Neon Champ

Last Friday, Beck trekked up to Rochester for the annual Family Reunion. We made an executive decision to send one representative this year and leave the other at home for dog-caring duties. Beck won the rosham. So i was home alone, set for a weekend of dog-sitting and tutoring.

And then a student canceled on Saturday, and then another, leaving me with an open Saturday afternoon. And I had gotten an e-mail the previous week which i had pretty much opened and immediately disregarded because the event it referenced was on a work day. But i remembered it upon the second cancellation: there was a goofy Ultimate tournament down in Tucson, a mere two hours away! And so I calculated that if I ran home, walked the pups, got my stuff together and took off, I would get there just in time. And with two hours transit, maybe five hours of playing, and two hours back, the dogs would be alone for nine hours, which is pretty much what they did all the time up in Boston. So off I went.

Ahem, and a big back up, for two reasons. One, I hadn't run in about two weeks, hadn't played Ultimate, and had really only done anything vaguely athletic while tossing the disc in the park with Ben and Ali. So i was going to be out of shape for this bad boy. But I've played entire tournaments while out of shape, not just one day hat deals like this, and survived just fine. So BRING IT!!! The second problem is little more heinous: while playing for Polaroid, we had a pretty awesome team saying which simultaneously reveals the nature of Ultimate and what a bunch of jerks we could be. The saying: "Ultimate Frisbee: Love the Game, Hate the People." Yeah, we sucked. But, hey: it's a great game. And the hippie-ish, non-athlete, nerdcore vibe of it drags it down at times (just like the non-hippie, athletic, non-nerd competitive asshole vibe can drag it down). This tournament screamed more people than game; for one thing, it was starting at 4 and running until 9 on a field without lights... eh? And there was much more mention of "kegs" and "boat races" and the like than, say, what version of rules they were using, what format the tournament would be in, how many people would be there. So to extend a weirdly referenced metaphor from the previous post, this was gonna be way more Grateful Dead concert than church or baseball or Ultimate.

So it goes. The opportunities to play Ultimate in this area are few and far between, so i decided to bite the bullet and go, just put on my happy face. I've played goofball tournaments like this before that have been an absolute blast; it all depends on the people who end up on your team and how well you can strike a balance between good play and lunacy. So i jumped in the car and listened to some schwank tunes down to Tucson, getting there just in time to be placed on a team and get ready to go.

Only it turns out that fewer people showed up than the tourney organizers anticipated. So what was supposed to be a 6 team, 10 players per team tournament turned into a 6 team, 6 players per team tourney. And we played fives! FTR, I would have shifted gears and gone four teams, 9 players each and played sevens, but I was not in charge. So we were playing with one sub, and we were playing with only five on a relatively normal sized field. More running plus fewer subs. If you're smart, you can see where this is going.

My team consisted of Jack, Jorge, Lilly, Sam, Ana and me. Ana was just learning how to play, but otherwise we had a pretty experienced team (these things are called "hat" tournaments b/c they mix your names in a hat to pick teams, but they do make people rank themselves in an effort to balance the teams). We started play at 4, and it was hot hot hot. Not 114, but still, 95+. Ran ourselves a bit ragged and won game one, 11-6. Things cooled down for game two, and we eeked out a tight win, 10-8. By then it was 7, though... and quite dark.

Bust out the glow-in-the-dark apparel! Every player got four gitd rings to place on their body, and the standard issue Ultimate discs were replaced with slightly heavier discs with a light source affixed to the bottom. And each team got different colored glo-rings. Somewhat ludicrous, but quite cool, too. We were neon orange (nice and bright) and played our third game of the day against a team wearing neon blue (not so good against the duck light). One of the teams wore neon green rings and looked pretty much straight up Tron.

SO, playing in the dark is quite tough. As you can imagine, people drop passes a lot more frequently, and it's difficult to gauge depth perception with any reliability. So the games were pretty sloppy, but we pressed on. I actually made several (5+) layout catches in the dark, a weird experience for sure. Anyways, after a few points of adjustment and figuring out how to deal with the weird conditions, we ran away with game three. The easy highlight was when a huck went up and the light source on the bottom went out. 'Twas like a saucer vanishing into the night.

So 3-0 on the day got us a ticket to the finals and a bit more no-subs, lotsa running play. And that point everyone else stopped just to heckle and watch the finals, though it's hard to heckle what you can't see - I had a rather nutzoid trailing edge lay out hammer grab in the game, but it happened at the other side of the field so pretty much no one saw it. The people on the sideline got progressively drunker as the game went on, and all the usual stupid Ultimate hippie side of things - "Play a no pants point!," etc. - went on in Spades. I, frankly, reserve my right to keep my pants on. That's what makes me American (the right, not the pants).

So we won, big time. Huzzah. I won a tournament, something I can remember happening in... let's see, sectionals '00, regionals '02, random tourney with Polaroid, random good cause tourney... and that's about it. So this was the fifth. So apparently this is a rare event, or I suck. Hmmm...

Anyways, a fun tournament, but it prompted a ton of questions. One - I knew nobody there. A couple of guys made the trek down from Phoenix as well, but they aren't really guys I know all that well. So there were two people I recognized, and a ton I didn't. On the one hand, it's cool that anyone can jump in and have a good time with a bunch of people that they don't know - I met a couple of the U of A players and some other folks who were reasonably cool. On the other hand... weird to be in such a big mix and feel entirely a stranger. I also had to drive home, making me much less inclined to partake of the beer-based funniness. So there's that. I guess the second question is, then, why do that? For every part that is fun - playing well, hanging out with new folks - there's a long drive, potential for injury, the guaranteed soreness afterwards, the recurring "why do I do this again?" questions...

Oh, and I should have mentioned the soreness a little more prominently. Here we are, six days later, and i STILL have sore hamstrings. Turns out that sprinting for five hours is not good if you haven't even jogged in a couple of weeks. Dumb, dumb me. On the plus side, ankle held up quite nicely.

Rewinding, after the day wrapped up and we took team pictures and such, I booked it for home and dogs. I intelligently grabbed some Wendy's Fries on the way out of town, a delicacy I don't partake of all that often but one which was highly called for in this case of salt deprivation. And they hit the spot - man, best fries ever. I highly recommend running for five hours just so you can taste fries afterwards. It may be worth a week of awkward walking.

Another note - the key to late night driving is Erasure, specifically the compilation "Pop!." I guarantee that it is impossible to fall asleep with that perfection of 80s synth pop resounding in your ears. Who? You. You need love like that.

So overall I would say the experience was a good one. At this exact second in time, I'd say I'm unlikely to go back next year - playing in the dark is kinda dumb and dangerous, even if fun, and the peripheral shenanigans were pretty annoying. Then again, I say that now, and I 'm sure next summer I'll be itching to get in any playing I can. So, per usual, we shall see. But you read it here from a glow in the dark champ - it's fun, but it ain't that awesome. And ow.