I attended Missouri Loves Company, this past weekend, to cap off weather good enough to play ultimate in. I picked up with Iowa State, besides a second round absence for a quick loss to St Olaf with Kansas B. Note: my playing with Iowa State is completely legit, based upon the fact that I have lots of eligibility left and could just as easily be playing with them next semester. Anyways, I enjoyed playing with the team and I hope I provided a good example for the young players. Alas, this post is less of a recap and more about my thoughts on legacies in ultimate.
Let me be a little more clear. I spent a good amount of time with Cash Money Joe Nickels this season, and a lot of his broheems, also of the Zontal culture. Wimer, Oosh, BMLDD, and Joe are tight. The fact that they love to party and have a good time all the time, is besides the point. What I am interested in, is their bond. A lot of my friends play ultimate, especially in this area. I came along two summers ago and somewhat infiltrated the Ames ultimate scene. Dave, Jon, Jake, Rachel, Mike, Ben, Lucidogg, Kevin, Joe, and everyone else; have given me so much help and guidance along the way. But the Zontals connection is much different (see also, Hodag Love). I first realized at Fool’s Fest 2007 this past year. I went down early with Dave to go party at the Betty’s house. There were Zontal Alum from way back in attendance for a disc golf tourney that day and to reassemble a team. That was my first realization of Zontals pride. Along the way, there have been multiple indications, but let’s stick to the big ones. At Nationals 07′, my only Nationals thus far, we were playing Rhino from Oregon on Saturday morning. Randomly, there was some guy from a master’s team right next to us, who was cheering for the Van Buren Boys. Wimer made the comment that he was Aaron Bell (?) I think, and that he was a Zontal back in the 90’s. How Wimer knew that, I am not sure. But the guy was cheering for us, and for some Zontals on our team, that he probably didn’t even know. That to me, is great. Then, this weekend, Nickels and Caleb are along to help coach the young Zontals team they left behind. As Joe Nick refers to them, the “Baby Zonts” are lucky to have this type of support. Finally, I partied with the current Zontals on Saturday night at a bar in Columbia. We had a good time watching the KU football game, and heckling the opponents sitting at the bar. The comradery was deep and it shows all acrosee the board.
I am jealous. I would love to be part of this type of legacy. Like I said before, I have received tons of support over the time that I have been playing. The main difference that I see, is that I had to put myself into a position to gain this help. I sought out the experienced players and asked questions. I constantly babbled about ultimate in casual conversation. When joining Iowa State Ultimate Club, there was no indoctrination into a network quite like the Zontals.
None of this is to discount the alum in the area that do care. You have Rachel Derscheid who coaches through a very busy schedule and takes care of Women Scorned as if they were family. She puts a tremendous amount of effort into bettering them all the time, and what a leader to learn from! Mike Lun impresses me with his desire to give back to the programs every time I talk to him. Right now, he coaches the girls and this last weekend also played with Iowa State to provide guidance and coaching. Mike has always wanted to help beyond weekly practice, and played a huge role in my development. Currently Jake coaches ISUC and also does a great job giving up his own time.
I would like to see more support from our alum in the area, helping Iowa State become better. We have a lot to offer them and it doesn’t take all that much time off of our hands. I know we all have varying amounts of things going on in our lives but, it would be great to see a veteran stop by practice every now and then to help out. We should make ourselves available for advice. This also goes for the new players, don’t be afraid to ask questions. You will get much better and faster, when you start to think on and off the field. I don’t really expect much to change after writing this, but I would like to offer my services as much as possible to the current ISUC team and anybody else out there. You have my support!
5 Comments
November 13, 2007 at 11:26 am
I am a fan of the alumni returning home to impart their cheer, wisdom, and encouraging their former and maybe even future teammates at a practice. i try to keep in touch with a number of grads from my program in hopes that they will return to help out in the development of the younger players and then recruit them to go to college at a great school. currently, the alums from hopkins play for Wisco, ISUC, UofM, UMD, Oregon, Stolaf, CUT, and Wash U. There are probably a couple more, but really, they all come home to help out and remind the kids that 1. there’s a great thing happening here, 2. there’s life outside of ultimate, 3. there’s life outside of high school, and 4. great things can happen if you keep working at it.
nice post matty, and when that alum community opens up and invites you in, you can and should enjoy it to its fullest.
November 13, 2007 at 4:23 pm
I would definetly say that there are multiple categories in what you appreciate about Kansas and it shouldn’t be taken for granted that they are doing all of them.
It is one thing to be focused on maintaining a good program. This involves leadership from experienced alumni. This can easily be done with just a couple talented alumni and only really speaks about their personal attachment to the program and not necassarily the heritage of the program. St. Olaf being lead by Dave Truesdale is a great example of this.
There is also the alumni cheering for other alumni aspect and alumni cheering for current members. The alumni were very supportive of me when I was at Purdue and it was something I look forward to being a part of when I graduated. Now that I am the alumni the team has gone in a different more serious direction and isn’t as excited about dealing with “ineligble” people. I still have a great time with other alumni including people who played a decade before I went to Purdue. But there is still a whole gang of us alumni waiting on the emil list for some drunk emails to appear from a confused freshman who may be the rebirth of cool. We are trying to start a Cinco de Mayo party/alumni game at Purdue.
The one comment I would make about Kansas is that for the 3 years I played in Tulsa and everytime their was a coed tournament we had no problem getting the Betty’s to pick-up with us because the Kansas guys didn’t want to play coed with them. Some exceptions would come play with us, like Austin, Stew, and Barret. Really boys, you should never trust Tulsa guys around your lady friends (:
November 13, 2007 at 9:40 pm
Ellsworth, you are always welcome around the Zontals…I love seeing you around.
November 14, 2007 at 3:45 pm
Iowa State Ultimate and it’s devlopment, for whatever reason, has been one of the most important things to me over the past 4 years. I have a lot of thoughts on the subject that we’ve talked about and that I’ve been writing about. I know we’ve talked about alumni support more than once now.
I feel like I’ve most often been met with frustration and disappointment when trying to help build the program. So many have shown extreme potential, but few ever stay with it and fewer put in half the work you did in your first year. For most it takes a couple seasons to really understand that they’ve been taking so much time and so many learning resournces to improve for granted. Everyone gets better over a year, but so many make the same mistakes late spring that they were in early fall or even last year. Everyone seems to “love” ultimate and hope to get better, but few seem to desire to improve their skills and almost none bother learning to play with their head. Putting in work and learning the game pays off ten fold by the series on the field, off the field, and with teammates.
Still, I am optimistic, because the programs are very young and are keeping more enthusiastic players every year. My first year we had 8 players at Regionals. This year Iowa State will finally have a B-team. Today’s ISUC now seem to be devloping bonds similar to what you desire. I’m a horrible story teller, but a lot of the young guys love hearing about the “old” days even when it’s coming from me. One of them will ask me a question about strategy, and by the time I’m done talking a group will be surrounding me. Iowa State is nowhere close to what I would like it to be, and I have harsher words to say, but I do think it’s heading in the right direction. Even if there’s not much alumni support currently, I expect to see it in the future from these classes.
November 15, 2007 at 6:16 pm
I say we vote Wolf pack in as an honorary Z. Wait, fuck it, I’m the coach, it’s done. Watch out for your rookie beatdown at the next tourney.