It's about time...

2009 from Brian Li on Vimeo.

How do you feel after watching this video? What does it make you think about?

After finding this video the other day, turning up my speakers, and taking it all in, I couldn't help but think about this Spring and how it ended.

I haven't put down in words many of my thoughts about the close of our Spring season because I don't think I ever recovered after our loss to Vassar. After an entire year of keeping this blog updated with how I feel "ultimate-ly" it wouldn't be right to not try to get some closure on the season. So here we go...

Let's get general thoughts out of the way. I think we were the best/most well conditioned team in our section. The best teams dont always win. We lost to Vassar, Rutgers, TCNJ, all teams we could have crushed any other weekend, but things just didn't fall our way.

Some specifics: Vassar beat us with dinky little undercuts (aka we got beat in to a the disc and they threw swilly high releases to open cutters) then bombed it deep to their one tall receiver. They also beat us when we had already "won" due to soft cap...but that's just a sore point we will all have to live with. Life goes on. Rutgers played well against us. Somehow we didn't address their well known offense as we did on spring break. Had we shut down their ace/front stack dump, we would have won in my opinion. BUT i never even voiced a mere peep about this. TCNJ beat us with shitty foul calls, bad spirit, and a bunch of desperation hucks that fell their way. One or two good players on that team, whom I credit the win to, but otherwise I hated that game almost as much as the Vassar one. I hated the Vassar loss the most because it threw us out of our kill-mode and I hate the TCNJ one because, even if those guys are good people, they didn't show me that during the game. The rest of the teams at sectionals sucked balls.

I think that, with the exception of that weekend, we demonstrated we were the best team in our section. And from my perspective, knowing our physical conditioning and natural ability, we would have given regionals teams much better competition than either of the teams that went from the ME (although Columbia definitely surprised me, good for them).

Regrets: Didn't speak my mind during huddles enough because I wanted to let the captains talk.
Didn't tell people that I was personally offended and pissed when they missed practice after promising alot at the beginning of the season. Or when a few individuals pissed me off with little things they did, all I'll say is, when we run stairs next year, no headphones...

I wanted this season to justify the time, pain, blood and sweat we all sacrificed. After all the shit I went through the in the summer/fall, not being able to play among other things, I wanted the Spring to be my redemption. And after the way it ended, this season left an empty feeling in my gut. However, I dont feel like it was all for nothing (although that is how I felt after sectionals for a week or two). The experiences of this season have taught me to appreciate every moment with Haze, every goal scored, every joke made, every set of stairs done, every layout. This season has taught me that in order to be successful as a player, I cannot drive myself for personal reasons, but I have to pull my inspiration from my teammates and the fun that we have together dominating other teams.

This post didn't really come out the way I wanted. But whatever I say here wasn't really going to change anything that happened this season anyway. I was sad about the way the season ended, sure, but life goes on. There's more Ultimate to be played. More fools to bitch out. I know how good we were and how much we accomplished and that's all I need to remember.

Thinking ahead: I'm going to not just speak my mind on this blog, but in every huddle. Other random thoughts: somehow I plan to get every player on Haze to be able to layout and handle confidently in a zone/ho...basically every player better be able to lay out and throw like Lu when I get back. We're all young still young, so learn to lay out confidently and properly. In college and in levels of club, laying out is essential to making the play/completing a shitty throw and if we not only develop basic throwing skills, which a few haze players lack in my opinion, but also learn to lay out, we will be well on our way to great things.

Be ready to give your all from the sidelines, at the gym, on the field, every set of stairs, every point played, every practice...or be ready to sit out, because by sectionals, I dont' plan on being a team to "look out for." We will be the team that other players see in their bracket and expect to lose. I plan on us being the #1 seed going into Sectionals next spring and I plan on being the #1 seed when we leave Sectionals.

Headshots.


edit: after reading zach's comments, I want to say he was being a good captain by not singling people out in huddles. certain players would continue to individually make mistakes then, so maybe I will try being a different captain b/c i can't make the plays he does, and see what happens if i really buckle down and let players know when I see them messing up and i know they could do better if they just tried something else.i'll definitely try to talk to them individually about stuff, but I plan on being pretty critical in certain aspects like if players are constantly throwing crappy throws and make no effort to change their throwing motions.