Looky What Baby Found on the Innernet

Have you ever had your peeny "slickled"? Would you like to? Click this, close your eyes, and get a rough approximation of how I feel about winter practices.

The only thing that keeps me going is the knowledge that by the end of the quarter, I'll look like this -->

What keeps you excited about Ultimate?

UChicago Ultimate Frisbee

Hey all,

Welcome to the homepage of University of Chicago Men's Ultimate Frisbee. The U of C's men's ultimate program features over forty players on two teams, the A-team Junk and the B-team (tentatively called) Hedonism Bots. While the teams are split X/Y in the fall for tryouts, in the Winter and Spring the teams attend a variety of tournaments as far away as Georgia and Las Vegas. Last year was a bit of a rebuilding year as Junk graduated 10 starting seniors and finished 12th in one of the strongest sections in the country. This year we will be coming back stronger than ever and hoping to improve significantly on last year's results. We also have a women's team, Supersnatch, http://womensultimate.uchicago.edu/about.html who would love to recruit any women ultimate players out there.

Interested in playing?
Good. Tryouts are held in the beginning of the Fall (Late September, into October) and will consist of 3 practices a week and several tournaments. Junk is intended for players with superior athleticism, disc skills and dedication throughout the year, which includes morning practices and workouts in the winter, tournaments in the Spring and practices year round. Hedonism Bots is oriented to those with less time or experience for ultimate and is excellent training for newer players who want to play with Junk in the years to come.

What Next? - Practices, Tryouts and Facebook groups
If you are an incoming undergraduate or graduate students, our ultimate season will start practices the week of September 29th. Practices are held during Tuesday and Thursday afternoons from 3:30 - 5:30, so be sure to leave this wide open as you schedule classes [we realize that some conflicts, like discussions or BA seminars are unavoidable]. Weekend practice times have yet to be established. All practices and pickup will be held at Washington Park.

However please contact us before practices start. During O-Week (student orientation week), which starts September 20th we will be out throwing on Bartlett Quadrangle and the Main Quad every day. If you see someone with a disc, just come up and talk to us, especially Saturday the 20th. Pickup will also be held during O-Week, so check this Blog and join this Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=127775923910860&ref=ts.
Also feel free to email the captains at chicagoultimate [at] gmail [dot] com.

This Week

I think about ultimate more than many of you probably think about eating or sleeping. I don't really know why, but it is a fixation, an obsession, a disease. I am not going to be a productive student this next week. I am not going to be paying attention in my classes. I will not be focusing on video games when Hupps is playing them in our living room. With sectionals looming on the horizon, that is all I will be thinking about. This is not to say that any of you should have that kind of relationship to the sport we play. The amount that I think about all aspects of ultimate from tournament structure, to throwing form, to watching highlight videos over and over again to the point where I know what is going to happen in every play throughout the video is probably not healthy.

However, I have rarely left a practice feeling as dejected as I did after practice today. I can blame some of my mistakes or fuck-ups on my groin, I guess, but the performance of the O-Line was sloppy, unfocused, and downright pathetic at times. If we come out that way at sectionals, we will not only get walked-over by Illinois, we will get upset by Purdue, and we will not be going to Regionals. There is nothing that I can think of that would make me more dejected about our season than breaking a four year streak of Regionals attendance. I sure as hell don't want to let that happen on our watch, do you?

If there was ever a week to cut classes, to let your work fall to the wayside, to be in attendance at practice, this is the week. Tuesday is the last serious practice we will have before Sectionals, and if we don't have full lines at the very least, how are we supposed to iron out all of the faults and flaws and make ourselves ready to run, play, and win come Saturday. I know people are injured, I know people are stressed, but that is all the more reason we need more people at practice. I can't be playing every point if I want to be as healthy as I can be by sectionals and no one should have to be.

I conclude with my favorite ultimate highlight video. Without fail, when I watch this video, I am awed by the beauty of our sport and reminded of why I play and who I want to become as a player. It is something to aspire to, and a reminder that all of us are capable of playing ultimate and playing it well.

Enjoy, and GET FUCKING PUMPED:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wDvuBTj8Vk&feature=related

Brines

For Posterity's sake, first of all, here are Junk 2009-10's tentative, subject to change, highly flexible O- and D-Lines.

Bro-Line:
Jake
Zubair
Baby Craig
Dinger
Hupps
JMo
Sasha
Smutko
Huge
CJ

Dece-Line:
Seth
Bank
Hirsch
Scott
Jefferson
Shane
Nate
Sachs
Binder
Old Craig
Eric

Sick.
How our lines gel or don't gel is one of the most important factors in how Junk will do as a team this season. The reason that Junk's best ultimate came at regionals last year and the reason that Junk hung around in our game vs. Michigan was that our lines were really good at doing their assigned jobs. This is not to say that O-Line should only work on it's O-Face or the D-Line does't need to work on their throws, but just that coming together and getting to know all of the people on your line is vital. By the time we get to Sectionals, and even more so by Regionals, you should know where everyone on your line is going to be going at the same time that they do. Or at least almost as soon as they do. The point is, lines, along with jerseys, are one of the most exciting things about ultimate for me, because lines aren't about which line has better disc skills or is more athletic, but about being able to work together as one unit to accomplish our team goals.

Or some other corny shit.
Word.

Oh, also... SPRING BREAK!

(Counterpoint) TiV

Trouble in Vegas 2010 was a learning experience for pretty much everyone involved. While Cultimate was laughing their asses off for the weekend and rolled in gold coins like Scrooge McDuck, the wimmynz team learned how to play brrr pong, Ball Sachs learned how to spike a game point score, and Jake learned how to spell the word "catheter" (he spelled it "cathider" in a 12:46 pm text message to the Bungalo Bros). Even Hupps learned a new word, "coliseum," though I'm not sure he knows how to use it yet. And while I'm more prone to associate him with the sitcom character Alf than the Alph River, we're certainly very proud of him.

Three things we can work on before Spring Break (!oow) to get some solidified coke lines and build some full-strength conditioning shampoo:

-in cuts. Even from the limited footage I took, it is increasingly obvious that running back and forth horizontally (or just standing still) is not a good way to get the disc in your hands. Cut in. If you don't get the disc, clear to the wings. If you get the disc, take a second or two to look upfield and maybe throw in a fake or actually make that continuation, but if you've got nothing, then get it back to a handler.

-handler movement. Guilty as charged. For example, we were by and large unable to run the wrap on the sideline and even when we did, it was not as effective as it should have been at opening up the rest of the field. This is definitely something we can drill over and over indoors, but we've got to really get on the same page with this.

-cheers. With the exception of Smutbro's "Sons of Gondor, of Rohan" speech, there was a serious paucity of pump-up cheers. I'm looking at you, Bänkenstein. "h" is Planck's constant. Bohr doesn't have a constant. He's got models and formulae galore, but he used Planck's constant and had no constant to his own name.

As Hupp-Alf said, we've been cooped up in Crown all season, and we'll be cooped up for another few weeks. Let's make the most of our time. Let's get mentally and physically fit. Also, we really need to work on our tans.

Baby Craig

Captain

University of Chicago Mens Competitive Tanning Team

Look Out World...

Well, I've finally decided that it's time to due my fatherly duty and enter the ring with Jake and Craiggers. This coliseum will erupt with manly pleasures, people weighing under 150 pounds, and one summer of club experience. Words will spew forth like Alph, the sacred river, and I will point out a similarity between Jake and Skyla with every post.

Vegas was hella frustrating (and a little scary on Sunday morning). We've been cooped up in Crown since the beginning of the calendar year, and our one chance this quarter to play outside was cut short. Balls. We didn't get a chance to really see people's strengths, and we didn't get many opportunities to work on offensive and defensive sets we wanted to try. Now we're back indoors until Spring Break (woo!), and we'll have to do what we can to get some solidified lines and build some full-field chemistry. When we get back from Georgia, we'll have just a few short weeks to pull our shit together for Sectionals, but at this point, we're restricted to small spaces, visualization, and hard conditioning. That being said, Vegas most certainly had its moments, like Dinger Dan pulling off a chest hair for Shane/Zubair, and it was just really unfortunate to have rain for the second year in a row. While I anticipate that we will look at other winter tournament options going forward, I would say that there is still a good chance we'll be returning to Vegas next year with hopes of good weather and great ultimate.

At this point, we're continuing on with our pod workouts, looking forward to Spring Break, and getting pumped for Sectionals and Regionals.

Arriving fashionably late,
Hupps


P.S. - Jake and Skyla have the same number of vowels in both their first and last names (y-inclusive).

Word of the Day: Catheter… (TiV 2010, Part 3)

Sunday promised to be an interesting day, as we knew already knew that there would be no frisbee to be had. Therefore, everyone slept in and we took our time packing up to get out of the hotel before the 11 AM check out. Our room was surprisingly intact considering the strain that had been put on it the night before and we all woke up to look hazily around the room and try to remember why our buttholes ached in the way they did.

Somehow, my clothes had ended up scattered around the room and Chupps had curled himself up under the fitted sheet on our bed. Anyway, we slowly roused ourselves and took stock in the situation. Jake? Check. Hupps? Check. BANK? Check. Dead Pan Dan? Check. Huge? Check. Hmmm… I guess everyone else slept in the other room. Walked over there and deuced some of their cinnamon raisin bagels and shiz and then walked back. Walked back and forth a few times listlessly. Wait. Wait. Ten, eleven, twelve… someone is missing. Where’s Shane? All his stuff is still here… Does anyone remember seeing him around? Not answering his phone. Maybe he slept at the bungalow… Call up my ho… YO, Baby, you guys got Shane? Alright, thx anyway. Maybe he’s with the girls… BonanzaRae, you got a creepy 28-year-old? No, I know Jesse is only 22, I meant Shane. Oh well, thanks anyway.

A missing Shane, eh? This sounds like a job for Daphne! Daphne! Scooby-Doo! We finished packing up and Chupps and I got in a quick game of find the butthole while BANK checked out. Wait, what’s this? Young Sasha has a clue. Shane was last seen getting a car with the Titcombs you say? Rohre? What else, boy? Shane chugged a quarter of a handle before he left. OH BOY! A decision was made that the majority of the team would head to the airport while a select strike force comprised of Bold Craig, Sky Patrol Captain Hupps, Sasha the Bluer, BANK “The BANK” calderBANK, and Pressels searched for Shane at the Bellagio (Rohre’s last known location), and the Bungalow boy-toys searched for him at IHOP.

Apparently, all the bungle-bro’s heard that Shane was really into maple syrup and so they decided to look for him between the pancakes in their $5 all-you-can eat short-stacks at IHOP. Additionally, Smutko thought that maybe he was hiding in a large plate of hash browns and veggies, and, being the good friend that he is, agreed to pay $11 in order to be allowed the opportunity to look for him. What a guy!

We, on the other hand, headed to the Bellagio with heavy hearts, wondering where our incorrigible buddy might be. We talked to the bellhops and Chupz got them to send a page over the intercom asking for Shin Cladwall or some dude. Semi-luckily, we ran into Vehro, who had taken out a room at the B-lage, and with him were Lisa and… maybe Lauren (Yeah, I looked through the Five Staff Bios) who had been with Shane at one point. They remembered him as the unbelievably drunk guy. Good. At least he’s memorable.

Not knowing what else to do, we headed over to The Bank, the Bellagio’s happening night spot, to see if maybe Shane had gone there with some inebriated notion of finding BANK McBANK there. However, although we managed to get a really good pic of an elevator sign that read “BANK”, Shane was nowhere to be found and there was no one there to give us a hint.

We proceeded out front where we came across two police officers and had just begun to ask them about where we might look to find a lost pal, when Jeffers’s voice crackled in Hupps’s ear to let us know that he had just gotten through to Shane, and that Shane was in some random hospital up north, alive, although probably still drunk. After another 15 minutes, we finally got in touch with Shane ourselves and pulled a U-ey on Las Vegas Blvd. to go get him.

At last, we arrived to find Shane, unbelievably dirty, with a cut above his left eye, arms swollen from hand-cuffs, still wearing his hospital shirt, sitting in an Arby’s enjoying a sandwich without a care in the world and no memory of what had occurred.

Vegas Baby!