2009 State of the Buzzards Address

I came in this week to jeers about not having given some sort of New Year’s greeting and so, after a surprising week at work in which I’ve actually been efficiently employed I find myself able to sit down and reflect some on the Buzzards 2008.

There are 65 people on our email distribution list and by my count 44 of them have come out at least once over the last year. Listen a couple years back we scurried around for 3 on 3 sometimes so my expectations are not high. Of those 44 though I would consider about half to be regulars, or to have been regulars at some point during the year. And of that 22 or so, I know of 8-10 that I can’t count on almost daily to come out and throw the disc around. That’s a great state to be in for the Buzzards Point Ultimate Club and I sincerely appreciate it.

You know the superstition about the thing you find yourself doing on New Years to be indicative of how your year will go? Well, from a personal standpoint, that was a bit disturbing. Some travel plans and conflicting schedules left me alone on New Year’s day. I had two five minute phone conversations and said hello to a cashier at Target and other than that had no human interaction. I’m not sure how to interpret that actually in New Year’s Lore but it was crazy quiet that day.

For the Buzzards, our first game of the New Year was this past Monday and we had 16 people come out to play! I’m hopeful that is indeed prophetic of the level of participation we’ll have in 2009.

In 2008 we have been able to survive a large turnover in personnel and a rash of injuries. Let me see if I can recall most of these without leaving too many names off. We lost Lindsay who may have returned for 1 or 2 games after the New Year last January but mostly he’s been gone all year, Travis, Kashyap, MattC, KellyG, Justin all not only left the Buzzards but the Coast Guard as well. I’m not sure what that says about the type of officers this sport attracts. Some players we both gained and lost this year; Conrad, Alec, Paul, Will & MarkR. We also said goodbye to several of our hard core regulars; Hollan, Frank, Rodney, Bryan, JasonN, and EricB as well as other players of varying lengths of stay and levels of commitment; CaptKev, Lon, MattM. Finally, we also lost the Buzzards Jukebox to ridiculously intrusive internet filters and the MOB & SOTG awards to extreme apathy.

We were able to offset those losses by a great influx of players; JasonK (actually an old new player…this is his 2nd tour here), Brian, Kevin, Carolyn, Leroy, PaulS, Jordan, Mike (a couple of them), Dennis, Bridgette, Jeana, JQ, George, Brook, ErikN, Scott, Brad, & MarkW, Fred, Tim, KevinR, Roz, & Rachel. I am sure I’ve missed somebody.

Who I’ve really left out so far are the folks that were here at the close of ’07 and still here at the start of ’09 and come out regularly and keep this team afloat. Thanks to Todd, Bob, Phil, Scott, Tom, & MattP.

All of you have made this arguably the best entity at Coast Guard Headquarters and around. I have thoroughly enjoyed hosting this blog and this club. 81 entries online this past year have not adequately encapsulated the amount of satisfaction I derive from the Buzzards.

Looking ahead I believe we are set to lose quite a few folks this year so make sure you put us on your internal check in/check out sheets so we can reach out and touch the new people coming in. Keep dragging your office mates out and reminding them they won’t die those first few games and to keep giving us a try.

Thanks for a great ’08 Buzzards
~ Bill