Sir Edmund Hillary couldn't flick...

Posted by Bill

Anybody remember me? I’m the guy that started this blog a little over two years and 150 or so posts ago. I kept it fairly current with a post usually up once a week or ten days or more often depending on how much we played and then something happened this past summer. The Buzzards Point Ultimate Club sent a team into the Washington Area Frisbee Club Summer Corporate League and did very well in fact and Kevin started writing accounts of the league games for the blog which was great because well he was the Captain and that’s what Captains should do besides wear a hand scrawled “C” on their shirt.

Then in the fall something else happened. “Research Foundations” and “Policy in Education” classes and I stopped writing anything for fun. We did manage to get a Facebook group up for the BPUC and some of you have taken part in that arena. Mostly I was lazy. But today has inspired me to get back to the keyboard and chronicle what was certainly one of the more memorable Ultimate events in this club’s brief but storied history.

As most of you who will be reading this already know, the D.C. metro area had about 2 feet of snow dumped on it this past weekend. A record December snowfall by any accounts. It closed the Federal Offices on Monday which made for a nice 3-day weekend (at least) for most of us. Yesterday we slowly eased back into work while still fighting the icy side streets of our neighborhoods. At about 1000 yesterday Kevin sends me a message “What? No game?” I guess my expectations had been low and since he was the first to even ask, that seemed somewhat justified, but I sent out the invite anyway and he, Brad, Kelly, and Conrad all admirably RSVPd that they would play but it's all we could persuade and so it went "No Game"

Today I decided to try earlier and got a rousing response from a thinned out holiday mode Buzzards crowd at work. We trekked out to the field to find that much of the snow had been untouched. And it was still fairly deep despite some settling. There would not be much sprinting today by anybody. Tom remarked once he got out “Finally, speed will not be a factor” and he was for the most part right. Pinpoint throwing was more the premium today and we did some of that though Brian and I seemed to enjoy making our pinpoint throws to Kevin who happened to be wearing the opposite color pinnie.

“I couldn’t help it, he looked so darn attractive, I couldn’t resist” Brian protested.

“At least make him move hips and tease you. I mean he was standing still” I pleaded back.

Frank wins the award for coming out with the least weather appropriate clothing on. Shorts and no socks with his cleats. Sean was a close second also in shorts and a sleeveless t-shirt until somebody turned over an extra long sleeved one. Kelly made the first snow layout with a beautiful grab and a face full of snow as she went soaring over the sideline. Conrad, Brad and Kevin also managed horizontal moves of varying degrees of effectiveness. I will say that Brad’s was for a score and even more impressive considering the cantaloupe-sized welt he had on his leg from his weekend kayak sledding accident.

For the first time, maybe since the departure of Matt P for Texas, I heard the claim of being in by one cone if not the other (that is a straight line between those right?) That was Sean I think using the “Peeler Geometric Theorem” Another Matt, the goggled one came out to balance the early uneven numbers and swayed the advantage back to orange for most of the rest of the game but there was not an overabundance of scoring. We don’t ever keep score out here but I’m pretty sure we didn’t reach 15 by both teams.

At any rate, as Conrad reminded me as we high stepped off the field, elements like this usually engender some sort of award or nickname for those who play. It wasn’t actually snowing while we played but the depths of the snow have hereby obliged the issuance of the first ever Buzzards Point Sherpa award. For braving snow depths of double digits in inches, snow blindness, insufficient oxygen (or alcohol), pedestrian garb, and holiday leave. Congratulations Frank, Tom, Kevin, Brad, Brian, Kelly, Conrad, Sean, Matt & Bill. It wasn’t Chomolungma but it was good. Happy holidays to all the Buzzards, their family and friends. I wish you all the best and look forward to seeing you back 2010.

p.s. congrats to Conrad and Juliette new parents of Genevieve Marie.

BUZZARDS DEFEAT PPC COMPLEXIFICATIONIZERS, 15-7, and Advance to the Round of Eight

Show up on time and put it up deep. That pretty much defined the Buzzards' key to early success (taking half at 8-3) in their first ever playoff win against PPC Complexificationizers, a company team of consultants who consult on the things that their company does, which is consulting (we think they may be ninjas).

The game started promptly at 6:30, possibly a first in Ultimate history, and PPC took advantage of a careless turnover at our own end zone to draw first blood. But the Buzzards (Todd, Reagan, Paul, Leroy, Kevin, Kelly, Karl, Jeff, Brook, Bridgette and Bill) stepped up, taking the game to 2-2, and then on a 6-1 run to half.

A big Buzzard “Welcome Back” to Devon Clark, Leroy Posey’s evil twin brother. Together, the twins scored probably 70% of the Buzzard Points on deep throws to the end zone. You can tell which one is evil because of the evil one always has facial hair (“I’ve got sensitive skin!”) and the good one reads the Washington Post.

Some more Complexificationizers showed up by halftime (including someone to make the twins work for the disk in the end zone), and the Buzzards gave up three quick points getting adjusted to PPC's zone defense. At 8-6, the Buzzards decided it was time to get serious, and eight points later it was 15-7 and “Good game, blue”. The second half was classic Buzzard flow, with nice popper cuts from Paul, Bridgette, Reagan, and Kelly, and relaxed, high-percentage handling from Todd, Karl, Jeff, Bill and Kevin.

Plays of the game (tonight on “the Ocho”):
Bill “maybe if I lay out it’ll fix my back” Putnam, for digging the disk like the volleyball powerhouse he is.
Kelly “Garot is French for 'Handler', boys” Garot, for not being afraid to put up the deep stuff.
Paul “Popper” St. Pierre, for making the cup look over their shoulders and cry one big teardrop, like at the end of that Prince video.
And Bridgette “strip me again and I will gut you like a fish” Barchek, for showing Jack that Mom is NOT to be messed with.

A rules clarification: Contact which affects your ability to make a play on the disk is a foul. In short: shoving on the way up is a foul and should be called, shoving on the way down is poor Spirit and should be avoided. On a receiving foul, if the foul is contested, the disk goes back to the thrower. If uncontested, the disk goes to the fouled player.

From the 11th Edition rules :
XVI.H.3.b.(1). If a player contacts an opponent while the disc is in the air and thereby interferes with that opponent’s attempt to make a play on the disc, that player has committed a receiving foul. Some amount of incidental contact before, during, or immediately after the attempt often is unavoidable and is not a foul.

but...

XVI.H.2. Contact resulting from adjacent opposing players simultaneously vying for the same unoccupied position, is not in itself a foul.

see also...

XVI.H.3.b.(1) The Principle of Verticality: All players have the right to enter the air space immediately above their torso to make a play on a thrown disc. If non-incidental contact occurs in the airspace immediately above a player before the outcome of the play is determined (e.g., before possession is gained or an incomplete pass is effected), it is a foul on the player entering the vertical space of the other player.

And, of course, pushing an airborne player out of the end zone is a no-no.

Things to think about for next time:
The Zone offense is all about smooth flow. The Buzzards did an excellent job of not forcing bad passes, but the dump-swing-repeat could flow a little faster. Remember, the mission is to run the cup ragged so that they are out of position when you want to go deep. The middle handler’s primary look is a quick continuation to the swing. He’s got about ¾ of a second before the cup gets there. If the middle handler dallies, then the swings are going to start looking for arcing passes across the width of the field. This is low-percentage play and exactly what the cup wants. Keep is simple and keep it moving.

On man defense, if your man is playing deep, cover him deep. But if he is playing middle or short, don’t be afraid to get between him and the disc. If they put up a deep throw, our own deep cover will be there to back you up. Don’t be afraid to commit up close, cut off the passing lanes and get the layout D.

Be proud of your performance, Buzzards. You played tough D against a team with good throws. You played smart O, and forced them to play your game. And you advanced to the round of 8.

Our next game is Wednesday, August 5th at the Polo Fields #1B. Our opponent is either "Air it Out" or Wesleyan. Game at 6:30, cookout at 5:45. See you there!

Is that a wet towel on me?

It’s here! You know that feeling you get when you walk outside and you feel like you’re swimming wherever you walk. When, no matter how leisurely your pace, everything you’re wearing is drenched by the time you get where you’re going? Any of you who are familiar with the D.C. area during the summer are familiar with this phenomenon called “humidity”.

As a native Northern Virginian I grew up with this and really thought nothing of it. I mean it’s what drove me away from other sports with lots more clothing and equipment like football. I remember that first summer of pee wee and having all those pads on and long pants and heavy jersey and just thinking there have to be better ways to have fun….I was 8 was playing for the Cardinals with all my other friends in Elementary school and though many of those guys went on to high school stardom at Gar-Field and Woodbridge Senior High Schools respectively, I don’t have much regret about not sticking with football. But I digress…other than the football experiment I don’t recall minding the humidity too much.

But I have to say, this July has been pretty darn nice…right up until about 3 days ago. This week, the humidity has moved up into the 90% range, the temperatures have hovered in and around 90 and evening thunderstorms have visited the area. This is summer as we metro D.C. area denizens have come to love it.

On the Ultimate pitch it means that we are in the season where the pinnies need to be taken home and washed almost every night. Please feel free to step up and volunteer for this duty occasionally. I’m pretty happy with my new Bosch washer and Dryer but I just feel funny saying that, I have a laundry room full of stray leaves that have found their way into our mesh bag, and it would just be nice to share the load (pun intended) once in a while.

We’ve had a couple decent games already this week all things considered. Thanks to those who have come out so far. July is typically a tough month to call games. Lots of people on leave, transfers just settling in or having left us, and oh, did I mention it’s humid. We want to give a bit Buzzard welcome to Marcia joining us for the first time yesterday. She’s newly arrived from Port Arthur, TX. Yes she’s the player we traded MattP for, no word yet on what type of towels she uses. Matt, did you leave her any princess motifs in the office?

Kelly was the star of yesterday’s game. She and Todd worked some great give and go drives late in the game and she make a couple great leading throws for scores. Great throws were not to be found much on the blue side as myself, Kevin, & Erick did not give Marcia a good first impression of the quality of game she can sometimes find out here.

Our theory of trying to force mark worked on and off. I remember having a really strong mark on Bob at one point and taking away the backhand completely and forcing flick. Then Bob finally relented and threw a flick that defied physics for half its flight, finally flattened out, never got more than about 2 feet off the ground and sailed into Todd’s hands for a score. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him make that throw out here before.

Low throws abounded though…ask Paul how it was affecting his pulls yesterday. Okay, so the air was a bit heavy. Did I mention the humidity? Marcia told me this wasn’t really even hot compared to Port Arthur. The flip side of that “truth is relative to the perception of the individual” theory (Mr. Bunn, 11th grade, U.S. History) is that Meaghan last week when the weather was still relatively comfortable (for around here) wondered if she hadn’t been transferred to the face of the sun. Of course she was coming from Seattle.

Welcome to D.C. everyone, welcome to summer, and just keep plugging along. Your playing in this will pay huge dividends when fall rolls around. You’ll feel like a seasoned tri-athlete…okay well at least like an 8-year old pee wee football player.

Pull!

BUZZARDS DON'T FLY IN THUNDERSTORMS

As Vince Lombardi said, "We didn't lose the game; we just ran out of time." Of course, as the 11th edition rules say “The team with the most goals at the end of the game is the winner.” So there you have it as the Buzzard Point Ultimate Club (2-1) receives its first Corporate League defeat at the hands of Multiple Scoregasm (a group of alums from Takoma Park Middle, Whitman and Mongomery Blair High Schools in Maryland) 10 to 9 in a game called at about 8 pm due to lightning.

To be honest, I’m having a hard time putting this one in the “L” column, as every circumstance seemed to line up against the Buzzards to create the loss. A tiny field created by a local club team’s need to practice in the middle of WAFC Corporate League games (I’m not a good sharer), a half-hour late start (I’m not patient, especially for late starts where we then run out of time), and a game called due to weather (I’m allergic to lightning) all combined to cut short a game that already had two lead changes and the Buzzards on a three-point run.

Kudos to opponents M.S. for running a patient zone offense. On the plus side, the Buzzards stuck with it and forced the opponents to crawl up the field in a dump, swing, [repeat] fashion. Nice job sticking with the defense Buzzards: no breakdowns on the Buzzards side, but certainly no mistakes by M.S., either. And at least a whole lot of us got to see it as we brought fifteen (!) Buzzards to the game (Todd, Reagan, Paul, Matt, Mariam, Leroy, Kevin, Kelly, Karl, Jeana, Jason, Brook, Brad, Bob, Annette).

A big Buzzards welcome to Mariam d’Eustachio, playing her first game of Ultimate in the 21st century. She says “Everyone on the team is really nice & helpful.” I say “It really is a great group, [they’re all so nice that if you had to pick someone (ha-ha), I would say that] I’m pretty much the biggest jerk on the team.” She says “Yeah, you are."

Things to do different for next time:
(1) Recognize we brought a LOT more players, and start running for the sake of running earlier in the game. We didn’t really realize this until halftime, and we started to see the benefits shortly thereafter.
(2) We spend a lot of lunch-time putting up big bombs to hyper-athletic end-zone cuts. We’ve tried to get away from this because we need to develop other skills, but lets not forget what we’re good at.
(3) Fix the grill. Cripes, what a piece of junk. You’d think that something I paid nearly twenty dollars for back in 2002 would stand up a little better. Thanks to Mariam, Annette and Kevin’s Mom for improvising hot dog skewers and feeding the Buzzards.

In my Great Big Book of Frisbee Strategy, things (1) + (2) = HORIZONTAL STACK! Give it a look here (http://www.ultimatehandbook.com/blog/strategy/horizontal/) . A good horizontal stack opens up the field for our athleticism and also our ability to run the length of the field on deep cuts, then bring in fresh legs.

Our next games are MONDAY, JULY 6th in Anacostia vs. ERG and FRIDAY, JULY 10th at the Polo Fields vs. Peace Corps/ Agency for International Development. Directions at www.wafc.org/page/fields. Sign up at www.rostermanager.com.

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.

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!

Lap dances and new guys...

Do I have your attention yet?

On days like yesterday there are always two questions you hear asked after or during the game. “Why am I running more with more people out here?” and “What happened to all my passing lanes?”

Ah, the benefits of having a regulation 14 players!

To think, when I called the game yesterday I had to send out an email to ask the bare minimum crowd of 7 asking if they minded banking on the return of a “maybe” from an official function. “Call the game!” was the resounding reply and so I did. And…as it turns out…had very little to worry about. Both Todd & Phil did, indeed, get back in time and said they were in.

Then I wander down to the locker room to change and in saunters Scott (or when “No” means “Yes”). Still, I hadn’t counted on him for sure. Then as he, Paul & I were out warming up on the pitch, a stranger came wandering across the horizon of the field, holding his cleats in hands like an old western hero moseying down the middle of town hands at the ready for anything suspicious. I could almost hear the “Eastwood-esque” musical announcement of his arrival and there he was, returned from the proverbial dead…Tom.

“Hey, I get ‘new guy’ status today” Tom argued.

“What status is that exactly?” I asked.

“I can pretty much screw up anyway possible out on the field today and you have to keep giving me that positive encouragement of insincere plaudits like ‘good hustle’ and ‘nice effort’ every time” he explained.

“Oh” I deadpanned, thinking to myself that insincerity and sarcasm are two of my stronger communicative characteristics. “No problem, you got it”.

So we lined up our 5 on 5, still expecting Kevin & Conrad to make it out of the locker room. And then George wandered over, and walking with Kevin & Conrad was Jeff and all of a sudden we had 7’s!

On gold’s first drive down the field, Tom made a great cut toward the side of end zone and made a nice reach on a low pass I threw him. “New guy status, my …” I thought.

“Great catch Tom, welcome back”.

That cut to the outside would be something we’d struggle with making the rest of the day as we continued to try and throw to the middle of the field where most of those 28 arms were flailing around. Stack and cut, stack and cut, stack and….well it’s progress, not perfection.

Because there are some other factors like Jason observed. “Well, if I cut and you don’t throw it to me, then where do I go?” And it’s a great question with multiple answers depending on who you ask and what style of offense they’ve played in the past or what makes sense to them logically. Of course, as Brad has found out, his logic isn’t necessarily everybody else’s logic.

And back to Brian’s question of “Why am I running more with more people out here?” Well, perhaps because you’re trying to get away from each other to get open. See “stack and cut” - A good rule of thumb for you, as a receiver, might be to not let one defender cover multiple receivers because they are standing next to each other.

This actually may take some practice. We’re starting to develop a nice little core group for a potential tournament appearance soon and we may want to run some drills. We may also want to find some women for our team.

Kelly? Have you found employment yet? If not, come play with us. You know why Jeana couldn’t play with us yesterday? She fell off a bicycle this past weekend. We’re going to have to write clauses into our Buzzards’ contracts about dangerous activities during non-playing hours. Oh wait, I thought the playing hours were generally the dangerous activity period but I guess when you add tequila, anything can be hazardous. Bridgette? Are you still around? We need more women! Otherwise, I’m going to have to resort to asking Scott and Paul to come out in drag. Now word has it that Scott can do a mean lap dance but really…please don’t let it come to that.

Great turnout yesterday folks!

A slapdash kind of game...

There was indeed slapping and dashing going on yesterday…and kicking apparently. Some of the kicking was legal; I was actually able to kick block a pass which I will try from time to time when I don’t really feel like bending that far. The other kicking was compared to mule-like activity so I’ll assume there may have been some physical contact involved which, by the way, is not legal.

Apparently there was also some mocking going on when I explained that double-teaming was also not legal (even when you are down a player). The mocker in question shall remain nameless but he’s the one with the accent. George (so much for nameless) despite your incredulity there are, in fact, a set of rules for Ultimate and a (some would argue more than one) ruling Association. I’ll remind folks or tell them for the first time about the Ultimate Players Association where you can find all things Ultimate. For a small fee, you can join up which will allow you to play in most organized leagues and tournaments should you find yourself wanting something to supplement your daily fix with the Buzzards. In fact, I just got my renewal notice in the mail a couple weeks ago…it’s next to the Comcast bill. If this economic crunch starts to hit me too hard and I have to decide between the two, I’m sending in the UPA renewal and turning off cable and internet.

Now back to yesterday’s game. Did I mention it was a bit sloppy? We had another great turnout though with 6’s when Jeana finally got away from her office and came out to even up the teams. By that time though, we, on the gold team, had already gotten ourselves into a bit of a hole. When I say hole, I actually mean multiple holes that seemed to be in our zone defense. Green managed a couple of nice short pass drives up the field for scores.

The slapping going on yesterday actually looked to be the result of some nice hustle. I thought we had people hitting each others arms and wrists (and ears?) as they were both going up for passes. And that kind of “incidental contact” seems to be generally okay with most of the Buzzards. In contrast to the just running through somebody because you're too slow (re:lazy) to get around them and front them on defense.

I was having some pinnie color recognition problems yesterday. On one early drive I threw a pass to the corner of the end zone that I thought I had gotten close enough to Jason that he should have caught it. Just when I was about to yell something about the lack of hustle, I realized we didn’t have the same color on. Ooops. “Hey Bill, you’re gold” Bob reminded me as we turned around after the turnover.

We got an unexpected visit from Kelly yesterday. Taking a break from the job search to concentrate on things much more important. Great to see you yesterday KG! And even though you gave a disclaimer when you got out there about not having played in “months” I saw you make several nice plays, including one really good defensive block.

But most of us noticed our own lack of execution yesterday…When I tried to pep talk gold one trip back down the field with “Okay, here we go, now we’re going to start showing them something!”

Matt replied “Does that mean you want me to leave the field? I just want to know now before I run back down there.”

Todd remarked after the game “I know I saw at least 2 discs coming straight for my hands that somehow did not wind up there.”

And Paul told me on the way back down the field after another score “You remember how yesterday we were saying what a great game it was? Today…not so much.”

“Yea” I conceded “but it still beat being in the cube.”

And you know, you all are just crazy enough that when I think we might take a day off…you know for the temperatures in the teens with the wind chill kind of days….like TODAY! I get an IM from Brian saying “Hey, we’ve got 3 (Doug, John & I) in my office ready to go today.” And I give in and send out the invite, finding two more immediate replies to take us up to 6 already.

Sloppy or not, we’re headed to the pitch.

Pull!

Welcome to Autumn

- posted by Bill

This run of 14+ games is starting to spoil me. When was the last time we got stood up by two players and didn’t miss them? Okay, well when I say “didn’t miss” I meant, we still had plenty to play, not that we didn’t want you guys there…

Listen Todd, I know it was your first day back after about a month of leave but in case you need a small reminder I found the perfect bumper sticker for you…

We had another great game on the first day of Autumn which ironically seemed much warmer and more humid then our last days of summer last week.

Want to welcome out Tim2 (look you already get a nickname since we have an established Tim), and welcome back to George and to Kelly who made a surprise visit and who obviously is in the spirit of the above bumper sticker, giving up the job search for Ultimate today.

We had some nice collisions today. Brook and I had a rude intersection after I had tapped a high pass into the air and that tried to recalibrate the landing. Rodney took out Scott on a slide tackle in the end zone and Brian clobbered Bob on one pass along the sideline (though apparently not hard enough as Bob caught it anyway).

In fact, with that grab and another one in which Bob outran Phil half way up the field and all the way across the end zone for a score took some credibility away from the “old stiff and sore” routine that Bob would like for you to believe. Jason found the words the more common belief among his fellow Buzzards, “Bob’s full of it! I’m not buying that bum ankle story anymore. He’s outrunning everybody.”

Will and Mark also joined us but somebody forgot to explain another Ultimate rule to them…if you’re going to be late, you don’t get to stretch. Again, it’s nice to have so many people playing right now that you can start without everybody that RSVPs.

By the way, anybody think that if the BPUC can increase our debt to income ratio a little higher that we’d qualify for the current Federal buyout of all things private. You suppose this is what Alexander Hamilton had in mind when he established the Department of Treasury? You suppose anybody will challenge Ben Bernanke to a duel?

Farewell KellyG!

Tuesday was Kelly’s last game with us as she is leaving HQ. It was a good game to leave on. We had 15 people out there, overcast, not too hot, and NO SOFTBALL!

It’s nearing the end of transfer season and the Buzzards have done well. We certainly miss Swinny, Travis, MattC, Frank, JasonN and others but we have reloaded well. A bunch of new people have joined us this summer…I don’t know whether or not they’ve been here and just not playing or have transferred in but welcome to Bo, Mike, Dan, BobH, JasonK (back for a 2nd stint), George, Brian, Erik, Fred, Will, Eric, Paul, & Mark. Adding at least a dozen new players and only losing a handful works out to a really nice surplus as evidenced by the 8 on 7 game we had Tuesday.

Anybody else notice when you play with that many that you don’t get a lot of cross the field passes completed through traffic. I ripped one loose the other day to realize MattP was standing between me and where I wanted the disc to go. I saw Thunder and Kevin also finding several passes unintentionally coming there way.

Ultimate gets a good cross over from other sports as we have drawn from Flag Football, Soccer, Volleyball & Softball and whenever you get players from those other sports you make some prejudgments as to their strengths based on that. The football guys tend to have good field vision, the volleyball folks know how to position and jump, the softball players adjust well to discs in the air, and the soccer folks run and run some more. Then in Ultimate those skills start melding together and you find guys like Fred on Tuesday…a soccer guy if I’m not mistaken, finding his grip all of a sudden and pulling down everything thrown to him on Tuesday.

With that many people we, on the green team at least, attempted to run a few things from the stack and that worked with varying degrees of success. One of the things we did seem to do pretty well was to utilize the dump pass. In fact one of the new guys, Mike, used it quite well on at least 4 occasions that I noted. Never mind Rodney’s whining Mike. Anytime he doesn’t get the disc on a play he thought he should have he gets a bit agitated. We’ve learned to just ignore him. If some of you want to see some fairly simple diagrams of stack plays as well as some other useful basic info, check out the U of Oregon’s Ultimate Basics page.

Looks like another great weather day for us today. Hope to have a good game.

Pull!

The Greatest Rain Game Ever (is that too hyperbolic?)

Submitted by the whiny, dutifully remorseful and apologetic (you told me so) Chief Buzzard, Bill

You know you’re having one of those weeks when the LTjgs have to pick up the slack for you…

After a weekend of hiking and then getting a torrential rain shower Sunday night, I thought, after peeking at the weekly forecast that Monday and Tuesday might be a good little break on the Ultimate field. Not that I don’t enjoy playing in the rain, contrary to all the “I’m melting” jibes I received Monday (despite actually being out there), I love playing in the rain. But I thought it was going to be thundering and lightening as well. It turned out being just cool and breezy and apparently there was a groundswell of voices wanting to play as Swinny called Phil before heading to a meeting to beg him to call a game.

Meanwhile, even though I did have gear here, well all except a towel, I thought I might just quietly sit in my cube, eat my Caramel Chex Mix and sleep…er…uh…I mean catch up on some work during lunch. And then I got caught! On my way back up from the Exchange and getting my Chex Mix, Rodney spotted me coming out of the elevator (I knew I should have taken the stairs) and asked in his quiet unassuming manner “What the hell are you doing here? Why aren’t you playing?”

So, I was shamed into going back to my cube and replying that I would come out. And it turned out…finally…to be a great sponge game. The whole walk out the field, it just started raining harder and harder and the wind was blowing and I was grumbling to Phil about what he had dragged me into. But after more than my share of whining, we got 10 out there as Kelly had been similarly manipulated and dragged out by Bryan.

It wound up being a great game of many layouts and slides. Frank, Hollan, Todd, Bob, & Scott were the other hard core Buzzards who came out. Well done everybody! You would all make the universal Ultimate club very proud. I felt like I was 11 or 12 again heading out to play football in the rain and mud. My cleats are still wet.

Kelly stepped up yesterday when I was legitimately tied up in a meeting (of very little value…especially when balanced against missing Ultimate) and I hear there was a great game of 12 and the sun finally came out.

Today the forecast is sunny and low 70’s. Time for all the fairer weather Buzzards to come out. It will not get any better than today for weather…but you really should try a rain game sometime. As demonstrated by Hollan and Bryan doing belly slides into puddles at the end of the game Monday, it will bring out the inner kid in you when you used to like to stomp in puddles and get muddy, and track dirt into the house (yea, Scott, I know that was just last week for you).

Fly high Buzzards. Pull!

Ghost in the Machine...

submitted by Kelly

It was ghost- town-city here yesterday; you could hear a pin drop in my office. But I thought with the flippn' awesome weather why not try to call a game. We had only 6 people for a game, not a very healthy number by any ultimate means but Eric emailed me about an ultimate variation called "hot box" or "half court" that you play with smaller numbers like 3 on 3 or 4 on 4. Here's the link he sent http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_box_(game). I sent this to the 5 other players and had them on board for trying this out. Well we didn't actually play that version we just shortened the regular field and played 3 on 3. A great day and we had a blast!

Double the numbers!

5’s on Monday, 6’s on Tuesday and then as I headed down to the locker room on Wednesday I was thinking, "mmm, good week, we have 11 playing again today." Walked in to find Hollan dressing out…he hadn’t originally replied…

"Can’t stay away” he said, getting dressed. Outstanding, another daily dozen!

Then I wander out on the field and by the time the “crowd” makes it’s way over there are 16!!! That’s like 2 games worth for us over the last couple months. Amazing what a little warm weather and a couple new people catching the bug can do. Want to send a welcome out to MattM & Paul who came out. Matt has been out a few times before but this was Paul’s first time with us I believe. Great to have you both out there. Usually, I like to give everybody else a shout out to that comes out but I’m telling you, I know I’ll forget somebody.

We have made some field modifications, stretching out the end zones to the official field size of 25 yards. Wow, that makes a big difference huh? Unbelievably, a couple people still managed to exceed the limits of the end zones with their throws. But it was definitely nice to have the extra space considering how many people were on the field. It was tough finding open lanes coming down the field though. Great game, great weather, great turnout. Thanks to everyone for coming out. Looking forward to some great numbers this spring and summer.

I saw that Kelly got a game yesterday while I was on papal (does that rhyme with maple or scrapple?) leave. Will look forward to a report from the game if anybody wants to submit something, email it to me.

One of your teammates, Todd, certainly one of our better handlers wants to send this along for your learning opportunity. I, for one, love anything that’s going to teach me about gyroscopic stability and I am absolutely going to try and add the “Wheel of Death” throw to my repertoire. By the way, Todd is the only one I see out there using the Push effectively and I’m not even sure what he threw me the other day for that score in the end zone. I am also disappointed by the conspicuous absence of The Machete, a throw I’ve come to master and other to hate. Not that I’m the only one who throws it. I believe it was a Machete throw earlier this week that bounced off of Frank’s chest and I guess we should all be glad we didn’t have a sucking chest wound on our hands.

Played an interesting variation of 2-man Ultimate yesterday. There were two soccer nets on the field where we’d gone to play catch and the were about 35-40 yards apart. We each stood in one goal and tried to score on the other. 2 points for a score, 1 point for the defender if the disc overshot the net. At that distance, the disc gets to you quick and your hands can take a beating. Good times though and made for an interesting twist on catch.

Hope all you Buzzards have a great weekend. I’m heading out for the mountains of Virginia to do a little hiking. Be safe and I’ll see you back here on Monday.

Buzzards Marching On

Well March came in on the wind…and unusual warmth. I was up on the ski slopes last Saturday night doing some unintentional laying out as I tried to tame a snowboard for the first time. Then on Monday and Tuesday those of us out on the fields were in shorts and shirt sleeves for the most part with temperatures in the 60’s both days at game time. But wow was the wind whipping. And on Monday the wind was coming in from the south which it does not do very often so instead of our normal cross wind there was a definite wind abetted and wind limiting sides of the field.

Enjoy some pics from Monday…


After Frank dinged his calf he took a few pictures from us. This was the only one where you could actually tell there were people in the picture....Zoom in Shadow!!! Thanks for trying though.

Todd looking very patriotic...flag in the background, flag on the disc...I'm proud to be an American just watching him.

"Come back here you stupid disc!" - Scott

Kelly needing longer arms to reach this one.

Bob flicks to Tom.

Eric getting reading curl that long arm into throwing motion.

Sponge Game

Many years ago, way before Lance Armstrong starting winning Tours De France and bicycle makers began stripping off every extra piece of equipment that might drag on the wind, back when Jack Nicholson & Morgan Freeman were known for their roles in “One Flew Over a Cuckoo’s Nest” and “Electric Company”, respectively, back when you could get away wearing stripes with plaid together…

Well, back then, bicycles came with fenders. You know why? So, when you rode on wet pavement, you wouldn’t have this splatter streak up the back of your pants and shirt. Well, today was a bicycle fender kind of day on the Ultimate field. Particularly for people like Travis and Phil, who actually run hard. The field was very soggy and muddy. Actually, I suspect I may even have had the splatter marks since at one point when Kelly was marking me, she remarked “Wow, you’re muddy!”

I have a couple confessions both of which you could verify with my mom. One, I like to play in the mud, and two, I have worn stripes and plaid together before, probably with patches no less.

Today was a spongy game. green started off slow and the gold team of Phil, MattP, Brook, & Kelly got off to an early lead by navigating the mud holes more efficiently and making shorter throws and less cuts. The green team of Travis, Eric, Scott & Bill couldn’t seem to find their spacing very well, I threw 3-4 right in the mud where Scott informed me none of the rest of the team was running and we basically floundered around for a while before going on a small run in the 2nd half of the game and taking advantage of Travis’ speed, Eric’s reach, and Scott’s surprisingly quick defense.

“I’m getting to where my legs aren’t killing me every day after I play”, said Scott, spoken like a true Ultimate addict…er, uh…convert.

Well, BrianT, has come out this week, now Kelly. Geez, maybe Lindsay & Bob will show back up at some point. I haven’t read any news stories about a Chevy Impala being carjacked only to find it was being used as a bedroom or of any skullers in the Williamsburg area arrested in a bar fight with the William & Mary women’s hockey team so I’m guessing those two are alive, if not altogether well.

Great weather today…72 at game time, breezy but no where need the stiff winds that were being predicted. Heck, I even decided to have the egg salad. Don’t tell my van pool.

See you tomorrow.

By the way, Todd mentioned there may have been some “odious missteps” on the Ultimate Juke Box playlist. If you have some requests, I’ll see what I can do about including them.

Play nice everybody.