then another, so I warmed up again and went back in. We traded the rest of the way until the final point, where the D got their first break since their streak of 5 in a row in the first half and ended the game. But those extra four points I played were hard and not something I wanted to do before the final. The D did a great job early in the game, getting 5 breaks in a row, but then let in 8 in a row prior to that final point.

In the final, they didn't hurt, but they definitely affected my wind, as deep breathing was a little painful and hard to achieve.

Since then, coughing is painful, and sneezing is very painful for about 30 seconds, although in recent days it seems to have improved. I played the summer league tournament the week following Worlds. I didn't have to exert myself too much on Saturday, but it was good to go on Sunday, although I was a bit more hesitant than usual on a few potential layouts. I played softball on Wednesday. Swinging the bat only hurt once out of five swings. Fielding was actually more difficult, as there were at least two that requires sudden reaching with my injured side, and I didn't make the plays as a result.

Definitely nothing like the high of previous championships. But then again, our first practice this year was on Sunday after our first game (along with three tournaments and two scrimmages). The overall level of play in the Masters division wasn't as high as at Nationals. I was a little worried that Cruickshank and Al-Bob were going to show up on Friday to play (Al was there and we drank some beers together, but he was spectating). I had written, "We expect Japan and Australia to be real threats, as well as Canada. UK and Germany are also potentially tough. More importantly, we are potentially bad, as witnessed by occasional lackluster performances this year." Japan and Australia both played us tough, but neither even medaled (both got knocked out by a surprising New Zealand team). Germany finished next to last, beating only the Venezuelans. GB finished with a losing record. I don't think any of the teams had a player who (even without our 'young' recruits) we would have been afraid to match up against. Compared to the Masters div at Nationals, at Worlds it was younger but less skilled.

We probably put out an O line at least once that averaged 43 or 44 years of age. Mooney 50, Greff 46, me 43, Coop 41, Alex 41, Bim 44, Simon 43 is the oldest that might have all been out there at once, but even our younger O players were 39 or so. So we were probably giving away 6 years of age per player against the Canadian D line.

I was pretty annoyed at the announcer in our first game against Canada (we played in the "spirit enclosure", a field set off from the others where they had a beer garden, seats, and four hot tubs). He started in right away with insults at both our ability and our spirit, almost before having had a chance to see either. Someone must have said something, because in the finals it wasn't the same. I wasn't bothered as much as some by the pro-Canada slant, as it was in Canada. (This is in contrast to the announcer at Worlds in 2002, who said when we were a point up, "Who wants to see a tie!" No home team there, either.) It's funny the things you hear when you're playing. I can pick out a "let's go, Jimmy P" or any instruction given to me by the sideline but not much else (including the line call).

The fall awaits now.

Worlds 2008: the experience

I’m back, we won. I called home on Saturday, and my five year old son said, “Daddy, you lost.” “No, we won, we won!” “No, Alex had http://www.wugc2008.com/team/409 one more goal than you did.” But then he continued with “At least you outpointed him significantly in the close games while he padded his stats in the blowouts,” so I forgave him and decided to give him his little Team USA #88 shirt after all.

It was a full week. Alex and Marshall covered the games some. We played 11 games in six days, including semis and finals on one day. (Meanwhile, the Open teams played quarters, semis, and finals over three days.) Although two games a day might not seem like much to Americans who are used to four games back-to-back on each day (or three hard games a day at Nationals), it is surprisingly tiring. With at least one full round off between games, there are two full cycles of warmup/play/warmdown, coupled with a few hours of meandering, chatting, and watching. Plus, there is a week of dormitory food, dormitory housing, and beer.

It was a big disappointment that the tournament unexpectedly lost 10 of the fields to construction earlier this year. On the first and last days of pool play, we were at satellite fields. Thursday’s location (Jericho Beach) was incredibly scenic, but far away from the rest of the tournament. (The schedule-makers did a crack job at rotating the off-site appearances, other than scheduling Japan-US Open pool play at one of them.) As I mentioned prior to the tournament, it really adds something to the atmosphere to have all games and lodging co-located.

It was a strange campus. Other than a Starbucks and another coffer shop, there were no food or beverage options on campus other than the official dining hall, which did not sell individual meals, only a meal plan. Not even a single bar that I could tell. The University Village (with a couple walk-in restaurants) was a 10 minute walk from the fields and about 20 from the dorms, and the only food at the tournament (other than fruit/bagels) was a single pita cart staffed by two unmotivated younguns provided by the university.

There was an Athletes’ Village which was good in concept but underutilized in practice. They had 12’x12’ (or 15’x15’) tents for each country in one area, but there was almost no flow past this area, and you couldn’t see any of the fields from this area. Given the constraints of the space, there was no place they could have put the tents to make this possible, however.

Nice amenities: gallon container of sunblock for each team, two or more volunteers per game (they used cell phones to instantaneously update the score online), water bottle in player pack, water at fields. There were an amazing number of volunteers (I seem to remember hearing there were 400). Probably a lot of the $500K collected in player and team fees went to housing and feeding the volunteers. The online information provided to the fans at home was unprecedented for a Worlds (UPA does a pretty good job at Nationals).

The port-o-fields never seemed to be an issue, although it was rare that someone would need to run across them. I vaguely recall one player getting his feet tangled, but since most of us don’t pivot near the line, it didn’t get in the way. The endzone lines (which were lined, not part of the port-o-field) were pretty worn out toward the end of the week.

Other amenities that seemed a waste for me: bands at the field every day, four hot tubs at the main field. I would have rather had my team’s share of them to go for a keg or two of beer for us in the beer garden.

Like Alex said, the lack of opportunities to hang out with others and drink was a disappointment, although in retrospect probably not that different from previous Worlds. With some bad luck with the timing (it’s a big holiday! Your liquor stores should be open early, not closed all day!), our room was dry until Tuesday.

I missed the opening ceremony, but it was a lot of fun to receive our trophy and medals during halftime of the Mixed final. I also can’t recommend highly enough the energy that comes from the final being in a stadium instead of at just another field, even one with sidelines or bleachers set up.

I can’t stand how the fans indiscriminately boo pretty much every close call (and some not so close calls). I can understand the boos when there is an egregious foul, but every travel call and every foul call where there was no blood involved were met with boos. There is just no way that people in the stands have anything close to best perspective. I myself was convinced that Gehret’s second foul call was a bad one when I saw it live (from 80 yards away, drinking a beer), but two pictures from different angles showed his hand clearly in front of Savage’s, so maybe it wasn’t (and I’m not even talking about the body contact). But what I do know is that there is no way in hell any of those “spirited” folks booing could tell.

But overall, people were amazingly friendly, certainly to me and my team. I think I mentioned once before, I enjoy my nanocelebrity status. I got a lot of "Good game, Jim" in the line after the game, people introduced themselves, and I even got VIP access at the finals (worse seats, but free beer). Even guys who I may have thought or even spoken badly of for overaggressive play were friendly. So thanks, everyone.

Off to Worlds tomorrow

I have to admit, this whole thing has kinda snuck up on me this year. We haven't been practicing nonstop, throwing in track workouts and agilities and a gazillion other training methods, we haven't been doing a lot of tournaments or trips, and I haven't been waking up at night sweating.


But then again, I am excited. There have been a few inspirational emails from old DoGs who can't go and from new guys. We are being outfitted free of charge by Five Ultimate, and we got Team USA discs from Discraft. We are DoG, and we are Team USA, and many people who have heard of us somewhere, sometime, will be seeing us for the first time and making impressions that they will take back home with them (as well as a few signed copies of the book, hopefully!).

Worlds is a tournament like no other. Club Worlds is special, too, but with the strong American presence at those, it feels a lot like other elite tournaments, with the non-UPA teams adding color but not a lot else (at least historically). But Worlds (WUGC, real Worlds, whatever you want to call it) has a more patriotic and international feel to it. Even if you're DoG, you ARE the US team, this year more than ever.

1996: Jonkoping, Sweden. (I'm surprised to find that I haven't blogged about these before). NY had a late comeback against Sweden in the 1994 Worlds, but otherwise, there had not been a challenge to US supremacy. The women had won 1994 Worlds by a large margin (might have been 17-1 in the finals) and also expected to cruise. Our jerseys were striped like referees, and we carried red and yellow cards in our pocket, as a symbol or something of the player's responsibility. We lost a one-pointed to Sweden in pool play, had to sweat out the possibility of a silly three-way tiebreaker (power pools went directly to the finals, no semis), and got our rematch against Sweden. One of my favorite memories is a morning throwaround on the day of the finals, with the Clash's "Death or Glory" blaring out repeatedly on a boom box brought specifically for that purpose. We won going away. The dorms were a short walk from the fields, meals in the dorms, pretty nice.

1998: Blaine, Minnesota. Being on US soil actually took away some of the lustre. Maybe it was just being in the middle of America. The turf was great but slow. We had a big team of 25, featuring many of the young guys who would not join us for real until after we had won Club Worlds in St. Andrews the following summer. My car (we were staying pretty far from the event) had Lenny in it, and he was already injured by Day 2. It took us an extra 20 minutes one morning just to get him packed up and to the fields, and as a result we showed up 28 minutes prior to gametime, but Mooney had decreed that anyone not there by 30 minutes before the game against Canada wouldn't play the first half. We went down several early, he relented and our car got to play, and we more or less traded out to a 3 or 4 point loss. This was our first real exposure to Furious, although apparently we played against several of their key players (while researching the other day, I saw Cruickshank's and Lugsdin's names in a writeup) in 1996. We beat the other teams and Sweden beat Canada in pool play. The tiebreaker gave 1st place to Sweden (who then got taken out in the semis by Japan) while we had to battle Canada again. Again we went down by a bunch, but this time I felt certain that we were going to win, all the way up to the final goal in a 20-15 defeat. We did fight back and take the bronze over Sweden, though. That fall, we lost two more games to Furious at Tuneup, but took it to them 17-9 at Nationals. Again, stayed at the dorms with other teams, and it was fun to hang around and see other countries' teams.
2000: Heilbronn, Germany. This time we booked late and got stuck about 20 minutes away at the end of the bus line. The fields, too, were spread out at the site, with no more than two adjacent. The Sweden fields were pretty tightly packed, and Blaine were pretty close but somewhat inconvenient because of these drainage ditches. Club Worlds in Hawaii were tight. Toronto 1991, Madison 1993, Street 1995, they were pretty close. St. Andrews, they were spread out a bit, though not as much as Germany. It's a real bonus to have all the fields close to each other, especially with only two games a day. At Nationals in Sarasota, the lack of byes removes some of the benefit of having all the fields next to each other. ANyway, back to Heilbronn. They had a beer garden next to the stadium fields, which was a nice treat. I don't remember beer gardens at other WFDF tournaments. We lost to Japan in pool play, once again with a poor performance after a long bye. They were all fast and jumped well, so I guess this was the first inkling that they had caught up. Won our other games, cruised over host Germany in the semis. Struggled at first in the finals against Sweden, switched to the side stack and ran off 13 straight without a turnover, but once again struggled at the end of the game. We finally prevailed 19-18, but there was a close call at double game point, and their captain (who had played with us a couple years earlier) played to the crowd, which is already predisposed to boo any close call for some reason, and really sucked the wind out of the victory.

And that's it.

2008, Vancouver, BC: Who knows. There are only 10 teams in our division, and they are Masters teams. I don't recognize many names from other teams (the rosters are online: ours is here; you can also see our results there). We expect Japan and Australia to be real threats, as well as Canada. UK and Germany are also potentially tough. More importantly, we are potentially bad, as witnessed by occasional lackluster performances this year. We are bolstered by having added three of our old nemeses from the Condors (Steve Dugan, Greg Husak, and Mike Namkung) for the tournament. Maybe that will catch some opponents by surprise. We just need to treat every game like an elimination game as far as preparation goes, and figure out how to keep 29 players involved.

USA
USA
USA
USA

Ultimate Techniques and Tactics available at Worlds

A limited number of copies of our book "Ultimate Techniques and Tactics" will be available for $20 CDN at the Gaia tent at the World Ultimate and Guts Championship in Vancouver beginning August 2. If possible, we (my co-author Eric Zaslow (Zaz) and I) will set up one or two autograph sessions at the tent for anyone who is interested. You can also track us down playing with USA Masters, as long as we're not in the middle of a game.

See you there.

training request

Someone on my team wanted to make a request. Suppose a player had a major tournament, we'll call it Worlds, in 3 weeks and wasn't in as good shape as he wanted to be. His remaining training time is limited and often comes a few minutes at a time. What would you recommend for him? What kind of exercises?

Nothing to see here, move along

I’d like to apologize to the Masters Division for destroying whatever credibility we may have had. We won the “Easterns Div II” at the Boston Invite this weekend, which means we were 17th of 32. We came in seeded 11th or 12th and expected to finish about there, with a little luck in the top 8, with some bad luck something like 13th. But then again, when your average age is 40, you don’t practice, and you don’t do much training, it doesn’t really matter how good you used to be.

Well, that’s not really true. If we didn’t used to be really good, we would have finished more like 27th than 17th.

It all started out innocently enough. We were in the second tier of 8, seeded 2nd in our pool of 4, with top two crossing over against the bottom two from the top tier. We won our first game against Tombstone 14-12. We were up 2-3 the whole game. I got off a lefty backhand for the gamewinner (lifetime lefty backhand: something like 6/6, 3 GT). In some ways, this was a preview for Worlds, as they will be representing Canada, but they didn’t have a complete squad (one guy filming, one guy sitting, another guy playing with another team most of the time except for a few illegal points which we certainly would have called them on had it made a difference in our advancement), and I don’t know if they were showing us everything. (We withheld our new O and D formations, the bi-angled stack and the ho-stack clam.)

Then, disaster. 2 hour bye, plus we noticed our next opponents lost to Bodhi, 15-5. No problem, that locked up a top two finish for us, no need to get ready for the next game. And at one time (199x), that was true, we would have gone up 2-0 and traded out for a 15-13 victory. We came out flat, and got flatter, and flattened. There was a timeout late in the first half, followed by another break to lose half 8-5, and further degradation in the second half put us at 15-8. While this did lead to some enjoyment at figuring out all the possible tiebreaking scenarios (Bodhi has to lose by less than 14 to guarantee top two, we have to win by 7 unless Tombstone wins in which case we just have to win but if we lose then we want Tombstone to lose, etc.), it wasn’t enough to make up for the poor performance.

Next game started well with a break, but then more blah, going down 8-2. Near the end of the half, a short hospital pass went up to me, I jumped, my defender got his fingers on it a split-second before I did. I started to rip it out, but then let go while everyone anticipated the strip call and stopped. I waved "no call", and he threw the disc to a teammate for a goal while most players looked on. I stuck with my non-call but then asked for a check, mistakenly thinking that I had made a call before retracting it, thus meriting a check, but I gave that up too without realizing that this was what the rules said, too. Most thought it was a strip, one guy told me he thought it wasn't. The second half was a moral victory as we managed to get 9. This sent us down into a crossover game against some Brown alumni plus Chain guys, drastically underseeded at 23rd coming in (they finished 9th, ahead of two 2007 Nationals qualifiers, giving up no more than 10 in any game). We were tired and old, and we lost a few guys in having to relocate fields, and we got beaten deep repeatedly. The closest we came to being in a position to win was having a pass dropped in the upwind end zone that would have made it 9-6.

A scrawny scrub who hardly played wanted me to blog about how bad it was that they were seeded so low. It was a good question. Clearly, going in they were one of the top 16 teams. Zip, AJ, Joel Wootten were the biggest names, plus several other players who played at Nationals last year. But they were a pickup team without any history, and all of the other teams who were in the top half were real club teams (albeit two of us were Masters teams). Should one of them have been bumped to make way for a group of guys who were better but had no way to prove it beforehand? (They proved it afterward, but they were limited to no better than 9th.) A few years ago, another pickup team (Thermonuke) won this tournament, but they had a little more history and a wider cast of characters. On the other hand, these other teams may have worked hard and earned a spot.

btw, I’m a strong proponent of stratification in tournaments. The Women and Mixed divisions at Boston Invite both had an 8 team round robin with no crossover (but also disappointingly no final game). For Open, there wasn’t as clear of a line, certainly not at the #8 spot, and except for Great Britain and Machine, none of the Elite teams had plane flights. With a full set of Nationals teams, a completely split-off Elite div is probably the best, but with less of a field, this way makes sense.

So we lost and got rewarded with an 8:30 game on Sunday. Not surprisingly, at 8:20 we didn’t have a full squad, and I’m sure our opponents were wondering if they were going to get a forfeit. Got a break early, gave it back, traded until we broke to take half 8-6. Gave it back and proceeded to trade to 11-11, scored, then broke three more times to win.

This set up the semis against Colt .45. Our previous matchup against them at White Mountain Open in 2007 helped to launch a blogging career, but there was to be no repeat of that loss. There was again not a lot of ebb and flow to the game; perhaps we got a three goal run once, but otherwise, just single breaks here and there. (Runs always add to the dramatic tension in a game. The only exception is if there is a long streak of no breaks at all, especially if there are some points with multiple turnovers, and you start to wonder who is going to blink first. As an O player, I always felt more pressure in this situation, as your hopes get up when your D gets a turn, only to have them sink away again on the cluster of an offense they run. Repeat.) One of their guys called travel twice on Arnold on non-egregious violations, probably in line with what others were doing, then after the second one, tapped the disc in a little too enthusiastically and knocked it out of his hands. At some point, Arnold told him he didn’t know how to play the game, so for the rest of the game, whenever this kid did something good, he would repeat the line. And I would repeat the line to my team whenever one of his pulls sailed out of bounds halfway up the field. Eh, no hard feelings, it’s just amusing to me now.

After the game, we tried to find an open field to move up our “final” (there was a bye scheduled) but couldn’t, and our opponents (Tombstone again) weren’t all that interested in waiting around to play us again. Their captain came looking for us and said, “We have 12 guys playing still and 3 of them are going to get hurt if they have to play another game.” So I raised my arms in triumph, and he didn’t argue with my proclamation of our victory, so we are claiming that as a forfeit win. We’ll see them again in a few weeks at Worlds.

I stayed around (my wife was still playing) and watched the end of the Open semis (both one-pointers) and most of the Open finals. GOAT-Pony was a multiple-turnover final point. The final turnover came on a long pass than hit the ground before a diving BVH could catch it, and he lay there after for a few seconds, clutching the disc. His opponent came up and tried to rip it out of his hands, but BVH wouldn’t let go, and the opponent started yelling at him, unaware (I hope) that BVH was mildly injured. But even after understanding this, he was still somewhat belligerent, so I screamed at him, “Why don’t you just piss on him?” as that would seem in character.

The finals were exciting. GOAT is my new role model for Huck n Hope. Boston was also unafraid to put it up occasionally on a whim, but not nearly as often. Kids today.

Ultimate Showcase Series

The Ultimate Showcase just completed its third year in the Boston area. It's a series of games featuring the club players in the Boston area against each other, competing in Open and Mixed.

There were three preliminary games at area schools (Concord, Bedford, BB&N in Cambridge, Charlestown) prior to the finals at a nice new soccer stadium in Somerville.

My team (Cambridge) won the Open final (hurray!) but gave up the final four points to lose the Mixed final by 1 (doh!). Even though I didn't care too much, I still hated losing that final in that way. I thought we had clinched the game after I caught a long pass in the crowd (flat-footed; I lead the league in flat-footed contested catches) and dished off a lefty backhand for the goal to put us up 14-11 with about 6 minutes left in a running clock (we had the field only until 3 pm). But boom, boom, and it's 14-13, pull with less than a minute. With about 20 seconds left, we decide to throw it deep, turn, and then they launch their own deep pass with about 8 seconds left for the goal. (It wasn't really clear, though, what the cap rule was, whether the game would have ended right there or if the point would have been finished.) The soccer guys who had the field next and were watching were nice and allowed us to play another point. But long throw, non-catch, and they moved it upwind 70 yards for the game.

Our Open team barely made it to the finals. We lost our first game 15-11, and because of point differential needed to win our next game by at least 4. We took half 8-6, then stretched it out to 14-9, but once again, we faltered. Gave up one again, then another, then another turn, got it back, another turn, got it back, and then punched it in to make it on the margin (our opponent had already clinched their spot by scoring at least 9).

It was good playing with the Boston Ultimate guys, but I wish more of them had participated. I don't think that any of the ones who played in the finals were teammates of mine ever (other than Alex) (ok, there were two, on further review). Hmm, interesting also, I just looked at their 2007 roster and only counted 11 guys who I had played with just the year before.

Kudos and thanks to the crew who ran these events, Erik Sebesta primarily. It would be good to get more fans for these events. We seemed to be plagued by bad weather this year. The finals had looked like storms, but instead just brought high winds, at least until about 30 minutes after the game, when lightning and heavy rains did hit.