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.

Buzzard Banter

Actual Buzzard email chain:

There are some days when the email dialogue about the game or about Ultimate and other Buzzards is the most entertaining thing that could be put in this blog…

In that vain, I offer you the following from this morning’s discussion.

Bill: “Got another request to move the game time again today. Would 1145 or 1200 work as well for everybody who has already responded?”

Todd: “I’m in.”

Rodney: “Are you actually playing today?”

Todd: “It depends on whether my new office chief, who's in for the week, feels the need to learn exactly what it is I do as I'm packing up my gym bag. I opted against my first impression being, "Sorry, I'm kinda busy right now. Why don't you go ahead and come back later."

Thunder: “Your response should have been to drag the new office chief out to the playing field. Once he's addicted, it's only a matter of time before the whole office if out there.”

Guillermo: “Yea, I agree. You should have said ‘You want to learn exactly what I do? Come learn the finer points of discreetly inhibiting your opponents' verticality and how to get the most distance on the "rolling pull" ‘.

Rodney: “Isn't making excuses against new guy rule #2?

Bill: “Amendment to the "no excuse" rule. You're not allowed to spout that rule if you've asked him why he wasn't there! The rule is in place to keep people from offering excuses for not coming out in the first place...if you don’t want to know don't ask old man.”


Thunder: “Let's see, the rules of Buzzard's Point Ultimate Club:

1st RULE: You do talk about ULTIMATE.
2nd RULE: You DO talk about ULTIMATE.
3rd RULE: If enough players are available, there will be "game on".
4th RULE: Only one defender on the marker.
5th RULE: One disc at a time.
6th RULE: Must wear a penny, must wear shoes.
7th RULE: Game will go on as long as they have to.
8th RULE: If this is your first game of ULTIMATE, you HAVE to pull.

I guess we could add the "no excuses" rule.

Bill: “In the "new guy" chronology of players...who in the world gave Thunder sanctioning authority? You're a relative babe to this game there big guy. Else you would know that pinnies and shoes are always optional and that the defender is the marker”.

Thunder: “I humbly beseech your forgiveness, O master of the pitch, the blog, and the hammer.”

Todd, reconsidering his first response: “"Sir, I'd love to go through the ins and outs of our strategic plan right now, but I think my contribution to the Coast Guard would be much better summarized by my dropping a 30-yard hammer throw to you in the end zone. Suit up."

Tom: “As an office chief, I can see where that "can do" attitude would be positively reflected in your next performance appraisal, young man; assuming the hammer throw was successful, that is.”

Rodney: “That quite the title you have there Tom on your auto signature!”

Tom: “I’m a Renaissance Man”.

Phil: “I'm in for whenever, and I really mean that. (sorry if that had already been said, I'm just getting going this morning.)

Rodney: “Freaking Phil, a day late and dollar short!”

New player, new energy, new rule clarification

submited by Bill

Well, the team distribution went a little better today, especially given the intangible of a new player. Welcome out Dennis! Nice throwing & catching…and you run too? Careful, you might come to like this sport. *** Buzzard Disclaimer *** May cause unusual addictive behaviors like coming in on leave to play during lunch, rescheduling meetings to end by 11 or not start until after 1300, and purchasing inordinate amounts of CG logo clothes in the Exchange when you’ve forgotten your workout gear.

Todd, presumably inspired that people on his team were actually moving today and playing some semblance of defense had some interesting spurts of running, layouts and semi layouts. You shouldn’t have to actually layout on a pass in the flat when you’re by yourself but when I’m throwing, you never know.

Of course, not all my throws were as suspect. I did manage to land two hammers for scores. The first to Tom on a jump ball type of play…by the way, speaking of jump balls and Tom…c’mon you can all admit it, the first mental image you get is of somebody getting laid out on the ground right? Well, I counted no less than 4 plays today that Boom Boom made on defense, going up and not hitting anybody (at least not with foul quality contact). Nice D…you looking for a new nickname?

The real contact came on another play. The first time on these Ultimate fields where I’ve actually been sincerely afraid. I had gone up in the air for a throw from Dennis and then felt my body starting to get horizontal to the ground on the way down. With no idea what was landing first, I fell right on my back but amazingly seemed to disperse the contact enough through the rest of the body and survived. To be fair, we hadn’t really explained the strategy of not making your teammate jump for the disc when Shadow is closing in.

The green team actually played the way it should have with a man advantage early on in the game with a couple 3-0 scoring runs. Tom’s aforementioned D, Dennis enjoying the advantage of new guy expectations, and Todd, Eli & I actually being able to handle the disc for 3 or 4 passes without a turnover.

But the gold team held its own nicely and in fact made comeback at a surprising time in the game (the end) for a team short a player. 10 yards and cut, 10 yards and cut. Hollan got loose several times on short slants in the end zone where Phil & Thunder hit him with scoring passes. Frank worked some nice give and goes…and not to whine but just for some rule clarification…you can’t make a forward pass while taking forward momentum steps. They call that traveling Buzzards and it’s against one of the few rules and actually is a rule, unlike the 12-count stall turnover that Lon was looking for yesterday.

A good way to practice this is when you catch it, plant your foot (just 1) and pivot on it. Once you do that, remind yourself that you can not pick that foot up until you actually let go of the disc.

Scott, these are the kinds of rules and strategy sessions we’ll need to have before we actually head to an organized game against another team that knows the rules.

Peering out the window...

I feel like the little kid who wants to go out and ride his bike but he’s looking out the living room window…you know with your nose mashed up against it so your mom will be cleaning who knows what off of it later…and it’s doing nothing but raining.

I considered calling for a game anyway this morning since it was supposed to be relatively warm. But I got in this morning, hung over from a night in the classroom listening to 4 hours of discussion on Education philosophers, I just put down a big country breakfast, and I’m still suffering the after affects of almost getting skunked yesterday…plus none of the other Buzzards were clamoring via email for a game to be called…so “the better part of valor is discretion” or some such Shakespearean nonsense has won out today. But I will…already do actually…miss playing.

So, the story of the “almost skunk” you ask? Well, pairing up yesterday I thought I had broken up the teams equitably…Todd on one…Phil on the other…separated Bryan and Travis so they could run each other into the ground and then through myself, Bob, Justin, & Frank into a hat and just tossed out green & gold pinnies, with Frank & Bob joining Visor & Swinny on the green and the other 4 of us pulling on the gold. Looked “fairly even”…or so I thought.

First of all, it took about 10 minutes for either team to score. That may not be an exaggeration at all. There were seriously at least 3 or 4 possessions each up and down the field with nobody even sniffing the end zone. Finally green busted through with the first score. I bone headed the next pull and gave them the disc on the goal line for the next score and then…4 more unanswered scores for green. By my count it was 6-0…it could have been more…and we were literally 20-25 minutes into the game. I muttered something about wondering what a skunk was as we got ready to receive the next pull and unbeknownst to me, Swinny was asking his teammates on the other end if we had even scored yet….that’s when DK set it. You know Disc Karma….yea, don’t mess with that.

On the very next pull, we got all 4 guys to touch the disc, made some very sharp crossing passes and give and go’s and got right in for green’s first score. That was about as good as it got for us the rest of the game. We held our own I suppose and the defense on both sides seemed to be…uh, generally speaking…a little tighter yesterday. We tried the “Force Flick” on D against Swinny most of the game and he beat us for a couple flick scores and even tried out his Hammer. All in all, though there was some debate about this as we came off the field, it beat being in the cube.

Enjoy the day of rest. Get ready for tomorrow, I’m not sitting inside again.

Who is the Ultimate Valentine?

Vincent Adolphus Valentine was a Jamaican cricket player, Stacy Valentine is a veteran of the adult film industry, Ryan Valentine is a Welsh soccer player, Josh Valentine is an Australian rugby player, Greg “The Hammer” Valentine was a professional wrestler, Howard Valentine ran the 800 meters for the U.S. in the 1904 Summer Olympics and won a silver medal, but the Ultimate Valentine is, of course, Saint Valentine. Turns out the guy is the patron saint of bee keepers. Hmmmm, that’s not quite as exciting as Cupid shooting arrows and all.

So, if you’re looking for that very unique Valentine’s present, get a jar of honey, explain the whole bee keeper thing and take a cue from one of Stacy’s old movie scenes…or…

Just come out and play some Ultimate today. The sun is out and we need a decent game to help one of our own, Visor, celebrate his birthday.

Rumor has it, that Coach Bob will be back out today as well. Haven’t seen him since before the holidays.

I think I’m taking a new nick name. I’d like to be called “Uno” in honor of the first Beagle to win the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show “Best in Show” award.

You go snoopy dog! By the way, Snoopy would have been a sick Ultimate player.