First Practice, SotG, and Other Things

So today was the first practice of the year for the Ultimate club at West Chester and I thought I would share my thoughts on the team and on first practices in general.

The first thing that stuck out to me was the number of people we had at the first practice.  In years past we've always had a lot of people at the first few practices, but then people stop coming, whether it's because they realize that it's more work than they anticipated, they don't want to spend the money for dues, or they become consumed with school work (which obviously comes first), so it'll be interesting to see how many people stick with it.  If we have everyone stick it out, we have a lot of potential to expand the club and maybe even form an A/B team, but only time will tell.

The second thing that stuck out to me was the effort that the coaches/captains went to to integrate the new players into the team.  The coach had the new players pair up and practice throwing while veteran players walked around, introduced themselves, and gave the newer players a few pointers.  Then, when we started drills, we made sure there was an even mix of new and experienced players in each group.  All players, old and new, did the same drills, played on the same teams, and did the same sprints.  I personally feel like this is a great idea because it allows the newer players to interact with the older players and form a stronger sense of community amongst the team, an important aspect to any team that wants to play well together.

The last thing that really stuck out to me was the emphasis that our team puts on Spirit of the Game.  Before we did our drills and even before we did our warm-up lap / stretches, we all came together as a group and one of our team captains read the passage about SotG out of the USAUltimate rule book to remind everyone that while we are a competitive team, we need to strive to never sacrifice sportsmanship for winning.  I think keeping this mind will help shape our team and our players and really make this a fun year.

Well that's about all I have so until next time, keep playing Ultimate :)