Sideline Talk

“Sideline Talk” is overvalued.

Talk + Listening = Communication:

Sideline talk requires two pieces.  Someone has to talk and someone has to listen.  Everyone is yelling at their sidelines to talk and every captain is urging their team to help the defense, but no one is yelling at the players on the field to listen.

Think about your typical handler defender, face guarding 10 yards from the disc.  The thrower zips one right past his head, a few guys on the sideline yell “up” a few yell his name.  Somehow in the 1-2 seconds that it took the disc to fly past his head he wasn’t able to process his name, find the disc, and swipe at it.  His reaction? Yell at the sideline to talk more.

Guy is guarding his man deep.  His guy starts busting deep 15 yards deep of the disc, makes a 40 yard cut straight away and catches it.  There were up calls, unfortunately no one said “right!” or “left!” and he couldn’t find the disc.  So after running next to a guy for 40 yards and never once taking a moment to think to himself, “I bet this could go up”, and never once thinking, “I should find the disc” this guy gets scored on turns to the sideline and yells “sideline!”

Yo bro we did talk, you weren’t listening.

Good Defense is Triangulating:

Good defenders are able to see the disc and their guy.  Great defenders are working hard to constantly maintain a position where they can see both.  One hip should be pointed at the disc and the other hip should be pointed at your guy.  You should be able to see the disc leave the throwers hands and go into your guys hands, or your hand.

We’ve got players staring straight at their guy when they are 30 yards from the disc.  Do you really need to be zeroed in on your guy when he is that far away?  Don’t you think you could see the disc and see if there are opportunities to help?  Obviously if he starts to move you’re going to have to move your attention back to him and the disc, but until he moves why isn’t your attention on the disc and the field?

I often think of Walden and Neal when I think of good defenders.  I’m pretty sure no one ever told them how to get their D’s, they were just paying attention to their surroundings and they could see the play before the sideline could.  That’s the thing, when you’re on the field you have a sense of the grain, the eb, the flow, and the pace of what’s going on.  Do you really want to just leave all those factors on the table and trust “some dude on the sideline’s perspective”?  Is his perspective superior to yours?  Who’s really in the better position to make defensive choices?

You should probably just pay attention yourself.

It takes time to process words:

There is a lot going on when you’re defending.  Is it really necessary to further complicate the system by trying to process what someone is saying?  In college during marking drills Austin used to tell me that you should start saying “no around” too early because there will be a delay in your teammates head, and by the time they realize they should be going no around it is actually time for them to go.

***Disclaimer:  I think “no around” calls are massively important and should be treated as an exception.***

So if the defender, in his infinite wisdom, decides to face guard and is capable of hearing the call from the sideline, does he even have enough time to process it or is he going to get beat anyway?  Is it worth relying on sideline talk?  Should we try to bank on something a little more real time?

But Bruns don’t you think you’re expecting too much of young players awareness and feel of the game?:

Sure.  Most of my guys are incapable of paying attention to the field.  They are so terrified of getting beat that they decide to just stare at their guy.  They haven’t played enough ultimate to anticipate what’s happening, or to understand where they are at any given moment.  Most of them are just trying to not make mistakes.  But as a coach it’s my responsibility to push them towards awareness of their world, not let them settle comfortably into one-dimensionality.  No one is going to get better with low expectations.

The above point is pretty weak.  The real counterpoint is my boy Jay.  Jay has played a few years of high school ultimate, can still barely throw a flick, by all accounts is a very raw Frisbee player, yet he makes plays on help defense, never needs me to tell him the disc is up, and recognizes when it’s time to try to make a play.  How come Jay, a boy who can’t throw is acutely aware of the realm of possibilities that throwers have?  Why is this?  I don’t know, obviously some guys progress and become comfortable with the game quicker than others.  Jay just learned to use his eyes sooner.

The current game plan is to agitate the roster until enough kids with awareness are left, and then give them inflated play time.