How to sabotage recruitment at your university ultimate club

1. Introduction

So, like me, you've come to recognise that there are now enough ultimate players. Unlike me, you’re still in university, so you can bring down a recruiting club from the inside. I know what you're saying: “I was just going to do nothing?”. As effective as that can be, there is still a chance that new players will join your club, and then they'll bring their friends too! Sabotage is the only sure way to stop this vicious circle.

The best university ultimate clubs systematically improve their recruitment year on year using a basic ‘plan-do-review’ structure: sabotage each step in turn.

2. Plan

2.1. Don’t hold any planning meetings

They tend to get the whole club involved in the process. If someone else tries to set one up, try to delay it until it’s too late to sort anything out.

2.2. Second year players are clueless

Put them in charge of as much as you can. Harness their energy, ideas, and love of the sport into something misguided. Perhaps tell them to focus mainly on improving their own game for the time being, or get them to rewrite the website.

2.3. Your target audience

It’s worth taking a moment to define who the ideal recruits to build an ultimate team are and then make sure any recruiting strategy will miss them.  (Hint: be sure to avoid sociable athletes of either gender in their first or second year of a degree or a long PhD - especially any around at weekends).

2.4. Club capacity

If you hope to avoid growing the numbers in your club, there are few things as effective as natural limits on player numbers. Think about:

• The time, place and frequency of your practice sessions. Infrequent, short practice sessions in tight spaces limit a club to about 12 players maximum and encourage drop outs until you get down to this number.
• Limiting the numbers helping out coaching - unless they all say contradictory things!
• Is there a plan B if the usual venue is unavailable? If not, it should be easy to get some sessions cancelled altogether.
• The amount of equipment you've got- numbers of discs, cones and bibs. Enquire with the equipment manager as to whether discs tend to burn or do they melt?
• The number of opportunities to play tournaments that your club can provide. Can you cut back on these in any way?

2.5. Publicity - beware efforts to raise your club’s profile in the run up to recruitment

• Prevent posters. If unavoidable then try to make sure they don’t attract much attention. You don’t want anyone to take an interest in the sport. Posters that make your club look a bit crap can help here. Don’t worry about permissions or official students union stamps - if you can get in trouble with the authorities all the better. Omit any useful information like web addresses, contact details, training times, venues, upcoming trips, etc.
• Forget fliers: they could remind forgetful new recruits of important information like training times. 
• Throwing: don’t let anyone see any club members throwing. If someone does see and looks interested, ignore them.
• Exhibition games - acceptable if executed particularly poorly. Long, unpleasant stoppages and boring error strewn play may deter any interested people.  
• Word of mouth publicity: the first few weeks of term can be sociable, so you've got to be very careful. If anyone asks you what clubs or societies you’re into, don’t tell them about Ultimate. Remember, most players start because they know somebody who plays so don’t tell anyone you know about the sport. If you hear enquiries from any players who started last year but drifted away try telling them that they’re now ineligible. 
• Campus publications: believe it or not, plenty of freshers will actually read the first few students union magazines or campus newspapers, no matter how boring they are, therefore it’s not even safe to get articles about your club published in these.
• The Internet: If potential recruits research your ultimate club, they probably want to find logistical information - how to join, when and where to go - so avoid such functional details. Concentrate on website style.

3. Do! (2 parts)

3.1. Recruiting day sabotage

• Ditch DVDs: College newbies don't know what ultimate is, and well produced game footage will explain it easily. Stick with a confusing verbal description. If saying no to game footage makes your plan too obvious, just stick with a dodgy stream on a tiny screen. 
• Dodge decorating the stand. No big signs, posters, fliers, discs, jerseys, trophies or photos. 
• ‘Man’ the stand. Women at recruiting days attract men and women alike - they give the impression of a gender balanced club. Carefully timed sexist remarks are perfect. 
• Botch the logistics of signing up. Break any regulations your college has about how to do it. Just get anyone interested to sign their name on a piece of paper. No contact details necessary. You’re sure to have trouble reading this later, and if someone is willing to slowly transfer the written details to a laptop, you could arrange to lose the list first. 
• Hold off on the handouts, leaflets, fliers, stickers, membership cards or anything with useful information written down.  
• Eschew enticements. Especially anything incentivising groups of friends joining together or anything likely to get Frisbees into the hands of beginners.
• Information nights - anything like this offers newbies the chance to find out more about the club and current members so it's clearly not ideal. As long as the club doesn’t sound enjoyable, it should be okay.  

3.2. Prevent new players being integrated into the club and get them to quit

• Turn away from tournaments; they hook new players on the sport. Look to create an extended spell without any competitive opportunities to maximise drop-outs.
• Shun socials. 
• Don't allow any ‘girls night out’ early in the year. It can allow female recruits to make female friends in the club, which will severely reduce the effectiveness of that classic tactic - Frisbee guys awkwardly hitting on beginner girls to make them too embarrassed to return.
• Friendliness: don’t make any pretence of friendliness. Ignore beginners to maximise drop outs. Beginners you talk to tend to stay. Spend as much time as possible talking to other existing club members so that they also ignore newbies. 

3.3. Maximising drop outs through non-enjoyable practice sessions

Ensure you try all the classic parody practice session tricks.

• Lead with a long lecture. Explain the rules, skills, and entire sport to everyone for at least the first half of practice. People join sports clubs to play sports, but don’t let them. Make them stand around watching you.
• Insist on speaking exclusively in ultimate jargon and existing club in-jokes.
• Set up drills where participants wait around for long periods (Why set up multiple small drills, when everyone can stand around in one group?).

Preparation for early season practices: avoid at all costs. It could lead to:

• Having enough space, discs and other equipment
• Teaching of the basics
• Beginners getting individual attention. Note: official coaching qualifications will make enthusiastic members of your club much more effective at teaching the sport. Don’t worry, it usually takes a while to organise this so it's unlikely to be an issue.

Names

• Forget about names. Remembering names makes it sound like you care. Instead, invent a stupid nickname any time you address someone. This is an effective way of ostracising new players early on - a very easy way to increase the chances of them quitting. 

Content of early sessions

• The content of early practice sessions may affect which players leave the club first. People like to feel they’re good at something. For instance, a drill where fast people do well, will make fast people feel like they’re good, and then stick around. The key is that all the new players know they suck. If they don’t seem to get the message, just tell them. 
• In practice games try to ensure participants rarely touch the disc. For instance, play larger games (e.g. 15-a-side) rather than regular 7-a-side and encourage experienced players to focus solely on winning by not passing to rubbish newbies. 
• Separate beginner girls sessions should be avoided. In large mixed beginner sessions the girls will rarely touch the disc as the male beginners tend to dominate. Once the girls quit, getting rid of the guys should get easier. 
• Don’t teach throwing or catching - lest they learn how. Go straight to set plays! Don’t get tempted to address any individual beginner throwing issues. Talk to the computer services department about banning access to this GSWAP link from your educational institution. 

4 Review

After things have settled down and you have successfully avoided recruiting too many players (and gotten rid of any that did join) there’s one final step; sabotaging any efforts by other players to figure out why the club is getting smaller. Even if you don’t get found out, club members learning from one year to the next is the leading cause of club growth. Watch out.


[Many thanks to all the contributors to the IFDA recruitment guide for unwittingly helping with this sabotage guide].

Dublin Summer Hat League

It's been quite a while since I posted anything here. I've had a busy summer. I do have quite a few drafts I intend to get back to soon.

One quick post for now about the Dublin Summer Hat League. (AKA Monday night league - it might even be called the co-ed league although I don't believe there are actually any mixed rules in play).

That league is fairly well established by now. It's been going for 9 years, according to the website, but still, it's had exactly 8 teams for as long as I can remember. Ultimate in Ireland grows, but Monday night league doesn't seem to.

Also, I believe it's officially the 'beginner friendly' league. But I think it generally does very little for recruitment nowadays. Have any of our proper ulti-addicts begun their career at Monday night summer league? speak up!

From the 2 times I watched it (I met up with some Irish open team guys to do some fitness in the same park), it looked to be dominated by young players in the "I-just-can't-get-enough-ultimate" stage of their playing careers. Players playing about 1 or 2 years who are there to try to win or to mess around with their mates, seeing who can accumulate the most stats (BTW, recording player stats for a beginner league is a truly terrible idea).

I think once upon a time it was better, when there was less ultimate available in Dublin in general, there would be a greater number of very experienced players there. Showing what a proper game should look like, but understanding that a game pitting the brown team against the green team is not such an important game that the beginners should always get looked off. (and of course, in those days, everyone knew that we needed to recruit every player we could).

I think that both the new players, and the players that started in college 1-3 years ago could be served better. I'm not fully sure how.

In the Cork Summer League, before a proper game, the 2 teams play 3 small simultaneous games of 3 V 3 for 15 minutes (1 in each endzone, 1 more in space across the middle). This ensures everyone touches the disc a good number of times.

Belfast used to always play 5-a-side. Again, it's more difficult for a beginner to be uninvolved.

Perhaps their ideas have some merit.

Or perhaps something should change regarding the 'loose co-ed' system, for the case of beginner girls. Perhaps a mixed tag rugby style rule about girl scores being worth more?

Maybe, as in university beginner tournaments or development inter-varsities, quotas on the number of players on the field with certain years playing experience.

I suspect that adding more rules might not actually fix the issue though. Maybe it's time to quit the hat league in it's current format, and in it's place, have a mixed club league with a pool of 'hat' players to add to teams in need?

Any thoughts?

P.S. if you played, complete this survey for the organisers

Mixed Ultimate

After mixed All-Irelands, I started writing this post with a few comments about playing mixed. I thought I'd add more to it, but apparently not.

In mixed, a girl is open for a pass with less separation distance from her defender than a guy would need. I knew this. (I do think some guys get a reputation for not throwing to girls, because the girls just don't look open to them).

What I noticed, related to this point, at the weekend of mixed All-Ireland's, was that I found it much easier to throw to girls upwind. I could just let it float out in front of them in the wind, if they had any separation distance at all . Whereas downwind, where the disc won't float as much, I'm much more hesitant, thinking twice about how close the defender is; the throw will need to be closer to them. I guess this happens in the open division too...but it's just something I noticed about my own throwing choices that weekend.

The second thing I was thinking about, was the level of contact in the game. In my experience, men play a less physical game when they're playing mixed. I'm not a good person to judge, however, since I've played much higher level open than I have mixed. It could be purely a difference in the level of play, rather than the division.

The theory I'm working with here is that some lads take a little off the physicality in some instances if there are some girls on the field. Say, under a disc that floats long enough for a large group of players to gather beneath it, I think the guys are more careful if there are girls there. Lest they hurt them, I guess. (Maybe that's chivalrous, or sexist, or sensible, or maybe I'm mistaken).

Still, the rules of the game are the same for all divisions in theory. Players should be trying not to injure anyone regardless of gender.

Can anyone that's played a bit of mixed tell me if they think the rules about contact are interpreted a little differently?

I'll play mixed beach worlds later in the summer. That might give me more of an insight. (Although, quite possibly, players are nicer on the beach anyway).

Rules for a Single Game and Rules for a Whole Tournament

I wonder if a 2011 updated version of the rules is due? I think I remember that an announcement had gone out in the last few months of last year that suggestions for the 2011 changes to the rules should be made (to the rules forum) by a certain date. Obviously, updating the rules is a big job, which is important to get right; but hopefully, if there will be any big changes, the update will be released soon.

I had made some suggestions, on this blog and on the rules forum already mentioned. Looking at the rest of that forum, the pick thread is the only one to get to 2 pages long. It seems the pick rule is one that quite a few people would like to see changed! Although, the pick rule is the rule that I see most frequently misinterpreted, so perhaps there'd be less trouble with the rule were it played as it is written. The fact that it's different to the USA ultimate rule probably doesn't help it get played correctly either.

Where are the main weaknesses left in the rules? What causes the biggest avoidable disputes? I was recently talking this over with my brother and I've come to the opinion that quite a few weaknesses of the sport come down to the fact that the rules are written for a game of ultimate, but, virtually all important games are played as part of tournaments. The rules of the sport are pretty good. The rules specific to each competition can vary.

Because of this, we get the over-complicated way games tend to end. (see the piece I already pointed out above on this blog).

We get confusion over who is entitled to play in game. If a tournament director just says "yeah, sure, play for whoever you want", other teams can get annoyed at what they see as their opposition unfairly picking up players from other teams.

And at big tournaments we get sidelines lined with about 10-20 subs from each team, with whom a player could inadvertently blend in with, and be accused of unfairly sneaking past the defence to get open. Not against the rules of the sport, but it's the duty of the competition organisers to define limits for how many subs a team can have, and how close they can stand to the pitch.

The rules of the sport don't actually say anything about not taking performance enhancing drugs either. (Do they?) I think we can take that as a given, but perhaps championship tournament rules should actually state it.

In conclusion, if you're organising a competition, be sure that any associated rules you need to add, separate to the usual rules of ultimate for isolated games, are well thought through. For instance, if your competition includes a rule that says "no time outs can be called in the last 5 minutes of the game" be sure to say what should happen if someone forgets and calls one. Since that isn't a general rule of the sport, what happens next is not defined in the rules.

And maybe state whether or not players can only play for one team in your competition.

eurodisc

This is just a link to one of my first ever posts. It seems a good time to bring it up again. 

Enthusiasm: a finite resource?

Over the last few years I've treated enthusiasm as a finite resource; it's something to be managed. Overuse it, and like overfishing or something, stocks could become dangerously depleted.

When I talk about enthusiasm here I mean volunteer enthusiasm; something like buy-in except not necessarily specific to just to one team, but rather to an ultimate community or to the sport in general. While team buy-in is required to show up to practice, improve your skills and fitness, volunteer enthusiasm is required for the likes of frisbee admin, running teams or governing bodies, recruiting, coaching, fundraising, PR and so on.

Some of it can be rewarding. For the sake of life happiness, it's good to do things for other people. If you enjoy ultimate and are grateful for having been introduced to it, introducing it to others seems like a good way to pay it forward. That, or organise something, or just find somewhere else to do your share of frisbee admin work.

Anyway, what I'm wondering here is this, am I correct to treat this enthusiasm as a limited resource? Is it a good approach to try to do some stuff, but to stay away from my tolerance limit for frisbee admin? Or is that the wrong way to think about it?

It's not that I see it all as a chore, but I think that often, to work on the stuff you consider really worthwhile or enjoyable, you have to deal with some stuff that you don't care for quite so much.

Perhaps its just been too long since I played a decent tournament. Those have a way of renewing all stocks of ultimate related enthusiasm. Bring on Tom's Tourney.

P.S. to all those people that do way more of this stuff than I do, a great big 'Thank you' from me! I appreciate your contributions.

When spirit scores are tied, who gets the prize?

When spirit scores are tied, and there's only one trophy, who should get it?

I've seen a few different ways of deciding.

1. The higher place team gets the prize.
2. Use rock-paper-scissors to decide.
3. If only one of the tied teams has attended the presentation, give them the trophy.
4. The organisers just announce the winner based on their own opinions
5. Let the team that was mistakenly already given the trophy keep it (don't ask).

In general, I think it's okay to leave the spirit award as a tie. If there is a token prize that can't be easily split between two teams, methods 2 or 3 are fine for deciding who to give it to. 

In the case where it's a decent trophy for an important tournament, I can see the merit of having a well-known convention to decide it. Method 1 does fit the bill. Everyone knows what to expect, even if it is a little arbitrary. 

Presumably, the theory behind method 1 is that it's more difficult to be spirited and good at the sport than to be a spirited loser. I would think there'd be more of an argument to be made for it being more difficult to keep good spirit in close games over blow-outs, rather than just finishing position. But working that out could be too much trouble between a final and a presentation. 

And of course some teams give high scores willy-nilly while other teams only give low scores. Calculating which of the tied teams played those teams that were stingy with spirit scores could be the most accurate method. 

I hear recently this call was made based on the team with the better single game spirit score. Or possibly it was the opposite; the team with the more consistent spirit scores. I think there are arguments for either but neither are great arguments.

 

There are so many variables at work, all at the mercy of the subjective judgements of teams filling out a spirit score sheet that it would be difficult, based on some factor or other, to say for sure that one team is slightly more spirited. Its probably best to just stick with the most straight-forward 'higher placed team gets the trophy' convention. 

Any thoughts?

Be the worst guy in the band

“ Always be the worst guy in every band you’re in. ”

-a legendary jazz guitarist's advice for becoming a good musician. 

The idea holds for other things.

If you want to become good at ultimate; play with a team where you're the worst player. (if they'll have you, you'll improve real fast).

Maybe that conflicts with the idea of loyalty to the one club with whom you started playing. (that is, trying to play with a better team). I've heard some people lament the way the ultimate scene works in Dublin, with many players playing for multiple teams, saying it's a bad thing, and they'd prefer to see everyone fiercely loyal to just one team.

If players can play with a team where they're the worst player, and then later take what they've learned and bring it to even worse players; well the level throughout the scene goes up. It's a very good thing.

Awards in Ultimate

There is a caveat on all that follows; in a team sport like ultimate, individual awards are nothing but a bit of craic. Don't get too hung up on them. Keep your eyes on the team's prize. Win some games, win a championship, win the spirit prize.

I therefore think that the tradition of naming MVPs among teams and at tournament finals is an odd tradition. Regardless of whether a particular MVP was on the winning or losing team.

Given that it happens in other sports, non-ultimate players can relate to these awards, and that's not a bad thing. And the annual IFDA awards are a great excuse for an fun awards ball. So I do like the awards.

There is one set of awards that I've found really odd though; the IFDA 'team of the year'. The one where a panel of experts chooses the 7 best players across all divisions. Looking for it on the website, I can't find it. Maybe they got rid of that? Comparing players from different divisions was ridiculously arbitrary anyway- and  the panel of experts implied that the award had notions of not being as arbitrary as the 'everyone gets a vote' main awards.

I think Rob Kiely had previously suggested a GAA style All-star awards system: picking an all-star team for each gender, with players specified for each position. Such an idea would definitely allow non ultimate players to understand what the award is about. And it does seem to make more sense: no longer comparing men with women or specialist handlers with specialist deeps.

I bring it up now, because that awards ceremony is a long way away. I don't want to offend anyone that won anything, and any changes to the award system would most sensibly be made well in advance.

(this is a link)

The January Effect

I first heard this term from Malcolm Gladwell; it's something he discusses in his book 'Outliers' (Amazon Link), with regard to the birthdays of professional ice hockey players. And This article looks at the same effect in a study of the birthdays of Aussie rules players. These have found that a disproportionate number of top sports people have birthdays early in the year.

The idea here is that if you are born early in the year, you'll do well at youth sports by virtue of being considerably older than someone born later in the year. This advantage then means that you're more likely to get picked onto regional teams or the best teams, where you'll then get the best coaching and resources, thus increasing your advantage.

So if you want to have a kid that's good at sports, mid April should be good :-)

Now obviously, in Ireland at least, there's nowhere near enough youth ultimate for the January effect to happen. I do wonder though, would all the January kids, benefiting from this effect go on to play the mainstream sports, leaving behind any sport inclined December kids to find ultimate later in life?

Well, I decided to see if I could use any data to prove or disprove this theory. I took the birthdays of all 24 of this year's Irish national open team (not hard to find), and calculated the average. In a group with a 'January effect', the average birthday would be very early in the year. And for an inverse January effect, the opposite would be the case.

I found that the average birthday is July 13th. Which is a little after half way through the year. Of course, I've got a sample size of 24 - this is ridiculously small. If a player with a January birthday had been selected ahead of the player with the last birthday in the year (Hag), the average would move to before halfway. I definitely haven't proven anything.

And for all I know, January 1st isn't the cut-off date for all of the main youth sports in Ireland. Blonde Rob just told me that soccer only changed it to January 1st a few years ago. Making my theory even more rubbish.

Aside: While I was working out the average birthday of the national open team, I had a look at the average age too. It's 26. By the time of EUC2011, it'll be 26 years, 8 months and 19 days. Back at WUGC 2004, I remember a few lads worked out an approximate average age of our team -which was something like 20 or 21. Things have changed.

Multi-sport environments

In my last piece, I discussed what other sports can be analogous to ultimate. (there are a few comments on it; if you didn't read them, it might be worth another look). I really hope people find some use in analogies with non-North American sports; purely because the rest of the world needs all the advantages it can get if we're ever to challenge North American dominance.

I found this article interesting too; based on some studies of the birthplace of professional athletes in the states, the author speculates that it's better to partake in a wide variety of sports when you're young. As opposed to the Tiger Woods approach of early specialisation.

Perhaps this is something we can consider an advantage to us? (Alas, probably not over the Americans).

I think (without much supporting evidence) that playing a wide variety of different sports is more common for kids in Ireland, than in most countries. I still remember the out-half of our under 16 Rugby team leaving at half time to go and play a Hurling match and such occurrences weren't considered unusual of a Saturday morning.

Of course, there aren't many ultimate players that have never played anything else, so the base number when comparing how many other sports people have played is probably at least 1.

The other sports most relevant to Ultimate

I was discussing this with Shimbo over the summer.

Some of what I've read online has lead me to believe that American Football and Basketball seem to be the sports that have skills and tactics most relevant to our own. For instance: a Sockeye player mentions that their "offense uses basketball terminology" and here are some other ultimate blog references to these sports.

Considering that these are popular American sports, it almost seems like an advantage to the American teams. They can take concepts from these games to innovate in ultimate, in ways that those not as familiar with the games, can not. And perhaps individual players with backgrounds in these sports might be at an advantage.

But of course, one of the main reasons why the comparisons get made, is that all of these writers are from North America. These are the sports they know.

Perhaps there are Irish sports with which analogies can be made? Of our 2 main native games; Hurling and Gaelic football, I think Gaelic might be more useful. Hurling is too fast. Man-marking a guy in Gaelic could be a fairly similar skill as man to man defence in Ultimate, right?  There does seem to be quite a few decent Irish ultimate players that used to play Gaelic. So I can speculate that it helps.

Now I wonder if there are any tactical concepts or even terminology we can take.

How different people look at the field differently

How many open cutters do you generally see when you have the disc? I imagine the answer is one. After you see one, you stop looking for more. If there are two open cutters, I'd usually only see one of them. At least until I either throw to that option, or decide it's no longer open and look for another option.

I think we've all been in the situation, where as an open cutter, we consider ourselves to be the best option. But frustratingly, the thrower only sees some other cutter. When the other option results in a turnover, that's annoying.

Which of two different options is a thrower more likely to see? 
The one they see first is the one that's in the place where they look first. If a player really likes to huck it deep, they probably look there first. If there is a good hucking opportunity, they won't see an open cutter underneath.

Similarly, other players have their own first-look preferences. Plenty instinctively look first for a flow cut down the line. Looking at the person who threw it to you first can be a good move.

I'm still thinking about 2 questions
1- is it easy to change where you look first? Or are habits formed over many years of playing too ingrained to change?

2 - is it preferable to have a whole team looking for the same first option? Or is it preferable to have variety based on the different skill sets of players?

Anyway, look out for this. It's useful to see the patterns of where you, you're team-mates and your opponents are looking.

Irish juniors teams - I'm just looking for some thoughts

Given that the call for applications to be on the NSB for the European juniors championship is out at the moment, I’ve been thinking about the juniors set up a bit. I’m not sure whether I want to apply to be involved in it again next year or not. In any case, I’ve been writing down some of my thoughts on the good and the bad of the juniors set up last year. If anyone is considering applying to be a part of the juniors coaching set up next year (or knows someone else who is), and wants to ask me anything about it, feel free to email me (or add a comment here). 

There is one idea that I’ve been thinking over that I’d love to hear thoughts on.

For the juniors in 2009 and 2010 we ran a weekly practice session in Dublin. I’ve been thinking about how worthwhile it is. In many ways, a national team practicing so regularly like a club team should give a big advantage in terms of team chemistry. But, at the level that we’re at, improvements in player skill and general playing experience makes a much bigger difference to results than team chemistry does. To improve as a team, focus on improving the player’s skills and general playing experience, not so much the team's chemistry.

The most obvious way to go about this would be if all the players played with club teams. If we take all the juniors and put them in a completely separate section away from the experienced senior players (as has been the case) they won’t learn that much. But if they were all on club teams with more experienced players they’d gain a greater understanding of the game much more quickly.

Does anyone care to offer me their opinion on the chances of the juniors all being integrated into the club scene? I’m not imagining them all necessarily making the first team of the best club in their city, just being a regular club member that trains weekly and hopefully gets to a tournament or two. Or maybe club summer league, or whatever.

any thoughts?

The Ireland junior open team

My brother has been working on a document about teaching ultimate in schools. He asked me if I'd write a piece about the junior national team for it. So that any new schools players or coaches would know the situation regarding the team, how to get on it, what's involved and so forth. He sent me a few questions, and my answers are reproduced here.

Just for anyone that doesn't know, I was the manager of the Irish Junior open team in 2010, having been an assistant manager in 2009. The 2010 team was put together for the World junior ultimate championships held in Germany at the beginning of august. While the 2009 team competed at the European junior ultimate championships held in Austria in 2009. The European juniors championships will happen again in 2011 and Worlds again in 2012.

As for next year, I'm not sure if I'll be involved. Either way, the set up could all change in the future, so don't think this is a reliable guide to what might happen in 2011.

Be warned, this gets long.

On rereading this, I'm thinking it might sound like hard work. It is hard work, but its fun too. Ask any of the players that played for the Irish Juniors in 2009 or 2010 about it. I bet they'd recommend any eligible player to have a go.



Quick recap of what you did this year with the junior setup. When were trials, and trainings (how many were there), and what did you do at trials and trainings?


Try-outs and selection

At first I sent out some email calls for interest. I requested all interested players to email me to say which division they were interested in and eligible for. Mainly to figure out what divisions we’d likely be able to field teams for. I mean one of junior open, junior women (for which you must be turning 19 or less in the year of the competition), under 17 open and under 17 women. We have yet to field a team in any junior division other than junior open.

The first selection events we had (which we called tryout zero A and B) were the Irish schools indoors championships and the UCD beginners tournament (which were on consecutive weekends at the end of Januray). Most of the eligible players that the junior’s management team didn’t know were playing at one of these two tournaments, so it gave us a good chance to get to know the available player base.

Next we had 2 proper open tryouts. The first was a week into February, and the next about 3 weeks later. Any and every eligible player was welcome to attend.

Finally we had an invite only try-out. Where about 30 or so players were invited to attend. This allowed us to have a really close look at those players with a good chance of making the team before we made the final selection.

When I say ‘we’ here, I mean myself, the juniors manager and Seamas Kinsella, the coach, with help from selectors Mark Earley and Roger ‘Podge’ Beatty.

Training and practices

Last year, we had a team with a majority of Dublin based players, although there was also a contingent based in Cork and Limerick. As such, we had a weekly Dublin practice session (only mandatory for those based there, with non-dubliners expected to attend a weekly practice session local to them). And then we had a number of full squad weekends (mandatory for the whole squad), which were about monthly. The first one was in Limerick; the other 3 or so in Dublin.

There was also a fitness plan, involving some weekly core work, leg work and sprints.

Friendlies and warm up competitions
We had a few one off friendlies against various other teams often as part of the whole squad weekends - just to get some game time together as a team.

We entered the Dublin club summer league. Wednesday evenings in a Dublin park. From about June as I recall. Obviously, this was mainly for those based in Dublin. 

And to warm up for the tournament, we entered the UK junior club nationals; a great learning experience. in 2010 that was in Birmingham, on about the first weekend of July. So most of the lads got some cheap flights over (1 or 2 hardcore juniors got a bus and a ferry). The team camped at the venue. (with the aid of one big tippee)

What did you look for when picking the squad and why? And in what part of the game did players have the most shortcomings in?
There aren’t many very experienced junior players in Ireland. In general, the majority of the team is made of players who have been playing for less than a year. As such, the major shortcomings of most of the players that try out can be put down to a lack of experience playing the game, this means that players can be lacking in some basic skills, tactical awareness and so forth. As the selectors, there is no choice but to accept this. So while it's great to see skills and tactical awareness, we also look out for a willingness and ability to learn fast, commitment / enthusiasm and athleticism.

What advice would you give to any upcoming juniors who would like to try out for Ireland.
Firstly – the simple advice: try to make a good impression.

• Attending every tryout you can, shows that you’re good at showing up.
• Being on time for tryouts would give selectors the impression that you’d be on time for practices, or eventually for matches at the tournament.
• Taking on board anything that the coaches say to you, shows you’ll be willing and able to learn as the season progresses.
• Try to seem like a ‘good team mate’. If you’re a jerk to the other players trying out, it really won’t seem like a good idea to put you on a team with them.

Next - the more detailed stuff.

Picking the squad has usually gone like this: the first half of the squad or so worth of players are usually fairly obvious choices. These 9 or 10 or 11 or 12 guys stand out as the best players, which all the selectors agree on quickly. The next 3 or 4 or 5 players generally don’t take too long to agree on either. In terms of skill, athleticism, experience and commitment, they’re looking better than the other guys there. The last few guys selected are generally very hard to decide on. Choosing the last 3 or 4 guys out of 8 or 9 players with a realistic chance is difficult.

And so, my advice to anyone trying out for these teams in the future: don’t hope to scrape your way onto the squad by being just about good enough. Even if you really are the 19th best player and there are 20 spots, the selectors might make a mistake (regrettable but very possible). Aim to be in the top 10 players that the selectors have no question about choosing. For the juniors team I'd say that being athletic and skilful compared with the other guys trying out should get you into the top 15 or so, but its experience that will make you stand out as one of the best there. By experience, I don’t mean how long ago you started playing; but rather how high a level you’ve been playing. If you join a club team full of good players and get plenty of game time in high standard games you’ll look like you have experience, like you understand what's going on. If you spend 3 years playing exclusively with absolute beginners, you won't get the same effect.

Anyway, if you’re reading this having only just started playing a week ago, and the tryouts are soon, don’t despair. you'd still have a shot at making the team, like I said, there's generally not very many experienced players there. and the last few guys to make the team are really tough to choose. Realistically, the guys that get selected in this group are unlikely to called as a  handler for offence on game point (although nothing is impossible). As such, around this borderline area, fast, fit defenders will probably get selected over the slower handler types. I think athleticism does better than skill to a certain extent around here.

Experience has shown me something about comparing two guys at the start of the season; one who’s fast, fit, jumps high and lays out but can’t throw too well and another who’s slow and un-athletic but can throw well. By the time the peak of the season comes around it’s more likely that the fast guy has learned to throw than the slow guy has learned to be fast.

What If you’re some sort of non-athletic type. First step, become athletic! By which I mainly mean get fit. Don't just try to figure out how you can make a team based purely on skill and intelligence. The intelligent thing to do is to get in shape. Everyone has to play D. So do what you can to be in great shape. Realistically, if athleticism is your major weakness even though you're doing all you can about it, you’ll want to make sure you get into the team by being one of the best, most skilful players there. If you’re hoping to squeeze in as the 19th player picked onto a 20 man squad, you may be disappointed. Go get yourself the highest level game time you can.

Tryouts

Here's a quick summary of the format of the tryouts from previous years. (subject to change in the future). 

They usually consist of a warm up, some basic throwing, a few drills designed to show certain skills, and then a few games. All run and watched by various coaches / managers and selectors for the team. 

When I ran it we had a few different parts.

1. Throwing. Everyone threw in pairs, I came around and had a look. I was mainly looking to see who had fundamentally good technique (grip, stance, etc) as opposed to whether a particular throw was accurate or not as I walked past. I saw loads of throwing, from everyone. I'd often have asked a player to throw a few particular throws if I hadn't yet seen them (e.g. "throw a few backhands there, I've only seen you throw forehands"). I also often asked to see low release throws, longer throws and inside out throws; just to see how advanced anyone was at throwing. Such throws demonstrate a real control of the disc or possibly show up more clearly any flaw in technique (some people can only release throws from one particular height, it seemed). 
2. Sprinting. We had everyone run a timed sprint. Just to make sure that when it came to a selection meeting I wasn't calling guys athletic based purely on looking athletic. (of course in games we'd try to look at acceleration and agility and all too, but pure straight line speed was useful to know about and really easy to measure).
3. Huck and read drill. This was also to look at athleticism in a way, and also catching ability and ability to read the disc in flight.
4. Leading passes. Just since previously I had only looked at throwing skills in a static sense, throws in games have to lead receivers and inexperienced players often don't have the timing down. 
5. We may have done some other drills at the some other tryouts, possibly looking at forcing (the most important defensive skill in my opinion).
6. Games. There was always a game at each tryout; drills can only show so much. In general, we'd make some teams and just stand back and watch, only interjecting sometimes to change the teams or to ask for specific things (as in we asked everyone to only play man defence, we occasionally requested guys to mark specific players or requested certain lads to handle or to cut).

Finally, some advice for these tryout games. Be sure to get properly involved. At times, in previous years I've thought some guys were hiding on the field for fear of being seen making an occasional mistake. It's not like the team is picked by a process of elimination, you can't make it by hiding! Now obviously, try not to throw the disc away every time you get it, but don’t worry, there’ll be plenty of mistakes made, just keep up a total commitment on the field, especially on defence, and try with all you've got to show that you belong in an Ireland jersey.

No discussion 'foul' and 'contest' calls

There are many ways to be unspirited. Some of them bug me more than others.

This one is fairly self explanatory. A player calls "foul" and their opponent immediately calls "contest". One player tries to explain what they think just happened. The other is already sending the disc back to the thrower (or asking for the disc back if they are the thrower); they're not listening. This gives the impression to me that they're only making or contesting the call to advantage their team, rather than fully considering the play in question.

Breaking other rules, like for instance fouling somebody, can be seen as purely accidental. But refusing to engage in a discussion seems a less accidental way of breaking the rules. And it bugs me.

The rule:
"1.3. ... players must:...
1.3.4. explain their viewpoint clearly and briefly;
1.3.5. allow opponents a reasonable chance to speak;..."

If you think you're right, okay. Tell the other player why. They might retract the call.

If you just want to gain an unfair advantage, well, the rules are such that you can do that, but please humour them. Pretend it's the scenario where you honestly think you're right. Let the other player explain their point of view and then choose one detail that you can say you saw differently. Contest the call based on that. People will think you're more spirited.

Blog Link - a piece about gamesmanship in ultimate

I just wanted to point out this. From the ultimate blog 'win the fields'. (and the second part)

A post (a series of posts I guess) about gamesmanship in ultimate.

It's a really interesting read.

Update on Teaching People to Throw a Forehand

This post represents some further thoughts on this. If you're interested, see my previous piece about it.

I got thinking about this again after reading an article on the Thinkulti blog. It looks at the plane of release of a forehand. It's interesting enough. Read that, and an older post on the same blog more specifically about teaching a beginner to throw a forehand. 

Given it's university recruiting season, I guess this is quite relevant right now. If you have a university team,  you're probably teaching a new batch of beginners how to throw. If you get it right, you'll be laughing. If you're not so good at it, your club might be known for its lack of disc skills for years to come!

Of course the reason I care so much about it, is that there's a good chance that this seasons new college players make up plenty of next seasons Irish juniors teams. (With which I may or may not be involved). Every year I have been involved, there are plenty of players that come to the try-outs with really dodgy forehands. 

Having talked it over with the other Irish junior open coach from this year, its not just elbow in ribcage throws we see, (see my previous piece about this), but more generally forehand throws released with the wrist much higher than the elbow. (and not able to throw any other way). Which makes it incredibly hard to learn inside break flicks and very low release flicks.

I think the forehand grip angles discussed on that piece on the Thinkulti blog, could be a related issue. 

Anyway, best of luck to anyone teaching any beginners. 

IFDA College Recruitment Guide

The blog's been quiet for a while. I've been busy. I intend getting back to the Ireland caps topics soon, and there are also a few other topics I've got in mind, but for now, I'm going to talk about recruitment.

The IFDA recently released a very early version 0.5 of their planned college recruitment guide. Basically it's an edited version of the various submissions they had received. If you're on pookas, have a read of it. There's some great stuff in it.

Structuring the Recruitment Document

I think the best thing that could happen to the document next, is for it to get structured in some logical way. Both to make it easier to read, and also to make it easier to build on. Once the document has a sensible structure, deficient sections will stand out and any conflicting opinions also become more obvious. I replied to the email saying as much (and offering to help with it).

A preliminary structure idea could be as follows:
1. overall / being organised / having a meeting about it.
2. PR during the first few weeks.
3. recruiting day.
4. retaining the people that signed up, and turning them into active club members.

How version 0.5 measures up against that proposed structure

As it stands, the document has plenty of thoughts on getting plenty of people to sign up on clubs and socs day (or freshers week or whatever you call it). I find amusing the mentions of the strategic placement of "hot guys" and "hot girls" at the recruitment stand (possibly because its true).

Where I think it might be lacking is in the area of early term PR on campus. I thought there might be more about this in the document version 0.5. Maybe its just that there wasn't much variety in what was said, and plenty of repeated stuff got edited out.

Anyway, that section would focus on PR before sign up day. It would include stuff about posters, about being visible on campus throwing, wearing club merchandise, having as many articles in every campus publication as you can and mentioning ultimate enthusiastically to anyone you're talking to.

Retaining Beginners

Stuff about retaining the beginners could get interesting. I imagine there could be various different opinions on it.

I think this section could get further subdivided into
A - training
B - tournaments
C - club sociability

Possibly what sort of players you want to recruit and retain could be worth some discussion. I think any club has a finite capacity for active membership; you're unlikely to add 100 new active members to a club (although I understand plenty of clubs sign up more than this nowadays). There just isn't the space at practice (and possibly the existing club members haven't the ability to remember that many names). So perhaps a club needs to think about exactly what sort of players they really want to try to keep.

Increasing the Natural Capacity of a Club

Before anyone gets too carried away with being selective, it is possible to expand the natural capacity of a club. Try as hard as you can to recruit and retain more players before you start to pick and choose. I think UCC managed that last year. If you run a few separate practice sessions aimed at different groups, then the practices won't be overcrowded and no one needs to remember absolutely all the beginners names. This probably even holds true for socialising too. There's an upper limit on the size of a tight-knit social group. Only so many people can comfortably hang out in a living room. If a big club has multiple smaller tight-knit groups it allows space for more newbies to become active members.

Anyone from UCC tell me if I've got that right?

What sort of beginners will stay playing

So, once there's room for plenty of newbies, it's probably still true that you'll not be able to get all of those that sign up to stick around. And who sticks around will largely be determined by what you do in the first few weeks after the beginners join. For instance, if you do drills involving quite a bit of sprinting, then people that like sprinting will stick around.

Also, who becomes a regular is determined by who you get to know; who the experienced players become friends with. If all the experienced players spend all their time making friends with final year student newbies and 1 semester foreign students, they'll have no time to get to know the first years (that's bad).

Labeling players when playing defense in ultimate

When playing D, against a team you know nothing about, you might make a few judgements based on appearances. (Perhaps it's using stereotypes?) It can be a bad thing. It's unreasonable and unfair to assume things about people without evidence. But people do it all the time. And anyway, in this situation, if you're wrong you only disadvantage yourself rather than the person you're stereotyping. 

For instance, the stereotypical fat player, is slow. (this often turns out to be true, but not always!)

"I'll mark the fat guy"

-your lazy teammate. 

The fat guy must be a handler (a handler with great throws)

The old guy too. 

The tall guy is probably a receiver.
The guy wearing runners and tracksuit pants must be a beginner.
The guy wearing loads of gear (underarmour, tights, visor, gloves, some sort of support on every joint), is either really really good or really really bad. It could go either way.
The girl playing open, won't be cutting deep.

I'm sure you're thinking of exceptions to each assumption as you read them. It would be a dangerous game to rely completely on a stereotype assessment of an opposition player, without any supporting evidence.

As a game goes on, you might make comparisons between the guy you're marking and the other players you've played before, while trying to figure out how best to mark them. That's still basically labeling them, but now you have some evidence. I have said things like this to myself: "he plays like a fat handler despite being trapped in the body of a much thinner man". Maybe I'm getting into the categorisation of players, which could be a whole other blog post.

How to use this
If making quick assessments based on appearances is widespread, a team starting on offence can use it to their advantage. Basically, send your fat, old, deceptively fast guys deep, early on, for easy goals. While your tallest players make sure to stay well out of the way (since they have the fastest and best aerial defenders).

And at a low level fun tournament, wear jeans for the first point!