I know we'll be just fine

Was scrolling through past blog titles and noticed PWE. At first I could not recall what that meant. It only took a second to spark, and of course Emily remembered even quicker, although I'll cite her sobriety's edge and her wonderfully quick brain for whatever repressed aspect of my ego needs to win at everything.

Practice. Winning. Everyday. 

That was my mantra in my last college semester both for ultimate and life. Lately it has been more PDE which is a lot less productive, although we've been making the most out of our last weeks in New Paltz and it has been fun.

Home soon, and it will be a mad dash to organize my life for the summer and beyond. When the dust settles, I will have a life plan and projects to work on in spades, and I need to make sure I adjust my attitude for many reasons, not the least of which being that I need to work more on my ultimate game so I can be a baller contribute to the club team, and also so I start feeling good about myself as an athlete. 

At the very least, my baseline athleticism going into the season is the highest it has ever been, my ultimate  is the highest it has ever been, and the game is making all kinds of sense to me in ways it never did before. But in the midst of all the craziness of my threee weeks at home, if this is going to be a successful season for me, is putting in the hard early work to shake off the rust, finding the motivation to run when it hurts more than normal and that little insecure part of me starts slinging mean words to dampen the fire. 

Have a good Thursday, all.

PS THIS is hilarious, brings back the funny memories from surgery. Never had to deal with anything like a torn mcl or worse though, hope ya'll join me in wishing Brodie a speedy recovery. Ultimate needs him.  

Callahan Redux

While Nick Lance of course walked away with the Callahan, Alex Thorne showed his caliber in the finals. No two ways about it, he crushed Wisco with his throws. All props to Pitt's impressively athletic defense, they made it nearly impossible for Wisconsin to reset the disc. Pitt's downfield defenders relentlessly pressured all unders, knowing Tyler would bail them out on the deep looks (he was at least 50/50 in the air on O and D, and against a team like Wisco that's an amazing stat. Dude is a monster). Pitt's overall athleticism, defense, and ruthless cutting are top notch.

But at the end of the day, without Thorne that game is a dogfight, and I think Wisco would take it with their experience. But Thorne's throws were so on point that Wisco never had a chance to build their characteristic defensive momentum. Zone on a windy day? Looks like fifty yard bladey flick hucks to his wide open brother with no chance to the defense. On a day when Wisco's bread and butter hucks were not clicking, Thorne was nearly perfect. As shown when other Pitt players put it up big, he was the only one on either team with the composure to put it up big repeatedly with success.

Almost more impressive than Thorne's hucks was his demeanor as the game approached its final moments. On the end line up big, close to the win, Thorne did not try and force the disc into the endzone with a tough but flashy throw. He trusted the same system that got him there, swung the disc unselfishly to his teammates until a cut was wide open. And throwing the final point to his freshmen brother? Icing on the cake, cementing Pitt's multi season road to finals as a narrative the ultimate community will not forget. And the best part? Pitt is not even close to done. With all the press their young players have deservedly gotten, cumulative in a national title, with hard work and dedication to the program Pitt (and Oregon for that matter) can and should stay in the mix of title contenders for the foreseeable future.

And then we have Wisconsin. The Hungry Hungry Hodags, who have now been denied two years in a row from taking home the gold. The nature of being a casual fan of ultimate is that we follow a more abstract notion of our favorite teams than fans of more recognized sports. And given that coupled with ultimate culture, it is almost trite to follow one of the perennial contenders. But the Dags play with a heart that is both fire and ice, and they are a fun team to root for. This season and last, they defied expectations and made it to finals at the expense of early season favorites. The current Hodag squad now has a monkey on their back of sorts, only to be thrown off with a finals victory. I have no doubt they will approach next season with renewed dedication to bring home the gold to Madison again.

Congrats to Pitt for the win and Nick Lance for the Callahan. Well deserved and well fought.
I may have spent the better part of the finals game yelling profanity at my laptop screen, but despite dispatching my favorite team in finals Pitt won my heart with Alex's relentless awesomeness. Meanwhile, we have the upcoming club season, and another Callahan winner on an always hungry Chain Lightning. Should be a good one, a worlds year with experimental tournaments, the US Open, AUDL champs, you name it. It is an exciting time to be an ultimate player. Me, I'm just hoping the shakeup in the mixed division leaves our section with the same number of bids as last year. With the Hudson Valley/Connecticut merger and Doober's Albany liaisons, regionals looks ripe for the picking and this team, and season, is looking to be a lot of fun.

Lines

Been playing in a local summer league for a laugh. Playing on a team with some friends from New Paltz pickup. Good bunch of people on the team, varying skill levels.

Playing against worse teams can encourage a lot of bad habits but it has been a chance to play, to run around. Also a chance to focus every point and try to reinforce good habits in a low pressure situation. So far I've really thought about my field positioning on both offense and defense.

I'm starting to see the lines of the field a lot better. Where you have to put the disc to get it to the cutter. Two lines intersecting. Very pretty.
I was average at geometry but I'm getting better.

I want to be able to see the lines on defense better. I need a complete mentality shift so that I can better see the lines of the defender and the disc, how I can intersect with the disc before my mark does.

Anyway, working on it.
Also working on my coaching. Feeling more and more confident as a throwing teacher. I dream of a day when I could get a job as an assistant coach for a big frisbee program, just working with players on their throws.
Who knows.

AUDL would be pretty cool too...

Callahan Thoughts

Nick Lance as an absolute monster, undeniably. Probably the best player in college.
However, I am voting for Alex Thorne. He seems like the best leader, and is also a monster player. Also I am taking into consideration how his leadership has impacted his program. Without Lance, GT does not qualify for nationals, but without Thorne, Pitt would not be a title contender this year and that seems fairly important.

People tend to discount good players on deep, top teams because of the strength of their supporting cast, but I am more impressed by the players who can bring together a group of talented players and play and win as a team.

If the Callahan is an mvp award, Lance should win. In a talented group of throwers, he is a monster. But Thorne is almost as impressive a thrower, and as has been proven before, the award is not strictly an MVP award. It is about leadership and integrity, and Thorne shows that in spades. Lance does too, and it is a tough choice. I expect Lance to win but Thorne is the player I am most impressed with.

Who knows though. The Callahan award means different things to every person who votes in it. I think it is time for an overall MVP award in addition to the Callahan. Maybe name it after some legendary player from years past. The Stork award would be funny.
That would create a less ambiguous voting system, an recognize the extra dimensions inherent in the Callahan award.
Kurt and Brodie would have (should have) won MVP, for instance. Certainly merited.
Vote Alex Thorne! (or don't. America is in love with Nick Lance's scoober and I don't blame us a bit).

Two Letters

Whoooboy.
It must be spring. That time of year when everyone kind of stops caring under the pressure of finals and the sweetness of impending summer. When everything gets a little frayed around the edges.

When I can't tell whether I want to stay here forever or burn the place to the ground.
Gotta love it though, its beautiful all the time, albeit humid.
No matter what, I will miss this, these easy crazy days.
Whoooobuddy.

What should I do with this blog - is it strictly speaking a chronicle of my college frisbee career or is it my lifelong frisbee career or is it just a blog about life?
Guess time will tell. Whether or not I keep writing here.

Just a little bit unsure about everything at the moment. That's probably the nature of college ending for basically everybody.
This could go on but nah.

PS ultimate this week yay!

301st

That's a lot of posts.

Threw today. The best thing about tryouts this past weekend is that I am feeling good about playing ultimate for the first time since conference champs. However in the intervening three weeks I've lost a bit of my edge. On the one hand, I am poised to level up my throwing game. I can feel it, big things are coming. On the other hand I am at risk of that level up being hamstrung by inconsistency. Bottom line, I need to throw every day to improve my focus. When I focus on form, I can generate more power than ever before.

But if not, I am travelling a lot and throwing weak shit.
Work work work, back to fucking work.

From 2010, post surgery:
"Note to self: next time you can run again but decide to do something stupid instead of working out, remember how much it sucks not being able to and act accordingly. Kay?"


Finding my fire again. Need to become a mutant.

Creature Fear Abridged

Ben, you better man up asap.

Creature Fear

The first cut...is the deepest? Thank you for your interest, but...
Oh fickle summer what do you have in store?

I need to define myself as a player, post Gunx. A player without the ease of college practices and the luxury to spend a majority of my time thinking about and playing frisbee.
Although for now I still have the time.
Just no structure.
Without a team, the motivation to train is fickle and fleeting. Without training, the edge gets dull, and when the edge gets dull it lessens the motivation to play.
Don't lose the motivation to play.
But how? Who am I playing for right now?
I don't have an answer to that yet.

One more summer of...childhood? Something like that. One more summer of living at home and going to camp. Realistically speaking, even if I make it onto an established team it is unlikely that I will be able to put my all into it. Without the money to travel, there goes basically everything. And what meager funds I can scrape together from camp and selling art are mostly spoken for, absolving past debts and making future rent payments.

By next summer I will be established, with a job and a life. In the city, even. If that works out, it will be a lot easier to commit to a solid team. I'll be able to pay my own way and carpool with teammates that I can get to know because I will be close enough to not only practice with them but hang out with them.
I can't commit to that this summer, and since I'm not an absolutely ruthless stud player not too many teams are probably going to want to take me on. Can't necessarily get myself to tournaments or even practices.

So what happens now? Taking a season off is not a good option. I don't know if I'd be able to bounce back from that unless I found another way to keep in shape.
Building a team is an enticing idea, but its so much work.
And there lies the main problem with post college frisbee. A problem that is easily solved by caring a lot.
But right now, I'm not sure that I do.
Building a team could be amazing. It will definitely be frustrating and difficult. It will be a lot of work when it would be a lot more fun to just play. But it is looking like I have to choose between working to hold together a group of people or not play any sort of competitive ultimate.

The team I want to play for is committed to playing for one another and enjoying it. To playing with lighthearted swagger and cutthroat confidence. To hanging out and goofing around.
I don't want to play with people who would rather shit talk their teammates than work on their own game. Had enough of that.

In any case, if I am to continue my ultimate career I need to find or build a team. Or find another reason to train so that I can break out of this mental catch 22 bullshit of "need a team to work hard need to work hard to be on a team".
Can someone give me a reason to play?
Who am I?