John Korber
Culture [kuhl-cher] -noun: the attitudes and behavior that are characteristic
of a particular social group or organization.
Successful teams, sometimes by accident, but more often by design, share
amongst their members a common set of values, attitudes and goals. These
characteristics define the identity of a given team, and ultimately create the
culture of that team.
Everything about the actions of the team is a function of these
characteristics, right down to the definition of success itself. A team that
values equal playing time for all players could consider a tournament without
winning a game a successful one…while clearly plenty of other teams would not.
A team’s culture helps define where it wants to go and how it wants to get
there. Core to the success of any team is an agreement, unspoken, implied, or
in writing, between its members on these things. Leading a group of people who
do not share a minimum of them in common is both incredibly difficult and
incredibly stressful.
I believe that a team’s leadership has a responsibility to lead the team in a
direction consistent with its culture. In some cases (like some youth sports
or the business world), it can be appropriate for leadership to impose values,
attitudes and goals onto the members of the team. In cases where the leaders
function more as peers (as is common on many ultimate teams), the leaders only
have a limited ability to influence the team’s culture.
Captains can be highly effective leading a team where it wants go, but should
be cautious about trying to lead a team somewhere else. If your team of sheep
are happy being sheep, you probably will not have much success trying to make
them into wolves. It takes a tremendous amount of poise and character for a
captain to lead a team somewhere away from his or her own goals, but our
obligations as a leaders are to lead our teams where they want to go…or to let
someone else do it.
Recently, I have led two very different ultimate teams. The first played most
recently at the USAU Club Championships and was formed through careful
recruiting and selection. Its members shared values and goals from day one.
The other played indoors in a local recreational league and was formed through
a random draft. Its members had little in common other than living in the same
general area and looking for a good time on the field one night each week.
As expected, the teams differed greatly in many ways. One team consisted of
mature players with polished skills and refined personal drive. The other had
several players who had never heard of a stall count, could not throw a
forehand, and had never heard of the USAU.
My leadership of these two teams varied as greatly as their makeups, but one
constant persisted. I worked as hard as I could to deliver an ultimate
experience consistent with the expectations, values and attitudes of my
teammates. On the one hand, this included track workouts, sophisticated
defensive schemes and goals for success at Nationals. On the other, teaching
basic rules, the shirt colors which could be considered ‘dark’ and the
importance of stretching were more appropriate.
While the cultures of the teams clearly varied, my responsibilities as a
leader remained unchanged: lead the team to the place that it wants to go
using means consistent with its culture. My recreational league teammates did
not want to hear “Just work harder!” any more than my club teammates wanted to
hear “Well, at least we are all having a fun time!”
A team’s culture is central to its existence, identity and success.
If you already have a team to lead, it is important to understand the value
and goals of your teammates. For example, what would a majority of them
consider a successful season? Going undefeated? Sharing playing time equally?
How do they want to achieve this success? Holding shorter practices? Running
more track workouts? Partying harder together more often?
If you are starting a new team, you have some flexibility to recruit players
who share your values and goals. Make your values clear before and during
tryouts and encourage people who share your values to come out. In the end,
identifying (and leading in a manner consistent with) your team’s culture will
have a significant effect on your effectiveness as a leader.
Tyler Kinley
I like to imagine a team’s culture as its spirit animal.
Furious would be a rabid dog: Fierce, foaming at the mouth, and angry.
Revolver would be a cobra: Patient, calculating, and deadly.
Chain is like a big gorilla: Powerful, intimidating, and brutish.
Sockeye is like a monkey: Playful, goofy, throwing its own feces, yet strong.
Okay, Tyler. What in the hell are you talking about.
Well, think about it this way. Imagine if the monkey tried to be the rabid
dog. Instead of being goofy, he foamed at the mouth, acted incredibly fierce,
and was super aggressive… well, he would get killed. It wouldn’t work. It’s
simply not him.
Similarly, Sockeye did best last year when we were goofy, played with smiles
and positivity, and failed when we got angry at each other or our opponents.
On the contrary, Furious was best when they were angry and fierce, thriving
in that team culture.
So, how do you recognize what your spirit animal is? Well, reflect on your
season thus far, as well as last season. Remember the games you won? What
would you characterize the vibe as? What about when you lost? Nurture, then,
the characteristics and habits of your successful moments.
But what does nurture mean in practice, and how? I like to use warmups/1st
drills before practices and games as a means to set the tone. On Sockeye,
where the joy of playing was valued over extreme intensity, we started
practices and games with small-sided games that everyone enjoyed. It set a
tone of enjoyable competition. On Furious, I’d instead have a serious huddle
talk begin the day with high expectations, goals, and a series of drills where
winning was rewarded and losing was punished.
Finally, every culture has strengths and weaknesses. The monkey lacks the
intensity of the rabid dog, the cobra lacks the playfulness of the monkey, the
gorilla lacks the cunning of the snake. Your goal is not to find the perfect
spirit animal and apply it to your team– there isn’t one, and you can’t be
something you’re not. Your goal is to recognize that one that creates the most
success for your team, and nurture and engrain those habits.
Miranda Roth
The most important thing to realize about your team’s culture is that it will
change every season.
Yes, I was concerned when I first joined Riot that I might never fit into the
intense, upfront grind of the kickass East Coast transplant women, but the
team has changed a great deal in the past 7 years. Riot has become a weird,
unique, open-nearly-to-a-fault bunch of weenies (young and old) who’d rather
drink Dr. Pepper than the beer and wine of Beth Wise and Vivian Zayas. I think
this attitude of being ok with change is particularly important when coaching
a team.
You need to allow your players to find their own sources of culture each
season. From one year to the next, you may find yourself nurturing a
completely different development of team culture based on the events in the
lives of your team members. At times, you may not even agree with the
development of a cultural practice (wearing eye black or skirts, swearing in
your cheers or your huddle talks…) but you have to listen to your
teammates/players to figure out what is working for them. If you’re lucky
enough to stay with the same team long enough, you’ll recognize some themes
will never change, even through the practical sways – the Small Fryz will
always love each other more than anything else and Riot will always support
each member in their individual pursuits even above the pursuits of the team.
John Sandahl
“The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. It’s got to
be a vision you articulate clearly and forcefully on every occasion. You can’t
blow an uncertain trumpet.” — Father Theodore Hesburgh
If team culture is simply a set commonly held attitudes and beliefs about a
team, then the reason for wanting to encourage helpful culture is
straightforward: it helps performance.
As evidence, here’s an example of a “team culture” situation that you may have
seen or been a party to. Primary receiver catches an underneath pass, turns to
see his partner going deep and rips a pass deep. His teammate, though a good
receiver with a decently timed cut, is both double covered and running into
the wind, so the decision is questionable at best. Despite the poor choice of
throw, his teammate plucks it from the heap and scores a point for his team.
How the thrower (who is a team captain and leader both on the field and off)
responds to this situation is a key team culture moment.
Many throwers in this situation would walk to the sidelines and congratulate
themselves, or certainly accept congrats from their teammates – thus hiding
their mistake – and thereby encouraging a team culture of questionable
decisions.
Others might shrug their shoulders and walk away thinking, “Well that was
dumb, but at least it didn’t cost us. I’ll be sure to ‘tell on myself’ by
pointing this out in the huddle post game or tomorrow night on the drive home
so that people know that’s not what we want.” Whether or not this conversation
happens and how soon will directly affect the message that newer players take
from this moment.
But what if the thrower sprinted towards his teammate, pointing at him as if
to say, ‘Great catch,’ while shouting to his high-fiving teammates on the
sidelines, “I will play better!” It’s not hard to imagine that this radical
way of reacting could have an enormously positive impact on newer players,
given the proper context and team culture ahead of time. The message here is
potentially so much stronger. Imagine the impact on newer players: “That guy,
(already a vocal and trusted leader), is willing to walk the talk. He just
called himself out when he didn’t have to.”
This is not an imaginary situation – I’ve seen it happen at Club Open
Nationals. What this thrower knew was that his vision for the team’s play was
different than the play he’d just made. He took that opportunity to reassure
his teammates that he wasn’t going to let the successful outcome of this play
affect his vision for how the team continued to play. It was a small gesture,
and though I can’t speak to the effectiveness of this comment in the moment, I
know that this comment stood in stark contrast to how some of my teammates at
the time would have handled the same situation, and that was telling about our
own team culture. It also shows us what it means to “practice” ownership over
the team culture as a player.
Using your imagination, it’s not hard to come up with a dozen other such
situations in or out of games. For example, your team is facing universe point
after losing the last three close games; a person on your team makes a bad
call; players complain about playing time after a close game, etc. In the end
there is an ethical, inclusive way to handle all of these situations, and the
teams that do the best at handling them will have the most success in the long
run. The trouble is, how to do you identify what these common successful
beliefs are, and make them common if they’re not?
Simply put, in a democratic/player run sport like ultimate, you talk about it.
In general, the more people you can get involved in this conversation, the
better. Teams who buy into a collective vision of hard work will be most
successful on the field, and the same is true of team culture. In fact, one
should feed the other.
What does that conversation look like? Think of the above, or your own more
recent examples, and ask your teammates: how/who do you want to be when we’re
faced with this stuff? It can really be as simple as that. What is the
value(s) that are important to all of us as we put together this team? Other
examples would be: How do captains need to be when we’re in tight game
situations? What makes us most successful as a team? How about as individuals?
What does it take to ensure that we’re following through on this stuff?
Then – and this is the trick – you need leadership players that are willing to
live out those beliefs and you need people to keep calling attention to them
(“I will do better!”). It’s called accountability in the business world, and
the same is true here.
How do you encourage all this outside of merely telling on yourself?
Some ideas:
-
Consider having a “team chemistry” captain or group of people who has an intuitive sense of the harmony of the team (or lack thereof), he/they can be in charge of hearing concerns from players that need to be addressed. Not all of us are equally adept at handling these kinds of people issues. Finding the right person/people can mean the difference between resonance or dissonance.
-
Encourage dialogue on the team values throughout the season, not just at the beginning. Though this is especially important during and after the ‘tough spots’ that occur throughout a tournament or game, scheduling regular conversations like this can ensure that these talks happen. Just as you must establish team values and beliefs before the troubled moments, you must also continue to check in when those beliefs are challenged.
For example:
* We are a team that plays hard to the final point – how did we do this game? I feel like we didn’t really follow through as we’d all like. What kept us from achieving here?
* We support each other through the game, and I didn’t feel supported when I made that mistake. What do we have to do to get better?
-
Consider spending time outside of scheduled team time to allow semi-organic conversations to happen around team growth in a particular area. This can have the danger of feeling forced, but when done right can really add to the collectivity and buy-in of teammates.
-
Address moments that are conflicting with team values as soon as possible, and even at the expense of short term success. When you drop an issue or let it linger because you’re focusing on the game, you also run the risk of losing both your positive team culture AND the game.
-
Find a way to address the “bad apples” early and often. As captains and coaches, we’re often treading the line between talented but worth/not worth the trouble. What is true is that your team over the course of a season can’t survive more than a couple prima donnas. All-star teams that are together for even less time generally can’t survive with any.
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Finding ways to encourage cross-clique pollination is key to building relationships, whether the roster is school based and in flux, or club based and solid. Being a little forced here can pay huge dividends later. Having teams within teams, buddies, intra-team cross-workouts, etc. can be a great way to make this happen. Never doubt the value of a little “meaningless” competition to bring people together.
-
As ultimate is a team sport, an essential step to achieving team chemistry is that everyone knows and values their role in the team’s success. If individuals feel valued and have a sense of purpose, they will be more likely to support the goals of the team, and thus create a healthy team culture.
Obviously every team will be different, and so the specifics of team culture
can’t be reduced to a few simple steps. With a bit of concentrated effort and
team leaders’ committed to a common vision, a positive, successful team
culture should be attainable. Keeping it is the trick and the challenge of
long term success.
(Note from author: thanks to Sarah Weeks for Inspirational and editorial
assistance.)
Peri Kurshan
Team culture can often be overlooked as an important contributor to your
team’s success, both in the short and long term. The culture of your team
determines what types of players will be attracted to the team, will enjoy
playing on your team, and will stick around season after season. There is no
one “right” team culture, and it can be defined as much from the actions of a
single individual (founder, strong personality, etc) as shaped over time by
the collective actions and personalities of the group. Once your team is known
as having a particular team culture though, it is very hard to overcome that
perception, even once the reality has changed. So it is worthwhile identifying
your team culture (real or perceived!), nurturing what you like, and trying to
overcome what you don’t like.
Many aspects of team culture are neither positive nor negative, but depend on
individual preferences. Some players want to play on a team that’s known for
being hard-working and disciplined, others prefer to be involved with a team
that prioritizes having fun and giving people freedom to expand their personal
game. Some players want to win above all else; others want most of all to play
with people they like. Some people like playing on a team where direction
comes clearly and succinctly from above, others prefer a team where there is
room for more people to be involved in decision-making. Most of us fall
somewhere in the middle on all of these, but it’s worth figuring out where on
the spectrum the preferences of the team as a whole lie. It’s a good exercise
to do with your team at the beginning of each season- determine not only what
your team’s goals are for that season, but what the team’s priorities are in
terms of team culture. Sometimes this type of conversation will highlight the
fact that the team’s goals and team culture priorities are not aligned!
Once you’ve identified what you want your team culture to be, incorporate
elements of it into your practices and communications. Make sure to explain
why things are being done a certain way (e.g. sprints for turnovers, or taking
a weekend off so people can go play at a fun coed tournament) in terms of what
you’ve collectively decided is the team’s culture. Try to ensure that big team
decisions (schedule, type of offense, etc) are made with fostering the team’s
culture in mind.
For many of us, playing Ultimate is such an important part of our lives that
we can forget that when it comes down to it, we’re doing this for fun! It’s
worthwhile then to try to make sure that our team’s culture reflects what we
as individuals value most about the game.
Matt Mackey
A former captain and then-coach of mine offered only this advice when I
described to him the multitude of ideas and plans we rising seniors at
Dartmouth had for team leadership and culture in the coming season: It’s
always harder than you think.
This message is worth keeping in mind for anyone seeking to engineer or change
something as amorphous yet integral as one’s team culture - it’s all too easy
to get caught up in the energy and excitement of the season and neglect the
grand ideas and notions you have for making this season the season for you and
your teammates, to say nothing of the difficulty of managing people in
general.
Of course, being difficult makes it all the more worth doing.
Managing Personalities - Appear (and be) Open to Suggestions:
I like to think of team culture as the sum of (at least) two potentially
competing energies: that of the team leaders (they may be captains, they may
be team veterans - they are the ones you traditionally look to to set the
tone), and that of the vocal minority. I’ve found that these energies are
typically generated by only about 20% of a roster; the other 80% are willing
to go along with the pervading culture. Don’t underestimate the potency of
this minority to subvert team culture, and don’t assume that they don’t exist
- oftentimes they are most vocal when you aren’t listening.
Team leaders would be well advised to actively work to cultivate the
appearance (and reality) of being open to outside ideas and input from all
members of the team - an insular leadership commands less respect, and
therefore less influence, on team culture than an integrated one.
Cultural Considerations:
That said, the big questions you have to address when seeking to identify,
establish, and nurture one’s team culture are:
-
What’s feasible? Is it realistic to expect a college team to have perfect attendance at practices? To work out thrice a week? To stay on-point and undistracted at practices and in tournaments? No doubt some goals for the way you want team culture to develop fall into this challenging category. Honestly assess your motivation and what you’re willing to do to reach these goals - it may be that you can only devote energy to one goal at a time, but once one aspect is established, this then builds momentum toward further progress.
-
Where do you compromise? If you cannot realistically expect perfect attendance, where’s the point you’re willing to be OK with? If you’re going to insist on a rigorous workout schedule, are you willing to permit a lower effort level at practice itself as the team adapts to a higher workload? Know where you stand on the trade-offs between reaching your goals perfectly and reaching the point of “good enough.” You will find this threshold tested at times and you may need to take the process one step at a time if your changes are especially transformative.
-
How do you continually reinforce this culture? Once you’ve achieved your goal - say, gotten team buy-in on regular workouts - how do you ensure that this is sustained over time? This is where the real challenge and art of managing people and team comes into play. Reminding your teammates of the team goals (hopefully your team as a whole has met and established some) that inspire the culture - in this case, a reminder of team on-field aspirations to inspire hard work - is often effective, as it appeals to both individual desires and to obligation to the team; social pressures are a strong force for reinforcing change.
A Note on “Intensity”:
Perhaps the most difficult and contentious component of team culture to
establish and sustain is the team’s “persona” - what kind of energy do you
bring to the field? Are you more likely to be seen with a smile, a scowl, a
no-nonsense look? Unlike some qualities that make a team, there’s a wide range
of individual preference here, and while some teams have the luxury of
selecting for a certain personality, most teams are a mosaic of individual
approaches and feels for how a given game and tournament should play out.
It’s difficult, if not impossible, to change personalities. It is quite
possible, if still difficult, to establish some baseline expectations for team
conduct, whether they be implicit or explicit. Oregon Fugue’s remarkable
experiment in team spirit - contesting no calls - is an exemplary example of
this. I don’t doubt that some members of the team were more given to argue
than others, but as the thing built and took on its own life, the personality
of the Individual is subjugated by the will of the Team.
Seek out and nurture those Team impulses, and you’ll create a team culture
that self-sustains and refuses to crumble.
Ali Lenon
Why have some teams (in both college and club) been around for years while
others fade in and out of existence, emerging with new names and members every
year? What seems to be true is that teams with strong identities have more
fun, are more dedicated, stick around longer and play better. The teams that
don’t will fight, argue and fade away. What do you think about as a leader and
team member of a team struggling to exist? What does it take to build a strong
team identity. What are the team building things that you can control and what
is out of your control?
Finding people who like to play together, who want to put in the time it takes
to run and be a part of a team, and who are equally obsessed with a sport that
is still on the fringes of popular athletics, is the first and probably the
most important element of starting a team. While it takes a critical mass of
these efforts and emotions from people, we have to realize that as individuals
these element are mostly out of our control. If they are not there then it may
not be worth spending time trying to wrangle them together. If you have these
elements, then the following are some things that you can control as a
decision maker.
Be Inclusive:
Even if you have a strong returning team it is important to be inclusive,
especially in the preseason. Make an effort to make new members feel welcome,
show them that it has the potential to be their team as well. If you treat
tryouts like a hazing to get into an exclusive club, in a couple years you
will not have a team. Small things like learning names and greeting people
during tryouts goes a long way to making people stick around.
Be Visible:
One amazing thing about a team is that you have twenty members at your
disposal that you can use to make a statement. The opportunity to design
something for that many people to wear or do all at the same time does not
come along in everyday life. If you want everyone wearing bright green
sweatshirts with a giant panther wrestling a boa constrictor printed on the
back… make it happen. If you want to find a company that will sew dragon wings
onto the shoulders of all your jerseys and print them like they have scales,
do it. Even if you don’t go over the top, team gear makes you visible and
interesting. Especially on college campuses your uniforms and identity will
generate excitement and recruit new players. Take advantage of the
opportunity, do something different, do something fun and remember that people
will associate your team with your colors, logo and style.
Have a United Front:
Strong teams have strong leadership. If you have a group of captains, or a
core of decision makers, it is important that your leadership at least seem
like they are making decisions together. Even if they fight and bicker during
meetings, when they present to the team put up a united front. If you have an
issue with a co-captain don’t interrupt them as they run a drill and tell them
what you think they are doing wrong. Wait for an appropriate time to bring it
up and address the issue. This may seem like a straightforward thing but I
can’t count the times in college where captains disagreeing in front of
players has brought team moral way down. Being together as captains boosts
team confidence and confident teams play better.
Trial By Fire:
People bond and build trust by going through things together. Sign up for some
fun tournaments where you can be easy going and then make sure you sign up for
tournaments where there will be teams that challenge you. Fly to tournaments
if you have to but also go to some that take a long drive. Some of my favorite
team moments have happened in a van driving ten hours to California for
tournaments. Somewhere around southern Oregon there is a tipping point. Crazy
things start happening and you have to become closer.
Ride the Ups and Downs:
Realize that high performing groups take time to form. Having realistic
expectations of your team is important for its growth. There is a progression
that any group which is building will go through. There is a forming period
where everyone is figuring out what it is like to be a part of the group.
There is usually a rough period where people fight and disagree (this stage is
as important as any of the others because you work out some of you most
important values during the storm). Sometimes the rough period breaks groups
apart but the ones that emerge are stronger. Hopefully you then reach a stage
where everyone is performing well and together. Just knowing that groups go
through ups and downs can help set good goals and expectations for your team.
Building a team can be hard. Knowing what you can and can’t control make it
easier as a leader. Doing it with friends and like-minded people can make it
really fun. I hope this advice helps and that next year there are more strong
teams out there than the last.
Tully Beatty
In 2001 the WUFF Warriors defeated FBI from Portland, Oregon 11-6 at Chicago
Tune Up. That win was probably the biggest win for a Wilmington club team
since the Slickers defeated NY Graffiti at Worlds in 1993 [one could argue
that the victory over Philly in the regional final in ’95 was larger, but I’ll
take ‘93]. Later that weekend the Warriors defeated Ring of Fire 11-10; the
first win over Ring for a Wilmington team since 1996 [though in ’96 they
called themselves En Fuego I believe]. A week a later at Sectionals the
Warriors defeated Ring again, this time 17-14 in a game that was never close:
Two wins vs. Ring in a week’s time and the first North Carolina Sectional
championship for a Wilmington based team since 1996, the Us Against Them
mentality was alive and well and producing wins. Obviously, no one embodied
the culture of Us against Them better or more passionately than Warrior
founder and leader Mike Gerics. Whether it was the black socks, red shorts and
black shirts; the Warrior flag; the team name; or the two catch phrases:
Battle, and WTMB; the team’s identity started and ended with Gerics. He was
the epitome of Walk It Like You Talk It.
Us against Them was nothing new for a Wilmington team. Before the Warriors,
the Slickers did it, and before the Slickers arrived on the scene the UNC-W
Seamen cultivated it better than anyone around. For them it wasn’t only an Us
Against Them swagger; the identity was also largely what those of us around at
the time liked to call being Dreader than Dread; it meant being always in the
constant huddle. That sense of being was even with the Warriors years later
who in August 2002 rode 13 deep in a van to compete at Purchase Cup: The
Warrior leader behind the wheel the entire drive, bringing us down the West
Side Highway at dawn and in awe of everything he had never seen.
The common thread among the three teams listed above was without question an
Us Against Them culture. While that works for a while, it can get to be
incredibly exhausting and a degree of arrested-development sets in. While the
Seamen won at title in 1993, they should have won four straight. In a team
life-span that lasted from 1992-1996, the Port City Slickers’ biggest
victories were in their first two years: the backdoor game to nationals over
Gimme Five Bucks in 1992, and the victory over NY Graffiti at club worlds in
1993. In the meantime they beat everyone they were supposed to beat, didn’t
beat anyone seeded above them and chose to jump up and down screaming Swear
Allegiance than get any better. In 1996 the Slickers went into nationals in
Plano, Tx seeded 3rd out of 12 teams, won one game and had essentially
imploded by the end of the weekend. In the estimation of the then captain Ed
Wagenseller, the implosion was the result of a group of individuals who were
not willing to sacrifice their own personal agenda for the common good of the
team. This is where youth and immaturity came to a head; everything from play
time to wanting to stay away from the team with family and friends at
nationals instead of the team hotel. This divisive behavior led to the
ultimate downfall of one of the most athletic and mentally unstable teams to
have ever graced the pith in the mid 1990’s. And that individual decision to
stay away from the team hotel took us out of our constant huddle and thus set
things spinning in the wrong direction. Steering your team in a unified
direction doesn’t end at practice, or once you make nationals. Part of your
identity is how you go about business once you’re there; this is why Furious
George and Fury have always intrigued me.
By the time the Gerics led Warriors arrived on the scene and began attending
tournaments like Chop Tank and Tune Up and moving away from tournaments like
Toss in the Moss, the Slicker debacle from ’96 was not the too distant pass.
While you arrived at Midway on Friday, your rep had arrived on Wednesday. At
the time, we didn’t hesitate identifying this and we thrived in it. However as
mentioned above, it’s exhausting, especially for players not use to the long
haul of the open season; and what becomes most exhausting is the doubt: Are we
good enough, am I good enough? A late lead over Ring in the semis at regionals
in ’01, quickly diminished and we found ourselves playing up from the bottom
for the 2nd and 3rd bids. Later that season at nationals, the Warriors upset
Florida Combo in the first game, and had to disc to win on the upwind goal
line versus New York Ultimate. The next morning we gained short-term revenge
on a less than interested Ring, and in a chance to make pre-quarters the next
round versus Madison, the dogs were called off and the twelve packs were
brought out. What else better than alcohol to assuage self-doubt? When you’re
not expected to do much, no one in turn is disappointed.
Identifying your team’s culture can be tricky and in large part you can mold
around your teams long term and short term goals. Of course team doesn’t
happen over night; you don’t go from a collection of individuals at practice 1
to a team by practice 2; you need time to embrace the peaks and valleys as a
group. More often than not, a team’s short term and long term goals – setting
themselves up for the big let down – can get in the way of [finding] their
identity/culture. Returning to Ring in 2007 after year’s hiatus, we stripped
down the objective from winning it all, to stopping the other guy from winning
it all. It wasn’t a popular change of direction and not everyone bought in,
but emphatically explaining your goal is to win nationals can lead to quick
finger pointing when that goal isn’t accomplished and you begin to wonder who
your team really is. Players develop an overblown sense of what they bring to
the table and it rears its ugly when they come up short; but if your team
identity is firmly in place, there’ll be no need for such theatrics when the
chips fall the other way. A lot can be said for those teams who simply play
the game in front of them, and then suddenly, there they are. Having your team
put down their own agenda and buy into what you define as your system can be a
delicate step, but with strong leadership and clear understanding of what your
team is about, that system slowly becomes the abiding culture.
Who are we and who is our competition: In 2010, the UNC-W Seamen made a
collective effort to lose the “vs. Them” and focus on the “Us”. We left the
effort to sustain the Us Against Them mentality to our opponents and worked on
vaccinating ourselves against 2nd tier teams and complacency. We already knew
how we would be perceived and received, so we decided to let them waste
their energy on it. In turn, we took that inward focus to create a Small Axe
mentality; very similar to what it was prior to College Nationals in 1990. As
the post-season arrived, we put up wins against UNC; UVA; UGA; Illinois, Iowa;
Harvard*, and Colorado. Had we not made the effort to take the chip off our
shoulder yet keep the underdog mentality, it’s safe to say many of the wins
vs. the larger state school would not have happened. And adding to that, much
of our re-focused identity had to do with how those teams faired after they
played us. After nationals we were 37-10. 18 of the teams we played went on to
lose their next game. The tune was an old rebel one.
Teams I’m intrigued by:
New York, New York; Boston Dog: Furious George; Seattle Sockeye; Riot; Fury;
CUT; Wisconsin Hodags; Wisconsin Belladonna; Colorado Mamabird; Chad Larson;
Middlebury; Stanford Superfly; Florida Ultimate; Santa Barbra Condors; UCSB
Black Tide; UCSC Banana Slugs; UNC-W Seaweed; UCSB Burning Skirts; Oregon
Fugue; UNC Pleadeis.
Charlie Rezikoff
Ultimate is a sport of independent minded players—players who like to self-
govern—and in ultimate a wide range of personal investment and work ethic on a
given team is common. This creates a difficult situation: the headstrong
leader yelling about commitment as the fun loving party-captain rolls his
eyes. Forming a single team identity can be daunting. The most important step
is to get everyone together doing something other than playing ultimate. Often
teams try to define their identity in a team meeting. This is fine—if you want
a team whose identity it is to meet and talk about your feelings, but usually
these meetings highlight differences more than create unity. Instead, throw a
theme party. Go disc golfing. Meet at the local burrito joint after practices.
Rent a beach house rather than hotel rooms. Work out together. Twenty-plus
guys in the weight room at your university’s gym? Hilarious antics occur,
freshmen learn safe weight training from seniors, people get to know each
other casually, and your team improves its fitness. That team time will lay
the foundation of trust on which you build your identity.
Strong teams weather disagreement. If two players who dislike each other can
coexist, that highlights your team’s unity. Try pairing these two hotheads in
a drill that makes them work together. You might be surprised to find how well
they do when they share a goal. You may need to have the two talk out their
differences. When mediating, always put your team first. Remind them that when
teammates argue the team doesn’t win or have fun. But disagreement about team
identity is different from refusing to participate in team identity. Some
players want the benefits of being on your team (usually playing time) yet
undermine team events. The more valuable the player with his cleats on, the
more destructive he can be to the team energy. Established teams know that
these dissenters must be cut or the team will have a frustrating season. If
what he wants does not fit what your team needs, then his departure will
reinforce your team identity. If your team thinks you communicated poorly with
this player, then his departure will hurt your team. So when cutting such a
player, make the cut about team unity.
One cold rainy April day, the Hodags found themselves playing sloppily against
an inferior opponent. Bryan Paradise, the team captain, exploded with anger,
threw chairs away from the sideline, forced his teammates to stand, and yelled
“now we become men!” Had Bryan tried that stunt in November, it would have
backfired; had he waited till May, it would have been too late. Bryan had the
social intelligence, or the luck, to challenge his team in the right way at
the right time. That season the Hodags won their first championship. Every
team needs a charismatic leader to articulate its identity. When you find that
leader empower him to speak in your huddle. He will remind your team why they
love playing ultimate.