Miss Red: 5-1

Beck and her team Miss Red* just finished their regular season in the VOTS Summer Women's League with a 5-1 record and a +26 point differential. They've made the finals, but their opponent is the 4-1-1 Desert Divas** with whom they split the regular season series. Should be very exciting. I've been minorly involved as a sort of coach*** which has been fun, and hopefully I've been able to pass off a little of the 15 years of frisbee knowledge I've acquired. Beck is having a good time and enjoying it a bit more than the co-ed league which can get a little guy-centric at (most) times. She's making great cuts and catches, playing great D and hitting some big throws - very fun to see her in action!

* - Their jerseys are red, and this is additionallu a stellar team name due to its punning on "Misread" and the fact that it's not one of the multitude of moronic "disc" of "flick" or "huck"-based puns that dominate team names. It's also, though, the name of the Rice University Women's Ultimate Team, so we are infringing upon a sort of trademark and being terribly unoriginal. But it's well worth it. This, of course, pales to maybe my favorite women's team name, Lady Godiva, the Boston juggernaut.

** - Another blase team name to go along with "Chick Flick" and "Bedazzled." Chick Flick is doubly bad for being a typical "flick" joke AND having been recycled from last year. Sheesh.

*** - I'm gonna go ahead and call out the other coaches here - Tricky, Vince and ??? were also asked to coach the other teams, and they have done a lackluster job, to put it nicely. We're talking barely paying attention, drinking beers through the course of the game, generally not taking it seriously. To be frank: Phoenix women's Ultimate is bad (relatively speaking). There's a paucity of leadership and good club players, and the few that there are have a tendency to play with the co-ed team from Tucson. So the quality of play here is low, and it's hard/frustrating to watch/coach when there are going to be drops and throwaways and bad plays and people running around like they don't know what's going on. But guess what? - it's never going to get better if we don't treat it seriously. This is a little bit of soapbox action from me, but whatever, the level of play aggravates me and the lack of will to even attempt to corect it offends me. So there ya have it; I'm not saying I've done a good job at coaching, but I have stayed invested in games, helped strategy-wise and pulled girls aside to give them specific comments for things to work on, and I don't see any of that happening on the other teams. End rant.

The team is a fun mix of vets and newbies (and we actually have quite a few vets; I'm not entirely sure how she did it, but Joanne grabbed some ringers in the draft). Here's a player by player breakdown; I'll take a camera to the finals so you can get some faces, too:

Joanne - The Captain, she of the recently torn ACL at our coed- competitive scrimmage and wife of long-time VOTS president Keith. Great handler, super kind person, and I just feel terrible that she's in for the long ACL reconstruction recovery.

April - brand new player, runs very hard and is passionately angry when she misses the disc. We ran a play specifically for her in her first game and she got to catch a disc and throw a score; very fun, and since then she is getting open and catching just fine.

Carly - one of our ringers of sorts, Carly's in for the summer from out of town and played college disc for a year or so at (I think) Cornell. She's tall, runs hard and has some pretty strong throws, though she's still getting the good decision / bad decision dichotomy down.

Cathy - this is Tyler's (from my first VOTS team Taco Technique) wife, a very enthusiastic new player who is super eager to learn the game after years of watching Tyler (and taking care of their twins) from the sideline. Really, really nice and getting into it; she started the season with little to no idea of what was going on and now is making catches for 20 yard gains. Yeah!

Bonnie - experienced Phoenix area player who is real agreesive to the disc and has great hands. Her attendance has been spotty; hopefully we'll have her in two next week.

Allyson - this is Allyson from The Mark of Zorro, and she's only been playing for 10 months but is showing all kinds of signs of being a superstar. Hucks, layouts, jumping for scores, you name it. I've been trying to help her polish her game a bit this season, because she clearly has the athleticism and the aggression; now to put in the fine touches and she'll be an even stronger force.

Deb - she's an older handler with big hucks. Hasn't made it to every game, but when she's been here she's put it deep to our wealth of targets. She also plays for No Drama's (my friday night softball team) arch nemesis Beer Goggles, but we won't hold that against her (she's a great softball player).

Emma - young, college-aged player who has been playing on her university team for a year now. Another aggressive, good runner with good hands; she made a ton of catches deep in the most recent game.

Jenny - Emma's mom, a completely new player who wanted to get to know the sport her daughter was talking so much about. Another really enthusiastic, eager-to-learn player who is making big progress this season.

Beck - she's the bestest, of course. Really figuring out how to cut and make big catches (one-handed LEFTY this week!) - I'm really proud to see her out there.

Kristin aka Kuda - a handler (from Tucson maybe?) who is just straight up money. Good in all facets, make good decisions... really glad she's in the Phoenix area now and on Miss Red.

Genevieve - my awesome co-captain. She's leaving in a few weeks, which makes everyone terribly sad... needless to say, she's a money receiver / defender for the Red, and I thoroughly enjoy heckling her for being late to warm-ups.

Nicole - fast, tall, athletic player who has made some of the best grabs I've seen from women. Not quite steady on her throws just yet, but she is an A-1 receiver who leaps for the disc - tres inspiring.

Irina - mid level player again who runs extraordinarily hard - my biggest memory of her this season will forver be her sprinting through a D and blocking the disc with her face! Yikes. Again, really nice and super eager to improve her game.

So there ya have it. It's a very fun team, a very NICE team - seriously, looking over that it's remarkable how many I would just describe as sweet and overwhelmingly pleasant - and I'm very glad that Joanne invited me to be even a small part of it. Wish them luck in the finals!