Player Profile Nominations

In considering which women's college ultimate player to feature for February, I decided that I wanted more input from people on who should be highlighted. I've gotten a few e-mails this season suggesting some players that deserve the recognition, but I really want more nominations to chose from so that I don't end up featuring only players I know personally or that Stanford has played against. For instance, January's player profile was from an e-mail suggestion, and I am really glad that I got to know a little bit about Michelle's story.

So, who else should be considered?

Some things that I've thought about in the picks so far are:

• Leadership. Players that are featured should be major forces on their teams and leaders either on or off the field.
  
• Timeliness. If a team is doing really well and wins a big tournament, a player from that team will be more likely to be recognized the following month.
  
• Lack of previous recognition. Often teams have a single player that gets her praises sung a lot even though there are other players who make just as big an impact for the team. It's nice to feature those other players too.
  
• Diversity. At first the profiles only featured players from the NW and SW since that was the focus of the website. I've since expanded the coverage to include the whole country, so it's important to have profiles from different areas and different teams.
  
• Personal Interest. Players with an interesting story to tell (ultimate or otherwise) are always good choices to highlight.

Please consider this a standing thread where you can post comments even long after the initial post. Thanks!

Strategery - ho stack

This was posted at the bottom of the conditioning post, thought I'd move it to its own thread:

Mike Droske said...

i had mentioned in an earlier post about putting some footage up from the michigan indoor tournament from a few weekends ago. i've found a much faster video upload site and have started putting links to clips up on my blog.

heres the url for the test clip... purdue women running the ho stack

http://www.youtube.com/?v=kYkoPrkSRvw

So, this ho stack seems a bit inefficient to me. When a cutter gets the disc, the three handlers stay, so you have a situation with 3 handlers near the disc and 3 cutters downfield. The downfield cutters also didn't seem to move much off of the in cut, so it looked quite stagnant. The person with the disc zeroed in on the handler dump that she wanted to get it to and barely got it off (though she turned early, which was good).

Thoughts? Ideas on a better version of the ho stack (esp. in the women's game, where most cannot huck full field)?

Conditioning for Ultimate

I've received a request to bring up how to condition and train for ultimate. I think that ultimate is especially difficult to train for because of how it requires players to have the speed and explosiveness to play defense and get open when cutting, but also the endurance to last through four games, two days in a row.

I searched rsd a little bit to see if there were any good threads on the topic, and found a couple that had some interesting information. This thread has some links to other resources and some tips, although sadly most of the links were now dead. Another post has a month long work-out regimen detailed that is geared towards building a base.

In my opinion, the most important things to consider when planning a conditioning regimen for yourself or your team are:

1. Include variety to work multiple muscle groups and both anaerobic and aerobic systems
   
2. Design the regimen keeping in mind when you want to peak during the season
   
3. Commit to doing the work-out program consistently
   

Beyond that, the specifics are up to you. I know that UW has focused on core strength as a way to help prevent injuries and increase sprinting speed. Some people also swear by yoga and flexibility as a way to prevent injuries. Fury divides its season into three themes: endurance, strength, and speed to help focus its work-outs. Stanford does weight lifting and longer runs during winter quarter and then moves towards more sprint work-outs and agility come spring. The team has an off-day running assignment each week that everyone has to complete outside of practice time and in addition to lifting/doing plyo work. Some examples of the team's winter running assignments include:

• Out-and-back run: run in one direction for a given time and then turn around and push yourself to get back to your starting point in less time (14 minutes out and 12 minutes back, for instance)
  
• Farleks: alternate between running at a faster, pressed pace and a more moderate pace for timed intervals (i.e. 30 seconds "on," a minute "off")
  
• Hill runs: 3 to 4 mile run through hilly terain. If people keep track of their time, they can work to improve on it throughout the season
  
• Stadiums/stairs: multiple sets of running the stadium bleachers (~80 steps). Can alternate doing single step or double step sets to work different muscles.
  

Plyo circuits are also a great way to build a strong base and can help work on jumping skills too. There's also a ridiculous number of work-outs that can be done at the track. Running 400's can be a great way to get your endurance up before moving to shorter distances.

What do other people recommend? Any tips or guidelines that college programs should keep in mind when planning out their work-out plans? What's your favorite work-out?

Then again, perhaps teams have a bigger problem with getting everyone to do the work-outs as opposed to designing the perfect regimen.

Where have all the stars gone?

Is it just me, or does it seem that the college women's graduating class of 2005 was especially talented? In compiling information for the regional preview articles for IC Ultimate, I realized that there are very few current players on top teams who have been the main leaders or big names for their teams for multiple seasons.

Don't get me wrong, there are definitely lots of great players at lots of different schools spread out across the country. But the question is: how many people have heard of them? I would think that most followers of the women's college ultimate scene would have heard of players like Nancy Sun, Rebecca Simon, Chelsea Dengler, Miranda Roth, Jenny Burney, Cara Crouch, and Molly Doyle (to name a few) BEFORE last season when they got lots of hype. Each of them earned a name for themselves by being major leaders for multiple years on teams that traveled across the country and played at the highest levels. It's hard to tell who the equivalent players are right now.

There are exceptions, of course: Alex Snyder and Caroline Matthews (Colorado) and Lauren Casey, Hannah Griego, and Enessa Janes (Stanford) are all still playing college ultimate and have been major names associated with top programs for at least a season now (i.e. most would have heard of them BEFORE 2005 nationals). There are also top players whose teams haven't made nationals recently, but still have name recognition: Lindsey Hack (UNC) and Katherine Wooten (Georgia). But, off of the top of my head, that's pretty much it.

Everyone else that I can think of as a top college player has only emerged as such either during nationals last year or during the following club season. Plus, many of the traditionally powerhouse teams graduated a ton of players. Of teams at nationals, Iowa, Texas, UW, Brown, and NC State graduated nearly all of their top players.

What this mass graduation means to me is two-fold: (a) it makes pre-season rankings especially difficult and not all that reliable and (b) it is an exciting time for newer programs and younger players to fill the voids left behind.

Especially with more and more skilled juniors players coming into the college circuit, I have a feeling that in future years there will be lots of players with increased name recognition. But in the relative drought of big names for this year, it will be especially interesting to see who emerges as the top players.

Ultimate heritage & history

A friend just interviewed me today for a school project on traditions and oral history. So, of course I spoke about the stories and traditions that have been passed down year to year on Stanford Superfly. In telling her about some of what I consider the team's heritage, I realized that the new history book, Ultimate: The First Four Decades, has the ability to help create a collective sense of heritage in the ultimate community.

When I was first starting the game, I fell in love with stories my teammates and coach would tell about players, teams, and big games of the past. Hearing about come-from-behind wins and dominant play inspired me to want to be able to do the same. I feel pretty lucky that my first coach, JD, was especially prone to telling stories and making them as real and exciting as possible.

I'm sure that other teams have their own oral history with stories that get told from one year to the next. However, I wonder how many people know about some of the pioneer players and teams that truly shaped the way the game is played today. Although I agree with Kenny Dobyns' assertion on rec.sport.disc that the ultimate history book doesn't do enough justice to the women's division and some of the most dominant forces of the game, I also think that the book is a great start for creating more collective knowledge about our ultimate heritage.

In reading and skimming through the book so far, I've thoroughly enjoyed reading stories about the start of the women's divisions; features on various teams including the MSU Fisheads, the Lady Condors, UCSB Burning Skirts, the Maine-iacs, Ozone, Lady Godiva, UNCW Seeweed, and Stanford Superfly; game recaps from various club and college Nationals; and other miscellaneous trivia. There are quotes from big-name players across the country and pictures that I haven't seen before. There are still a number of games and rivalries that weren't covered in the book, but it's absolutely wonderful to have so much information in one place as a start.

Some of the information is also insightful in terms of determining what was so successful for teams of the past. In talking about the Maine-iacs, JD is quoted as saying, "they created a pressure-cooker arena at practice. They created people who do not choke...Tournaments were a different thing. There was all this anxiety and everyone who was suually screaming at you in practice was now screaming for you." Additionally, Lady Godiva players discuss the philosophy behind its team defense and how the team ran practices to always be on the same page with offensive fundamentals.

One of my main complaints is that the number and quality of pictures of the women's divisions are lacking compared to the men's. I know it must have been a complicated process to get top-notch pictures from decades ago, and props to the authors for including some sweet shots of older players from the Maine-iacs and Godiva eras. I just wish there were more dynamic pictures of women playing in college (of which there are two, by my count) as well. I also wish that the included DVD had any women's coverage. I've been trying to get a hold of as much footage of the women's game as I can, so I was disappointed that there wasn't much archived stuff for the women's side of things. Clearly I need to get myself to the UPA headquarters at somepoint and see if I can make copies of some of their archived material.

Moral of the story: check out the ultimate history book and keep passing down great ultimate stories to those incoming freshman. They could get hooked just like I did.

Random trivia from the book:

• In 1973 Sharon Appling was "the first women in history to score in an interstate Ultimate game" during a match beween Staples high school and Columbia HS.
  
• The first all-women game was played in 1977 in Irvine, CA, between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara players
  
• 1982 was the year of the first women's club Nationals, won by Boston Ladies Ultimate (BLU)
  
• The women's college division was started in 1987, and the first Nationals were won by the University of Kansas Bettys.
  

Defense wins games...

Maybe on paper a good offense should win every game, especially in college where a team will often get the disc back even without generating blocks. However, it seems to me that it is much easier to rally a team around defense, defensive fire, and defensive strategy.

As background, a couple other ultimate blogs (specifically, Jim Parinella's and The PuPs' sites) have been recently discussing the relative value of offense and defense. Most of the comments have been coming from the perspective of the open club division where teams have specialized offense and defensive lines and players.

The O and D team splits don't really apply to college ultimate where there are few teams with deep enough and talented enough rosters to play with strictly O and D lines. If a team only has four handlers period, three out of those four are likely to be in on every point, regardless of whether the team starts out pulling or receiving. That means that every player is expected to play both good offense and defense, and no one is off the hook after a turnover. So teamwide, there can be a unified focus on defense with everyone buying into the idea that they have to contribute to the team D.

Additionally, in college there is such a huge range in skill level that there are often rookies without confident disc skills. Learning to throw an effortless forehand takes time and practice, and it can be incredibly frustrating to not have a solid flick all through winter quarter. However, from the first day of practice in the fall, new players can work on their defense and instantly see improvements and results. As a result, rookies often get playing time based on how hard they are working on defense.

College ultimate is also a game of energy and emotion. Younger players don't calculate scoring percentages or efficiency ratings, they get fired up to play well after big plays and sideline noise. Relying on emotion like this can be a double-edged sword because with the big upswings also follows downswings and a team can struggle to perform consistently when it depends on a huge sky or lay-out goal to generate its energy. Nonetheless, each individual is alway in control of the amount of defensive energy she puts out. Playing defense is hard work and a team can create its own intensity simply by playing hard D. Think about it, which scenario has a team feeling more excited about playing ultimate: (1) when the offense scores with no turnovers after catching the pull or (2) when the defense gets a block and then scores with no turnovers? It seems way more effective to rallying behind number (2).

Plus, there's always the bonus of having good defense give a struggling offense extra chances to score...