Comments on Match Diesel: Back to the Basics

Great thought-provoking article. I don't know of a...

2008-07-28T00:31:00.000-04:00

Great thought-provoking article. I don't know of any ultimate camps in Canada and it's not played in most high schools. But hopefully that is changing.

I hope you are covering worlds in Vancouver?

were you the one who came in and played in the cam...

2008-07-25T09:39:00.000-04:00

were you the one who came in and played in the camper counselor game?

crazy.

You notice, after playing in high school and colle...

2008-07-22T19:17:00.000-04:00

You notice, after playing in high school and college, that the throws are across-the-board better in HS than in college. My high school graduated 9 players this spring - only three or four were handlers in high school, but 8 of the 9 have better throws than half of the players on my college team. It wouldn't surprise me if those 8 all went on to be handlers at the college level.

The same thing is true looking back at other graduating classes - in '06 my fellow graduate and I were both cutters who almost never handled. We were both thrust into handling on elite college teams our freshman year.

I agree that a lot of emphasis is placed on teaching offensive and defensive systems with a priority on winning in the present, instead of focusing on the future. But teaching players how to throw and see the field from all positions is much more valuable in the long run, as you can see from the success of a team like Sockeye, where almost all of their big athletic cutters can turn around and throw a huck or break the mark.

Hopefully it's not too late for players to learn fundamentals, but I suspect that too many players are content with not being a "thrower", when in reality, every player on the field should be a thrower.

Part of DoG's "smartness" came from being experien...

2008-07-22T10:47:00.000-04:00

Part of DoG's "smartness" came from being experienced. Like Dusty said, kids don't start playing until they're 18 and so don't develop the fundamental understanding of the game right away.

Our average age during our championship run was between 29 and 33. I was 29 when I won for the first time. Over half our team in 1998 was Masters eligible.

So it's unfair, in a way, for me to compare the smartness of today's players to back then, simply because today's elite player has not been playing for as long, even if they started younger.

There isn't really much in the way of fundamentals...

2008-07-21T22:13:00.000-04:00

There isn't really much in the way of fundamentals in college ultimate today, although it is much better now than when I started playing in 2001. Similarly to the NBA, the game of college ultimate is played 'above the rim' and the team with the biggest, fastest, strongest athletes can win, even without being fundamentally sound. In the 1960s, Kevin Love might have been one of the most dominant players in the NBA, but he's not going to make much of an impact in the 21st century game.

Also, youngsters that pick up a disc the freshman year of college aren't making the roster at Florida or Wisconsin unless they're also great athletes. Fundamentals be damned, if the kid is running an 11 flat 100m or is 6'5 with a decent vert, you can find a spot for him. The kids who are playing ultimate in high school are the ones making the team their freshman year.

When do players in other sports learn the fundamentals? At the youth level. Kids learn to dribble at age 5 or 6, not 18 or 19. As ultimate develops and spreads further, fundamentals will improve. As I alluded to earlier, the fundamental skill level in college ultimate has increased greatly in the last 8 years and I'm 100% confident this is due to more kids playing disc in high school.

Good Hands? Running dump/swing drills and calling...

2008-07-21T17:07:00.001-04:00

Good Hands? Running dump/swing drills and calling them fundamentals?

The game of ultimate frisbee continues to be an unbalanced one with a premium placed on athleticism as opposed to IQ, or at least a more of a balance between the two.

The only way that is going to happen is with something like Ultimate TL (tough love) with a set of rational rules that are firm, consistent, non-arbitrary and objective. See rsd for a list of the Ultimate TL rules.

Either that or just go out and play dischoops. It's fun.

Hey Match,Nice post. Its funny that you wrote abo...

2008-07-21T17:07:00.000-04:00

Hey Match,

Nice post. Its funny that you wrote about that because I just sent Tiina an email the other day. I think that would be a cool experience to take part in. You going to be at Cheasepeake?

Brodie