Ben Wiggins
Within 5 years, I firmly believe that we will look back on the warm-ups we use
now and laugh. This isn’t true for every team, but I think that most high-
level teams are warming up in ways that are more similar than they are
different. Team huddle, jogging, stretching, plyos, throwing, catching drills,
personal time, huck drills, 7v7, pre-game huddle, cheer, etc, etc. And those
combined similarities are holding us back. Before that happens, I’d at least
like to record why I think we got into this situation.
The situation: Many teams use intense, 45-60 minute warm-ups with lots of
sprinting and full speed physical drills that last right up until game-time. I
am not an athletic trainer or accredited in any way, but I believe that
several parts of this routine are probably lowering the chances of our playing
our best. So why do we do this? Here’s my analysis of why each part of our
collective routine developed.
Last year, your team did W, X, and Y before you played. This year, one of your
teammates had a great idea for a new drill (Z) that would add a little bit.
It’s easy to add something in principal, and then no one has to tell the
teammate that their idea is not wanted. With few controlling coaches, ‘mission
creep’ tends to make it easier to add to the plan than to take away from it.
With relatively little experience in leading teams in our sport, few captains
have the time/energy/experience to look at the warm-up as a whole and say,
“Wait, this is too much”. We need to cut something." So we add Z.
A second reason: We see the extremely organized teams running long warm-ups.
They tend to be successful. Colorado’s Mamabird used to show up to the fields
intimidatingly early…and other teams tried to match them in a misguided
effort to take away the source of their power. Trust me when I say that Mickey
wasn’t tough to stop because he woke up earlier. Heck, maybe they would have
been even better with the extra sleep. But we (and I definitely include myself
in this) tried to match every part of their game, including their long warm-
ups. Mistake.
Another reason is that the first time you did Z, it was new and different and
brought a little more energy from your team on some early morning. That energy
is precious, and the new drill gets the credit. Not ‘any’ new drill, but this
one in particular. So we keep it.
Before long, you have 5…6…7….pieces in your warm-up. It makes sense
until you look at it as a whole, and then it’s almost as complicated as the
game itself. When you look at the whole thing, it’s overkill. Imagine at the
end of an exhausting tournament, in those last important points…wouldn’t you
love to have 20 more minutes of jet fuel in your muscles? Or that much more
hydration, or focus, or quickness in your first step?
One major difference between Expert and Novice coaches is confidence. An
Expert knows when they are doing the right things, even if the results aren’t
showing yet. A Novice worries that mistakes from the team reflect on the
quality of the coach. True or not, this rattles the Novice much more than the
Expert. Most ultimate team leaders are Novices when it comes to coaching (if
you don’t believe me, at least allow me this: few team leaders have had real
extensive professional training…and even less could argue that they have
Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours of relevant practice).
Novices worry about what they didn’t do. When your team drops the third pass,
does your leader assume it was the mistake of a too-short warm-up, or do they
methodically roll this occurrence in with the rest of the expected drops for
your team’s ability over the course of a day? Too often, I think this leads to
a well-intended but anti-productive drive to be at 100% full speed for point
#1. This means sprinting like crazy in warm-ups, pushing and sweating until we
have already used some game-energy to ensure that we haven’t done too little.
I think we are routinely burning the lasagna to make sure that we NEVER fail
to cook it thoroughly. And I think this is because our hard-working and
incredibly dedicated and well-intending leaders are put in a position to make
decisions for which they do not have Expert experience. This is why you are
running 20-25 full power sprints before your first point of an 8-hour day.
Over the course of the season, we warm-up many dozens of times. I believe that
if you introduce a player to a 30 minute warm-up at the beginning of the
season and then force them to go through it every day, eventually their body
is going to adjust to need that warm-up time. Essentially, we are spending six
months out of the year training our bodies to need that 30 minutes to move. As
a pro trainer said to me at his first Ultimate-watching experience, “What are
you doing? This is too much. Look at the NFL. Those players are worth millions
of dollars. And they only have them really moving around for 20 minutes before
a game…and definitely not just before kick-off.” Do you really NEED six
different hamstring stretches and plyos? Or have you trained yourself to need
it?
I think that elite teams have, however, taken major benefits from these long,
plyo-driven warm-ups. Ultimate is played in long tournament days where you
have to play well when tired. Practices, however, are rarely that long. Teams
that do these warm-ups are simulating longer days by doing a 30 minute
plyometric workout before they play. Every time! They will be more ready for
the end of long games or tournaments, because of all of those extra workouts.
This is great benefit…but it doesn’t mean that you want to do the same thing
before game-time.
Who runs your team warm-ups? Think about that person right now. Are they your
in-shape, loves to work out type of person? Do they love writing workouts? Do
they get excited about cool new ideas to add in? Do they themselves typically
warm up for longer than the rest of your team? I bet for many of us this is
true. It makes sense, because these are the people most likely to really love
this stuff and be willing to give us their time. We are grateful, and we
should be. On the other hand, it is a little like letting the over-eating chef
plan the menu. Or letting the OCD gal plan the initerary. Talented, but also
the most likely to overdo it. (If I am wrong about the work-out leader on your
team, then at least grant me this: for most teams, the person that can just
tie their cleats and play full speed without a warm-up is almost never in
charge, right?).
To do these warm-ups, we give up extra sleep and comfort and energy and time
to eat and hang out and enjoy the pre-game time. We give up the excitement of
running around for the sureness of knowing our teammates are ready to play
hard. We give up our bodies natural ability to cleat up and kick butt at a
moments notice (especially important between games) and we give up that little
extra boost at the end of the tournament. I think that it makes total sense
why we got to this place, but I think that we will look back on it and wonder,
like we wonder about short shorts and leg warmers, why?
I am no expert on athletic training or energy systems. My former teammates
will tell you that I despise warming up, so I’m biased. If you want my
opinion, I think you should try to be at the fields 60-70 minutes before game-
time. You should do a team drill or game ~35 minutes before game
time…something that focuses on making simple decisions against a living
breathing defender. Do something that you’ve done in practice, so it is
routine and not stress-inducing. Do this for 5-10 minutes, then take a little
break. Then play near the endzone in some little, non-exhausting, 7v7 way for
10-15 minutes. Then take a break and eat and drink a little water before game-
time. Use practices to teach basic plyos that can help individuals warm up,
and do them yourself to set a good example. Remind players (and mean it) that
we should listen to our bodies and not try to play beyond our physical limits.
Encourage your teammates to throw or run as they need to be ready to go, and
trust them to do this (or don’t play them early in the game if they can’t seem
to get the hang of it). Cheer, compete, and don’t worry about the sprints you
could have run that just might have given you a tiny advantage on a super-long
sprint on point #1 maybe. And play.
Lastly, I think great team leaders know that the game is sometimes exhausting
and complicated. Practices (including the warm-ups at those practices) should
reflect this. Pre-game routines are where great leaders keep it simple, fun
and efficient so that the energy goes where it is needed most: the game.
Ben Wiggins
Minutes at practice are precious. Here are my 5 relatively simple ways to
maximize the amount of growth you can foster from each of your practices. At
the end, I’ve included an example set of 3 practices to try and illustrate
these points.
1) Use your warm-up time effectively
Warm-ups take a large percentage of total practice time. To focus that effort,
I like to include warm-up drills or games that give a good mental introduction
to the purpose of later practice drills. I’ll try to use plyometrics or other
movements that foreshadow the movements we’ll be trying to teach later. I like
to start with a warm-up game for many practices as well, and these games can
usually be tailored to work with the later specifics.
We all learn from our mistakes, and we are very good at learning from
experience. Warm-up time doesn’t have to be focused or consciously driven for
the players. As a coach, this is where I am putting drills that can give
benefit without being discussed overtly or even introduced at all. You can’t
expect players to come straight from class or work or their families and act
professionally in the first minute. Even pros need time to get in the right
frame. But we can tailor those introductions to help the warm-up put them in a
receptive and ready state.
2) Cover topics in multiple practices
When you think about the school classes you have taken: did you spend 5 hours
in a row learning math every week, or did you go to class for 1 hour each day?
Spreading learning out gives players a much better chance to internalize new
strategies or fundamentals. We can do this by running similar drills or
situations in multiple practice plans.
For example, let’s say we have 3 drills that we want to run for ~30 minutes of
total time each. Those drills are similar, with “A” being a simplified
fundamental drill and “C” being the very advanced application drill. We could
run those drills all on Monday and spend a complete 90 minutes on that topic.
This would be easy to plan. Players would spend a long time on similar drills,
so we might lose some effective time due to boredom. Also, players would only
have one night after the practice to be mulling those topics over when drills
or done. Which means just one post-practice meal to discuss and no practices
that players can come in already thinking about the topic.
Alternatively, we can maximize those benefits by running these drills in
series throughout the week. This gives players lots of time to think and
prepare. You’ll catch your team by surprise less, which is a good thing with
complicated topics. I’ve tried to show an example of this in the practice
plans below.
3) Focus on fewer topics
In other words, don’t try to cover everything. Given limited practice time,
work on those topics that are most important. If something is not going to
give a real return to your team, then don’t practice it. Ideally, the perfect
team has probably practiced everything at least once, but that just isn’t
realistic for a college or high-school team. If you can only practice twice
per week, then trying to run two different offenses is not going to help. Do
one well. If you are not going to use a 1-3-3 zone, don’t learn it. Do you
really need to spend time teaching all of your players how to call plays on
turnover situations? No! Use those reps to teach your handlers how to make
these calls, and use the extra rep time to learn it well.
Maybe most prevalent, in my opinion, is trying to teach solid continuation
(aka ‘flow’) cutting. This is very difficult and time-consuming to teach. It
requires teaching vision and anticipation, which are long-term learning goals.
I feel like many youth teams spend massive amounts of time learning how to
play flow offense against solid man-to-man schemes…and then spend their
entire season playing against poaching person-D or zone. Those teams would
have been better served spending more practice time on zone and learning it
well.
As coaches, we don’t know what our teams will see…but we do need to give
them enough tools to have success. But when you know what to expect then you
should tailor your game to beat it. If you are worried about depriving your
players of the balanced Ultimate education for future teams, know this:
players that learn a few skills extremely well have a much easier time
learning other skills at a high level. Players that learn many skills poorly
will struggle when they have to learn any particular skill at a higher level.
You may be serving your young players better by helping them master a single
skill rather than having a mediocre grasp on ten skills.
(In the example below, I am writing for a team that has decided that
downfield defense is their top priority, and they believe that this is going
to help them even if they spend less time on other defensive priorities like
zone, poaching, etc.)
4) Eliminate pulls
The time between pulls can be a huge waste of practice time. When you add up
everything that goes into walking to the line, discussing the play, signaling,
pulling, walking to the brick…it adds up fast. You can be much more
efficient by running more game situation from a stopped-disc. Or by breaking
your team into 3 squads, and having two teams pulling to a single O-team so
that the D can discuss and be ready to pull very quickly.
Playing uptempo at practice will ready your team for observed games with time
limits, and it saves a ton of time. With that extra time, you can talk as a
team about details or run extra reps. You have to play real Ultimate
sometime…save that for scrimmages that aren’t focused on a single topic or
that are long enough to simulate a game.
5) Be prepared
If you’ve read this far, then you really care about creating efficient
practices. So I’m probably preaching to the choir here. Every minute that you
aren’t prepared at practice is 20-25 minutes from your teams’ individual
minutes that could have gone into becoming a better player or a better team.
Write your notes ahead of time. Have a plan. If nothing else, your players
will feel more respected and more valued, and they will work harder because of
it.
Most importantly; once you have a good plan, you can deviate from that plan
intelligently. If you’ve planned for 20 minutes of a particular drill, then
you can change at minute 19 for extra time if you think you are on the verge
of a team breakthrough. Alternatively, you can back off the pace and re-
simplify drills if the concepts aren’t knitting together like you’d hoped. Or
switch topics more rapidly if they are coming easily to your team. Those kinds
of deviations are where coaches and team leaders help make huge advances…and
you can’t do them when you are trying to figure out the plan during the
practice.
With those things said, here is my example for a set of three 2.5-hour
practices, with the focus being improving individual downfield defense:
Tuesday
- 0:00 Warm-up jogging, normal plyos
- 0:15 Partner plyos: for the last 5-6 movements, one partner does the plyo for 5-15 yards, then turns and jogs 75% back to the line. Partner traces them back, trying to anticipate the turn.
- 0:20 Water
- 0:23 General Offensive Drill 1 (something to get touches and work on non-D stuff)
- 0:33 Huddle talk: Downfield defense
- We can’t stop everything against good players, but we can make cutters less effective by taking away their best option and forcing them to do something else
- We’ll anticipate cuts by reading the field and reading our player’s body language. In these practices, we’ll be working mostly on reading body language to be ready for the race to the disc when it starts
- Work on the footwork now, even if it makes you slower in the short-run. Eventually, this will pay off and we will be able to put more pressure on more cuts against better players.
- 0:38 Defensive Drill A: Intro 1v1 cutting D
- 1 player from a downfield spot guarding 1 cutter. No disc. Work on lining up correctly, and on anticipating and moving well in the first 4 steps. Drill is over after 4-5 steps.
- 0:48 Defensive Drill B: Beginning 1v1 cutting D
- Same drill, now cutting fully. Still no disc for first few reps each, then with throw on the sideline and a sideline force. Stop drill whenever fundamentals from Drill A are not being met. Working up to staying with players and maintaining position, not giving up hips until cutter has determined either in or deep cut. Encourage good footwork, not just whether they get the block or not.
- 1:00 water break
- 1:05 Defensive Drill C: 1v1 from Continuation
- Similar drill, now 2v2. If the first cutter can’t get the disc, they can clear and let the second cutter attack. Focusing on maintaining position, lining up correctly on a cutter in motion to prevent either in or deep cuts, depending on matchup/location.
- 1:18 Scrimmage w/ Focus #1
- 2 teams, each point starting from the corner cone (no pulling). Each team gets 5 possessions in a row.
- Defense working on winning the first 4 steps of individual matchups. On turnovers, no fast break (giving extra chances to work on lining up, anticipating and stopping cutters)
- 1:50 water break
- 1:52 Discussion with team: What things from drills worked, and what didn’t?
- 1:57 Defensive Drill D: 1v1 Breakside cutting
- Similar drill form to A, B, C, but from the middle of the field
- Focus on tracing parallel to cutter, so as to eliminate crossing cuts back to the live side and not overcommiting on in-moves
- 2:10 Scrimmage w/ Focus #2 (Skip this if you are running long, or extend this if you have extra time)
- Same format as #1
- Goals are 1 point each, but now so are any full cuts that are stopped and the thrower is forced to dump (play continues)
- 2:20 Cooldown, stretch, recap of major points in initial discussion
Thursday
- 0:00 Warm-up plyos
- Instead of jogging to get loose, players are in pairs with a cone on the ground. At 50-60%, one player is Offense and should jog away from the cone and back about 8 times. The defender should try to stay with the jogging player, anticipating the turns back to the cone. Switch, twice each.
- 0:20 Water
- 0:23 General Offensive Drill 2 (something to get touches and work on non-D stuff)
- 0:33 Huddle talk: Downfield defense
- Repeat major points from yesterday.
- New point: Understanding which race the offense wants to run is a fundamental. Club defenders get better with age, not worse, because they understand offensive players more and more thoroughly.
- 0:37 Defensive Drill A in small groups
- 0:42 Defensive Drill B in one group, don’t add a disc until the fundamentals start to look good.
- 0:52 water break
- 0:55 Defensive Drill E
- Begin with a vertically stacked pair from the middle of the field. Disc in the middle.
- For the first few each, Offense must cut on the live side of the field
- After that, Offense has the choice of cutting to the break side (basically melding Drills C and D together here.
- 1:10 water break (this is a high-intensity drill, so we are breaking more often)
- 1:15 Defensive Drill F Options
- Anti-Horizontal Option: Start the offensive pair side by side
- Anti-Vertical Option: Add a third vertically stacked cutter.
- My suggestion: Do not start by talking about ‘what should happen’. This removes their opportunity to figure it on their own, and hamstrings the offensive cutters into a rigid form. Give players a full opportunity to work this out on their own, to be beat repeatedly and then make adjustments. Even young players will figure this out, or at least be forced to grapple with it. Give everyone 2-3 reps on D before you talk about what we want. Then, make adjustments and continue with at least 3-4 more reps each.
- 1:45 Water break
- 1:50 Run D drill F again.
- This is where the coaches earns the big bucks; either increase the difficulty with more passes, or more offensive players, or a handler than can receive a dump. Or, if this is all coming fast, back off a little by doing the other sideline (the one you didn’t do yesterday) or doing horizontal on the sideline to give a new look but not increase the abstract difficulty. Do what is right for your team’s next step, not necessarily what you need to get to point B before Saturday.
- 2:05 Conditioning: 1v1 Deep Drill
- 2:15 Stretch, recap major points, done
Saturday
- 0:00 Warm-ups: Do same partner-cone-jog warmups, then plyos. Finish with defensive plyos like on Tuesday.
- 0:20 Water break
- 0:25 Drills B and C in small groups, 3-4 reps each
- 0:35 Huddle talk
- Today’s focus: Applying what we are working on to game situations. These skills are most useful in small bursts throughout a point, but when they are necessary they are crucial. Throughout today’s games, our goals are:
- Excellent- use these skills to stop flow cuts effectively and prevent throws (or block them)
- Great- sometimes use these skills instead of just trying to run faster than our opponents. Get a few stops/blocks using these skills.
- Good- Notice the opportunities (ourselves, not the coach) for where we could have used these skills. Identify those times and positions, and be ready to get better at using them.
- 0:42 Drill F (in whatever variation your team plays offense most regularly)
- 0:52 Game 1
- If you have 21 players, split into three teams. Each team gets 5 possessions in a row on O, against alternating D.
- If you have less than 21, divide into two teams (randomly). Each teams gets 5 possessions in a row, 1 possession each max (after two turns, reset and play the next point).
- No pulls. Start each possession from the brick. No fast breaks, to work on lining up off of a turn. Special rule: One extra point if the first throw for the offense goes backwards to the dump. Dump defenders are not allowed to poach on the first throw. Continue the play as normal, but add that as a point in the score.
- 1:22 Water break
- 1:27 Game 2
- Same format as the first game. Special rule: After the game, every player has 3 conditioning sprints. If you successfully stop/defend/block a downfield cut, you get a -1 sprint. [Ideally, a coach or assistant coach is marking this from the sideline and calling out player names when they get one to give immediate positive feedback.].
- 2:10 Water break
- 2:15 Conditioning: Skyball
- 2:22 Stretch, recap major points of what we’ve accomplished this week, done
Ben Wiggins
I’ll let better writers and players describe why Spirit is, or is not, worth
your time. I know my answer, and you have to find your own.
If you come away having decided that it is worth your your effort, here are a
couple of things that your team can do to improve your own Spirit on the field
in meaningful games. At the very least, they are things that my teams have
done in the past that have helped.
1. Team Calls
One player can make a bad call in the heat of the moment. It is easier for a
team to be objective. Make calls a team responsibility.
One way you can do this is to have a secret signal that your team uses. After
a call, this signal tells the player involved in the call that you have an
opinion. It does not give away what you think about that call, only that you
have feedback if the caller wants it.
This allows your teammate to check in with you, even if you are off the field.
You can then tell them that they are absolutely correct, or you can calmly
(and privately) tell them that you had a good look at it, and that this call
should go the other team’s way. The final onus is on the caller, who doesn’t
have to accept feedback; but most will if they have a question. Instilling
this as a team philosophy makes everyone responsible, and it makes it easier
for a heated player to make the right decision.
Note: This will not endear you to teams that cannot deal with any delay. It
takes some time to communicate, even non-verbally, and in the past I feel like
some of my team’s bad calls have been perceived as cheating, and then the
caller comes to their senses while our opponent yells a bunch. The reality is
that we are discussing the call as a team, and your yelling is just getting in
the way of us making sure our call was correct, or giving it up.
2. Be Consistent between Points
If you would call a travel on game-point against team X, call it at 1-1 the
same as at 14-14. Surprisingly often this will force your opponents to stop
traveling, and you won’t need to call it again later. If they do, then you
have a stupid opponent who either has no regard for their footwork, or they
have been negligent in practicing their fundamentals. Either way, it is on
them, and they should have known better than throwing the same lazy sliding
huck on game point.
Note: This will not endear you to the crowd. Screw the crowd. The crowd is
made up of very smart people, in most cases. But the crowd is stupid.
3. Be Consistent between Sides
Splitting a team between O- and D-teams is bad for Spirit. In the ‘old’ days,
more players played both ways, so you would matchup with the same player, and
you would have feedback on how each other marked and threw and played. If my
opponent called a foul on my mark, I could guage that against his mark on me.
Now, I generally see a dozen marks from the same defender per game, and unless
our offense is struggling, I may only mark him 1-2 times in that entire game.
Since we don’t get the same person-to-person feedback as if we were playing
every point (guarding each other roughly every-other point) it is more
difficult to come to a clear consensus on where the line stands.
We ask our O-team to try to call fewer fouls, so that the other team has to
accept our physical defense. We ask our defenders to try to commit fewer
fouls, so that our O-team doesn’t have to accept a barrage of hacking marks
throughout the game.
4. Make Calls in Practice/ Practice Making Calls
If your team scrimmages in practice like it is life-or-death, then you will be
more ready for the high-pressure environment and high-pressure calls of big
games. Honestly, though, if your team doesn’t already scrimmage full speed and
full anatagonism against each other then you have bigger problems. Raising the
stakes at practice, and making calls on each other in practice, will help.
5. Kill the ‘Auto-BS’ Response
If you want your opponents to play with more Spirit, give them the
opportunity. Assume that they will make the correct call…and if you can’t do
that, then fake it. Give them an opportunity to take their call back without
screaming in their face. Let them take back their call without losing face or
making it seem like they were backing down to your volume.
Heck, screaming at your opponent is the only way I know to insure that you
will not win that call. Everyone has seen a charged-up sideline explode after
a call (sometimes even the first call of the game). Explain to your teammates
that this is probably losing you calls, and hence losing points, throughout a
tournament. Then see if the catharsis they get from yelling at the enemy is
really worth it.
6. A Rules Quiz for your Team
Write a rules quiz, and give it to your team. You don’t even need to demand
that they take the quiz. Just suggest it. If you have teammates that make
sketchy calls, or think they know the rules much better than they do, this can
be a non-confrontational way to demonstrate their lack of knowledge.
At the very least, more people on your team will read the rules again.
At best, people on your team will start to defer to (or ask for explanations
from) those people on your team that know the rules well. Hopefully, this
results in fewer calls from players that really don’t know the rules.
Note: Personally, I would love to see a Rules Quiz given to players at high-
level, even if just to help illustrate the rules and force players to check in
with the rules once per year. The UPA does this with Coordinators: there is an
online quiz that isn’t hard, but it is a great reminder. Why can’t we do this
with players? I could have this ready in 3 days using SurveyMonkey. We
wouldn’t even need to require a passing score; just require that the quiz is
taken and make the results public. Open book, even. Trust me, this will help.
Conclusion: This is far from an exhaustive list of the things that you could
do to help your team’s Spirit. But these all work, and now that you know some
options that could work for you, the question comes back: Is Spirit worth the
effort?
ADDENDUM: There are a few existing rules tests online. A test based on the
UPA rules can be found at: http://www.ultipedia.org/wiki/UPA_Rules_Quiz/.
Ben Wiggins
When I play, I often pick up the disc after a turnover. When I coach, my teams
are in this situation often (as Lou noted, college teams have dead-disc
situations much more frequently than in club Ultimate). Given the inherent
confusion of the moment, I value a simple communication system in order to
create positive and coordinated disc movement in a chaotic environment.
I really don’t care if everyone on the team can call plays. How many players
are really going to be picking up the disc after a turnover anyway? 2-3 on
your team, total? 4? What I do value, however, is a system where those few
players can simply and clearly tell the rest of the team what they want to
happen. As a coach, I like to be able to call out a sequence to beat a
specific poach or matchup. I like running very few plays, but having an extra
level of communication ready to describe individual moves.
One system I’ve used: Every player on the team is assigned a letter. Unless
they are a play-caller, they really only need to remember that single letter
(which is great for the majority of the team that is rarely going to be
encoding the information). We then use either a number or a letter for 4-5
different kinds of cuts. 1 = deep, 2 = in, 3= break, etc. This means that I
can walk to a disc, and see that the defense is planning an in-out bracket of
two cutters. If those cutters are ‘R’ and ‘S’. I can call R2 S3, telling both
cutters to come underneath to different sides of the field. It doesn’t matter
that neither cutter can see the bracket; they’ll give me bracket-beating
options naturally.
You can cook this system up by adding in numbers for dump-swings, give-go
moves, and continuation (for example, R2 S2 might be simultaneous cuts, but
saying ‘‘R3 and S1’’ could give me an open R cutting for a break throw and
then looking for a huck to S.
When I played basketball, my team ran 6-8 plays during the course of a game.
Each play, however, gave me different options that I could use. If we had a
nice size mismatch at small forward, there was a play that (even if not the
first option) would send our SF into the post. Running a (relatively) simple
system to give your on-field ‘point guards’ (or at least your coach) these
kind of flexible options might be worth your time.
Obviously, this is useless for pull-plays and sacrifices the timing/precision
of well-practiced set plays. I’ve had the privilege of playing with excellent
and intelligent defenders (two of whom are writing in this Issue) on my team
who, in scrimmages, would tear apart set plays after seeing them just a few
times. To me, the ability to react to dynamic situations with simple play-
calls is more important than a really smooth team play.
Ben Wiggins
I’ve had some success teaching team D in the past, and I like to think that
young players, especially bright ones, will often surprise you with their
ability to learn complex concepts and make them work against very good
offensive players and teams.
One example of our team-D philosophy is in how we taught dump D at U of
Oregon. This would usually happen at some point during February or March,
after the basics of defense and offense but before the real tournament
schedule got up to speed.
We’d talk/walk/run through three aspects of dump D. For each aspect, we’d talk
as a team, most often using a couple of people as human models. My experience
tells me that people learn only rarely from whiteboards. If you want them to
apply something on the field, you have to show them on the field. We’d discuss
the logic first (“why” are we doing this) and then the tactics.
As often as possible, we’d do a drill where everyone was in a group, and we
went through a specific motion together. Wax on, wax off, only we are ‘poach
on, poach off.’ This works really well for individual techniques like marking,
as well.
The three aspects we’d talk/demonstrate/drill/attempt for dump D were:
1. Body positioning
We give our players the option of forcing the dump upfield, backfield, face-
guarding, or watching only the thrower (space-guarding). The logic for each is
given simply:
- Face-guard when you want to prevent the throw entirely, and no one else is a threat.
- Force backfield when yardage is crucial (like, they are going upwind).
- Force upfield when we want to pressure the thrower or the handler.
- Space-guard when you think you can get a block, or to poach and force a thrower to give up the disc.
(We’d demonstrate each tool that the defender has, and practice each briefly
on a slo-mo D to get the sense of body positioning.)
2. Changing the focus
Poaching is often more effective early, when throwers won’t give up the disc.
Changing from force-back to force forward can disrupt timing. Great throwers
should be give fewer open looks, if possible. Perhaps most effectively; giving
a certain player a different look can keep them thinking, and prevent them
from establishing a rhythm.
Crucially; this is the point at which we discuss working together with the
mark. Choosing an appropriate focus based on the mark is very useful, and can
give us blocks. This is where the team D aspect comes in; the dump defender
was allowed to ask for a different mark or a different tendency from the mark,
so that this becomes a 2v2, instead of a 2v1 against the dump defender.
3. Frame the competition
This was absolutely important for us; we had to give our defenders (most often
our inexperienced players, if they were learning this for the first time) an
expectation of what they were supposed to accomplish. In this scenario, we
tell our players that a dump is a 95% throw, and that if they can force a
turnover on 2/20 dumps, they are winning their battle by a large margin. They
should expect to give up completions, but try to keep those completions off-
rhythm, difficult to execute, and occasionally pick off a throw (and then go
to the house for the fast-break goal!).
I definitely do not write this to say that this is the best way to play dump
D; but rather as an example of how we taught team defense (at least in this
fairly specific example).
Ben Wiggins
The following is a couple of thoughts from a handler/team perspective, which
isn’t exactly what we asked our authors to write about (but we thought it
appropriate to add in here). I first wrote this article in 2004, in response
to this comment on rec.sport.disc:
> >scoring in the endzone is easy. just break the mark.
Yes, this will probably work most of the time. I think that the intrinsic
difficulty in End Zone O is the pressure on the offense to score; the idea
that “most of the time” isn’t good enough. If you throw a huck out the back,
you don’t sit there and mope, but for some reason there is a dissapointment in
coming away from the goalline without a point. We notice end zone turnovers
more: this is why End Zone O seems difficult.
We also demand more of our EZO; a 60% scoring rate is not acceptable in high-
level play. We need to continue to find ways to score 9/10 goals, not just
find ways to score.
About the “Just Break the Mark” strategy:
If I am on D, I WANT you to have to break a mark to score. If I didn’t think
my team’s mark could stop you, I wouldn’t be playing a forcing strategy. I
would be zoning, or playing a straight-up mark, or something where I didn’t
have to trust my teammate. But I am forcing for a reason- I think my team’s
mark will get a block, or create a bad throw, enough of the time that my team
will score more.
Let’s go ahead and make a break-mark score a neutral play- anytime the offense
scores without having to break a mark it is shifting the percentages in the
O’s favor, and anytime the D forces a particularly difficult break mark, or a
difficult throw, or (of course) a turnover, they have won the percentages.
You have to think about the endzone in terms of percentage, because in such a
short distance, good plays can go unrewarded, and bad plays often work. If
your opponent comes out of a goalline timeout, and all they can get is a
stall-9 backline layout- you don’t want to change how you defended to stop
that play. Will that work the other 5 times per game you are in a goalline
situation? No, and it probably won’t work more than twice. The defense ‘won’
that play. If you play a team that makes that play 6 out of 6 in a game, you
can either adjust your defense to defending a new style of offense that is
doing the hardest thing possible, or you can shake their hands and get ready
to beat them next time, when those plays inevitably don’t work.
Offensively, you want to score. That means making most of your plays easy, and
making up for your mistakes with talent or practice. A method of doing this is
to find ways to move the disc a short distance WITHOUT having to break a full
mark. Here are 4 ideas.
1. Establish Doubt in the Downfield Defender
If you could get a downfield defender to bite on a break mark throw, the
result would be a very easy score on the countering live-side cut. One way to
do this is to scare a defender by making the break throw look easier than
normal. Many offenses have “spread” endzone formations, where most of the
players are around the outside of the endzone, drawing their defenders away to
create a large open space behind one featured offensive player, who is less
than 10 yards away from the thrower and centrally located in the field.
With so much space behind the reciever, the defender gets anxious about a
short hammer or high release. Thrower fakes some such throw, and the defender
bites. Results? easy, live side goal. Without breaking a mark.
2. Make Break Mark Cuts to the Open Side
Sounds weird, I know. Here’s how it works. Disc on the goalline, cutter goes
hard to the cone. Defender is there, but can’t stay right on the cutter as
they turn to the dead side. If the thrower waits to break with a throw into
space, they have to beat both the cutter and the mark. But, if they can throw
it to the cutter before they are on the live side, there is a window that is a
live side throw, but a break mark cut, with the defender out of position. This
inside lane allows a score without having to break a mark. If the defender can
shut it down, they have likely over-pursued the cut, and the cutter can simply
go back to the cone, where they will likely be open. Offense wins, without
needing to go right at the strength of the D.
Incidentally, this is usually why “Moses” plays (splitting the stack and
running a cutter up the middle) usually work- the inside lane is tough to mark
without giving up a break, and tough to cover if you are more worried about
the live-side cone cut.
3. Get Away From a Mark
a) Throw into space on the dump.
Moving the disc quickly can get you away from the mark, opening up break side
throws without a defender. A simple one: throw a leading throw for your dump
into the dead side. The dump runs onto it, and catches it with about 3/4 of a
second before the mark gets there. Throw into space on the dead side. Goal. No
mark.
If the mark did get there, they likely have had to overrun the play, and the
inside out lane should be open as they fly by. Goal (although this has the
added requirement that cutters have the patience to wait for the throw to
space to cut.
b) Throw the dump to a cutter moving into space.
Picture it like this: Thrower outside the endzone, forced forehand, with a
straight stack. Dump is 2 yards behind, 5 yards wide in the live side. Once
the disc gets checked in, simply run the dump to the dead side, flat behind
the thrower. Any easy throw to the dump will result in an open second to the
deadside. This is exactly like the thrower had taken two steps back away from
the mark, and thrown the easy backhand.
Goal.
Now your team has scored it’s first 4 goals of the game, without breaking a
mark, and without anyone having to really work hard to get open. At some
point, you are going to need a reciever to get open, or a thrower to make a
throw- or you likely will not score the other 11 goals you need. But making 3
or 4 plays easy on you might up your percentages, both on those plays, and on
plays where the D has to adjust to stop something tricky you have already
done, and weakens their own ability to stop ’normal’ offensive plays.
Endzone Offense SHOULD be easy, and that is exactly why it seems so difficult.
Ben Wiggins
A couple of quick thoughts.
Sidelines are great for communication, but the people that need to be able to
talk to each other are all on the field already. In a standard three-person
cup, the communication streams are simple:
- Deep talks to wings and short-deep
- Short-deep talks to points and middle
- Middle talks to points
- Wings talk to their side’s point
With these streams, each player can adjust the positioning of the players they
are covering for. If I am at short-deep, and have two players to cover, I can
cover one by letting the middle-cup know which way to move, and I can cover
the other player. I’ll usually use the middle-cup to cover the player I am
farther away from. This isn’t just lazyness. They can cover in two steps what
it would take me 8-9 full-speed committed steps to stop, and they can do it in
less than half the time.
This player has to trust me, though. If I say “right,” I need them to
physically move to their right by at least a step and a half. If they just
look there, they can be assured that they will often look back at the thrower
only to see that the disc is in that hole, flying by.
I played in college with Josh Greenough, who was a dominating middle cup, and
incredibly responsive. I could bait throws for him by waiting just a split-
second longer to tell him about the threat. Instead of, “Josh, Right,” I would
wait…“Josh, Bid Right.” He’d hit the air without looking, and the shocked
handler might even hit him in the chest with it. Meanwhile, I’m moving to
cover for Josh; if the handler pulled it back successfully and tries for that
hole, I’m on it.
One thing about zone D is that unless you run an upfield trap (trying to catch
a wing on the sideline, for instance) you are probably keeping the disc in the
hands of the best players on the other team. I’ve seen many teams go zone
because the other team is scoring from one star to another, and this just lets
those two stars play catch, but now without any pressure.
I love using the same zone, but with different focuses on different points.
Example: I’ll use a 2-3-2 zone, with the cup attacking handler-to-handler
throws, and the wings guarding the point-middle cup gaps. Here we are trying
to give our points opportunities to get handblocks, and force them to go
through the cup. Next point, same zone, but now are cup is glued to each
other’s hips, allowing no throws through, and the wings are very wide and
flat. Now we are forcing many throws and tempting an over the top throw.
If the other team scored once, they might well try to advance with the same
tactics, playing right into our ’new’ defensive set. Plus, this kind of
approach gives individual players a solid grasp of what their defensive goals
are.
What does a good zone point look like? You better know before you run it. Are
you trying to force hammers, or yardage-losing swings? How often do you expect
the other team to score easily? The original Clam was a fantastic Zone D…and
about every third time, they expected it to get roasted for an easy goal. The
quick D points that it did generate, especially upwind, made it worthwhile.
So, if you run it once and get schooled, does that mean that you should not
come back to it? Depends on your expectations.
Same with blocks; you need to know where you expect to get them. On cross-
field hammers? Point-blocks? Drops on the 40th throw? Those players on your
team that are not in the designated block-getter spots may play differently if
they understand that their role is to generate block-getting oppportunities,
and not necessarily take chances themselves. You can start running a 7-v-1 D
on every throw, instead of lots of little 1-v-1’s and 2-v-2’s.
Ben Wiggins
Is footwork important? Only if winning games is important. Ultimate, maybe
more than any sport, has layers of pretty arm and upper-body movement that
disguise a game primarily decided by feet. Basketball is right up there.
As a handler, I get lots of different body-types defending me during big
games. I’m just as likely to look across the line and see Jit (Revolver’s tiny
handler-defender extraordinaire) as I am to see some massive athlete that I
have no hope of running with. Jam usually throws a defender at me like Big Jim
Schoettler; in a race with this guy, of any distance, I would need him to be
wearing flippers. The hardest defenders to beat in a small space, of any size,
are those that are confident and fluid in their footwork.
If I can find a hole in a defender’s footwork, I can use that. Do they turn
180 degrees poorly? I’ll know within a cut or two. Some defenders love to go
side-to-side from a stopped position…fine, I’ll start my sideways cuts from
a jog, and watch them struggle. Jit (and especially Mike Jaeger, who I am
grateful I only have to play against in practice) is amazing at moving to any
direction from any direction…I have to make my best move, my best fake, and
get a little lucky or be a little stronger on that particular day. Plus, if I
do get the disc, he knows where he wants his feet in relation to mine for the
mark, and I can’t coerce him to go somewhere else with any kind of fake.
Defensively, Jaime Arambula (you might know him as Idaho) is revolutionizing
what I think of defensive training. He is taking small moments out of D moves,
and translating those into drills. I’ve been doing this with teams as
well…the Seattle YCC team in 2005 may have had a flaw or two, but those guys
could flat out mark straight up. They would force throwers to make 1-2 extra
pivots per stall count. If you don’t think that adds up, go count out how many
pivots you make on an average touch, and then add 2 for a game. Fatigue,
timing problems, confusion, loss of calm vision…it adds up. We trained by
doing short, focused drills on tiny parts of the mark. Idaho’s PLU women have
had some of the best person-to-person D footwork I’ve ever seen for an entire
college team in either gender.
You know that karaoke move that everyone does for 20 or so yards for warmups?
The reason it makes you better is that it builds the little muscles that help
make that move on the field. Not that you would ever run 20 yards in that
stance…but you often move 1/2 of a yard in that manner, in the transition
from moving sideways to moving forward, say. Those transitions are where you
can build or lose margins against an equally fast player. If you aren’t
training for those, then you better be much faster than everyone you play
against.
Ben Wiggins
Deep D is a lot like poker in three significant ways:
1. Information is more important than anything else.
2. You play the hand you are dealt, and try to win more than your share
given the cards in your hand.
3. It ain’t over until til it’s over.
Information: As I turn to head deep and hear that “up” call, I need to
get a read on the disc as quickly as possible. I definitely take a look, even
if it loses me a small bit of speed. Personally, if that throw is a footrace,
then I am likely to lose anyway…especially if they have a step or two on me.
Then again, if every throw was perfectly out in front, then it would be like
playing 1-card draw; you win or lose based on your raw speed everytime. And I
got dealt a 3 of diamonds a long time ago. But throws aren’t reliable or
consistent, and there are lots of other ways to win. If I can make a quicker
read than my opponent, I can win many of the discs that are too short (since I
turn on them quicker if I recognize it early) and I have a better chance at
discs that are turned in the win (where recognizing spin and speed can help me
to pin the other player and use the win to take it away from both of us). I
need that information as soon as I can.
Reading the disc is surprisingly accurate, even in a short amount of time.
With a glance, I feel like I can pretty safely put my head down and run to a
good spot. At U of Oregon, we used to play a game where we would huck the disc
into the air, then close our eyes and run to a spot after watching for the
first half-second. We did the same thing for shorter throws indoors…with no
wind, you can catch 2-3 out of 10 20-yard throws with your eyes closed, if you
can read it for the first 3 feet of the flight. Getting the right early read
is something you can practice.
Additionally, if the “up” call was wrong or if the disc is partially blocked
then I can react more quickly if I see it first.
The Hand You Are Dealt: Once I see the disc in the air, I have a good
idea of how likely it is that I should win.
If it is a smaller, slower player and I have a good chance of catching up to a
hanging throw, then I should be able to make the play. I’m more likely to try
for a catch-block, more conscious of preventing a foul by keeping clear, and
more likely to wait to go so that I don’t give up an easy catch by misreading.
The better athlete that I am against, or the worse the throw/position
situation…the more likely that I am going to want to bid early or try to win
by position. I can take some risks, or make a read on the disc based on what
it might do. For example, if the disc is coming in with some wind, and I think
that there is a 1/5 chance that it might hang for longer…I might try to pin
the other player so that I win those 20% of discs IF I think they are likely
to beat me more than 80% of the time if I make a normal play. Occassionally,
this leads to what seems like a very poor read, and a good athlete makes an
easy catch. Even flat-footed. I get posterized sometimes. Losing and looking
bad, to me, is no different from losing and giving a handsome, respectable
effort. But occassionally I will get a block against someone I have no
business blocking, by playing against those odds.
An aside…my horror situation: Getting an awesome read and position against a
much better athlete. Not that this is a terribly situation, numbers-wise (I
just hate having the other player own control of the outcome). At Nationals in
2004, I made the break of my life to a disc in the corner while guarding
Bailey Russell (Pike). I went up with a good read and tried to stay wide in
the shoulders to keep him away. It felt like a sure block, until he jumped
fully around me the wrong way to come down with a goal. He made it look easy,
and made me look silly.
The scariest second of my life was poaching onto a huck in the semis in 2007
and knowing that, somewhere, Damien was behind me and coming as his top speed
(with the understanding that his ‘slow’ is faster than my ‘fast’). As I went
up, I had absolutely no clue whether or not this was going to be Bailey all
over again. Luckily, I stuck to my read and, as it happens, Damien is about 14
yards faster than me on a 40 yard sprint…but he isn’t 15 yards faster. This
is my version of a huge bluff, when the other player has the ability to call
or fold; your life is in their hands.
It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over: Play the thing out. You never know when a
great athlete is going to bobble the disc, and your hustle might put you in
position to knock it away. Catch every block you can (how many times have you
ever tried to catch a block, and had it MAC up and get caught? Now, how many
times have you had this happen when you swiped at it? The math comes out huge
on the side of the catch-block attempt). If you jump, and miss, try to land
ready to jump again. They might have missed as well, and it might be the
second jump that gets you there. Just because you have the best hand, you
don’t start grinning and throwing chips at the pile…do the work. You may
have the worst possible hand, but don’t go out unless you are forced to pay to
keep going. You never know which hand you might win.
Ben Wiggins
They say that coaching is the art of making decisions without statistical
significance in the data. Ok, they don’t say that…I say that. We have 6
minutes left in halftime, and our captains are getting together to decide if
Big Thrower is just having a great half, or if this is a tactical change. To
any reasonable statistical measure, we are flipping a coin here. The data just
doesn’t exist to tell us for sure whether or not this might happen in the
second half, and it’s gonna be a gut call if we want to switch tactics. Is
this their new playing style, or will our scouting report come around before
that 15th goal?
My gut usually sticks with the scouting report; I have a lot of faith in how I
scout teams, and if I was sure 50 minutes ago that this guy is a better
thrower than cutter, well, 50 minutes and some lost sweat shouldn’t change
that. In fact, nothing in the first half has contradicted our report…heck,
if we had been pushing him towards the disc, maybe we are already down 8-5 or
8-4. This might just be his day.
If my team is a pressure-D kind of team, then that gives me another reason to
stick with the ‘push him out’ strategy. I don’t want to let up on their
offense as a unit, giving them a free reset to their best player, just because
of a couple of goals. This is, to me, just too reactionary. If the situation
were reversed, and we had a player that was typically big/fast that we liked
to push under…but he threw 3 good hucks in the first half…I would be more
likely to switch now, since we would be amping up our own pressure on those
hucking to him. Now we are trying to play our game better, rather than worry
about what THEY do…all that matters is us once that first pull goes up. Any
adjustment we make should be secondary towards improving what WE do, not just
trying to not lose to them.
So, I’m reluctant to change thoroughly and start forcing toward the disc.
How can we steal some blocks from a gifted player?
First off, I am likely to change some of our other matchups. I’ll put my
smartest/biggest defender on their worst downfield thrower, and let them know
to keep their head up and bust deep to go for double-covers on hucks to Big
Thrower. We might give up an under-cut to their worst thrower, but we might
catch them going back to the well once too often. I might put my
smartest/quickest defender on their worst handler, and have them poaching into
the lanes to block hucks from that flat region about 5 yards downfield of the
disc. In either case, I am looking to my experienced off-ball defenders to
make this a team game instead of a series of 1-v-1 matchups while their best
player has the NBA Jam flying disc. Why do you think great D-teams always have
at least 2 guys over 30 years old out there? Experienced defenders can make
the kind of adjustments that don’t force you to abandon your game plan.
(I cannot fully express my outrage at the opposite; inexperienced defender
with the “at least my guy didn’t do anything, so I did MY job”…what,
guarding the end-zone isn’t your job? Guarding the disc isn’t? What good are
you if you care more about the guy standing in the stack than you do about the
plastic they keep catching. Can you imagine someone feeling vindicated that
they were a great defender because they successfully stood in the corner with
Derek Fisher while Kobe scored 60? Go get in the game, or get off the line and
let someone who isn’t scared to be in a poster make us a better team).
I like rotating different defenders on this player, especially since this lets
me do some gambling against their pull play. If I smell a huck play, I’m
putting in a bigger defender and fronting…let’s get aggressive and ask them
to huck against someone that, before this half, they would not have wanted to
go deep on. If I feel like a throw is coming, I’m obviously coming with my
marker.
I’m telling my team at halftime that their offense is going through one player
right now; he’s scored half of their goals and they are relying on him for
everything from deep cuts to throws to their primary decoy. We start shutting
him down, and we can bring their house of cards tumbling down. This reliance
on one player is our opportunity. Sure, they are a great team, and sometimes a
great team wins with a 2-point halftime lead…but let’s grind out some yards
on offense and start playing 21-on-1 against their star, and see who breaks
first. We have the team to do it, the offense to take care of what it needs to
take care of, and it’s on us to prove that what we have done in practice this
year, and on the track, and in the weight room is worth it. Get on that guy,
mess with him game. Get your teammates back, fly to the ball when it hits the
air. Let’s enforce our game on this patch of grass, and win or lose we are
going to show them a level of defense they aren’t ready for.
Ben Wiggins
A couple of thoughts that I always have when tryouts roll around:
Any young player that wants to improve should be trying out for any team
possible. Tryout ultimate is typically intense, cheap, and with players that
you don’t normally play with. This can be an amazing opportunity to
improve…especially with experienced players available that are motivated (or
at least ready) to give constructive feedback. This can be a great opportunity
for developing players, regardless of your own chances of making the team.
If you are invested in making the team, you should know the answer to this
question: What is the point of the entire tryout process? It isn’t to be fair,
and it isn’t to give everyone an equal chance. It darn sure is not to find the
best 24 players. The point of tryouts is to WIN GAMES.
From the tryout perspective, this means that you should be trying to win
scrimmages and win tournament games, first and foremost. Win. Play tough D,
hustle to the ball, listen and talk…do those things that win games. This
should trump any advice on how to try out. Assuming that the people picking
the team are thinking objectively (which is a big assumption, obviously) they
will see those things. If your scrimmage team’s best chance of winning is not
with you on the field…well, you probably aren’t going to make the team this
year (which is fine…you may as well ignore this assumption for the time
being, get onto the field, and improve…just be realistic about your chances
this year). Why should you cheer your scrimmage teammates from the sideline?
Because this wins games. Why should you run down on the pull hard? You get the
point.
If you ever come to a point in a tryout practice where you aren’t sure whether
you should give full effort or not…win. Returning players have a history of
success on the team, and will be excused for their inability to get up for
practices to some extent. You, however, do not have this history. Win drills,
win games.
The team is trying to pick a team that will win games. If you show yourself to
be a player that will give them their best chance of winning, they should take
you. This is very different than trying to be their 23rd best player. If you
don’t make the team, and spend your time thinking about how you are, in fact,
better than player #24…you missed the point. Do you give your team a better
chance against Regional Rival X? Would Sectional team Y be dismayed to see you
on the roster, or happy?
The folks that run tryouts for professional teams get paid of a lot of money,
and they make mistakes all the time. These mistakes are both in their process
mistakes (how many tryouts, how much intensity, what drills do we run, etc)
and in their decision mistakes (which player should we pick). And those are
the pros. Non-pro Ultimate players are often running tryouts with no
experience or training, and they are doing the best they can with the main
goal (Win Games) in mind. Which means they are going to make mistakes of all
kinds. Winners deal with these mistakes and give their best, and the rest tend
to whine about how they didn’t get a fair, open, balanced chance to show they
“deserved” a spot. If you are trying out for a team, understand that the
process will be imperfect and be ready for something weird. Maybe you get less
time on the field than optimal. Maybe you do drills that aren’t geared to your
strengths. Maybe you are forced to play in an offense that you don’t know
well. Deal with it…when the big games come in September and October, you are
going to be out of your comfort zone then, too. Everyone will. Heck, this
almost makes the insane tryout process a better process of analysis.
On Sockeye, we have what I think is a pretty solid tryout process, but only
after years of making mistakes and then making adjustments in the next year
(I’m not captaining now, but have been involved for the past several years).
We have an initial open tryout, where about 100 players come out. Our tryout
process is merged with Voodoo, the other open team in town. At least for the
past 4 years, everyone has to try out every year: obviously there are people
that are at very, very low risk for being cut (Nord is probably going to have
to lose 2-3 limbs in order to NOT make the team this year) but everyone else
has to perform and show up to camp in shape. After the initial tryout, we cut
down to about 35. We make cuts by email or phone, and we give players a chance
to tell us which method they would rather receive the news by. We set pretty
hard deadlines about when people will hear back from us. After first cuts, we
practice with this 35 for 3-4 weeks, then go to a tryout tournament. Tryouts
are told that the tournament is the big deal, and we try to teach everything
the player needs to know (O, D, positions) before that tournament. If someone
blows up at the tournament against good competition then they have a good
chance of making the team. I might repeat, I think this is a solid process,
but we make mistakes with it every year and every year it improves, hopefully.
I think team captains need to understand what they are selecting for. I had
trouble trying out for a couple of teams as a thrower/handler…these teams
wanted all their new players to simply dump the disc to their veterans. You
find out after tryouts that, sweet, you now have 8 new handlers…none of whom
will throw (or can throw) a 30-yard throw. Maybe THAT is why our offense keeps
grinding to a halt. Teams need to trust their own teaching and, often, look
for the players with character and potential. If the player is a winner and
unselfish then they can learn discipline, in my opinion.
When one of my team’s takes on a new player, we need to realize that our team
is now 1/24th based on the new players skills and mindset. We picked up two
vert-stack players? This doesn’t mean they need to hurry up and learn
horizontal stack like we run…maybe it is time to incorporate more vert-stack
principles into our offense so we can really use those skills. Such are
offenses changed to become more effective. We picked up a guy with a crazy I/O
flick? Well, 23/24ths are him learning to use that throw within our O, and
1/24th is us learning to adapt how we play to this throw. Same with team
motivation, learning style, etc…you take on the character of your new
players. They don’t just become robotic clones of last year’s retirees.
Lastly, as a tryout, try to focus on things that you can control. If your goal
is “make the team” then you are always going to be at the mercy of the people
picking the team. These people may or may not be objective, logical, or fair.
Making a goal like “play well enough to help my team in every scrimmage or
tournament game and give focused effort in every drill” is better; it helps
you to focus on the things you can control. At the end of the day, you can
meet your goal and still not make the team, which is a darn sight better than
being crushed that you were cut and then giving up. Make controllable goals.