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- sad or withdrawn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.
Friday, September 23, 2005
In Defense of the (ok, maybe somewhat mindless) Huck
In my recent travels through the blogosphere, I’ve noticed a trend to argue for possession based offenses and the threat they pose to top teams. In a sense, I definitely agree and I think you can perhaps point to Jam’s recent loss to Kaos and the Condors’ Labor Day loss to Rhino as possible examples of this. However, I think that newer players reading our blogs could be getting a bad impression of the huck. I also think we do a disservice to both our opponents and ourselves when we assume that the west coast teams are beating up on us simply because they have more Big Dumb Athletes (BDA) than we do.
When a team chooses the path of the huck they’ve chosen to be the aggressor. They’re taking it to the opponent saying, “we’re crazy and you better keep an eye on your end zone because the disc could be going there at any moment.”
It should be noted that the preachers of possession are not opposed to the huck. They have argued many times that the best pass is not necessarily the one with the least risk, but rather the pass that gives your team the highest percentage chance of scoring (I thought that might be too difficult of a calculation for most players to make - here). I think Parinella wrote that a huck with 60% completion rate is good enough in most scenarios (although I can’t seem to find it at the moment, so perhaps I’m making that up). I assume this number was based purely on “the numbers.” In other words, type .90 * .90 into your calculator and start hitting = it doesn’t take long for that number to be lower than .60. I’m arguing that the advantageous implications of the huck extend beyond the calculation of giving your team the highest percentage chance of scoring (this goal).
When a team completes a huck it has a psychological effect on the opponent. I try to make it a point to catch a huck in the first few points of the game because it really puts The Fear into a defender. No one likes to be scored on and there is something especially intimidating about getting taken to the rack. A confident defender won’t let it affect the way he plays defense, but often times a defender becomes so afraid of the deep game that he concedes the underneath. It also the case, that an incomplete huck is sometimes just as effective as opening up the underneath as a completed one. “this team is crazy – they’ll throw ANYTHING deep, I was beat on that last one, good thing the throw sucked. I’m not gonna give him a chance to beat me again.” In a sense, this is similar to Mooney’s discussion of using the 1-3-3, the defense that never works. The early no conscience huck trades short term efficiency for greater long term efficiency. In other words, this goal may be more difficult to score, but later goals will be easier to score if the opponent is afraid of the deep shot.
None of this even takes into account the “oops, we scored” factor of the huck. The fact is that terrible throws often times work out on the big away cut. The most compelling reason I’ve heard for this is Parinella’s discussion of temporal vs. spatial margins. A huck thrown at the correct moment has a huge spatial margin for error. When your BDA says, “just throw me ANYTHING in bounds,” he’s actually stumbled onto something.
Most games favor the side that is willing to be aggressive and ultimate is not really much different.
That’s about all I got on that, but here’s a digression into an alternate theory as to why the top aggressive teams may be susceptible to the possession based strategy. I actually think it’s the defensive strategy of the aggressive teams that is more vulnerable than the offensive strategy. I think you can fairly classify 6 of 8 of last year’s quarterfinalists as aggressive (no conscience hucking) teams. It’s not too surprising then that the defenses on these teams have evolved to stop the huck. The strategies that are most effective at stopping the huck (flat marking, backing downfield cutters) also happen to be particularly ineffective against a traditional dump-swing straight stack approach. If the aggressive teams do not make the necessary defensive adjustments, I think they are vulnerable to an efficient possession based team.
When a team chooses the path of the huck they’ve chosen to be the aggressor. They’re taking it to the opponent saying, “we’re crazy and you better keep an eye on your end zone because the disc could be going there at any moment.”
It should be noted that the preachers of possession are not opposed to the huck. They have argued many times that the best pass is not necessarily the one with the least risk, but rather the pass that gives your team the highest percentage chance of scoring (I thought that might be too difficult of a calculation for most players to make - here). I think Parinella wrote that a huck with 60% completion rate is good enough in most scenarios (although I can’t seem to find it at the moment, so perhaps I’m making that up). I assume this number was based purely on “the numbers.” In other words, type .90 * .90 into your calculator and start hitting = it doesn’t take long for that number to be lower than .60. I’m arguing that the advantageous implications of the huck extend beyond the calculation of giving your team the highest percentage chance of scoring (this goal).
When a team completes a huck it has a psychological effect on the opponent. I try to make it a point to catch a huck in the first few points of the game because it really puts The Fear into a defender. No one likes to be scored on and there is something especially intimidating about getting taken to the rack. A confident defender won’t let it affect the way he plays defense, but often times a defender becomes so afraid of the deep game that he concedes the underneath. It also the case, that an incomplete huck is sometimes just as effective as opening up the underneath as a completed one. “this team is crazy – they’ll throw ANYTHING deep, I was beat on that last one, good thing the throw sucked. I’m not gonna give him a chance to beat me again.” In a sense, this is similar to Mooney’s discussion of using the 1-3-3, the defense that never works. The early no conscience huck trades short term efficiency for greater long term efficiency. In other words, this goal may be more difficult to score, but later goals will be easier to score if the opponent is afraid of the deep shot.
None of this even takes into account the “oops, we scored” factor of the huck. The fact is that terrible throws often times work out on the big away cut. The most compelling reason I’ve heard for this is Parinella’s discussion of temporal vs. spatial margins. A huck thrown at the correct moment has a huge spatial margin for error. When your BDA says, “just throw me ANYTHING in bounds,” he’s actually stumbled onto something.
Most games favor the side that is willing to be aggressive and ultimate is not really much different.
That’s about all I got on that, but here’s a digression into an alternate theory as to why the top aggressive teams may be susceptible to the possession based strategy. I actually think it’s the defensive strategy of the aggressive teams that is more vulnerable than the offensive strategy. I think you can fairly classify 6 of 8 of last year’s quarterfinalists as aggressive (no conscience hucking) teams. It’s not too surprising then that the defenses on these teams have evolved to stop the huck. The strategies that are most effective at stopping the huck (flat marking, backing downfield cutters) also happen to be particularly ineffective against a traditional dump-swing straight stack approach. If the aggressive teams do not make the necessary defensive adjustments, I think they are vulnerable to an efficient possession based team.
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Obligatory Sectionals Report
I’ve been insanely busy the last couple of weeks and I’m behind on my blog reading/writing. There are several recent additions to what blogosphere (I think we should all start using Luke’s term to avoid embarrassing situations like Parinella calling it Blogworld) I didn’t realize existed. Idris seems to be trying to maintain some semblance of order with his ultimatetalk.com. Our blog has to be particularly annoying to catalogue since it has multiple authors. Meanwhile, it appears that we’ll hit the 15,000 visit mark sometime this morning – not too bad for a blog that was just two guys talking to each other about frisbee. Recent posts have kind of gone astray from our original intent of talking about coaching and strategy. With the college season starting up again, I’m more focused on that kind of stuff and will probably start posting more strategy/coaching after the club season. Speaking of which, I’m going with Chain 15 DoG 3 in the finals of nationals…I believe they’re taking bets over on the Frisbee Spew Site, so get your money in now. On to the obligatory sectionals report…
Chain was first formed in 1981 (making Chain older than half the guys on our team) and has never lost a game at sectionals. With all the complaining that the DoG guys do, I thought perhaps they could understand how painful sectionals is, but then I realized they played Twisted Metal, and as such, they have absolutely no idea. This year was particularly bad as the traditional second team in our section, Tanasi, has gone coed. In the past, we’ve tried many gimmicks to try to force people to play seriously. One year we instituted the if you turn it over your benched rule. That was scrapped after a few points when it became clear that people were turning it over intentionally. Last year we flipped the script and made the rule if you turn it over you play for the rest of the game, and that was actually pretty effective. This year, with the Hammonds in charge, we brought out the alcohol. The rule was – if you turn it over you’ve got to buy the beer. This led to some pretty funny scenarios. In our second game a rookie was cutting in at full speed for Jay Hammond (easily the most obnoxious guy in ultimate) and Jay just absolutely fires the flick at him from like 7 or 8 yards as he turning to clear. Of course, the sideline is all over the poor guy when he can’t come up with the catch. At this point, it might make sense to note that if you’re thinking of modeling your team after Chain….it’s probably not the best idea. I was kind of afraid that some of our opponents would be insulted by our drinking/goofing off, but for the most part our opponents bought into the idea of a fun game and started showboating as well. We somehow get through pool play with no injuries and a 4-0 record.
We had to come back out on Sunday for the finals and we actually took the game pretty seriously and played hard. The one play of note came late in the game after we had caught a huck and called timeout on the goal line. We have this 16 year old Paideian, George Stubbs, that’s playing with us, and he’s been talking about this end zone play all year. Basically, you have a guy run off the back of the stack to the front cone, the thrower fakes the throw, the cutter makes the huge dive and the sideline and stack go nuts like the guy just made an incredible catch. Meanwhile, another cutter sneaks off to the other cone to catch the goal. So everything is going according to plan, George comes off the back with the HUGE layout, everyone goes nuts and their whole team turns to watch. Then my defender starts screaming, “Boston Surprise!” “Boston Surprise!” and sprints over to the break side fast enough to stop the goal. Of course, being alone in the middle of the end zone it might have made sense for me to say something, but instead I stood there amazed. I’ve never heard of this play and I certainly didn’t know what its name was. But this guy, 1)has heard of the play 2) recognized it as soon as he saw the guy layout 3)had enough presence of mind to sprint back over to the break side to stop the play 4)all the while yelling Boston Surprise! Boston Surprise! alerting his team to our evil plan. Crazy. I would have asked him to play with Chain, but he’s obviously way too intelligent.
Anyway, that’s about all I got.
Chain was first formed in 1981 (making Chain older than half the guys on our team) and has never lost a game at sectionals. With all the complaining that the DoG guys do, I thought perhaps they could understand how painful sectionals is, but then I realized they played Twisted Metal, and as such, they have absolutely no idea. This year was particularly bad as the traditional second team in our section, Tanasi, has gone coed. In the past, we’ve tried many gimmicks to try to force people to play seriously. One year we instituted the if you turn it over your benched rule. That was scrapped after a few points when it became clear that people were turning it over intentionally. Last year we flipped the script and made the rule if you turn it over you play for the rest of the game, and that was actually pretty effective. This year, with the Hammonds in charge, we brought out the alcohol. The rule was – if you turn it over you’ve got to buy the beer. This led to some pretty funny scenarios. In our second game a rookie was cutting in at full speed for Jay Hammond (easily the most obnoxious guy in ultimate) and Jay just absolutely fires the flick at him from like 7 or 8 yards as he turning to clear. Of course, the sideline is all over the poor guy when he can’t come up with the catch. At this point, it might make sense to note that if you’re thinking of modeling your team after Chain….it’s probably not the best idea. I was kind of afraid that some of our opponents would be insulted by our drinking/goofing off, but for the most part our opponents bought into the idea of a fun game and started showboating as well. We somehow get through pool play with no injuries and a 4-0 record.
We had to come back out on Sunday for the finals and we actually took the game pretty seriously and played hard. The one play of note came late in the game after we had caught a huck and called timeout on the goal line. We have this 16 year old Paideian, George Stubbs, that’s playing with us, and he’s been talking about this end zone play all year. Basically, you have a guy run off the back of the stack to the front cone, the thrower fakes the throw, the cutter makes the huge dive and the sideline and stack go nuts like the guy just made an incredible catch. Meanwhile, another cutter sneaks off to the other cone to catch the goal. So everything is going according to plan, George comes off the back with the HUGE layout, everyone goes nuts and their whole team turns to watch. Then my defender starts screaming, “Boston Surprise!” “Boston Surprise!” and sprints over to the break side fast enough to stop the goal. Of course, being alone in the middle of the end zone it might have made sense for me to say something, but instead I stood there amazed. I’ve never heard of this play and I certainly didn’t know what its name was. But this guy, 1)has heard of the play 2) recognized it as soon as he saw the guy layout 3)had enough presence of mind to sprint back over to the break side to stop the play 4)all the while yelling Boston Surprise! Boston Surprise! alerting his team to our evil plan. Crazy. I would have asked him to play with Chain, but he’s obviously way too intelligent.
Anyway, that’s about all I got.
Friday, September 09, 2005
Kangaroo vs Synthetic
There are way too many posts on rsd and on blogs about cleats. Here's mine... I read a comment over on Frisbee Spew where Heacox says he prefers the synthetic uppers they are putting on cleats these days. During Summer League EOS, AJ trots out with his new cleats and shows them off. "Kangaroo," he says. Here is a gratuitous shot of AJ modeling his Puma Kings. AJ and I agree on one thing, coed sucks...no, wait. Kangaroo is King. The comfort scale in cleats goes like this (worst-best): synthetic, cow leather, and kangaroo leather.I remember the first kangaroo leather cleats I got, some Adidas TRX 3's. I couldn't believe how good they felt. Then, of course, Adidas stopped making them. I switched to the Nike Talaria's, after hearing how amazing they were, and I was won over (not saying much since Adidas stopped making my beloved TRX 3's). I loved the traction I got and how light they felt. My feet paid the price though, as I started getting blisters and blackened toenails again. The Talaria's used Nike's synthetic upper, but I'd always had problems with Nike's so I just attributed it to that.
The Talaria's synthetic upper ripped after 3 tournaments. Thankfully, Nike has a great return policy. If your shoes tear or malfunction, within 3 years of their manufacture, Nike will 'replace' them. Generally this means they'll give you the MSRP of the cleats in the form of a Niketown.com gift certificate. Unfortunately, it takes a while to ship them there, have them inspect them, get the gift certificate, order the new cleats (hoping they have them online), and have them shipped. Regionals was coming up and I needed new cleats. I ended up getting lucky, I found a pair of Nike Mercurial Vapor K's. Basically the same shoe, but made from juicy Kangaroos. Gone are the blisters and the blackened toes. They've lasted longer than the Talarias too. The kangaroo stretches, which makes them more comfortable and durable than the synthetics. They are slightly heavier (.6 ounces), and a bitch to find though. I only wear mine at tournaments (I have an unlimited supply of Talarias from Nike for practice), and they're still going strong. I just bought a backup pair off Ebay.
Most of Adidas top-of-the-line cleats seem to be kangaroo, but Nike (and Gaia) seems to be sticking with the synthetics. I'm sure the Mercurial Vapors, Vapor TDs, Speed TDs, Super Speed Ds, Vapor Jet TDs and Total 90 IIIs are great and all, but I'll stick with my Mercurial Vapor Ks (if only to help the kangaroo population problem.)
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
Confidence
I've got a few players who are currently having confidence problems. They've either had a run of bad luck, or made a few bad plays in a row and suddenly it gets in their heads. I'm trying to decide the best way to handle the situation. It's likely different for every player, but the way I see it you've got two basic ways to handle the situation. You can keep putting them in tough situations, situations they are currently having problems with, to show them that you have faith in them. Or, you can put them in situations they are more comfortable with and allow their confidence to return before putting them back in a situation they are having problems with.
I remember several years ago in summer league, I had back to back games where I had a key turnover late in the game. It got in my head so much that I didn't even want to be on the field. My captain at the time took me aside and told very nicely to get over it, that the team was going to need me playing to succeed, etc. It encouraged me to get back on the 'horse', and eventually I regained my confidence. I think an important part of it was that someone I respected showed they had confidence in me.
Does anyone else have any experiences with players (or yourself) having confidence issues?
I remember several years ago in summer league, I had back to back games where I had a key turnover late in the game. It got in my head so much that I didn't even want to be on the field. My captain at the time took me aside and told very nicely to get over it, that the team was going to need me playing to succeed, etc. It encouraged me to get back on the 'horse', and eventually I regained my confidence. I think an important part of it was that someone I respected showed they had confidence in me.
Does anyone else have any experiences with players (or yourself) having confidence issues?
The Numbers Game
This weekend we were trying to figure out what jersey number yields the best team. In other words you take all of the 1’s on all of the teams and you put them all on the same team, all of the 2’s make another team, etc. – what number has the best team? Here are last year’s Championship Rosters for reference. It’s also kind of fun that certain types of players tend to gravitate to certain numbers. I’m not really sure what team would be best. The big ego 1’s have a strong squad, but have self-destruct written all over them. The 9’s have the deepest squad, drawing a player from every champies team. The 3’s and 7’s also have strong squads. Sadly, the 31’s only had 1 player at Nationals last year, but there's always next year.
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
0 for three 4
So Chain went up to the Chesapeake Open this weekend. As expected we lost in the finals 15-14 to Ring. We definitely had some chances to take control of the game, but we didn’t really capitalize. Games against Ring really seem different to me than games against other teams. They’re just SO physical, I generally feel like I’ve been beaten up after I’m done playing them.
Anyway, all and all it was a decent weekend for us. We finally got the DoG off of our backs, absolutely crushing them, 15-14, in the final game of pool play. They were missing a few key players – unfortunately the absence of both Jim and Alex really cuts down on the potential cross blog schmack talk. I fully expect to read about it if they should get some revenge this weekend in Santa Cruz. Come to think of it, I haven’t had a lot of success against the other members of the frisbee blog world. Lukegot the better of us several times back in his Sockeye days, andIdris and Jam worked us over a few times as well. Thankfully, we were able to sneak past Zaz and Machine this weekend, which is good because it’s important to keep these upstart bloggers in their place.
Random Thoughts/Notes on the Weekend
*It’s kind of depressing to see former Chain players being big factors on other teams – Barrett (DoG), Brooks (Ring), Joel (Pike), Timmy (Machine), were all there this weekend – come back to Atlanta!
*When you stop doing something a lot you stop being good at it – I swear I used to be able to jump and play respectable defense – a summer league wasted playing dump has ruined my usual practice jumping for garbage passes, and two seasons of offense has me thinking “there’s always next point” when we turn it over.
*When we signed up for the Chesapeake Open we were promised “the sweetest fields on the East Coast.” The fields were something other than sweet, but the tournament was fine because there was plenty of water and the format wasn’t crazy. That’s really all I ask for in a tourney – water and a reasonable format.
Random Thoughts/Notes on the Blog
*You sent me a question – I haven’t answered it – sorry, I’m lazy…I’ll get around to it eventually. Some of these questions are pretty damned involved. I’m not sure I feel qualified to answer them. Of course that won’t stop me from making something up…I’m just saying.
*Wood – where have you gone? Come back and post again.
Anyway, all and all it was a decent weekend for us. We finally got the DoG off of our backs, absolutely crushing them, 15-14, in the final game of pool play. They were missing a few key players – unfortunately the absence of both Jim and Alex really cuts down on the potential cross blog schmack talk. I fully expect to read about it if they should get some revenge this weekend in Santa Cruz. Come to think of it, I haven’t had a lot of success against the other members of the frisbee blog world. Lukegot the better of us several times back in his Sockeye days, andIdris and Jam worked us over a few times as well. Thankfully, we were able to sneak past Zaz and Machine this weekend, which is good because it’s important to keep these upstart bloggers in their place.
Random Thoughts/Notes on the Weekend
*It’s kind of depressing to see former Chain players being big factors on other teams – Barrett (DoG), Brooks (Ring), Joel (Pike), Timmy (Machine), were all there this weekend – come back to Atlanta!
*When you stop doing something a lot you stop being good at it – I swear I used to be able to jump and play respectable defense – a summer league wasted playing dump has ruined my usual practice jumping for garbage passes, and two seasons of offense has me thinking “there’s always next point” when we turn it over.
*When we signed up for the Chesapeake Open we were promised “the sweetest fields on the East Coast.” The fields were something other than sweet, but the tournament was fine because there was plenty of water and the format wasn’t crazy. That’s really all I ask for in a tourney – water and a reasonable format.
Random Thoughts/Notes on the Blog
*You sent me a question – I haven’t answered it – sorry, I’m lazy…I’ll get around to it eventually. Some of these questions are pretty damned involved. I’m not sure I feel qualified to answer them. Of course that won’t stop me from making something up…I’m just saying.
*Wood – where have you gone? Come back and post again.
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
Expect More Get More
Colleges are just starting to open up again which means frisbee practice is starting up again. I’m always a little torn at the beginning of each season. On the one hand I want to push the ladies to work so they can improve, but I’m always afraid of scaring off the new players. Here are some random thoughts about player retention.
One of my coaching mottos, stolen from Pete Carrill’s book The Smart Take from the Strong, is expect more get more. Carrill’s idea is that a coach should never allow a player to get complacent. We as coaches should continue to present new challenges for our players. Obviously, we need to be realistic with this - it’s not going to be helpful for us to make demands on a player that they can never achieve. But we want to always be pushing our players. I’ve had players tell me that I’m never satisfied with the way they play. I tell them that I’ll be satisfied when they’ve reached their maximum potential as a player – of course seeing as they’ve only played at most five years, they’ll probably reach this maximum potential long after they’re playing on my team. Last year, in appreciation of my approach to coaching, the ladies got me this book, which I think really sums up the amount of respect I get – but I digress.
In any event, it’s perhaps counterintuitive, but I actually think that starting the season with a serious attitude actually leads to higher player retention. When you think about what kind of people we’re trying to attract I think it makes more sense. The players who are going to be most successful are the players who are most interested in working hard. When we start off the season by just goofing off and trying to make sure everyone is having a good time we actually run off these types of people. Last year, I had a girl who had played field hockey her whole life quit the club field hockey team to play ultimate. The reason she gave was that they just weren’t hardcore enough. If we start the season with the attitude that we take what we do seriously we will attract the more serious people. Anyway, I’ll probably have run all the new players off by week two, but we’ll see how it goes.
One of my coaching mottos, stolen from Pete Carrill’s book The Smart Take from the Strong, is expect more get more. Carrill’s idea is that a coach should never allow a player to get complacent. We as coaches should continue to present new challenges for our players. Obviously, we need to be realistic with this - it’s not going to be helpful for us to make demands on a player that they can never achieve. But we want to always be pushing our players. I’ve had players tell me that I’m never satisfied with the way they play. I tell them that I’ll be satisfied when they’ve reached their maximum potential as a player – of course seeing as they’ve only played at most five years, they’ll probably reach this maximum potential long after they’re playing on my team. Last year, in appreciation of my approach to coaching, the ladies got me this book, which I think really sums up the amount of respect I get – but I digress.
In any event, it’s perhaps counterintuitive, but I actually think that starting the season with a serious attitude actually leads to higher player retention. When you think about what kind of people we’re trying to attract I think it makes more sense. The players who are going to be most successful are the players who are most interested in working hard. When we start off the season by just goofing off and trying to make sure everyone is having a good time we actually run off these types of people. Last year, I had a girl who had played field hockey her whole life quit the club field hockey team to play ultimate. The reason she gave was that they just weren’t hardcore enough. If we start the season with the attitude that we take what we do seriously we will attract the more serious people. Anyway, I’ll probably have run all the new players off by week two, but we’ll see how it goes.
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