The following is a UC Message Board post from Akira Yamaguchi: Machine officer, CHC Tournament Director and erstwhile league gadfly-cum-Socratic cynic. While I may disagree with him on several points, I respect how much thought he’s put into this and his emphasis on personal initiative — he played a small but influential role in the birth of this site. Due to the general unreliability of the message boards I have reposted his comments in their entirety.

Provacative title.. get ready for the long-winded setup…

I’ve had some thoughts in my head for a little while (hard to believe, I know..). They weren’t fully formed and they could be mildly inflammatory so I’ve been sitting on them.

I went to the UC Town Hall meeting a couple weeks ago. I’ve been sporadically beating poor Ben up with some of these ideas for a little while, and he actually gave voice to them in passing at one point in the meeting.

(Random Aside: Would be great if slides/notes/minutes could find their way online).

Ben said something to the effect of trying to develop the organization and board in such a way that the board is not perpetually stuck in ‘the doing’.

By this, as I’ve been pushing it to him, the board needs to get out of the business of running leagues and making ultimate happen on a day to day basis. The board needs to be providing management structure and frameworks, advice, long-term planning and resourcing, etc.

Maybe I got this wrong. And Ben did just mention it in passing. And the topic of the meeting was more specific. But I was totally struck by how it flew by the room and seemed to elicit no comment or discussion.

Being the town hall meeting, being on a Saturday afternoon with nary a disc in sight, and being the room was so full that some folks had to stand the whole time… presumably these are some of the most motivated and interested of the membership and community. I just thought it was odd.

Connecting the dots it should have occurred to someone that if the board wasn’t going to run the leagues then someone else had to, and so that meant someone would be hired (and so fees would go up) or that members of the community OTHER THAN the board would have to step up and be the ‘doers’. Right? Like what else is there..?

Separate tangent that ends up in the same place..

I’ve been mulling for a bit as to how long / when / what year before some part of our community, wanting to play Ultimate, will be unable to b/c of some outright obstacle, like, say, fields.

This question crossed my mind at the Town Hall meeting, to ask of the folks assembled and to see what they thought or if they cared. I asked this question of Ben a couple weeks ago at pickup. I think he thought we were close but maybe a couple-few years away. I guessed this year, and if not next year definitely.

Now it looks like a UC league that happened last year (Women’s League for those interested) may not happen this year b/c of an outright obstacle — fields. Well, fields with lights on a weeknight to be specific.

So I guess I win a prize. Or something.

So then– do you care?

Is this important to you? Is getting to play Ultimate important to you? Is the community being able to play all of its Ultimate potential important to you?

Consider some of the flaws with the current model:
-we all need fields to play
-fields and field relationships are scarce
-the community and desire to play is growing

b/c of this you get:
-the knowledge base on field possibilities is small and very, very unevenly distributed

Why?
-it is not in the best interests of individuals and teams to share their field contacts
-there is competition within the community for a fixed, scarce, resource (fields)

Even though:
-we are all joined at the hip in that a bad experience with one ultimate group can poison a site for all ultimate there

Bill Finn and I co-run a weeknight open league under lights in the Spring. Last year, the organizers (including my girlfriend) of the UC Women’s League, were up sh*t creek as far as fields and lights. So I gave Angela one of my other contacts, a site she didn’t even know existed, and they got 2 fields under lights at a good rate blahblahblah. Gave them. For free. Transfer of value.

This year that site apparently isn’t working out. Alternative sites they have dug up might not be working out either. I have the fields I need at my site for my league already (I think).. But I know now that the Women’s League organizers are in the same queue a bit behind me somewhere.

Conculsion: It is not in one’s best interest to be sharing field info. The incentives are all wrong. We are competing within the circle against each other, rather than trying to discover, cultivate, and manage relationships across the landscape. Why aren’t we organized to compete for fields against, soccer, rugby, cricket, football, lacrosse, etc.? (Well, that takes work.)

Why should you care?

We may have just banged up against the (current) hard ceiling — the most Ultimate that we can support with our current resource base is being tapped. Potential play will be left untapped or the base must expand.

So then, for discussion..

What’s it to you?

Do you care?

What, if anything, are you willing to do about it?

Really?

Original post found at http://ultimatechicago.org/msgboard/viewtopic.php?t=217

Ingrained in my head is the idea that I’m a field hockey player first and then an ultimate player second despite the fact that I’ve spent my entire summer and fall thus far playing my 2nd sport. Regardless of this last thought, I don’t like getting into ultimate strategy or post-game analysis because there are a lot more seasoned and experienced players out there that can do a better job than yours truly. (Hwang- you put up a good fight to rope me into doing this!)

Okay, okay, if you’re dying for a recap, here it is in one sentence: We played good games against Thunderstruck and Prion, then we squeaked by beating Gambit in a good match, and unfortunately, Abusement Park beat us on Sunday in the finals.

In case you didn’t know, field hockey actually correlates with partying and dancing. Since this is familiar territory, I would like to do a post-weekend analysis of our socialization game plan that was displayed Saturday night. LUSH likes to take advantage of any team gathering, dinner, and party; hence, our team name suits us well. Many of us agree that this is the most fun team we’ve ever been on mostly because we’re not afraid to make complete and utter fools of ourselves. The following showcases some of our achievements in socializing that occurred Saturday night at the Mishiwaka Brewing Co.:

- Mike Fox wearing three pairs of sunglasses and singing “I wear my sunglasses at night”

- Lain Chen then stealing Fox’s sunglasses

- Dan Benjamin: relaxed and happy

- Joshua Cooper talking about C-sections and Maureen McSwiggin getting fired up about the topic

- Leo Wang and Dave Heimberg tearing it up on the foosball table and being undefeated champions

- Steve Meyer banishing himself to the corner floor

- Rob Berg and Steve having a moment together (Olenka…we need to discuss something about your b-friend)

- Nina Tipton being challenged to flippy cup with water

- 12 team members then participating in a “flippy cup with only water” race

- Vicki Tseng trying to seduce people to the fireplace mantel

Much more occurred that went undocumented. In an overall post-weekend analysis of Sectionals, LUSH knows how to be lush even with water.

Hey here’s a crappy bit of a preview of this weekends sectionals touranment for Chicago’s representative teams. Crappy because: 1- I didn’t get the time to put into it that I wanted, and 2 – It’s coming out the day before the tournament. So to anyone reading this… you should probably get moving you don’t want to get into South Bend too late tonight.

Machine:

I’m sure this team is psyched to get to sectionals this weekend. These guys will have plenty of time to catch up on paperwork, schoolwork, do sudoku puzzles, and Vijay will be studying for his upcoming board exam in the downtime between the beatings they’ll put on teams. On the plus side, it will give some of their rookies a chance to get some field time. They have to be careful though against a few of the teams there or they risk not doubling up the score against them.

Haymaker:

How do you beat this team? Pretty easily actually, usually all you have to do is show up. If you’re not familiar with the term “cavalcade” look it up, because it describes pretty acurately the commitment this team has to unforced errors. It’s not just that there are a lot of them, but they happen so regularly sometimes that they seem to be part of their gameplan. Hopefully the return of captain Dan Baker to the offense will have a calming effect on this team. Haymaker’s success will likely be tied to how boring their offense is. They don’t have the height to make mistakes in the air and the less flashy they are the better. This is also a team that is anchored by it’s defense. We’ll see how they come out this weekend as well because without them picking up some slack this team won’t be able to get over the hump. The potential of this team has been close to being realized though, and if they can bring everything together this weekend, it should turn into one hell of a performance.

Story this weekend – There’s 2 bids, and 2 teams vying for 2nd place in the section. Haymaker vs. Skeet is unquestionably the match-up of the weekend. Grab a beer and come see some sweet foul calls.

Lush:

Ex-Briefcase is working to get back to the glory days by… changing their name. In reality this team does have many new faces from two years ago, the last time they made it to nationals. That year was a great year in that all three major Chicago ultimate teams moved on to nationals. This team has known who it’s major rivals would be for a spot this year for a while now (peppermint bon-bon and ICE), but a new player has emerged in the CN who has given them a run lately and is the #1 seed in the section going into this weekend. The 2nd best story of the weekend will be who will emerge as the #1 seed out of the CP, Lush or Abusement Park. After pasting them at Mo-Town 13-3, they have lost to Abusement 13-7 and 13-9 in their last two meetings. Now with Abusement on their home turf, this match-up becomes very interesting. Especially with Lush’s failure to have beaten either ICE or Bon-Bon yet this season it will be a nice leg-up for Lush if they can secure the #1 CP seed.

Gambit:

Here’s a team that is probably not expected to make a run at the two top teams in the section this weekend, but who has been knocking on the door of an upset more than a few times. While this team won’t turn too many heads with flashy play, they’ve got the determination to make some noise along with a chip on their shoulder about being assumed to be the 2nd tier co-ed team in Chicago. Unfortunately for them it’s a correct assumption.

Food and Liquor:

This team, I admit, I’ve got a special place in my heart for. I’m a big fan of many people on this team, and I don’t know if there’s a better guy in chicago than robbie moy. (He’s a roommate of mine and does much of the cleaning up after us, I pretty much have to put in a plug for him.) That said the goal of this team this weekend is plain and simple. Beat Gambit. If I were them my goal would be to make sure that they don’t lose to SPUN again like last year and try to make sure they get a high enough seed to make regionals, but this is another group of chipped shoulders that would love to get that victory above the team everyone assumes is just above them. Unfortunately again for them, they’ve yet to beat Gambit this year. But I believe in them! Their best performance against Gambit was two weekends ago at CHC so hopefully they can improve upon it.

Just Liquor:

Another team with a singular goal, beating their parent team Food & Liquor. This rivalry would seem to be a bit less contentious since the two teams often practice and scrimmage with each other, but after some of the things that Whitey has been saying about “Idiot Liquor” as he calls them, I can imagine how badly this team wants the upset.

SPUN:

Despite the abscence of their matriarch Lisa Weaver, who did an amazing amount for frisbee in the Chicago suburbs (West league is actually not that crappy, it’s worth a try), this team is back together for sectionals this year. Their only other tournament this year has been the St. Louis Classic back in May. While they did pretty well there they had several players that won’t be with them this weekend. Another team I have a special place for in my heart since I learned to play at Wheaton pick-up longer ago than I care to think about. However since I have almost no idea who it is that will be playing for them this weekend, I forsee a realistic goal for them to be to win a game or two. Unless of course they have Frank the Tank. Then they’ll beat Food & Liquor again.

Nemeis, Dish:

The women’s division at this tournament is going to be so boring they haven’t even bothered to post the schedule for it. If they can’t be bothered to post the schedule then I can’t be bothered to write anything about it. It was hard enough thinking of anything interesting to say about the Co-ed side.

About the Author

Rich Aycock played for FIST at the University of Illinois is currently a member of Haymaker. Ask him about politics sometime.

The biggest tournament in Chicago is this upcoming weekend. There are a lot of interesting things that could/will happen. Aside from all Chicago teams playing to win their home tournament there are several important matchups that will have implications this weekend and beyond. Here are a few things to watch for:

OPEN

-Machine at 2

Machine deferred top seeding to Sub despite a victory over them at Chesapeake. I don’t know the reasoning behind this but they ended up in a pool with Regional rivals BAT. In addition, the low seed in their pool is Pike, who was a Nationals qualifier last year. It will be a hard road for the local boys but they are challenging themselves which can only be good for experience heading into the series.

-Haymaker v Skeetpocalypse

So far this year Skeet has won both games against Haymaker but by a combined score of 3. Both teams are gearing up for the series with sights set on making Regionals. If the section gets only two bids (which, from everything I have heard, would actually be lucky) then both teams are preparing for Sectionals to win this matchup. If they face eath other this weekend then it will be one last chance to develop a gameplan.

-Hand Grenade

We’re seeded probably higher that we should be which means we get to play a bunch of old dudes.

WOMEN

-Nemesis v the field

Nemesis is coming off of a tournament victory at Cooler and a good weekend at Colorado Cup. No one scored more than 5 against them in Wisconsin including Regional foe Madison Jazz. Now, as they prepare to push for Nationals, they face some National caliber competition as they did in Colorado. If I know Chicago women (and my empty blackbook would indicate I don’t) then it is safe to assume that they are looking to come out and make a statement against the National competition and develop a resume for seeding at Nationals.

-Dish stuck?

It’s unfortunate for Dish that the way things are bracketed they can’t move up. I’m sure the “second Women’s team” from Chicago would love to make a splash and in some way play spoiler in the overall seedings. Their focus should now be on just coming out and having a good weekend in their backyard.

MIXED

-Lush’s tough road ahead

I’m honestly not sure whether this team likes to think of themselves as a rebuilding of Mr. Briefcase or a beginning of something new, but they face a difficult challenge in returning to the type of team that made Nationals in consecutive seasons. This tournment will give them a good idea of where they stand. The top seeded mixed team from Chicago is slotted at 11, but more telling is the fact that 5 teams from the Central Region are ranked ahead of them. If their goal is to make Nationals, and there is no reason it shouldn’t be, then they have to focus on playing well against Regional opponents.

-Gambit v Food & Liquor

In a battle of familiar faces, these two teams from Chicago will face each other in pool play. I imagine they will be friendly and spirited, but they will also be determined and motivated. A victory for either team is important to establish their spots on the chain heading into Sectionals. There is little doubt that Food & Liquor has had lackluster results this season, but there is also little doubt that the team has a lot of talent that has potential to perform much better. Gambit on the other hand comes into the season with high expectations after a good run at Regionals last year and the talent to get them there again. The teams may have different expectations for this weekend but this game will establish the course for Sectionals.

-Just Liquor

I just wanted to give a shoutout to this team as I love the people on it so much that I will gladly steal their players given the opportunity.