Reflections from 2013

            The first obstacle in coaching a brand new team is the tip toeing in period.  In college ultimate teams have their own culture, idea of how ultimate should be played, and personality.  For me to come from an in state “rival” team and just start asserting myself would have been catastrophic for my relationship with the team.  So I resigned myself to wading in.  During that period there were a lot of things that rubbed me the wrong way, but I held my tongue because I tried to respect the possibility that there are different ways to play ultimate.  Here at the end of the season there are several things I have beef with, that never looked clear to me.

            I felt like at the very start of the season we we’re rushing to teach people everything.  I guess Northwestern is in a tough position because they start school about a month after everyone else, and then they have their first tournament within the first 2 or 3 weeks of school.  So they panicked and tried to teach everyone how to throw, cut, force, stack, and zone in this narrow window.  I understand the desire to want to do well at tournaments, but my opinion has and always will be to punt the fall.  The fall college season is supposed to be a time for Freshmen/Rookies to learn how to play, and for returners to work to getting to the next level.  There is plenty of time to teach people to play and dig back down to the foundation of the game, and I think it’s important that people slow down and pace themselves.  An incoming freshmen shows up to the first ultimate practice because he wants to play, not because he wants to be bashed over the head with a whole bunch of information, so I think it is on the leadership to let them play.  The first 3 weeks every practice should look very similar.  There should be 4 small fields, games are played on 3 of them and a single drill is run on the 4^th.  We do the same drill for an entire week.  Then after that week we move onto the next one.  After those first 3 weeks you should have been able to zero in on the skills you reckon are most important and you should have also given young kids enough time to actually synthesize what is going on. 

            I think people overvalue young throwers.  If a freshman comes in and is capable of throwing the disc people quickly think to themselves, “this guy could be great”.  The truth is that the really athletic kid who no one notices because he can’t throw and doesn’t understand how to take advantage of his athleticism yet is going to be far more valuable.  For smaller programs who are trying to get to the next level, athletes are at a premium.  You will find no one who will argue with you about whether defense wins championships, but for some reason everyone wants to make decisions on the Ateam based on offensive ability.  We can teach someone to throw competently in about 5 weeks (100 throws a practice x 3 practices a week x 5 weeks = 1500 throws).  It takes about 18 months to make difference in someone’s athleticism.  I am in favor of spending the first 3 weeks teaching and working on just defense.  I think in an ideal world people are prioritizing their defense, and they don’t have the massive distraction of not being able to throw holding them back from making an impact on a game.

            Watching UChicago and how successful they are with what I feel is a small amount of natural talent I came to the realization that being focused on a few things all season is far superior to trying to have everything.  There were times at Northwestern where it was like, we need to be able to do this, this and that, we need to have this or we need to try this new thing against this team.  Building all these tools really detracts from the potential sharpness of any one skill.  UChicago worked all season on throwing through marks, keeping the disc centered and playing man defense.  They were a really tough matchup because everyone on UChicago was focused on what they were doing (which is a very small amount), and Northwestern kept looking at this artificially large back of tricks and wondered what we should do to stop Chicago.  It was tough because it was like, well clearly this is what Chicago is and even though we know what they are doing they are still being successful, so what is Northwestern good at that will be successful no matter what?

            I need to find a way to coach people into having an edge.  There is a fine line between being an inappropriate jerk and having a competitive swagger.  Somehow there needs to be a way to create a culture where people are out to kill within the bounds of the game.  I think running 1v1 cutting drills all day are where I will start.