BUZZARDS OVERCOME WESLEYAN 15-6, to Advance to the Round of Four!

If you want to know what a patient dump/swing/repeat/repeat/... Zone Offense looks like, contact Wesleyan Corporate C league (the real Wesleyan, from Waterbury, CT), because they showed it to us all night long. The Buzzards (Bill, Bridgette, Devon, Jeana, Jeff VoB, Karl, Kevin, Leroy, Meaghan, Paul, Reagan and Todd) pulled ahead early, but Wesleyan, a team of great heart and fantastic Spirit, did not give up and played a much tougher game than the final score suggests. It was a lot of fun playing you guys, and we definitely look forward to seeing you again.

One of the things that made the game so much fun was that we were able to resolve rules questions in the Spirit of fun and fair play. Here’s a rule thing that I had wrong(!). If you get fouled in the end zone, there are two possibilities: either you caught the disc and had it stripped out of your hands (AKA Bridgette, last Monday) or you went up for the disc and were interfered with and didn’t make the catch (AKA Todd). If either of these fouls is contested, the disc goes back to the thrower. If uncontested, Bridgette gets the disc at the spot of the foul and scores a point. Todd gets possession of the disc at the spot of the foul, and it becomes “live”, but he must carry it out to the nearest spot on the goal line and play from there. “Live” means the game is on, no need to check the disc in again, play it like you just picked up an out of-bounds throw. Kudos to Wesleyan for knowing the rule and to Captain Natalie for not rolling her eyes at my ignorance. See the 11th Edition Rules FAQ page for where that all came from. FYI, if you make the catch while airborne, but are pushed out-of-bounds, you are Bridgette, not Todd.

A fond Buzzard farewell for the next two weeks to Paul St. Pierre, departing for Norway for a well deserved rest. He’s leaving behind a legacy of second- and third-chance catches and a textbook on how to make popper cuts. You couldn't ask for a better send-off than to score the game winning point to advance to the semi-finals. You will be missed, we'll keep you updated on how it goes.

The thing that made our Zone offense work and that Wesleyan struggled with was moving the disc up the field after a swing. If you played wing during this game (Leroy, Jeff, Karl, Devon, Kevin, Bill) I’m talking about you, shuttin’ em down. And speaking of closing the door on the offense...

Reagan, you are tougher, per linear foot, than anyone else on the team. Yes, we turned it over too often in the second half. Many of those were the Buzzards trying something a little different for the purpose of player development. This is a good thing, but it still meant 15 minutes of cup for you.

In fact, all of the Buzzard women have made us proud all season long (under "budding handlers," see Jeana, Kelly; under “Defense wins games” see Mariam, Meaghan, Rachel; under “Just tougher than you,” see Annette, Bridgette). You are the stubbornest disc chasers in the league, and every time the Buzzards get the disc on the opponent’s own twenty-yard line, it’s the cup that put us there.

Cup, if you start flagging because the offense isn’t getting it done, you have two tools: when next on offense, call for a timeout. Only the person with the disc can call for a timeout (Rule VI.B.4), so communicate with that person that you need a break. This is something we as a team should have done better to support the cup in this game. In 11 games we’ve had 44 timeouts and called maybe three.

The other thing you can do in the cup is play the passing lanes, not the distance. At ten feet from the disc (the minimum legal distance) you cut off a lot of passing lanes automatically. But if you are unable to keep up with the movement, put yourself in the lane where they want to throw: cut off either the up-field popper or the swing. If you cut off that lane, you buy yourself time to get into position.

The Michael and Janet Jackson Award for Wednesday, August 5th goes to Devon and Leroy for sweet moves and possibly being the same person. Speed in the backfield means we could play the 3-3-1 zone (as opposed to 3-2-2) and really pressure the disc. Here’s some math: Which takes longer? A disc thrown from midfield traveling up the sideline or our deep man coming from the center of the goal line to get the block? I’m not saying what answer I put down, but my grade was 15/6.

The reason you shouldn’t both be in at the same time is because its considered poor Spirit to get the block, then have another defender make a play on the disc, and then, after a commercial break, have the intended receiver appear. Also, somebody’s gotta throw the thing.

A special wave of the feathery wing to our cheering section: season-ticket-holder Jack, mom Marianne (not Jack's mom. C'mon, keep up!), wife Mariam, sig-o’s Mary and Angela and future roommate Danielle (“She’s filling in for Ian. No, wait, I mean…”). We should have brought those bleachers from Bluemont with us. First ten fans get to take a Buzzard home with them. No home for you, Jeff. Get back to the NAC.

Our next game is Monday, August 10th at the Polo Fields (2B). Game at 6:30, cookout at 5:45. I’m not certain who our opponent will be (apparently, google docs is that hard to use), but best bet is our Sligo nemesis, Disc of Enlightenment. Bring your “A” game.

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!

Finding our lunchtime groove...

Lunchtime Ultimate had been suffering from expected transfer and vacation season flux and July temperatures rising (though this hasn’t been your normal July in D.C.), and the unexpected oversaturation that the Corporate League had perhaps added to. Yesterday the 1130 crowd was back out in force thanks to newcomers Meaghan (who has been playing Corporate with the Buzzards) and Dan, a basketball player looking for another exercise outlet (thanks Matt, you’re finder’s fee will be in the mail), and also to John who was back out with us after a bit of a hiatus.

We had our first 7 on 7 game in about a month. We were rewarded with another unseasonable temperate July day. Though the humidity did increase some, it was still in the low 80’s somewhat overcast and even a bit breezy again. I heard Meaghan on the field saying something about “I’ll get used to this heat and humidity soon” as she has come to us from Seattle. Any of the rest of you who have the pleasure of living or visiting the Pacific Northwest, know you can declimatize from this mid-Atlantic oppressiveness pretty quickly. Now reacclimatizing may not happen as quickly and I just didn’t want to tell her that it really hasn’t even gotten bad hear yet. Normally by this time in the summer we’ve had a couple weeks of solid 90/90 days.

You couldn’t really tell John hadn’t been out there in a while as he made several great pinpoint passes for the blue team. He and his receivers were finding the holes in the orange team’s porous zone. A good strong cup defense is difficult to play when you know you won’t be getting any substitutions for the full hour we’re out there. And even more difficult when you take a play off to discuss work business (as I found Dennis and Brian doing on one play). Before we could recover from that diversion blue had made two passes and were well over mid-field.

Also out with us yesterday were Steve, Kevin, Brad, Leroy, Mike, Tom & Frank. Thanks everybody for getting back out for a great lunch time game.

"One small step..."

Blasting off on the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing the Buzzards took their own respective “giant leaps” yesterday, if not for mankind then at least for that 175 gram pie shaped piece of plastic. And unlike our Summer League games where we routinely spot the opposing team a good decade at least at many positions and which has been getting most of the press here in the blog of late I would guess that most of our participants yesterday were alive for that historic event in 1969.

In fact Tom gave me that look of incredulity again yesterday as I was dividing up the teams. “You did it to us again, didn’t you Bill?” he asked. Somehow insinuating that I had conspired to put the bulk of the old slow guys on the same team. What I also did, but what did not pay any immediate dividends, was to give us an extra player. Of course that did not stop the blue team from scorching us early and often as Kevin and Bob worked the disc around nicely, throwing to Leroy occasionally sprinting long, Frank, gliding across his old familiar haunts at the back of the end zone and Dennis, looking for every long pass he could throw.

For our part, the orange team struggled to find some rhythm early on. We had Doug back out with us for the first time in a long while after his soccer brethren abandoned a fabulous weather day… low 80’s, overcast, and breezy. Oh, also, I’m not sure I’ve formally welcomed out Ron who’s been out with us a few times over the last couple weeks. Please join me in giving him a fond Buzzard hello.

We put Doug to good use having him fly around as safety knocking down as many passes as we could but we just couldn’t seem to find him very often on the offensive side of the field. Brian’s chicken wing pass looked a little rusty, Tom was the recipient of a lot of contact on passes in the end zone. I saw him get hit by Bob, Dennis, & Frank on 3 successive possessions. Then finally when he was able to lurk around behind Doug and let him get hit instead, he was able to come down with a deep pass.

Mike made some nice grabs and passes while working up some short drives later in the game as blue started to come around some and make things a bit more competitive. I got caught trying to out jump Leroy on a couple long passes. The first one our lets got tangled up, and my knee went right into his calf and neither of us came down with it. The 2nd one we were able to avoid contact and both got up to the disc but he hauled it down with a nice 2-handed grab and then made the subsequent pass for the winning score.

Walking back to the sideline Tom offered his wry assessment of the final score. “Bill you’re old and you can’t jump, what did you expect?” To be fair, Leroy isn’t even old enough to legally drink, let alone have any recollection of Neil Armstrong taking that first step on the cratered surface of the moon. I could have used a little anti-gravity situation to out jump him.

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.

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!

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.

First of July!

posted by Bill

July is here! And really, even though it started to seem warmer than the weather.com announcement that it was about 76 degrees at game time, it was still pretty nice for the beginning of July. And we had a great turnout yesterday also! Welcome out for the first time to Denise, a co-worker of Kevin’s. It was great to have you, please come back and join us anytime. It was also nice to meet Kay…Eric, she knows your tall and bald right? : )

Welcome back out Bridgette…watch out, if you come out twice within a week, this sport has been known to become addictive. You see it even draws out those who are injured and have no business being on the field…one, was smart enough to just come take pictures, thanks Thunder, sorry the battery crapped out on you after only 7 shots, and Hollan, who actually thought he was well enough to play…and by all accounts looked fine through the whole game except for a couple of drops (heck some of us do that when we’re completely healthy and he did catch at least one score as well)….but then it came…

“Hey, 3 more points” yells somebody on gold and then they proceed to score a quick one. Then as green is coming back down the field to try and tie it up at 1, Hollan was going full speed toward the sideline to try and break up a pass headed for Tom. Okay, I want to be fair here…for those of you who’ve played with Tom for a while, you’re thinking you know how this winds up. Well, I just want to say, Tom did not really have anything to do with this and it was just a play of two guys going after the disc and one crumbling to the ground in agony. “Boom Boom” needs a new nickname because his game, I’ve noticed over the last few months, has been remarkably free of contact…well, at least when Frank hasn’t been marking him.

That wasn’t the only problem on gold yesterday as they had trouble clicking from the start. When I first separated the teams and then kind of threw Eric the last gold pinnie, not sure which team to stick him on I felt sure I had shifted the balance of power that way…with Eric and Kevin handling and Hollan, Phil, and Dennis running…and they had substitutes as Denise used Bridgette’s late arrival as a good excuse to take a breather. But for some reason that combination didn’t work for them.

Again, as I am apt to do, I stuck Todd with 3 old slow guys (myself, Tom & Rodney, another guy with two bum heels (MattP) and then Leroy who has been running like crazy but let’s just say has had some communication breakdown between the legs, eyes, & hands prior to today. Well, who knew, I found a couple runs in me today, two layouts that actually did not pan out into anything except a mouth full of clover and a heaving chest, Tom finding his mid to long range throwing skills, Rodney and Matt always showing bursts of speed when you least expect it and Leroy mastering the “tip drill” score…two in a row, in fact from Todd and over Eric. Matt followed those up by catching a “machete” headed for the ground and green actually looked like we knew what we were doing despite our lock down D on a long stall count.

All in all, a great day of disc. It’s a pleasure playing with all of you…always the highlight of my day at work.

It’s not too late to get me your votes for June’s “Most Outstanding Buzzard” (MOB) and “Spirit of the Game” (SOTG) award winner. I need to get the SOTG disc that Bryan won last month out of my cube where he left it when he departed…by the way, we didn’t really give him a proper farewell which seems to happen a lot around here…sorry. Bryan, you’ll be sorely missed my friend. Fair winds!

By the way...in regards to the following pictures...the camera battery died after only 7 shots but why do 4 of them have Todd in them? Can you say "man crush" Thunder?

Todd looking for the next throw as he catches it with Tom cutting.

Rodney getting ready to pull.

Todd elevating...of course everybody looks like they're going high with Rodney in the picture.

Eric...nice patriotic bacground there.

Phil looks to pass as Todd comes up to mark.

Watch it all the way in Phil.

Todd releasing from the clover.

Calling on Webster

Posted by Bill

We had our third great game of the week yesterday and while I’m at it I just want to welcome back out a couple people who have played sporadically with the Buzzards in the past and have been back out this week…Steve & Bridgette, great to see you both back out there!

“Skeptically humorous”…in case any of you were still wondering about the accusation flung about in the email exchange yesterday prior to the game. That’s what sardonic means and what my comments were labeled for questioning the intentions of some of the Buzzards for wanting to know how many were coming out to play yesterday. I apologize if I offended anybody by questioning their devotion to duty (extra points for working in a core value today).

Continuing to thumb through the BPUC vocabulary we stumbled across prostate (well, not literally) but as you’ll see in one picture below, Bridgette may have been on her way there with Todd if she’d taken any more clothes off him, prostrate which is what Rodney was after his fabulous lay out catch yesterday, and redundant possessive which happens with a misplaced apostrophe or when you watch the seagulls on “Finding Nemo” “mine, mine, mine, mine, mine”!

At any rate, we had 9 today as Bridgette did finally get out on the field though apparently fielding an important call on her cell as she tried to decide which color pinnie to wear and eventually joined Phil, Bob, Tim & Steve on the gold side. I saddled Todd with Rodney and myself again but also gave him Leroy hoping to find some sort of balance of speed. Who knew Rodney and I would actually both run a few times on the same play? What a pleasant surprise!

Hollan came out again and snapped off some more fine photography as you’ll see, though in a couple instances he may have missed the best action by a couple seconds either right before or right after it happened.

Todd had a great line yesterday by the way. After Leroy could not adjust to a pass in the end zone and pointed to where he wanted it to have actually been thrown, Todd remarked “Hey, if I could put the plate where I wanted all the time…” I’m not sure what the follow up was to the “If/then” statement but my own take is that it would be a lot less interesting.

If you check out the Flickr Ultimate Action Shots you’ll notice people making great leaps and lay outs for passes partly because the disc doesn’t always go where we want it and the receiver, occasionally needs to make a play…go get the plate!!!!!

Going to start getting a little hotter out this afternoon but we should be able to beat the 90’s by our game time. See you out there.




Bill chasing one down with Steve in pursuit.

Now this is tight D, Bridgette is literally undressing Todd as he tries to get off a throw.

More interesting D - Leroy high kicking on Phil.

Steve posting up Rodney.

...or are you just happy to see me?

Posted by Bill

“Ultimate is a non-contact sport” I had to remind myself yesterday after getting body blocked to the ground by Phil and hearing Frank cheer in the background…

“Yea! Great move man!”

To be fair, there was a little of that big brother slips in the first shot, little brother’s retaliation is more dramatic and the only thing seen by the parents but geez Phil!!!!

Welcome back humidity! Did we mention, we didn’t really miss you though? After last week’s comparatively mild temperatures and low humidity, we were reminded yesterday that summer, has in fact, begun. It really wasn’t that hot yesterday but as the cliché goes “that ain’t what kills ya.”

#1 fan (he's got the t-shirt to prove it), and most active member of the disabled list, Hollan, was out on the field again yesterday taking some shots with my camera, fully charged on batteries this time. He remarked though that it was difficult to get good shots with the nice short passing game that the gold team was using yesterday. Frank, Phil, Bob & Leroy abandoned the long game after Leroy had some “tracking” issues on a couple discs up in the air.

“I hate this thing!” he said, shaking the orange 175g’s after a fumble in the end zone.

“Well” Phil said, later in the locker room “you know it’s not shaped like most things”. What Phil, you mean like plates & tires?

“Like most other sports gear” Phil clarified, “like basketballs, footballs, baseballs, golf balls”.

Ah, you’re right. Well, that’s because it’s not like most other sports. Did I mention Ultimate is non-contact? And self-officiated?

Exhibit A ~ Todd called a foul on himself (which even technically you can’t do, the person being fouled needs to call it) but he felt so bad about sending Leroy tumbling across the end zone line on a pass the clearly was going to be out of reach anyway. Well SOTG points for Todd, I thought it was the right call. It was a foul and you never know when somebody is going to make that “catching the disc in the air on the way out of the end zone tossing it back in for a score” play.

I put the extra guy on the green team yesterday because I had stuck Todd with myself, Rodney, Tim, & Tom. Now Tim is the youngest and swiftest of that foursome which is all you need to know about it because let’s face it, he hasn’t exactly shown “breakaway speed” out there yet. But lo and behold all four of us sprinted to the end zone on a couple occasions for scores. “I like the Monday legs” Todd observed with pleasant surprise.

There were a couple nice deflections caught for scores yesterday. Bob, to nobody’s surprise had one of them. You can’t let that guy keep circling around a disc like a Buzzard around roadkill. He’s going to grab hold of it eventually. And Leroy after a couple frustrating drops snagged one that I had managed to misdirect. Bob also made a nice play coming around Rodney on the end zone line and reaching in front of him to take away what should have been an interception. Rodney remarked he just needed a little refresher lesson on why you should come to the disc.

You’ll see a good picture below of Bob homing in on Rodney and the disc with Tom and Leroy also in the muddle. Surprisingly, there was no contact on this play other than maybe the disc bouncing off Rodney.

Repeat after me, “Ultimate is a non-contact sport”.

We've reached the maximum upload on Flickr for the month so good thing July is right around the corner.

Really, there was no contact between bodies here...just the disc bouncing off Rodney.

Todd looking for an open cutter.

Frank getting vertical against Tom.

Me catching one in stride...which means I actually was striding.

Okay, I have no idea what's going on here.

Categories of new players...

Posted by Bill

It was nice to get some decent numbers back out on the field yesterday. We want to welcome out two new players, Leroy & Kevin and one returning player, Brook, who had been gone so long he had to get put back on the distribution list first.

Leroy reminded me of some of the other summer hires, interns and students we’ve had come play with us before… "young and can run”…Thanks for making some of us more “seasoned” players feel even older and slower. And speaking of feeling slower…playing with Dennis yesterday I found out after that amazing catch he made in the end zone where I thought he just misplayed it but found out he was really juking up the defender first before running behind him and falling down to catch it…anyway, Dennis, who most of you know has some good wheels when he’s running is doing so short one ACL…I’ve got two perfectly healthy ACLs and I don’t usually run that well.

Of course the other type of player knows you can run smarter, not harder and that would describe our other new addition, Kevin. I knew he had played before as we were marking up he was shouting out the number player he was taking, “I’ve got 6”, which most organized Ultimate players will recognize as him saying he had the 6th guy from the left . Of course most of the guys on the gold team yesterday had no idea what he was saying and asked for some sort of clarification “green shorts”, Kevin elaborated, not wanting to confuse anybody with the jumble of names he promised to remember, albeit, not with any particular faces. I knew I was going to enjoy playing with him when I heard him mention “I don’t need anybody to mark me when I don’t have the disc, I can do that myself”. Sorry, Kevin, hope I didn’t let out the secret to your elusiveness.

So Brook, how was the first game back in, uh, how many months? Feeling a little gassed? It was fairly humid yesterday until about two thirds of the way into the game when we were mercifully given some cloud cover and a breeze.

Hollan was playing some mad D yesterday…well, right up until he broke his heel. Okay, so we don’t know exactly if that’s what happened but his negative reply to the game this morning “because I’m on crutches and headed to Bethesda” didn’t sound good.

Rodney and I both seemed pleasantly surprised at the lack of contact from each other after the game yesterday but he seemed genuinely offended that I told him I’d have to use veto power on any selection of him for SOTG in June. Speaking of the Spirit…Bryan brought the SOTG trophy disc out to the field yesterday. I initially suspected he’d been through too many hazing ceremonies and thought he had to carry it around with him everywhere until it was awarded to somebody else but as it turns out, he’s winding down his last week with us before departing to the upper Midwest and wants me to keep it safe so he doesn’t forget and leave with it.

Conrad…how is it you’ll drop a disc in the wide open but when I’m marking you and am all over you and tipping the disc, you manage to come down with it?

I heard Bob mention that there were a lot of good handlers out yesterday…I’d have to agree. Whenever you’re playing with Eli, Todd, Brook, or Eric, you know if you can get yourself open that you’re likely to get a good pass at some point. Todd may have made the best one on the last point of the game yesterday…a full length huck for a score.

We managed to keep Bryan from diving for anything yesterday, hoping to preserve him for his marathon this weekend. Good luck!

Going to be another great weather day today but surprisingly only 4 people have responded so far this morning. Hollan, you’re excused, the rest of you????