Process of Illumination

I've been reading the criticism that collegeulti.com has been receiving on rsd with some amusement. People have ragged on everything from the design to the content with various levels of vitriol. Some offer friendly suggestions, others start hating. While I have a few quibbles about the site, mainly the overhyping of Wisconsin, I've not felt interested in joining in. I give them mad props for all the work they have been doing so far, and I'm sure they will work out the kinks as they go along.

Yet in a brief visit the other day, I saw something on the site that made me have to click the back button immediately lest I were to spill the drink I was holding from laughter and incredulity.

What had me so appalled, so humored, was their current Power 16 ranking for best tournaments. In it, they rank College Centex #1 and the UPA College Championships #2. Clearly, Cyle from Florida, you have never been to Nationals.

Forgetting that the rest of the list contained some tournaments that are either incredibly forgettable or run haphazardly year in and out (are there really 16 college tournaments worth ranking?) I couldn't believe they would rank a midseason tournament over the Championship. Are you serious? Clearly, Cyle from Florida, you have never been to Nationals.

In my college career we won and lost at some of the most competitive tourneys of the season. We made finals or semis and battled in game after game against the best competition at Easterns, the Stanford Invite, and other tourneys. After losing close games, after being eliminated from competition, or after losing early and making our way to the shitbox fields for consolation, I never saw a single one of my teammates shed a tear. The accolades we received from our successes we pushed back in our minds, and the disappointments felt we used to drive us the rest of the season. These tourneys were a time to fine tune our plays, scout the rest of the field, and ready our minds and bodies for the real task at hand that season: the road to a national championship. Clearly, Cyle from Florida, you have never been to Nationals.

Centex "hands down the best?" Whose hands? The people who have hands down for Centex are the same people with their hands down grabbing their ankles come Memorial Day Weekend. In the list, their explanation for why natties is #2 is filled with more criticism than praise. While allowing that there is no trophy like it, they denigrate it by saying only a handful of teams start their season hoping to go, much less win. However, with Centex being an invite-only tourney where most of the 24 teams have little chance of winning, the same could be said. But nationals - ah! Nationals! Clearly, Cyle from Florida, you have never been.

College nationals might not field the best 16 teams, but it is the toughest tourney of the year. It's a feeling of such expectation and anticipation when arriving at the fields for the first time that it forces a bowel movement. Here is that girlfriend that leaves you broken or in flight with a word, a tourney where regardless of the outcome at its end you will embrace your teammates glassy-eyed and express your gratitude. This is a tournament full of false bottoms, where cocksure teams have found they can always drop lower, until they find themselves losing to a team they've ridiculed all season playing with more heart than what they decided to show up with. It's not the best 16 teams, but the best teams are there, fighting tooth and nail, trying not to drown in its gravitas, showcasing 32 weeks of hard work that hopefully manifests itself in the best disc they've played. This is peaking. Cyle from Florida, it is an otherworldly experience, different from any other tourney you'll play. I am sorry you have never been to Nationals.

Friends disappear for the summer. Brothers and sisters you breathe in unison with go to their separate corners after nationals. Teammates you injured yourself for get a job and move away and wistfully remember natties, and some you never see again. It is the last tourney of the season, for many, the last college tourney of their career. Everyone knows it. Everyone plays like it. You walk the fields on Saturday as rounds end and they are littered with players prone on the field, or held up in a friend's arm, grown men and women and Callahan could-have-beens crying. They know why they cry. They didn't get this emotional losing or winning Centex. At that moment Centex doesn't mean shit to them. They cry because they love this sport and the friends within it and Nationals is a time to give them your thanks by playing as hard and selfless as possible. At Centex if a superstar feels a tight hamstring they'll nurse it and if aggravated, will rest and save themselves. It is a long season.

But at nationals those same superstars have a hamstring colored like Picasso's mural to Guernica taped twice over, they've taken all the ibuprofen they can and maybe sprinkled in codeine and they are out on the field running around as if pursued by the Hound of the Baskervilles. No one is saving themselves. This is why we save ourselves! To play till our organs burst at the end of a long season and have for the rest of the summer three days of memories we can thumb through in our minds over and over. For the rest of their lives, for some. Clearly, Cyle from Florida, you have never been to nationals.

But maybe this is your year. Florida has some studs, won Vegas, and is looking very strong. Though I think you'll find yet again that the season is long and as you begin to tire Georgia, backed by everyone's Callahan favorite Dylan Tunnel, will win the region again and you'll lose the subsequent backdoor game to the best NC team. Not everyone knows how to plan a season carefully and peak when the time is right, when the stakes are highest, and when the outcome of the best college tournament is on the line: Nationals!

Clearly, Cyle, you have never been.

I scanned the room for something familiar. I needed to be able to find something I knew, something I could use to remember who I was and perhaps give me a clue to how long I'd been there.

As I peered at the world from the sunken rotating sofa, I became aware of giant television screen pulsing out every sporting event from polo to midget wrestling. On one particular television they were showing a continuous version of sports center with no commercial interruptions. ESPN 3:Casino. And hundreds of bulbs, bald little illuminated heads, covered an entire wall of the room with an odd dance of numbers. It began to sink in: I was in the Bellagio's Casino Sportsbook.

The bets were numerous and odd. Besides betting on the winner and spread, you could also place wagers on anything your mind could conceive. The first person with a fumble. The last team to score. First player to receive a penalty. Finding no energy in my legs to move from the spot I set about to read all the possible betting lines. It took forever. As I neared the end I found I could move again and so stood up to leave. As I walked to the door, in the corner of the wall on a small betting screen hidden from plain sight, a word caught my eye. There, glowing out of the wall in a serene green was the word "ULTIMATE" in all caps. I stopped to read.

It seems like the Sin City has caught wind of this week's tournament, and where ever there's hot college competition Vegas has a hand up its skirt. I asked a cocktail waitress for a pen and a kiss and, receiving the pen, began to jot as best I could the Vegas betting lines on Trouble, and when interesting some of the odds. My hand shook from excitement, fatigue, and the car bombs, and the napkin was later soiled and blurred wiping vomit from a teammate's mouth, but here is what I was able to transcribe.

Win:
Colorado -250
Wisconsin -200
Richmond +1,000
Texas -110

Most Arrests Per Team
Most Arrests Per Player
Brian Frederick -110
Number of Organs Clandestinely removed from players by scam artists
12 Over -120 Under +120
First strip club visit
noon Friday Over +220 Under -180
A Player will Fall into the Bellagio's Fountains
Yes -110 No +120
First Unassisted Hook-up Between Men's and Women's Teams from Different Universities
Saturday 8am Over +150 Under -150
Metro east team in Semis
(I couldn't quite get these odds, as it smudged. It looks like a plus sign, and then a really big number)
Death of a Coach
Yes -110 No +100
Number of Break-ups between Visitors and their partners
52 Over -200 Under +220

At this point I felt my strength waning, and realizing I'd eaten the last of my elven Lembas bread, I began tripping to the door. I'm not sure I made it that far, but I awoke on the floor of my hotel room later that evening, surrounded by teammates in mid-rally and ready for more.

Tomorrow I will post a last minute survival guide for those teams going with some must-have tips on minimalizing your losses and getting attrition to work for you.

Las Vegas is the kind of city where you feel like brushing your teeth more often than usual. The casinos leave a film over you like the tar on a cigarette, and by the time your trip is done you're moving and thinking slower because of it. When I returned Monday night, I couldn't wash it off me. Only today have I begun to smell less and less like Her alleyways and more like myself.
I returned and the first person I saw was my roommate Michael Whitaker, coach of CU's Kali, and a favorite to win the tournament and the national title. He asked me how my weekend had gone and how I'd liked Vegas. I lurched towards him hollow eyed, grabbed him by the collar and gurgled at him, "Don't take them Whit! Don't do it! They will die!"

I had stared at the belly of the beast, felt its stomach acid and returned to warn the world. Las Vegas, college edition, is going to end in ruin and woe.

As I conversed with Whit and other players from teams around the country, one thing became clear: no one has any fucking clue how crazy it's going to get. They are all in denial. Most of those players are on teams looking to win the tournament outright, but they're fighting a losing battle. Trying not to party is like walking around all day with a midget around your neck, easy at first but before midday, the weight will pull you down.

And those are the teams trying to win. There are 64 men's teams in attendance. Of those, at most 20 really believe they can win. By Sunday, only 8 will still believe. That means there are at least 44 other men's teams, milling around after games, with only one thing on their mind: the rabid submittal to their vices and passions.

Skip! As I type this right now I am awestruck by your sheer arrogance! You are sending dozens of college kids to their deaths and you know it!

I tried to talk Whit out of it, but was met with mild amusement and a raised brow. "Don't worry Hector. I'm going to keep my girls nice and safe all weekend."

Fool. His feelings of smug assurance bordering on hubris are probably echoed by other coaches and captains on attending teams. Their desire to win a national title at all costs will make them zealot Ahabs willing to risk the lives of their players in their quest for their white whale. Don't go!

Vegas is a drug, overpowering, arrogant and seductive. It's human to succumb, to falter, to sway a measure in the city's rhythm and get lost. These are college kids, players with tickets for the day after, or the luxury of having a team that doesn't give a shit about results. This is pawned textbooks, made-up college expenses for daddy, sold iBook for another chance at greatness in the Roulette wheel. This is underage drinking and walks down casino hallways and street sidewalks where you're offered anything from opium to sex to religious salvation. These are kids who last partied hard the night of Prom. This is Trouble.

I came away with a nicked dignity, a lighter frame, and twenty in cash. On my team I was one of the lucky ones. As much as the memories will never be forgotten we all walked away as if we'd lost something, the city had pick-pocketed and fondled us as we were looking. The college kids will come back from their three day affair and it'll be, "show me on the doll where She touched you."

Between visits to the Bellagio water show and their hotel rooms it will happen. The air will get in their lungs and they will taste some of the city's offerings, becoming modern-day Persephones amidst the barren decadence the city offers. From there the tumble is mercifully swift, and a few short hours later they feel strangely calm despite the two grand they just dropped in craps. Western Union standing by to serve you.

Don't go! As Admiral Ackbar famously said, "It's a trap!" We all as elder ultimate players bear a burden to protect the younger ones when we can. Those players in attendance at Club Trouble have no excuses. We know what will happen. We witnessed. Having survived the weekend and kissed my front lawn because of it, I ask those in charge of college teams not to go. You will be implicit in their deaths! Felony records don't stay in Vegas. Neither do VD's. I doubt everyone that needs to will stash the body in a place where it's unlikely to be found.

To the first and probably last Trouble in Vegas College, to the death of Ultimate's innocence, akin to the Stone's Altamont concert, akin to the Kent State shootings, akin to the Catholics' retaking of Moorish Spain - to the end of an era - I toast.

There's trouble brewing.

Starting Seven
1. My travel Pillow
2. Skin on and around both elbows, hips, right knee
3. One brown dress shoe, size 12
4. some disc, stolen now at least three times over
5. dignity, on the steps of the Bellagio
6. Rowan's glasses
7. Matthew Pankratz, at last head count

Official Vegas lines on Next weekend's aptly named Trouble in Vegas (college edition) were released yesterday. I sat down at the sports book couches of the Bellagio with a pad and pen and wrote down as many of the interesting ones as I could. I will write them here, as they were displayed, tonight.

Hh

True story. My first five years of life I was a sickly little kid, in and out of the hospital from malnutrition and dehydration or churning myself into panic attacks when I read the news. Far from naturally athletic, I was five feet four inches and 120 pounds as a high school freshman. Writing my name almost required more coordination than I could muster.

I was as intimidating as Kate Moss, with a leper’s charisma. Hence, my biggest and perhaps only assets when I started playing Ultimate were my burning passion for the game and a desire to improve as much as I could. So I got to college, naturally got schooled during the fall season, and when the Midwest set its winter blanket over us, resolved to transform myself into Scrappy Doo. This was the only way I was going to earn playing time without any throws or field sense, and I knew that. What follows is not an outline for those of you on the world’s team, or those juniors players getting hyped, or the college players with acolytes all over their region. This is for those afraid to carry milk money, the short ones, skinny ones, weak ones and slow ones. The tired, huddled masses yearning to be a clip of the day on Ultivillage’s web site, the meek wishing to be an impact player on an elite team.

As Scrappy Doo, you’ll need to do some research first. Go watch the Scooby cartoons with him in them. This will put you in the right mindset to do what must be done. As you watch, you will pick up a few things about Scrappy. He’s fearless, or excellent at pretending he is. He is gung-ho about any plan that involves confronting the problem head-on. He is willing to sacrifice himself and risk injury without thinking twice. And he relishes his role, he’s not trying to be any of the other Mystery Machine dodes, he’s perfectly happy being Scrappy Doo.

After your research, you will be ready to start implementing them in your game immediately. Play defense, because that is all you’ll be able to do with some success. Play defense like the lives of your loved ones depend on your man not touching the disc. Play like this all the time, because your only weapon is intensity. When the disc goes up to your man, lay out. Whether you are close enough to know what he ate for breakfast or whether you’re at a different field site from him, bid for the disc. You have to prove to your teammates, to him, and most importantly to yourself that being a better player is more important than your well-being. Never feel like you’ve improved enough, that’s Sweet Guy territory and to be avoided at all costs. And be happy in your role. Every point you get, be it 4 points per game or 8 points per tournament, take a moment as you step onto the line to think back on how shitty you were a year ago, a tournament ago, a few games ago, and how fucking awesome it is to feel yourself getting better at something you care deeply about.

I’m a little taller and heavier now than I was as a freshman in high school. Also a little faster and a little more athletic. But the player I became exists because the player I was when I didn’t know a force from a foul was named Scrappy Doo.