Wednesday, February 03, 2010
I finally got around to giving the Winter 2009 UPA magazine a thorough look over. I found something that tickled me.
It was obvious to me, and anyone else that knows anything about club ultimate, that when it started coming out that Chase would be playing co-ed (I mean, mixed) this club season, that whatever team had just acquired him off marriage/move waivers would be the next Club Mixed Champion. Pardon me if that seemed like too big a leap in logic to assume. When it turned out that Axis of C'Ville won, I decided the right thing to do would be to feign a polite surprise.
Now several months removed from that finals and looking at page 22 of the newsletter, I find that my practiced reaction was entirely unnecessary. Chase was in on the joke too. Find him now, tucked away in the top left corner of the picture. There he is, giant smile upturned at its right corner, reaching up toward that eye. And there is that eye, crows' feet dangling downward, cinched shut while the left remains open in a near universal piece of code: the wink. The wink, that flash of facial expression to bring you in on an inside joke shared only by winker and, now, you. Telling you, hey, I'm not being entirely serious here. I am telling a joke. And indeed he is.
Look at him there, winking, telling you, a bit sheepishly, "yes, I know. I shouldn't be here. I make Mixed ultimate look like a summer camp dodgeball game between grade schoolers and counselor. This is Julius Peppers putting on pads today against some Pop Warner cast-offs. This is them running into the inmovable object and trying to push. I, too, feel like I'm cheating. Just a little bit. Just a little bit." Wink.
I imagine, too, that on the picture to its left, Zach Eastlund is looking into an unknown distance resigned to a fate that, only moments ago, he was hoping to avoid. As the disc hung there, gently tabling off and both he and Chase in hot pursuit, he may have found himself thinking of Sisyphus and three short feet from the mountain's ridge, heavy boulder in tow. Perhaps today, perhaps mere moments from now, the rock will make it to the top. But it slips away, and Chase tallies another goal, and both Zach and Sisyphus purse their lips and get angry for having allowed themselves the luxury of hope.
Wink.
Labels: two cents
7 comments:
As good as Chase is, he can't throw to himself...
Nice troll, Hector. That'll get the co-ed boys' panties in a knot.
in mixed there is not enough help defense to deal with a receiver of his caliber. even if you've got one guy who can deal with him on semi-even footing, there is no way to cover the mistakes he's bound to make.
mixed is a different game. it is a showcase for one-on-one skills. chase's one-on-one skills can't be overcome by strategy in mixed. in open, every one of his opponents can be a dissuasive "second defender" on a deep shot. or even, gasp, get a help d. not that it is a sure thing, as we've seen time and again, but they all have a shot.
in mixed, what would you do if they go 3 men, 4 women, have kusy+other guy+1woman handle and have chase downfield with 3 women?
"get worked repeatedly" is the answer you're fumbling for.
respect to the mixed players out there, but the game is different. one player can have a proportionally larger effect on the game due to the essential discrepancies in physical ability btw players.
It is obvious to me, and anyone else that doesn't play club ultimate for a self-importance fix, that if a real athlete played ultimate they would demolish any ultimate player. When it started coming out that one of the local university's second string d-backs was going to try out for ultimate, the rest of the football team just assumed that he'd show everyone up. Pardon them if it seemed like a leap of logic, they are just dumb competitive jocks. When it turned out that someone who can actually run a 4.5 DID put ultimate players in their place, the football team feigned polite surprise as not to burst the bubbles of the ultimate players. After all, since not being able to make the varsity squad in high school they are all quite sensitive.
Now, several months off and looking at the facebook pages of some football players, I saw that they were in on it all along. There he is, in the photo album labeled "HAHA WE SHOWED THOSE DUMB FRISBEERS", winking at the camera. He was in on the joke, he was never actually trying out for the frisbee team.
Look at him there, winking, telling you a bit sheepishly, yes, I know. I shouldn't be here. I make ultimate frisbee players look like summer camp when I'd play two-handed touch against everyone else. This is a real athlete putting on no pads and playing a recreational sport.
I imagine too, that when all those ultimate players, whose sense of worth is inflated by playing other failed athletes, know deep down inside that they are resigned to their fate never to actually be competitive against professionals. And as the disc hung there, and the d-back caught up from 5 yards behind his mark, using his vertical honed from 10+ years of lifting weights and drills, the ultimate player may realize that he should just retreat into his warm cocoon of competition against people his own level, where he feels king, where he feels like he's actually something.
Wink.
Play the game to have respect for how hard an individual works to better themselves, not how good they are in relation to others. You are an ULTIMATE player for chrissakes, stop asking like you won the rose bowl when you won some damn club sport.
Signed,
A co-ed player with perspective
*acting
Signed,
A co-ed player with perspective and limited proofreading skills
you made me go get my magazine...
valid post on the coed to open to D- I progression, fact of the matter is...there ain't that many top tier athletes out there, if any of them decided to flex on any sport we would see how good they are, but fact of the matter is, there is only so many of them and so many more of us D-3 style players that it just don't really matter. wink, play it up, win worlds as a master, nothing matters until you come correct.
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