The time had come for the Salt Lake pick-up players to put together a combination of talent and good spirit for a coed tournament. No one with only one of those qualities would be allowed to play. A select group. Perhaps a little too select since we only had two women travel with us! I should add that this isn't from a lack of requests, bribes, and down right begging on our part. It isn't easy to get women to go to a coed tournament unless they are dating someone on the team. Anyway, we had our team and felt we would do well. Perhaps win the whole damn ball of wax.
We called ourself SLUT - Salt Lake Ultimate Team. The tourney was 5-2 coed and so we planned on having just enough people to play as much and as often as we wanted. The team was captained by Jim De St Germain and Monika Barnhart. Jim in charge of Ultimate details and Monika in charge of logistics. Yeah, somehow we managed to stick her with that crap! I should note that everything went perfectly in that regard. She had maps, reservations, everything planned out to the letter. And it only took approximately 1523 email messages to do it. (Some believe we lost one of our women players to this deluge but I say no!) Our final roster was Jim, Monika, Olen Stephens, Jeff Chapman, John McCutchan, Keith Alleman, Matt Johnson, Adam Rasmussen, Anna Cleverley and of course me (Tom Thompson).
OK, onto the actual weekend commentary. Jim, Monika and I rented a SUV and teamed with Olen for a foursome on the way down. We were right on time and packed up for the trip. Matt showed up and was ready to head out with Anna and Jeff in his car. Now, Adam was there but where was Keith? John showed up and said Keith was renting the car for them. Not to harp, but an HOUR later Keith finally arrives and we head out. One might ask how the car assignments were made (well they might). Well, to be frank in part we put the four in my car together because we are all pretty close. We put Jeff and Anna together because they were on the same City League team and Anna didn't know anyone else. That left John, Keith and Adam in the same car. A confrontation waiting to happen since, again to be brutally honest, no one really got along with Adam that well. Things got better but at the time he was very much an unknown quantity.
Four hours into the ride hadn't slowed the constant criticism of Adam in my car. I was afraid that he wouldn't step up to the higher level we knew he could play. Olen and Jim were worried that his alternate views about the game would make it harder to get everyone on the same page (Adam liked to run a different zone offense, and defense, and pull, and...) The prevailing thought was "he better play well or there will be extra space on the ride back." We couldn't help but wonder if John would have a nervous breakdown sharing a car with Adam on the drive up. But a couple looks back showed his large toothy grin so we felt better. Keith later said John had put himself through a mental toughening much like Muhamid Ali did in "When We Were Kings". Keith is weird, did I mention that?
We arrived after dusk (thanks Keith). Luckily Adam and Keith arrived first and found the campgrounds. Keith did a little dance at our arrival fancifully shouting "Welcome to Wonderland." We set up camp and chatted. I pointed out various star constellations. None correct but at least I knew the names! At one point I even pointed out a cloud as the Milky Way. Hey, I was tired.
Saturday morning. Tourney time baby. We arrived in plenty of time and hit the fields. A hour or more later the other teams arrived as well. Typical. We picked up a female player, Tracey, as well as her husband, Adam. Both turned out to be pretty good players but mostly we were just happy to have the extra woman for a sub. We got assigned the small field for our first two games. It was a little narrow, not much, but mostly it just wasn't long enough. If there was less wind we could have hucked all morning.
In our first game we played a tough game. We started well but a lot of the people on the team were new to tourney play and committed a few to many mistakes. The other team took advantage of this and made a run at us to close the score to 13-12 with us scratching to hold onto that one point lead after blowing a four point lead late. Olen then made a nice hard throw up the line to me as I was sliding in the endzone on both knees. 14-12. This seemed to loosen us up a little as you could pretty much feel the team was worried about blowing the game. We pulled to them and clamped on a zone. They worked it back and forth. Swinging the disc carefully and got out to about their 10 yard line. Then they tried to punch a throw up the middle. Mistake! I stepped in front and caught the disc. I then pushed it ahead to Olen and cut for the endzone. A little juke to the left and a cutback to the right and Olen hit me for the winning score. 15-12. It was during this game that we realized we would need two of Jim, Olen or myself in the game at all times.
The conclusion would set up the cheers. I don't recall our cheer but it was ok as far as I can remember. But their cheer was excellent. Their whole team did doo-wop sounds as one guy stood in front singing a cheer to us to the tune of "In The Still Of The Night". Very cool and very funny as well. Several interesting uses of our SLUT team name as you can imagine.
The next game we played a team that had just had a hard fought game against Boulder and were clearly spent. We spanked them rather quickly 15-1. They weren't that bad a team but they couldn't break our zone, despite the lack of heavy wind, so we walked over them. Unfortunately, we were again crushed in the cheer. The team ended with the best line of any cheer, possibly ever. "One final question: What kinda slut wont let you score?!" Priceless.
Now, our team wasn't afraid to use SLUT in our own shoutings either. We would yell onto the field things like "put out sluts", "sluts aren't easy", "get horizontal sluts", and so forth. By the end of the day Keith was yelling things that clearly showed he was running out of material, such as "you're not gonna get paid, you're a slut, so get busy!" and worse, much worse. But then he also kept saying "He's just poured into those shorts." I have no idea why and no one was brave enough to ask him.
We then moved up to the lake side fields to play Boulder. They were said to have Nationals aspirations but we played them very well. Perhaps they had some people missing but that is no real excuse. The whole weekend no one scored more than five points on them in a game, except for the SLUTs. We were down 8-5 at half. Everyone played a wonderful game but Boulder had some rather fast women and continued to huck to them. Both of the women we brought were new and so even though they were also pretty fast they were caught out of position or couldn't read the disc quick enough to get the D. Not a criticism either since the women on Boulder were very experienced players. Monika and Anna both had plenty of mid-field defensive stops. Anna tended to even violently smack the disc down when she had opportunity. This game showed our slight depth problem however. We scored pretty much at will when we played what I called a "Handler Point," meaning Jim, Olen and myself would all go in the game at the same time. To be honest, I felt like we were unstoppable with that lineup. Of course, we couldn't all run all of the points. The game ended with a final score of 15-10. So we actually played better in the second half but could not over take them. A tough loss but they were pretty good.
The final game of the day was a crossover game. We played a team from the other pool and the results didn't count towards our seeding for the finals bracket the next day. We decided to play them tough anyway in order to walk away with a 3-1 record. The game started a bit rough for our side. Even when you say you are gonna go hard it isn't easy when in the back of your mind you know the game doesn't count and you are tired. We went down 3-1 and then decided enough of that. We poured it on both offensively and defensively. At one point there was a huck to me in the endzone. I waited for the disc to arrive as it turned into a floater. I don't like to battle for position so I let the defender get his spot and then, just as the disc floated down I stepped forward, leap, and caught the disc right over him. Then he fouled me and I dropped the disc. Crap. Why am I relaying such minutia? Well, I never sky over anyone so even though the disc was sent back on a contested foul I just had to bring it up. We went into half after going ahead 8-4.
During half I decided I would play only a couple points to make sure the team was playing hard and then sit the remainder of the game out unless really needed. I had a deep bone bruise in my foot that was started to swell which made it hard to both run and cut. First point out we pulled to them. We played man-to-man defense and eventually they worked the disc to midfield. Then they tried to throw this weak toss up the line to my guy. I had clear position and so stepped in to knock the disc down. The offensive player felt otherwise and hit me from behind on the shoulder. He caught the disc and fell out of bounds in front of me. I was off balance and so could not jump over him. Instead I had to step through his rolling body and try not to sprain an ankle. I was successful at that, but when my foot hit the ground between his legs he rolled and scissored my left knee. Pop-crack. That is what I heard and my weekend, and summer for that matter, were through. We called the game and I went to the emergency clinic in Vail. We still call the first day 3-1.
Torn cartilage and crutches for Tom. Great.
That night we went back to the hotel. Some said they were going to camp and others stay in the hotel room. No one camped so the room was pretty full. I took a bed for myself for obvious reasons. The room was actually a suite and so Monika and Jim took the mattress off of the sofa bed in the small room and put it in the big room. Claiming the room for themselves. We don't know what happened in there and didn't ask. Some people came in late from the party and crashed into that room rather late in the night. One fun note is that Olen had claimed a bed when he and Jim brought me back from the clinic. When Anna got back she jumped onto that bed as Olen was in the restroom. Olen returned and softly told her "I will just be sleeping over here" pointing to the other side of the bed. I thought that in itself was funny but then neither of them changed clothes to sleep. They both slept on top of the covers fully dressed. Anna even had her fleece and Tiva's on for most of the night! Olen relayed that at one point during the night their feet touched and it was like a bold of electricity hit them both as they each jerked their foot away from the contact. Kids today...
Before the first game of the finals bracket the team picked up a woman named Stacey with 12 years of Ultimate experience. Twelve years. And honestly, it showed. She was fast and also knew exactly where to cut to get open. She caught and scored several goals in the first game which quickly became a laugher at 15-1. Of important note is how this game ended. They turned the disc over and SLUT quickly pushed it up field to Monika at about 15 yards out. She turned up field and saw Anna making a nice cut in the endzone. Monika threw a perfect bender into the corner that Anna caught for the score. A sweet play to get both of our women involved in not only a scoring play but a game winning score.
After that SLUT went to another field and waited for their next foe. Tracey and Adam had to leave as the other team was taking far to long to finish their first round game. Eventually we found out that they were finished but sitting under a tree somewhere not knowing what to do. And not bright enough to ask apparently. This team, amazingly, was the host team! During the time off the team decorated their shirts with various slogans. Squeaky clean Jim went with big bold letters that said "Salt Lake Ultimate". But he was alone in the clean thoughts department! Monika wrote on her shirt "Slutty Spice" and even drew a picture of a chick layout. John labeled himself boldly with "SLUT" on the front of his shirt. Anna had the best shirt of all. Hers stated "SLUT, we don't just put out, we layout."
Jim went and did the rho-sham-bo and won. That much we know for sure. What happened next is hard to gauge. He says he won and decided to pull. Since the game mirrored at half you always request pull. That way there is a chance that in the middle of the game, at half in fact, you might score and then the other team will pull to you again. It is especially nice since if you score last in the first half you must be ahead. Therefore it is even nicer to get the pull in the second half. The other team claimed he wanted to receive. This caused a big argument that eventually SLUT gave up on and just said "Pull." This wasn't to be the only argument of the game. Turned out that the team was far and away the worst spirited team at the tourney. They called a lot of picks, fouls and contested everything. Stacey had the high point here when she called a foul on a man when she most likely could not have caught the disc and if she did would have been out of bounds. Normally you wouldn't make that call but since it is coed you kind of encourage the women to make that call so the men wont be running into them at any other time. The guy started to argue and pout. Stacey said "You contest?" He shouted something that was equivalent to yes and then started to argue again. She then showed her years of experience and turned to him and said "We are not going to argue about this. The disc goes back." and walked away. Sweet. Monika's mother on the other hand had to be restrained later in the game as she charged toward the field red with rage. Nothing like a nice Sunday game of Ultimate to engage the fans.
It turned out that this game was the best game of the tourney. The hosts wanted to start late since they wanted both semis to start at the same time. We said no and had them start. The other semi started shortly before half of our semi and ended shortly after our half. Boulder put a hurting on the other semifinalist. Both Boulder and the other team then moved to our field and cheered for our team. Nice. The game was close throughout. After going ahead 4-2 the game got windy and the predictions of afternoon rain seemed to be truthful. At half the game was 8-6 SLUT ahead. Jim and Olen were forced to play often, and in the end they both played the last 10 or more points without subbing out. Olen had the other team worried and they even yelled out "Watch out for him! He loves to run!"
In the second half SLUT took a 10-7 lead and only needed to hold their wind point advantage. They couldn't though and DUI went on a little run. They scored a few in a row, including two upwind points to take the advantage. Then SLUT scored upwind. The score then was 14-12. (We wont mention the critical turnover by Keith in the endzone at 13-12 that really put the game in peril making the score 14-12. He didn't check back in the rest of the way out of respect for the rest of the team.) SLUT then put on a crushing cut display as Jeff and Olen simultaneously swatted an attempted throw up the middle all the way to the ground. Pancake style. SLUT then scored the downwind goal and were faced with pulling to DUI upwind and down 14-13. They made a great defensive stand and forced the turnover. Then showing some uncommon patience worked it around until they scored to tie the game at 14 all. The rest of the game was all downwinders. SLUT goes up 15-14 and then it is tied at 15-15. Another goal swap and the game was 16-16. The cap had been set at 17 and so this was the crucial point. DUI had to pull upwind to SLUT who had to move the disc downwind for the winner. The teams exchanged turnovers and then Jim got the disc along the right sideline about 10 yards out. He threw a hard low pass to John who dove for the winning goal. SLUTs rock.
Jim then went over and forfeited the final to Boulder. It was raining by this time and very windy. SLUT played a very hard game and both Jim and Olen were spent. No one objected and we went home happy.
Well, I was happy the team performed so well but as I said in the beginning...
Crutches.
the end.
tom.