BUZZARDS OVERCOME E.D. to go 2-0!

An upstanding Buzzards team (Annette, Jeana, Rachel, Brad, Brian, Brooke, Jason, Karl, Kevin, Leroy, Paul) had no problems with E.D. yesterday, defeating the team from the Environmental Defense Fund 15-5. The glory of making deep throws to streaking cuts was only slightly marred by the occasional “it bounced off the meaty part of my hand” moment. You know who you are.

Bluepoint is (in my opinion) the nicest field we’ve seen, and reliable sources claim that there is a disc golf course in that same park. Next Bluepoint game is, um, never. We don’t go back to Bluepoint this season. But maybe in the fall…

The Grillman Medal with cheesewedge-shaped distinguishing device goes to Karl “Strahan” Lander, who worked magic on the grill, making cheeseburgers and cheddar bratwurst for all. This King Midas of Fromage also played handler the whole game, which meant he only had one beautiful corner cut for a score (poor baby). And thanks to the dessert fairy (Annette), for making triple chocolate brownies, because double chocolate brownies are just not chocolate enough.

A special Buzzards welcome to every single person in the world that Brian Moore is related to, who all showed up at the game. Mr. Moore (Brian’s dad) had never seen Ultimate before, but was throwing the long stuff before the day was out. The presence of Brian’s brother inspired Brian to throw the disc away less, which we all appreciate. No, my brother will not be attending any games this season.

Drills included a little double-disc challenge (two players, two discs, ten yards apart, keep ‘em moving) and a little bit of the zone offense demo. Our next game is our third, which means zone defense is in the playbook. Anyone who wants zone defense explained, see Brad, Brook, Bill or Kevin. If you want two contradictory zone defense explanations, see any two of them.

There was some discussion yesterday with EDFrisbee about when you can bring the disc up to the end zone line, and when you must play from where it lies in the end zone. The 11th edition rules provide that if you gain possession in “your” (defending) end zone, either by interception or incomplete pass, you must CHOOSE either to establish a pivot foot and play it from the spot where you got the disc, or you may move the disc to the closest point on the “playing field proper” (the nearest part of the end zone line) and play it from there. (Rule X.A.) Note that on the initial pull, if the disc lands in or rolls into the end zone, it is put into play from the spot where it stopped (Rule VIII.B.6.a).

Our next game is THIS WEDNESDAY July 1st at the POLO FIELDS at 6:30 p.m., dinner and practice at 5:45. Don’t forget to roger up with what you’re bringing on Roster Manager. See you there!

BPUC 1-0 in Corporate league play!

Bringing a team that can best be described as “tall,” (Todd, Jeff, Karl, Kevin, Bridgette, Tim, and Leroy, plus Reagan and Paul) the Buzzards made a strong showing against Greenspin, a more normally-heighted team from the Federal Reserve. Greenspin brought iced tea to the cookoout and a good cheer at the end (a long-standing Ultimate tradition), but fell 15-4.

Special thanks to Bridgette, the star of meat and grill. Her Italian sausage & teriyaki chicken were both well received. We’ll have to sabotage someone else’s freezer next week to ensure a good meal for all.

Missing in action: Brian and Rachel, last minute cancellations, and HRH Princess Jeana, reported overdue and missing until a first light search of her cubicle.

Several lessons learned at Monday’s game:
(1) If you try and throw deep against Todd, it will not go well for you.
(2) Kevin’s stride is 15% shorter than one yard, he will pace out a short field not (just) because he’s lazy, but because he has short little stumpy legs. Fortunately, he's enough of a geek to think that he can bring 400' of masonry twine and somehow use that to make a square field.
(3) Do not let any of the following people behind you on offense: Leroy, Karl, Leroy, Paul and Leroy; they will all score on you.
(4) Zone Offense: Dump, swing, repeat. We forced some weak passes through the cup when we didn’t have to. You can throw through the cup AFTER you’ve made them respect your dump & swing, and after you’ve spread out the defense a bit.

Next week: Games Monday 6/29 AND Wednesday 7/1:
Monday 6/29: 5:45 pm (game at 6:30) at Bluemont vs. EDFrisbee.

Wednesday 7/1: 5:45 pm (game at 6:30) at the Polo Fields vs. Multiple Scorgasms.

Don’t forget to sign up to bring stuff via RosterManager.com!

-Kevin d'
Buzzard Corps.

WAFC (Wimps Awaiting Fairer Conditions?)

Start of league play last night for the Buzzards…or maybe not. There was a very late call yesterday afternoon by WAFC to cancel games but as Kevin noted about an hour before game time, “This is the strangest Ultimate experience I’ve ever had…everybody is out here early”.

Early or no…that of course is all in one’s perspective, I hope this isn’t an indication of WAFC’s organizational skills. And as it turns out the field was completely playable and so that’s exactly what we did. The Buzzards had a huge turnout…the whole team (who said they were coming) except Leroy did show up. Reagan & Rachel, two of our female contingent were there for their inaugural (I think?) Ultimate experiences and they both used their athleticism to their advantage and looked like seasoned veterans. Bridgette, our true seasoned veteran, was there anchoring our women. And she brought Jack who I got to sneak a cookie to like I was some goofy uncle enjoying the luxury of feeding his nephew sugar and sending him home with mom.

Our Capitan’ Kevin, with shirt clearly marked “C”, showed up with a truck full of picnic and disc supplies. After a few minutes of conversation that ended with Todd clearly inpatient and wanting to get things going, I decided to roll the grill over, fire it up and throw on some hot dogs while Bob, Kevin & Todd tried, with varying degrees of success to walk off 40X70 and 25.

The rest of our crew arrived in stages, Brian & Rachel with a cooler full of beer, a watermelon and the aforementioned cookies, Brad with a couple tubs of salads and the news of the late cancellation, and Karl, Paul, Devan, Conrad (and family), Jeff (who it was great to see again), and even a last minute appearance by Thunder, fresh off house-hunting/moving bedlam.

There were a few other Ultimate players out at the fields. A Navy contingent of a half dozen were there and so we gave them a few players and scrimmaged. And we all clearly aren’t aligned well with the DC Ultimate modus operandi for calling games for weather…nobody from our actual opponent, Sloths! Sloths! Sloths! showed up indicating that they actually knew not to come out until the very last minute before a game.

Of course the WAFC was shown up by some local volleyball pickup league who wasn’t afraid of a little rain that didn’t actually come down or standing water, of which there wasn’t any. They had all their matches going on down on one end of the field. Why we didn’t play last night is inexplicable to me. I’ve played in an Ultimate league where we played in 30 mph winds and 7 degree temperatures so an overcast sky, with barely a breeze, and 75 degrees sounded idyllic to me. Is Jeana secretly on the WAFC board?

Rain or no rain, the Buzzards will be playing at lunch today. I’m looking forward to my last game before two weeks at the beach.

Pull!

Unveiling the orange and blue

Finally the new pinnies were unveiled yesterday! And a good thing I decided to order a dozen of each color because we had a huge crowd of 19 out yesterday! We played substitutes for the first time in a while. Want to welcome out 3 new players – Pinsuda, Lilly, & Lizzy. It was great to have you all out and hope you’ll join us as often as you can.

It was a nice return to our June numbers too after struggling to get a game 3 days last week. Hope to see this continue. If those of you who only play 1-2 days a week could partner up with other similar scheduled players and arrange to have your off days alternate with somebody else that would be fantastic! : )

So what’s the verdict on the new pinnies? I heard several comments yesterday (some of which are repeatable). Great new CG colors, sexy, long, durable, more to hold the stink. It’s the shirt with a little something for everyone. In fact I heard Lilly & Lizzy deliberating before the game as to whether or not they had to wear their shirts underneath them. I’m not going to make any definitive rule about this one way or another. I’ll tell you it’s been done before (I seem to recall Leroy shedding his shirt one day last summer) and some of us look better than others in mesh. For you women who play in some sort of half shirt/sports bra looking top I don’t think it would cause too big a ruckus. I’m going to leave this up to common sense. The problem I see in that is that I heard something about that on the radio last week – the commentator mentioned that he thought “common sense wasn’t very common”.

I’ll tell you what’s nice about having 19. It’s almost impossible to make the teams too uneven when pairing them off to begin play. We seemed pretty well matched up yesterday. The other challenge though is when you have subs running on and off the field is figuring out which defense you’re playing. Particularly when you have teammates who respectively love and hate zone or man defense.

Here was one conversation yesterday on the orange side – Todd running in from his rest on the sideline… “Okay, what are we playing?” as we readied to pull.

“Well” I offered “Paul just went out so we can go back to man if you want but he hates it so we were playing zone”.

And then whoever was pulling didn’t wait for the consensus before launching the disc and so we ran down in some bastardized combination of matchup zone which I, by the way, almost always prefer playing.

Blue wasn’t fairing much better figuring out what they were playing. As I was running off the field one play I heard Bob shout “Okay, let’s shift to zone!”

“I thought that’s what you were playing” I said half jokingly to which Erick replied,

“Well, that’s what we wanted you to think.”

Well, what I think was that there seemed to be somewhat of a lack of scoring going on yesterday on both sides so whatever the defense was must have been working or we just weren’t doing great getting the offensive schemes going.

Orange did have a stretch of a few plays where we got some short passing drives that seemed to work and on back to back plays Tim made really nice throws for scores after we worked the disc up field. On the blue side, I saw Brad, Kevin, Karl, & Erick seemed to put together a couple of weaves that worked well.

As is often the case we tried some deep throws that stayed up too long and Devan and or Bob would track down and break up.

Conrad, who would be the first to tell you that he sometimes drops throws he has not business dropping, caught a couple passes yesterday I thought he had no business catching. One was a juggling catch that he started batting around mid field and caught just before going out of bounds on the sideline. Lizzy in her first day out laid out a couple times on some great hustle plays.

Kelly! Isn’t it great that you aren’t the only female playing anymore? Yesterday’s turnout of 4 women was the best that I can remember in a long time. And when you add yesterday’s additions to yourself, Bridgette, Annette, & Jeana, and if Carolyn can ever stop hurting herself and get back on the pitch, we’d have quite a women’s team.

So Joe, your worries yesterday morning when you RSVPd to the game invite about it possibly being a 3rd game in a row that you could play and then didn’t get enough players for turned out to be for naught. Plenty of Buzzards in the nest yesterday.

Just a reminder for those of you playing Wednesday night in our corporate league to go onto Roster Manager and confirm if you haven’t already. I think at last check I saw that we only had 9 confirmed players 6 men and 3 women. If you aren’t playing but just to come out and watch, bring family and friends and come cheer us on! Game time is 1830 at the polo fields. See Washington Area’s Frisbee club’s page for directions. Folks that are playing, be there at 1745 for rehearsal.

"Wings" is leaving the Runway.

Farewell Matt – We’ll miss your Hello Kitty, Hannah Montana, and Lizzy McGuire towels, your calling yourself in by one cone but not the other (that’s a straight line between two points right?), your cries of “Ball up!” even though we continue to play this game with discs, and your politically incorrect sense of humor always welcome on this pitch. It’s been great having you with the Buzzards and we wish you Fair Winds as you travel to Texas.

Yesterday, and the last couple days really were fitting weather to send off somebody to Texas. Consider yourself acclimated as the humidity has been oppressively heavy. Or as another Texan Buzzard put it “You know what they call this weather in Houston? Spring!” Well, in fact Brian, it’s still technically just spring here also.

The first day of summer does not come until the 21st which coincidentally or not will also be my first full day of waking up for two weeks at the beach in Kitty Hawk, NC. Not that I’m counting the days or anything.

Prior to beach trip though we have time for some great Ultimate (and I’m sure there will be some great games when I’m gone as well). We’ve been playing in front of bleachers the last couple of days out on the parade field. Well, I guess more accurately, we’ve been behind the bleachers. Now we probably all have some interesting “behind the bleachers” stories to tell but this blogger doesn’t really want to head down those clouded and time embellished lanes right now.

What has actually happened behind the bleachers, which we assume are set up on the parade field for some pass and review ceremonies coming up on Ft. McNair, is that we’ve had two big games. The Buzzards are on a roll lately and it’s been a rare occurrence when we haven’t had at least a dozen players out recently.

So yesterday, when there was a wicked thunderstorm going on about the time I was sending out the morning invite, I suspected the potential weather might scare away some players. And, in fact, the email RSVPs to the game were sparse. Only 9 confirmed players on the way out to the pitch for Matt’s final game. But, as has been the pattern lately, plan for at least an extra 25-30% to show up.

You know there is a saying in some other team sports that “speed kills”. Well I’m finding that “heat kills speed” and our sprinters like Leroy, and Devan were showing signs of that as I noticed them walking up the field several times yesterday. Kevin and I continue to do our best tortoise impersonations and Tom keeps wondering why I’m sticking all the “old and slow” guys on the same team.

May have dubbed Steve with a new nickname yesterday – “Gunn” not to be confused with his handling aptitude but his desire to walk off the “Runway” with his pinnie on. Many of you won’t get this reference and so I’ll refer you to Erick who did know the Project Runway host’s name which may have only been slightly less disturbing than the fact that I used it. He “at least had an excuse” he claimed by living in a house full of girls. I’m blaming mine on 123 Washington Ave. and Alexa, Kelsey, Margaret & Mary.

Speaking of pinnies! Today will mark the unveiling of the new pinnies for the Buzzards so come out and see the new colors as we retire the green and gold for something a little more organizationally inspiring (or if you prefer, they can be considered the colors of Virginia, Illinois, Florida, or some Scandinavian’s national soccer team which escapes me). At any rate, gone will be the plunging neckline and thong models of the gently worn pinnies we’ve used.

Looking forward to seeing you all in them. I’m not sure they make the Tim Gunn’s 10 Essential Elements list but I think we’ll look “mahhhhhhhrvelous”!

Dinner party planning

After Monday’s monster 2-game day I was surprised to get somewhat tepid response to yesterday’s invite and in fact had to send out a 2nd email asking for players to which Tom kindly replied “I hate to see you beg, I’m in” and allowed me to go ahead and call the game around 0930.

Like Monday though, the replies were not quite indicative of the number of players that came out. All I can say about this group is I’m glad I don’t plan dinner for them. “Hmmmm, let’s see I’ve got 8 coming out, this should be enough steaks…crap, there are 14 of us? Somebody go get another cow or get that guy that does the loaves and fishes party trick!”

Fortunately we didn’t need more food, just more pinnies as Brook came out on the field with two new players and then another wandered out about 20 minutes later. Together with Brad & Scott who were surprise attendees for the day’s disc event, Matt who passed up lunch at Cantina Maria, and MikeC, we quickly fleshed out to 8 on 8.

So, by the way, an official Buzzard welcome to Karl, Mark, & Matt who all joined us for the first time yesterday. Great to have all of you out there. And no matter what Brook tells you, it’s much easier for me to plan when I know who’s coming out but don’t ever let that stop you from coming if you haven’t told me.

The humidity is here. Temperatures aren’t in the 90’s yet but with all the thunderstorm warning this week, the humidity is high meaning heavy air, heavy shirts, and heavier gym bags on the way home in the afternoons. Please remember to hydrate early and often as we move into summer.

Some decent play at times yesterday. Leroy made a few nice defensive plays, MikeC had some really good cuts and grabs, Brad also made a really nice catch yesterday and since I give him good natured grief so often on the pitch I thought I’d note a good play for a change (especially since he caught it with me playing pretty tight D on him), and the trio of “newbies” all showed flashes of Ultimate prowess.

We had a short discussion on a rule clarification for those of you who were not there, or have already forgotten what we talked about. On any pull into the end zone, the thrower must play the disc from where it lands. We should not be walking pulls out to the front line of the end zone. You may still bring a turnover into the end zone to the front goal line but not a pull.

By the way, for those of you who haven’t been following one of our Buzzard alumni, Hollan, on Facebook, the poor guy has had to resort to playing “Cornhole” now that Ultimate isn’t in his daily regimen any more. And who knows what Swinny and Phil are up to. Swinny told me he’d just been on a run or a bike or something the last time I talked to him but from the sounds of Phil & Erica’s blog, it sounds like they’re just eating and drinking their way across country. Dude you’re going to need some Ultimate. You should stop back by through D.C. before you head to NY for good and get in a week of disc.

For the rest of you Buzzards…June has been a bonanza so far. Keep it up. And don’t forget, Thursday, we’re taking a little disc sabbatical to send Matt off with a game of Flag Football instead.

Punt!

Record-Setting day part II

I changed my mind...you should mention everybody on record-setting days. Now, I have a problem though. I can only come up with 23 names...I'm pretty sure there were 24 people out there yesterday. Please don't take it personally that I can't remember who the other name was (it was probably somebody I actually played with) but let me know so I can add you...

In the order that I got the responses yesterday morning and then remembered the others this morning: Steve, Devan, Leroy, Brian, Erick, Kelly, Bob, Brad, Todd, Scott, Tom, MikeC, Tim, JasonD, Dennis Kevin, Bridgette, George, Brook, Paul, Matt, Karen, & yours truly.

Record-setting day on the pitch

June was ushered in yesterday for the buzzards in record-setting fashion. For the first time in the “modern” Buzzards era and I suspect ever, there were enough people on the pitch yesterday for us to have two games going on simultaneously, next to each other. 24 players came out yesterday in fantastic weather!

That becomes a challenge to get everybody named and I don’t think I’ll even try. Want to mention just a couple though. First timers always get a warm Buzzard welcome and we want to extend one to a new Jason who joined us for the first time, courtesy of an invitation from Tom. Also, welcome back to the building and the Buzzards to Kelly. She had made some guest appearances while she was gone but we’re looking forward to having you out there on a regular basis with us again.

I called the game yesterday at 0805 when I already had 10 responses. That, in itself may have been another record for earliest time for a confirmed game. But a funny thing happens when you call the game that early, you don’t really hear from all the others that may be coming out (they figure they’ll just surprise you I guess). Well surprise it was when we finally ran out of pinnies to wear and realized we had way too many for just one game. Paul looked at the ground when I told him to grab gold and saw that the only pinnie left was the ripped up string bikini model.

Okay, change of plans – “Kevin, Todd, Bob, and somebody else…choose up 4 teams, I’m going to set cones up for another field” I said more people wandered out. So two games it was. Then at the half way point, we switched up teams and played another game.

Just a great day for the Buzzard Point Ultimate Club! Well done folks. Thanks for enthusiastic participation. Looking forward to a great summer of playing!