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.

Muddy Monday

We’re only 2 weeks into January and really have hadn’t a long stretch of challenging winter weather but I’m encouraged by our 3 games and 39 people we’ve had come out so far. It was a great game of 7’s today. Welcome back Scott, good to see you. Soccer and basketball took the day off and we also got Doug and JQ. And while Leroy finished up his winter “break” at work with the Coast Guard last week, Carolyn is still with us as George Mason apparently doesn’t believe in school in January. Now that’s a J-term I can appreciate.

The pitch was a bit muddy today…I guess. I came into the locker room though having to carry my shoes in a Ziploc because I had played yesterday in Richmond on a completely grassless bog where my cleats were essentially useless but I wore them anyway and there was a coat of dried mud on them to start today’s game. But many of us were also in it today. I saw Carolyn diving for a catch across the end zone…or maybe that was the defensive play where she and Bridgette looked like a snowball picking up size as it goes downhill when they both hit the ground in pursuit of one throw. Jason fell straight back on another throw that was surely headed into his hands even though he was the defender. And so much so that Todd had stopped covering the deep guy and gold team got the first score of the game on a broken play.

Not all of us saw that play though. Remember the bit in the email this morning when I called the game about trying to start a few minutes earlier than we have been? Well, Brad apparently thought that was a personal affront to his civil freedoms and decided to not come out until 15 minutes later. So we, on the green team had taken our extra player advantage in George, the other late-comer, and didn’t do much with it.

It actually looked like we were gaining some reasonably approximation of a zone defense on a few plays as Paul was hustling up to get some good cup defense set. And it worked well for a while…or on some plays I guess. By the way…I noticed Mike that you were trying to exercise the “Phil” rule and swing the disc around hitting people on the arm to show that they might be in your “pivot zone”. A little clarification here may be in order. When you have a 6-foot plus wingspan or you’re able to pivot the length of a small child, you cede some of your privilege to that foul call. The defender gets to come close to you and you’re probably better off trying garlic, really strong onion or flatulence if you want to ward them off. We’re not letting you hit people with the disc anymore so just throw it already.

Brian seems to have ironed out most of the kinks of that reverse discus throw of his. It’s amazing what you can adapt to when you’re injured I guess. Now that Scott is back I can shift my missing Buzzards attention to other people. Eli, where in the world are you? I keep getting “No” responses from Tim. So much so that I wonder if he hasn’t set up an “Out of Office” rule on his email to anything Outlook sees from me. And Tom we haven’t seen you in a while though I did notice that you had RSVPd for Friday’s game which didn’t happen.

Okay everybody, don’t pass by too many opportunities to play. The weather could turn anytime (check out the 10-forecast…Thursday may be the turn day this week) so let’s take advantage while we can. Great, great turnout today!

http://bpuc.blogspot.com/

Dog Days

posted by Bill

Having been out of the office Monday and Tuesday and missing those two scorcher games and then not getting enough on Wednesday, yesterday was my first game of the week..

Got an email from Phil asking who was playing and I realized we had kind of an eclectic group yesterday. Welcome by the way to Mark, another new Buzzard this week. He made the aforementioned Monday/Tuesday games and still came out yesterday so that bodes well for continuing to see him out there. He and Will were our “new guy” representatives but both have pretty good running ability (which is to say, they can) and Will has these Go-Go Gadget arms that I found tough to D on the couple of times that I got stuck with that bad switch.

In fact, we had trouble, in general on defense yesterday on the green team and Leroy remarked that we might need to do something with our match ups. I think it may have had more to do with our offense actually as we gave up several deep turnovers not being able to complete 2 passes in a row. But Dennis did throw several great deep passes early and that led gold to their early lead. Will, Frank & Phil all hauled in throws from Dennis.

Meanwhile, Mark, Leroy, Tom & I kind of fuddled around trying to find some offensive rhythm that seemed more limited than internet access in Beijing. And with humidity hovering around 105% and even a light rain during part of the game we also seemed to have some problems hanging onto the disc.

We have several Buzzards out nursing injuries and other things I think. I thought we might see Thunder back this week but his doctor put the kibosh on that idea and he remains on the DL though he was well enough to vacation down in Florida last week. Todd is still out, MattP decided to rest from the Ultimate field but did so with his newfound love…sand volleyball. Should we feel cheated on? Carolyn has apparently left us and our thoughts are with her, Annette is still in and out with her treatment, Hollan has been on limited play duty and so we’ve been missing many of the regulars.

Speaking of missing regulars, heard from Bryan yesterday up in Milwaukee and he said to pass along a hello to everybody. Apparently he was headed out to play some floor hockey. Hope he remembers that floors are generally harder than fields and that layouts may not be a good maneuver for that sport. Rodney has abandoned us for a few weeks TDY and will be gone for good before too long. Frank is also on his farewell tour.

It’s great to be getting all the new faces out. We’ve more than replenished the transferring out folks from this summer…at least in number. Look forward to seeing more of you all out and bring friends and co-workers. This weather will have to break before too long and the fall is a great time to play out here, you’ll love it. Get in condition now and you’ll be running all over the place by then.

New discs were ordered yesterday and we should have those by sometime next week. Hope everybody has a great weekend and gets a chance to get out and enjoy themselves some outside.

Hokey Pokey

Posted by Bill

Our June award winners:
"MOB" - Todd

"SOTG" - Hollan

A good game of 6’s yesterday! 1 new player, another back out for her 2nd game, Hollan back behind the camera and the June awards presentation…good day for the Buzzards.

First, welcome to Brian, who worried on the way out that this group might be too young for him. I told him we had some players in their 40’s but he seemed skeptical when I asked if he had played before and he realized the answer he was giving me was more years than a couple of the players that play with us have on this earth…okay to be fair Brian, they’re summer hires, students, it’s okay they’ll be back in classes in the fall.

Of course, speaking of back in classes, Carolyn, thanks for coming back out and since you’re only over at GMU, you’ll be welcome to come back and play with us anytime even after you go back to school. Try not to schedule anything in the 11-1pm block, I’m sure your advisor will understand you have a good reason.

As for the rest of you motley crew…nice game yesterday. Great to have you all back out there. Welcome back KellyG, Phil, & Bob from everywhere you’ve all been…nice goatee there Bob. Did you notice it slowed you down some yesterday or was that just from taking a week and a half off?

Today’s rule refresher is on “Traveling”. We rarely call this but we should start just so we’re making people aware of the rule because if you ever play in a league or tournament, they will call this on you. (The roman numeral hyperlinks take you to the corresponding spot on the UPA’s website.

A. Traveling: The thrower must establish a pivot at the appropriate spot on the field and keep all or part of the pivot in contact with that spot until the throw is released. Failure to do so is a travel and results in a stoppage of play and a check.

1. In addition, each of the following is a travel:
a. A player catches the disc and either speeds up, changes direction or does not stop as quickly as possible before establishing a pivot (XV.B).
b. A player receives a pass while running or jumping, and releases a pass after the third ground contact and before establishing a pivot (XV.C).
c. Purposeful bobbling (including tipping, delaying, guiding, brushing, or the like) to oneself in order to advance the disc in any direction from where it initially was contacted (XV.A).
d. The thrower fails to touch the disc to the ground when required (XIII.B).

Enjoy some pictures…if you don’t see them all here, check the Flickr site for all the extras.








Carolyn looking to throw with her new skills learned under Kevin's tutelage.

Kevin chases down Brian after a catch.

Hey Bob, you gotta open your eyes if you're going to grab this from Todd.

Frank & Matt working their short game.

The Buzzards doing the Hokey Pokey...this is great. I love how the disc looks implanted.

2 new, a weave and SOTG refresher

Posted by Bill

We had a good game on Monday with 6 on 5. I’d like to give a warm welcome to a couple new players, Bob & Carolyn, it was great to have you both out there. I love this game because players of all experience levels can step right in and have fun. Bob came out and I joked that he should have come with a warning label…usually when I see somebody with his…uh…”career maturity”, humble height and being follicle-challenged…I assume they are going to be in a physical condition more like…well…me. But Bob had obviously played before and forgot to tell me that he could actually run. By the way, we have another "older running Bob" so one of you guys is abosolutely going to need a nickname.

He, Tood, & Frank ran a flawless 3-man weave play at one point in the game that Todd remarked about later “We should have just quit right then after we scored, it wasn’t going to get any better”.

And Carolyn, admittedly a new player to Ultimate made an outstanding one hand grab off a pass from Todd for a score. I checked with her before the game “Has anybody explained any of the rules to you?”

“Well, I remember some from high school P.E. class” she replied.

“Perfect!” I told her, “You’re already at our level”

Kelly G was back after her early summer hiatus and looked like it was a little challenge to get her wind back completely. Hollan was also back…trying to talk himself into being back in playing shape after his injury…and then took another ugly fall that was trying to argue the opposite.

Speaking of ugly falls…er…layouts…Todd was particularly impressed by my instinctual turn and dive for a pass from Eli that wound up being 10-15 yards short and just made me look silly.

Tim and I hooked up on a couple nice scores on Monday but I wish I could have also hit him on about 6 more that I just totally missed the throws on. Saved my best throw for last though after getting a nice entry pass from Hollan that Frank just barely missed, I looked up field and started yelling “Go, go, go” to Rodney, who was already on his way to the end zone as I cut one loose sailing over his head. He ran it down and made a great layout catch as Todd pulled up claiming he had heard “Foul, foul, foul” and assume it had been so after Frank and I had made a little contact.

*** Official vanity paragraph *** uh for those of you who have been caught gawking at pictures of yourself and reading heroic captions to your co-workers about your exploits from the blog, this paragraph is officially dedicated to you today… "and there were others, not previously mentioned, on the field today” :)

A reminder from the Ultimate Players Association website page on the Spirit of the Game –
Spirit of the Game sets Ultimate apart from other competitive team sports.

For over 30 years, Ultimate has flourished, reaching a highly competitive level, without the use of referees. In Ultimate, the honor system works. Sure, human nature rears its ugly head from time to time - just as in any sport, just as in life. Yet, one of the many beauties of Ultimate is how, even amid the most difficult of situations, utmost graciousness is allowed to meet that challenge head on. Through this balance, Ultimate players are free to demonstrate the most honorable and the most joyous sides of human nature in sport.

Looking forward to having some of the regulars back on the field soon….Phil, Bob…today? Thunder is due out next week according to the NASA systems countdown.

Again, the chance of precipitation is less than half today for game so let’s head out…pull!