mischief

Clearly twice as sexy

Blog kitt decided around 21:10 on 15 April 2007 to publish this:

Roshan heard that babies are chick magnets. In an attempt to realize this potential, he walks around with Danger and Mirabelle every chance he gets.

First practice of the season

Blog Posted by kitt at 18:52 on 15 April 2007

Today was the first practice of the season. We played at Baylands, where it was unbelievably windy. Not quite hurricane winds, but fairly crappy conditions none-the-less.

Unsurprisingly, my entire focus was on my hamstring. I warmed it up well, but it was still uncomfortable. I played fairly well in the drills, but didn't touch the disc once in scrimmage. Part of me was okay with that, but part of me was completely frustrated, as expected. Unfortunately, I played not to play as well as I could, but rather played not to look bad, not to make a fool of mtself. In other words, I played badly.

I talked to Tyler about it briefly near the end of practice. We were both working on the barbecue pit, his not playing because of a bronchial infection, my not playing because of hamstring exhaustion. I mentioned to Tyler my goal was to actually play at Nationals.

Tyler responded, "Kitt, start with playing at Sectionals."

He has a point.

Totally crushing on Andy

Blog Instead of being asleep at 23:33 on 8 April 2007, kitt created this:

We won DUI today. I didn't play very much, opting to watch instead of fighting for line space with nine other women. I'm frustrated that I was one of five players to play with Mischief the whole weekend, while the women who went to tryout with a women's team show up for the semis and finals after they were knocked out of the women's tournament, and expect full playing time with Mischief. They didn't ask if we needed women, they just assumed they could play. I'm frustrated, because I had psyched myself up to play, I had mentally prepared to play well, and then felt beat down when they showed up and rushed the lines.

On the other hand, I'm totally crushing on Andy.

Now, this would normally be a problem, but for two reasons: 1. Kris knows about it, and 2. the entire team has a crush on him, too. The women are all swooning and the men, well, the men all have man crushes on Andy.

I'm clearly one of two dozen people in this crush.

It's one thing to know of someone, to watch a video of someone playing, to see the highlight reels of some spectacular plays. It's another thing to see him in person, talk with him on the sidelines, realize that, even if for only this tournament, this legend is on my team, playing on the same line as I am, calling out to me from the sidelines, encouraging me. I played few enough points that I remember most of them, which is probably bad, but I lost count of the number of spectacular plays he had.

During the weekend, as during most ultimate weekends, each of us told stories about various highlight moments of our careers. The stories from Kris and me weren't older than about five years, which is about when we started playing for higher level teams, with our eyes looking at playing at Nationals. Andy's stories all started over ten years ago, and nearly always ended in victory. He's used to being on top, having been part of the King of the Mountain for a while, but also knows the effort involved to be there. Kris and I just arrived, and we will have very little time there. We learned only recently the effort involved in being there, and the sacrifices and commitment that comes with that effort. A very different perspective.

Admittedly, I googled for more info on Andy after I found a wireless connection. Well, I googled for information on his ultimate career, figuring the number of different Andys in google would make any non-ultimate information both difficult to find and suspect at the same time. I'm not crushing that much. It's his ultimate prowess I find so compelling.

I am, however, sorta torn. Andy has known of me longer than any of my ultimate friends, has known of me since college. I can't say I'm particularly proud of those years. I often wonder what he thinks of me, how much of that past affects his current opinion. I'm not that person, but it's often hard to know how much someone has changed when you've seen them only really twice in the intervening decade.

Ultimately (heh), I do hope he decides to play with us, in some capacity. I know he's worried about some things, but it's always exciting to see an accomplished athlete perform. And if it's with my team, even better.

Especially if I'm crushing on him.

You know, I'm really glad Kris can laugh at me about this, because it is funny.

As funny as his man crush.

Apparently, Mischief sucks

Blog Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 18:20 on 7 April 2007

During our third game, as a long point had the disc moving back and forth down the field, turnover following turnover, I sat on the away sideline, next to the Brass Boar, ne Brass Monkey, sideline. Clearly the players didn't recognize me, as they were talking quite freely, as if no Mischief players where nearby.

One player watched the game briefly, then turned to his teammate and declared, "Mischief sucks."

Now, as an up-peninsula rival, an exclamation of the opponent sucking isn't really that unreasonable. Kris in a drunken fit declared "Brass Monkey sucks!" last year at Nationals, when they failed to win their semi-finals. They thwarted us in our chance to prove that yes, we are the best Mixed team in the country. Oh, wait, we did that anyway.

Today, however, the declaration from the Monkey wasn't one of general frustration with our team, as perhaps one might think. As I sat and listened to his talking, I realized that, no, he was saying that Mischief is actually not a good team. He continued, "They have four male players that can play. When they're not on the field, the team just sucks. They can't play."

I sat there quite still, and thought about his assessment. The four men of the Mischief Apocalypse? Tyler, Mark, Kevin are clearly three of them. Who is the fourth? Kyle? Wade? Pickett?

Of course, if his assessment was true, then I'm not quite sure how Lori managed to score one third of our goals in the finals at Nationals. I'm also not quite sure how our women touched the disc in approximately 37% of the throws at Nationals. Clearly they were actually the phantom disembodiments of the Four Horsemen of the Mischief Apocalypse. How else could all but those four players suck, but still contribute to our National Championship?

Unless, of course, said Monkey player doesn't know what he's talking about, and makes himself look better by declaring other people are worse.

Good thing his voicing is clearly mistaken opinion doesn't make his observations fact.

We have the trophy to prove it.

Fitness by fire

Blog Posted by kitt at 20:32 on 1 April 2007

Today was the second day of Fools Fest West, at Santa Cruz. I missed day one yesterday at the UPA coaching clinic, but the clinic, and meeting John made missing day one worth the loss.

I asked Kris if I could be on his team when the tryout committee was creating teams for the tournament, so I was on Mischief X, which had won all of its games yesterday, and remained seated first in its pool. Mischief Y, however, lost to Pleasuretown, so was seated second in its pool, and was our first competitor of the day.

I struggled in this game. I wasn't completely ready for the game mentally, and physically my hamstring was aching from the stretching. I've been psyching myself up for playing ultimate, going out with a bang, so I tried to play well, Mark's words of encouragement and praise of my play against Team USA a year and a half ago playing in my head.

I had one particular play in the game where a disc was thrown behind me. I had only a step on my defender, so any bad placement was going to make the catch difficult. When I saw the disc go up, I immediately adjusted my path and went hard to the disc. I wish I knew how to layout. I missed the disc by barely a centimeter, my defender having longer arms than I do. My aggressiveness to the disc, however, really impressed and pleased Kris. He complimented me on it several times later in the day.

We lost the game, giving Mischief Y a rematch against Pleasuretown in the finals. Mischief X and Pleasuretown wanted to switch the pools around, meet new teams, but Mischief Y wanted a rematch, so the scheduled stayed unaltered. Mischief Y won their game.

Our second game was against Batwing, which Kevin told me was really Schmatwing. I finally warmed up, and thankfully both started cutting hard and in the correct places. In one point, a breakmark throw went up to my woman who was way too far in front of me to the break side. I managed to run a full sprint to catch up, going 100%. I'm happy to say my hamstring bothered me only a little bit after that run, so it is healing and becoming stronger.

My defense is starting to clean up, also. I was punched in the face by their woman hucker who put up a lot of crap, more so after punching me in the face, but I can live with a punch and crap because our downfield defenders are so strong. I had some down moments in the game, (when I missed a high throw from Kris, and missed another couple throws: one from Lori, one from Roshan who was fouled, one from DanO), but I did have at least one brilliant dump defense where my woman went the wrong way and I sprinted to the endzone alone for a good ten seconds. No love, though, as a teammate overthrew a covered teammate on the opposite side of the endzone. I tell you, no love.

The end of the day, I was tired. Nothing like playing ultimate to get into ultimate shape. Fitness by fire.

Mischief tryouts

Blog Written with a loving hand by kitt some time around 21:01 on 17 March 2007

Well, the first of two Mischief 2007 tryouts happened today. I have to admit I'm a bit disappointed in the turnout. You'd think the National Champions would have tons of people trying out for the team. We had maybe 20 tryouts today. Sure, we're in the South Bay, but come on, Brass Monkey had 50 tryouts last year and had to close tryouts after one, given the number of interested people they had on the first one.

How is it that Mischief goes all the way to the top and still doesn't receive any respect? Sometimes I really hate this sport.

I played okay when I played. I didn't participate in all of the skills and drills sections. In particular, I skipped the huck drill, as it seemed too much long distance sprinting for my hamstring to take. I have an appointment on Monday to see what's up with my hamstring, why hasn't it been healing very well over the last two months. I really don't want last year to be my career ending year: I'd like to actually play in my last year.

On the sideline, I talked to Kyle, who also was sitting out some drills. I commented that I hadn't played a full Sectionals since 2001, since playing with Rippit.

In 2002, I pulled a hamstring on the first step of the first game of the second day and was out the rest of the tournament.

In 2003, I rolled ankle in our Donner Party game, which I think was on our first day of play.

In 2004, I was out for four broken ribs from my Ben squishing.

In 2005, I played some, but not fully, as a hamstring injury impaired my playing significantly. Playing on Vicodin is worse that not playing, in retrospect.

Last year, I rolled ankle at Labor Day.

I'd like to play at Sectionals this year. We'll see how this season goes.