Thursday, October 13, 2005
Seeding Rules
Is it time to get rid of the requirement that the team that finishes higher at regionals has to be seeded higher at nationals? It seems like this rule consistently forces seeding that doesn’t gel with the common sense perception of strength. I think it’s particularly silly in the scenario where the 2 and 3 seed don’t even play. In open this year, I don’t think there were any huge surprises at regionals, but it sounds like their might have been some craziness in coed. Anyway, there are examples of other sports that don’t force this requirement – The NCAA Basketball Tourney for instance – I was just wondering what people thought about this rule.
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
Post Tournament Depression (PTD)
For a few years now, I've noticed an emotional change in the days following a tournament. I've spoken to a few others who about it and they've noticed similar things. Usually, the Monday after a physically and mentally taxing tournament, I'll exhibit several (generally mild) symptoms of clinical depression. Now, I may be overly sensitive to the subject since I have a psychology degree and since I've suffered through bouts of clinical depression in my life (ironically, Ultimate has been the best cure for me). I am not suggesting that Ultimate in general, or tournaments in particular cause clinical depression. Rather I have experienced what I describe as "Post Tournament Depression (PTD)" which is a mild, short duration (2-3 days) form of depression.
Here are a few of the symptoms I've noticed:
I've failed to find any studies on physical exhaustion causing temporary depression, so perhaps it's all in my head. It makes sense to me though, that a physically draining event could cause a person to feel depressed for a few days, while the body recovers. I do not mean to ignore the mentally exhausting aspect of the problem. I do think that a mentally taxing tournament can increase PTD symptoms, but I think physical exhaustion is the main cause.
So, does anyone else notice symptoms of depression in the days following a tournament? Do you just wait it out or have you come up with a way to bring yourself out of it?
Here are a few of the symptoms I've noticed:
- lack of energy
- sad or withdrawn
- irritable
- difficulty completing simple tasks
- difficulty focusing
I've failed to find any studies on physical exhaustion causing temporary depression, so perhaps it's all in my head. It makes sense to me though, that a physically draining event could cause a person to feel depressed for a few days, while the body recovers. I do not mean to ignore the mentally exhausting aspect of the problem. I do think that a mentally taxing tournament can increase PTD symptoms, but I think physical exhaustion is the main cause.
So, does anyone else notice symptoms of depression in the days following a tournament? Do you just wait it out or have you come up with a way to bring yourself out of it?
Friday, October 07, 2005
Southern Regionals
Tim writes, “The blogworld is silent.” I’m not sure why everyone’s stopped posting. Honestly, ultimatetalk.com is kind of in my head. It seems like ultimatetalk is geared toward serious discussions and I’ve been hesitant to clutter up that board with my pointless ramblings. I’ve been trying to figure out a way to block the RSS feed on individual posts so I can prevent my goofy posts from being syndicated, while still letting ultimatetalk pick up the “serious” ones (any ideas?). I think I could probably categorize all of my posts and then provide a separate RSS feed for each category, but blogger doesn’t support categories, and I don’t feel like moving the blog. Anyway, if you’re looking for some frisbee posts you should check out Tim’s blog, it’s a lot like the early days on The Count’s blog. The only other stuff that’s really going on is over in the comments of Zaz’s latest post (I used to think I was a nerd, but after reading a few comments, I realize I didn’t even understand the meaning of the word). That’s about enough of that - onto to the regionals write-up.
Last Tuesday, the score reporter was only showing 15 teams as going to regionals, and I was afraid were going to have the ugly 15 team format. Basically we would have had to play 3 games on Sunday instead of 1, so I was really hoping we could secure a 16th team. Thankfully we were able to grab a 16th so the modified triple elimination bracket was on.
Our first round was against Crude of Dallas United. Dallas has two teams and they apparently have a very good relationship. Crude calls themselves Grit’s B team. I’m not sure if they practice/have tryouts together, but I think it’s an interesting idea. I think maybe they did something similar in the Toronto area this year? I think it’s great to see the top team in an area working to develop the players on the second team. It’s going to guarantee that the top team always has the best players, but it seems like it can go a long way towards improving the depth of good players in an area. It will be interesting to see how things turn out in those areas in a few years. Crude had some good athletes but was a bit short on throwers and we were able to take care of business
Next up was Miami. In 2002 we actually lost in the second round to Miami and had to fight through the LONG road to natties. They still have some of the old Florida Combo guys and traditionally it hasn’t been pretty when we’ve played them. I was hoping they would lose in the game prior to this one because I wasn’t really excited about arguing for two hours. As it turned out it was pretty clean uneventful game.
Our final game of Saturday was against Vicious Cycle while Doublewide played Bulge in the other semifinal. Vicious Cycle has a couple of old-timers, but for the most part they’re super-young. Their studs are the studs of the University of Florida men’s team. The Junkyard Dogs pretty much dominated this game as we took half 8-2. In the second half we mostly traded to finish it off. There were no real highlights.
Thankfully the game was short and we got to watch the DW-Bulge game. This game was pretty contentious. Bulge got up by a couple of breaks and looked like they were going to take it, but DW went on a big run at the end. In the later stages a DW guy and a Bulge guy were jawing back and forth and the DW guy shoves the Bulge guy. The Bulge guy shouts “I will knock you out!” The consensus among the Chain sideline was that the Bulge guy would in fact have knocked the DW guy out had it not been broken up. In further proof that God loves the fans, Doublewide decides to immediately throw the big hanger to the two guys that had just been fighting. In an attempt to dispel the rumor that the disc never lies, the DW instigator comes down with the hanger over the Bulge guy.
Sunday morning brings a swirling, gusty wind for our finals game against Doublewide. The Junk Yard Dogs continue their impressive play breaking 3 times to Doublewide’s 1 and we take half 8-5. Highlights include Kid pimping the bejesus out of Max. I really felt bad for Max, as he read the disc perfectly and really did everything he could. Here’s a picture of me getting pimped to ease the pain.
After half, the O team goes into shut-down mode and we get broken 4 of our next 5 possessions and we’re down 11-9.We finally score to make it 11-10, and then the Junk Yard Dogs come out and break twice in a row to put us back up 12-11. We trade to 13-12 and then the JYD finish it 14-12. All and all a pretty ugly game, but we won so that’s good.
I skipped the VC-Doublewide game and went and watched the coed finals. Hang Time and Hot and Sweaty are both very strong. I would be pretty surprised if both teams didn’t make at least quarterfinals.
I was back at the open fields for the Bulge-VC game to go. It was a very fun game. The crowd was just about evenly divided between loud Bulge fans and loud VC fans. I had to leave at half-time to catch my flight, so I missed the bottle throwing. There were only 4-5 Chainiacs remaining at the fields when I left, and it was mostly GA Tech kids. Bottle throwing is more of a Dawg thing, so I’m gonna guess Chain didn’t throw the second bottle. I guess I’ll find out for sure at practice tomorrow.
Last Tuesday, the score reporter was only showing 15 teams as going to regionals, and I was afraid were going to have the ugly 15 team format. Basically we would have had to play 3 games on Sunday instead of 1, so I was really hoping we could secure a 16th team. Thankfully we were able to grab a 16th so the modified triple elimination bracket was on.
Our first round was against Crude of Dallas United. Dallas has two teams and they apparently have a very good relationship. Crude calls themselves Grit’s B team. I’m not sure if they practice/have tryouts together, but I think it’s an interesting idea. I think maybe they did something similar in the Toronto area this year? I think it’s great to see the top team in an area working to develop the players on the second team. It’s going to guarantee that the top team always has the best players, but it seems like it can go a long way towards improving the depth of good players in an area. It will be interesting to see how things turn out in those areas in a few years. Crude had some good athletes but was a bit short on throwers and we were able to take care of business
Next up was Miami. In 2002 we actually lost in the second round to Miami and had to fight through the LONG road to natties. They still have some of the old Florida Combo guys and traditionally it hasn’t been pretty when we’ve played them. I was hoping they would lose in the game prior to this one because I wasn’t really excited about arguing for two hours. As it turned out it was pretty clean uneventful game.
Our final game of Saturday was against Vicious Cycle while Doublewide played Bulge in the other semifinal. Vicious Cycle has a couple of old-timers, but for the most part they’re super-young. Their studs are the studs of the University of Florida men’s team. The Junkyard Dogs pretty much dominated this game as we took half 8-2. In the second half we mostly traded to finish it off. There were no real highlights.
Thankfully the game was short and we got to watch the DW-Bulge game. This game was pretty contentious. Bulge got up by a couple of breaks and looked like they were going to take it, but DW went on a big run at the end. In the later stages a DW guy and a Bulge guy were jawing back and forth and the DW guy shoves the Bulge guy. The Bulge guy shouts “I will knock you out!” The consensus among the Chain sideline was that the Bulge guy would in fact have knocked the DW guy out had it not been broken up. In further proof that God loves the fans, Doublewide decides to immediately throw the big hanger to the two guys that had just been fighting. In an attempt to dispel the rumor that the disc never lies, the DW instigator comes down with the hanger over the Bulge guy.
Sunday morning brings a swirling, gusty wind for our finals game against Doublewide. The Junk Yard Dogs continue their impressive play breaking 3 times to Doublewide’s 1 and we take half 8-5. Highlights include Kid pimping the bejesus out of Max. I really felt bad for Max, as he read the disc perfectly and really did everything he could. Here’s a picture of me getting pimped to ease the pain.
After half, the O team goes into shut-down mode and we get broken 4 of our next 5 possessions and we’re down 11-9.We finally score to make it 11-10, and then the Junk Yard Dogs come out and break twice in a row to put us back up 12-11. We trade to 13-12 and then the JYD finish it 14-12. All and all a pretty ugly game, but we won so that’s good.
I skipped the VC-Doublewide game and went and watched the coed finals. Hang Time and Hot and Sweaty are both very strong. I would be pretty surprised if both teams didn’t make at least quarterfinals.
I was back at the open fields for the Bulge-VC game to go. It was a very fun game. The crowd was just about evenly divided between loud Bulge fans and loud VC fans. I had to leave at half-time to catch my flight, so I missed the bottle throwing. There were only 4-5 Chainiacs remaining at the fields when I left, and it was mostly GA Tech kids. Bottle throwing is more of a Dawg thing, so I’m gonna guess Chain didn’t throw the second bottle. I guess I’ll find out for sure at practice tomorrow.
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