I
use this blog for very selfish reasons.
I use it as a place where I can put words to thoughts and attempt to
dump out the things that are swirling in my mind. By design most of these posts are half-baked;
I am trying to clear my mind, not write a Pulitzer. A consequence of writing half-baked ideas is
that I get half-baked understanding from anyone who reads it. (I
guess if I am only fleshing things out 50% and my readership understands 50%
then that is 100% understanding from them.
So good job readers, bad job Kevin.)
This post is a feeble attempt to
retract a previous idea:
Some
time ago I wrote “Defensive teams walk around wearing big boy pants. They tend to be tough, like handslaps, and
not care about the success of their women’s team.”
I
want the opportunity to muse on the final clause of the sentence, from the perspective
of now. I think that it is great to
support your women’s teams. It is the
easiest way to double the size of your family.
This weekend at Conferences NUT and Gung Ho celebrated the success of
each other. NUT spent their bye watching
Gung Ho and Gung Ho watched NUT when they were finished for the day. Both teams could have watched their own
future competition, they could have left to get food, or gone to the hotel, but
they stayed to support each other.
I
thought this was great. I was a big fan
of this. I felt like it gave NUT a
chance to relax and unwind. I think we
were mentally stronger because of it.
What does bother me? (All future
comments are specific to the 2013 season)
All
comments, even flubs, stem from somewhere.
So where did I get the mojo to make this statement? It was winter quarter of 2013, my first
season with NUT. It was a Saturday night
practice and the team rolled in and one of them (who will not be named, but man I’d love to give this bro some heat)
told me “we went 2-2 today!”
“What
are you talking about?”
“We
beat Georgia and Delaware, almost took Tufts but lost on universe and dropped
big to Iowa but it’s okay because they are really good this year.”
It
took me an absurdly long time to realize they were talking about Gung Ho. Once that realization set in I got incredibly
angry that they kept referring to Gung Ho as “we”.
This
was a season where Gung Ho had an entire team of girls who were “bought in” to
the idea of going hard. They were
crushing pod workouts, they worked their throws outside of practice, they were
incredibly close as a team, and leadership was razor sharp in their focus, and
their best player laid down a top 5 Callahan season. This was a Gung Ho team that was putting in
the work.
Just
10 yards away, in the exact same practice facility, sat NUT. We had about 5 kids hitting the gym, our best
player gained a significant amount of weight throughout the season, disc skills
were below dysfunctional (the reason NUT
runs seven cuts is because this team was so terrible at throwing arounds that I
had to do something to get the disc off the sideline, often to no avail they’d
just turn it cramming the cram side.), leadership was in constant turmoil,
and the team struggled as it got pulled in multiple directions. Conferences 2013 NUT had to work to qualify
for regionals, that performance is indicative of our overall season. Regionals 2013 NUT was able to peak and get 5th
and regionals, that performance is indicative of the heart that the seniors
showed in their final tournament together.
It
is my opinion that NUT 2013 shouldn’t be allowed to hijack Gung Ho’s feel goods
that come from putting in work. No you
may not get excited that “we” won. You
didn’t do anything. Maybe if you went to
the gym half as much as them or showed half as much heart you would have been
able to create some feel goods for yourself. If they are putting in the work and you're sitting there eating potato chips then you may not feel like you are a part of their success.
Fine,
celebrate them. I encourage you to be
happy for them, but never let it out of your mind that it is “them” not “we”. They did it.
Gung Ho won. NUT did nothing.
Tangentially it constantly
perplexes me that NUT could practice next to a team who periodically makes
Nationals and never try to learn or steal anything. NUT would sit around scratching their chins
pondering how to get people to become better Frisbee players and apparently it
never occurred to them to turn around and watch for an hour or two. But hey, those are girls and there is absolutely
nothing a men’s team could learn from them? #amiright? This is my nomination for biggest waste of
opportunity in the history of NUT. In
summary there is a reason when Gung Ho needs a coach current and former machine
captains start lining up, and when NUT needs a coach they end up with me.
TLDR
·
Be
friends with your women’s team
·
Cheer
for your women’s team
·
You
may not feel like you were a part of their success
·
Have
some pride
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