Spongy headers, collisions, & cranberry Mojitos

“Ah yea, this is going to be great today!” was the general consensus as the Buzzards walked across the spongy field today to get ready to play. Last week’s rain, which we had already played a great game playing in, had sufficiently soaked the field and made for a sloppy time.

Lined up next to some soccer game that actually looked like it might have meant something, we got ready to pull our own game (which always means something) into play. We presumed there were many on the soccer field who secretly wished to be playing with us. Even if we didn’t have banners and mascots. In fact when we wouldn’t pay attention to them they resorted to kicking a ball into the side of my bean. In two of the last 3 games, I have taken something upside my noggin’. Last week, Bob centered a disc in warm ups beautifully across my forehead. Today it was the European wannabes kicking that loony ball into me.

I was unimpressed and play barely stopped for us…except to get that crazy round ball off our field. I was, however, impressed today with a new excuse….

New guy: “Hey, my glasses have a scratch in them, that’s why I suck today?”
Bill: “Really? How many times have you been out here playing?”
FNG: “Uh, this is my first time.”
Bill: “Well, that’s a great excuse but you can’t come out here one time and expect to be Joe Ultimate”
FNG: “Well, I play football and I thought…”
Bill & Wings “Okay, stop right there….football, thinking…neither of those has any place on this Ultimate field”

So anyway, it was great to have Steve out and a couple of the other new(er) players out today. We didn’t exactly mean to put them all on the same team, the shirts just kind of worked out that way. Besides Sniper, quit whining, did you see Phil leaping into the next atmosphere today (new guy schmoo guy)?

Today, also marked “Return of the Carnage”. With many apologies to “Boom Boom”, we had more contact on the field today then we’ve had in the last month combined and none of it could be attributed to you. Chris & Steve had a couple collisions, hacks, slight pushes…uh, did we mention it’s a non-contact sport? The best one though was Wings barreling down on the disc, when out of nowhere, Brook appeared just in time to become part of the turf. I was calling it Ultimate Karma after Brook aka “Ginsu” had repeatedly chopped me in the arms and hands with the disc trying to back me away while I was marking him…I’m reading the rules later looking for clarification on that.

You know it’s been a good day on the field when Kash heads back to the locker room with that bicycle splatter up the back of his shirt. Mallard after having one of his best games last week when we was called out in the rain was conspicuously absent today…the guess…too many cranberry Mojitos this weekend.

POTUS drops in near the Ultimate Field

Good game of 6 on 6 yesterday. Overcast and very windy. The latter made for some interesting throws & pulls. We also had to back up our game 15 minutes because word has it that POTUS was making a little speech at NDU yesterday and the back gate was closed until 1130. Not sure where W gets off upsetting the Buzzards routine. Would have been cool to see if he could have stuck around and played. Of course, if the VEEP was with him, I'm not sure I want to be a Buzzard in his "Field of View"...actually, we were probably safe as we'd have been the prey and not his hunting buddies.

Not too sure how equitable the light/dark shirt split was yesterday. Our lights team seemed to be challenged in the running department and for whatever reason, has some aversion to man-to-man defense

Next BPUC point of emphasis should be our “rolling start times”. If the game is called for 1130, it would be great if we could be on the field at least warming up by then. We started 15 minutes after the called game time yesterday and that either keeps us out there longer and or puts people in the position of feeling like they need to leave a game early to keep from taking a 2 hour lunch.

A couple years ago, the games only went 45 minutes because I think we got some “feedback” from some office supervisors on the Ultimate players’ office hours. My proposal is that if we’re out there and ready to start at 1130, then we’ll play an hour but we’re cutting it off at 1230 or (an hour after called game time) regardless.

On a lighter note…anybody notice the increase of hammer throw attempts and successes? Nice job practicing and perfecting your art there Buzzards.

Leave it to a football player to start calling out the Ultimate players when a little rain starts falling. Listen “real” Ultimate players play in anything…..

...........rain

........snow.......

....even dresses...

Buzzards Circling the Septic Fields

"The weather is here, wish you were beautiful"…extra credit for the first one who writes a comment to this entry with the source of that classic lyric.

We wandered out today to play on the north fields and found the manhole cover removed (now it was marked with a cone but if you’ve seen "Shadow" run, you know this isn’t adequate safety measures). Also, there was the matter of the big blue and silver mobile sanitation engineers vehicles that was leaving 6 inch tire treads in our far end zone.

So we moved the field north a little more (playing north to south instead of the usual east to west). With Mallard in charge of surveying field dimensions we wound up mapping out a 100-yard long field by about 35 yards vice the 70x40 ish that we normally try to play. This combined with our new found emphasis on the rules and trying to pull with both teams on the end zone lines made for some interesting starts but I must say that we managed pretty well.

The long narrow field with the moderate breezes forced a short passing game for both teams that seemed to work pretty well. Brady definitely brought his “A” game yesterday and sliced and slid for a couple nice open scores, finding seams in the defense. Derek & Sniper returned from their IMT duties to rejoin us and the contact was at a minimum as “Boom Boom” especially cognizant of his ramblings only ran over one player today…and to be fair, the hang time on the throw that Lindsay was waiting for when he got hit, could have been timed with a sundial.

By the way, a belated “Thank You” to Travis for putting together our new team logo. I’ll let you know when I’ve posted the schedule for the mandatory lower back tattoos.

The weather has been perfect lately. Need to get in a good game today as tomorrow looks like it’s going to be a washout….although…and this could be a delicate subject…”real Ultimate players” are undeterred by a little rain. I’d be up for playing a rain game tomorrow if we have enough others.

Get a bigger field!

I apologize for the lack of entries here by the Buzzard’s Scribe. It’s been a great week of Ultimate weather since last week’s heat wave. The temperatures dropped about 20 degrees in two successive days late last week and we got in some good games.

Yesterday was a watershed day for the BPUC. We had 16 players on the field! The surprising thing about this is that I called the game yesterday morning only having confirmations for 6. Then right before I went out I got two more and knew we’d have at least 8. I wandered out on the field to find we had almost 3 full teams we could have run out there. And while it was somewhat crowded, it was great to have so many players.

We definitely need to get the pennies ordered now to be able to tell who is who on the teams. The light and dark strategy has seemed to work okay most days but if anybody wants to spearhead the ordering of the pennies, get with Annette. Somebody needs to find a source and then she’ll help with the spending of the money.

One other note; there have been several leg injuries of late that at the layman’s eyes look like they might have been prevented by some good stretching. I don’t think we’re going to get to where we’re taking any of our playing time to do this but I hope you’ll try and do it before you start on your own. Here’s a link that might be helpful

Thanks to everybody who came out yesterday. We had 1 newcomer, Chris (brought by Brady), most of the regular cast of rogues – Mallard, Carom, Steve Irwin, Camo, Wings, Visor, Floater, Jason & Running Man. Good to see some other faces that hadn’t been out in a while – Brook, Brian, & Tag. Forecast for today: mid 70’s, beat the lacrosse players to the North Field and another great game!

Columbus would have played Ultimate

Game on: 5 on 5.
Temperature: 90 degrees & sunny

Significant slowing of ocean circulation, large reductions in Greenland and West Antarctic Ice sheets, releases of terrestrial carbon releases from permafrost, and increased proportion of category 4 and 5 hurricanes are all solid reasons to take Global Warming seriously but I’m drawing the line at having to play Ultimate in 90+ degree temperatures in October!

Okay, who am I kidding? At least I was playing and not stuck in my cubicle somewhere. But holy Knut Discman, what’s going on at The Weather Channel (they’re responsible for these temperatures right?)?

Fortunately, it’s dropped about 10 degrees for today’s game and should drop another 10 by tomorrow. Might even be able to break out the long sleeved under armor soon.

At any rate, we sweated, panted, and huffed our way through the game yesterday… or at least “Carom and the 120” did. I l left the field wondering how Todd was able to drop two ¾ field throws on the back line of the end zone for scores to the “sneaky fast” Bob who I’m thinking about naming “Steve Irwin”. Did you see those scrapes and bite marks he claims was from wrestling his dogs?

Hey things are looking good for today….11 people responding for the game today… Pull!

Off for the weekend...

We're going to take a day off today. There's a wetting down going (Congrats Running Man) on and some early Friday departures. I hope everyone has a nice holdiday weekend. Stay safe and we'll see you back on Tuesday.

Here are some pics from yesterday...



Mallard, Bob & Carom approaching the field of play...

Rodney doing a little deep knee bend catching...this apparently didn't work too well as he still left the field injured...

Floater practices his Hammer throw with Carom.

Visor & Camo warming up...

Bob stretching his "ripe" muscles out before the game...

Sniper & Visor getting in a few practice tosses.

"Middle-aged Folly" or "Civic icons of Fitness"?

Another great game today…5 on 5, 80 degrees, incredibly humid. We actually had 11 until Rodney went crumbling to the ground holding his leg. The compassionate crew that we are, I heard the remarks, “Okay, that’s long enough, roll him out of the way, let’s get back to the game!” and “Also, can you take a few pictures since you won’t be playing anymore”.

We assume he’s okay since he walked back to the building without any of our help. We’re guessing just some middle aged aches and pains.

Speaking of middle aged…apparently our readership has expanded beyond those of us actually playing. This excites and worries me both at the same time. At any rate, we’ve been accused of some sort of middle-aged male narcissistic attempt to see our names and pictures associated with sport at all costs. I’m pretty sure that was a compliment but I’ll have to follow up with Mallard and double check that it wasn’t the ex just trying to sweet talk him again.

Really, in all fairness only a few of us are probably middle-aged. And while I confess to coming close to that milestone I must also offer, in my defense, that I’ve basically given up all other sports in my life, and especially from a spectator standpoint. I can’t remember the last sporting event I watched on television beginning to end.

So, we’re not completely consumed with ourselves and there are women that play with us though one is on the disabled list all the time and the other stands us up more than any high school dates we ever had. Kelly, now I know that “maybe” means I’m eating alone again. And you might be surprised at the depth of conversational versatility we have. Heck today I overheard discussions of the rodeo, chemistry (the density of vodka does prevent sweating alcohol odor), Blackwater missions (what they really need is a good layout ace), and theology (the hammer of God).

There was even some talk about art (what do you see in these grass stains on my shirt?) and culinary expertise (who won “Top Chef” last night?). See, we’re really renaissance men but we appreciate the concern for our depravity. There should be some allowance that your knowledge of us comes through the eyes of Lindsay who is, and I say this with love and affection, perhaps not our most demographically median representative.

New nicknames bestowed today. I’m torn between “Carom” and “Tip Drill” for Kashyap. Matt C, I’m about to dub you “Floater” if you throw me one more pass that won’t come down.

Okay everybody, you’ll have to wait until later to see the pictures from today, I actually have to get back to work.

Character Development

Jason showing off his forehand fling.

Tom practicing the hammer throw...uh, you need to get it up some I think...

We had a great game yesterday. 6 on 6 is always good. It was only about 70 and overcast when we went out and it looked like it was going to be really nice to play in and then the sun came out, burned off some of the clouds and warmed things up a bit.

We trekked down to the old fields where Mallard made a little noise about having to set up cones two days in a row. Apparently there some clause in his contract that he felt he shouldn’t have to do that. Every team has to have its prima dona I suppose.

It was a pretty evenly matched game yesterday and actually some vertical leaping going on. Of course there was also some vertical falling…. The slo-mo stumbling of a 6’4” duck into the end zone is something you don’t see everyday.

Is there such thing as t-shirt intimidation? I noticed Todd wore his black track and field shirt out yesterday. Simultaneously trying to psyche us out that he would wear black in the sun and that he was a relay runner? By the way…some new nicknames up for consideration. Todd aka “Visor” and Tom aka “Steamroller”. This team may finally be developing some character ~ Mallard, Sniper, Wings, Visor & Steamroller.

Speaking of shirts…does Frank wear that army tan so he can sneak into the back of the end zone without anybody seeing him? We could call him “Camo”. Matt D joined the “I forgot my clothes so I’m wearing the cheap orange shorts” club of which Bill & Derek are founding members.

Matt demonstrating great pancake form.

Today is a football day so we’ll be missing at least Wings. I’ll be interested to see if we pull enough for a game though…

Tom, Lon & Wings during water break...

Return of the Chief

Well, the return after a week off was not as bad as I thought it would be. Thanks in part to everybody who showed up for the game today 5 on 5 is a nice way to get back into things. The weather was perfect, about 75 degrees, a little breezy and sunny.

There were some interesting spills on the ground today. I glanced up the field once to see Conrad had fallen down in the end zone, seemingly untouched. Kelly ran right into the back of Travis going for the disc and then somehow got Travis to call a foul on himself (how does that work Kelly?). I also managed to get myself steamrolled by Tom with some sneaky quick positioning right before a scoring throw.

In the showers after the game I heard the comment “Hey, it almost looked like we were doing out there a couple times today”. Though it may have been accidental, I would have to agree. There were several good short passing scoring drives with give and go passing.

I’m still amazed somebody can throw that hammer throw where they actually want it. Today, Todd dropped a beauty into the waiting arms of Rodney for a score.

Great run today everybody! Thanks to everybody who called and organized games last week in my absence. I heard there were some good ones and memorable moments like getting a dozen people to show up for a game that nobody actually brought any gear to.