More interesting stuff
Hell, Jim posted twice in one day, why don't I? In one of the comments on Jim's post on Major League Ultimate, Anonymous (naturally) says the following:
Who on DoG deserves to be on the team beyond Fortch and Zip? Who would you throw in there with the NE, Jim? Obviously besides yourself and Alex, who are clearly an oversight on the part of the team manager.
Well, besides the obvious snub, Mr/Mrs Anonymous brings up an interesting point (although I'll go with Mr based on the seeming familiarity with Jim and I). When I look at the rosters, I could make some arguments for additional people to be added to the squad, but that is just it. I feel like I would have to argue. Other than a lifetime achievement award for Jim, nothing really leaps out at you and smacks you in the face about the DoG roster where you say 'I have to have this player or the rest of the ultimate world will think I'm crazy'. Hell, even Twisted had more players than we did, although you can attribute that to some Pike favoritism by the team manager (coincidentally a Pike player) That's not to say that we don't have those players on the roster, but the system doesn't expose them to the world.
The question to put out there is, do we maximize the effectiveness of our roster by absorbing players into the system, or would we be better off with another, flashier system (huck and hope (tm. Jim)) that might elevate the cachet of some of our players. Or are we kidding ourselves, and we really don't have those kinds of players and are maximizing our return based on the roster we are working with, and that maybe the 'superstars' are more interested in playing with a team like Twisted where they can flame on or out a little more obviously.
I put it to you, loyal reader, to answer that question. I have my own suspicions as to the answer... alright, I think it is more B than A, although I'm excited by the potential pickups this year that might allow for some 'adjustments' to the system. But I'll let the coach(es) worry about that. Yes, Wicks has been elevated to another 'official' coach from his last minute assistant coach status last year.
Who on DoG deserves to be on the team beyond Fortch and Zip? Who would you throw in there with the NE, Jim? Obviously besides yourself and Alex, who are clearly an oversight on the part of the team manager.
Well, besides the obvious snub, Mr/Mrs Anonymous brings up an interesting point (although I'll go with Mr based on the seeming familiarity with Jim and I). When I look at the rosters, I could make some arguments for additional people to be added to the squad, but that is just it. I feel like I would have to argue. Other than a lifetime achievement award for Jim, nothing really leaps out at you and smacks you in the face about the DoG roster where you say 'I have to have this player or the rest of the ultimate world will think I'm crazy'. Hell, even Twisted had more players than we did, although you can attribute that to some Pike favoritism by the team manager (coincidentally a Pike player) That's not to say that we don't have those players on the roster, but the system doesn't expose them to the world.
The question to put out there is, do we maximize the effectiveness of our roster by absorbing players into the system, or would we be better off with another, flashier system (huck and hope (tm. Jim)) that might elevate the cachet of some of our players. Or are we kidding ourselves, and we really don't have those kinds of players and are maximizing our return based on the roster we are working with, and that maybe the 'superstars' are more interested in playing with a team like Twisted where they can flame on or out a little more obviously.
I put it to you, loyal reader, to answer that question. I have my own suspicions as to the answer... alright, I think it is more B than A, although I'm excited by the potential pickups this year that might allow for some 'adjustments' to the system. But I'll let the coach(es) worry about that. Yes, Wicks has been elevated to another 'official' coach from his last minute assistant coach status last year.
posted by Alex de Frondeville at 3:26 PM
10 Comments:
Al, what do you mean by superstars? Great receivers who can jump high and run fast?
Also, your teammates must love reading about how you think they suck.
I'm sure the Count is just mentioning the deficiencies of his teammates to further illustrate how awesome his throws must be in order for the team to succeed.
anonymous: I guess that's what I mean. Recently we haven't had very many players where you would take them more than 50% of the time in a covered huck, where you EXPECT them to come down with it every time, and are shocked when the defender makes the play. Note I don't say we have none, but that is not a strength of our team. That is not to say we don't huck, because we definitely do, but we don't just put it up because someone is cutting deep, we put it up because someone is OPEN deep.
And nice try at interpreting my comments to mean I think my teammates suck. Not at all. In fact, last year was one of the more gratifying seasons this team has ever had, especially given the expectations.
i too have a quick release: Another advantage of having a 'system' is that if it is a good one, it should be 'plug and play'. And given the turnover that this team has experienced throughout its existence and has still managed to stay in the top echelons of the game, I would say it is a good one, especially now that there is another Boston team competing for talent.
I'm still working on figuring out exactly what the DoG system is (not that it's overly complex, but it does seem to a different set of priorities and decision trees than do many other elite offenses), but I admire the ability of the plug-n-play attitude that you've created.
Do you think that the offense evolved because of the players or the players evovled that way (and continue to be selected to fit the mold) because of the offense?
I covered a lot of this here. Basically, the system evolved out of treasuring the disc on offense. Others have argued that between 94-99, DoG would have won no matter what offense we played given the roster, but I'm not sure I agree with that, especially towards the end of the run. We still had an incredible amount of turnover during the run except for 98.
I guess I'm saying that the players evolve because of the offense. However, I don't think we select players because of the offense. Sure we would love to have the Mike Grants/Alex Nords of the ultimate community. Who wouldn't? We just try and teach the DoG way to those that join the team.
Al, let's say you were chosen to be to be the manager of the NE team (with Jim as your assistant of course). Would you have picked a similar team or would your roster have been completely different? Would you have picked more "grinders" to complement the flash?
All of the players selected are from bigger teams in the region but are there players on smaller teams that might be deserving of spots on an MLU squad but aren't there because of lack of exposure? There must be more at least a few big fish in small ponds.
>Who on DoG deserves to be on the team beyond Fortch >and Zip? Who would you throw in there with the NE, >Jim? Obviously besides yourself and Alex, who are >clearly an oversight on the part of the team manager.
Well, for starters, both Hummer (Sam Rosenthal?) and (Doug?) Moore could play with anyone, and obviously have very successfully. Himms had an awesome year on D. Any of those guys would help an 'superstar' team. Just because they don't necessarily fit the highlight film version of what a great player is doesn't mean that the people in the know aren't more afraid of playing them instead of a bunch of great athletes that play dumb.
And in case you haven't been paying attention, Anonymous, DoG 05 had a great tournament and almost got through to the final. Jim & Al aren't exactly over the hill just yet.
Dammit. Did I just write that last part?
anonymous: Hell, I'd have just picked DoG... Seriously, I can't even imagine how difficult it must have been to pick this team, especially given the size of the pool. Every other region had maybe 3 or 4 nationals teams, while this region had, what, 6 or 7? And the superstar teams from the other regions were even clearer than that, while central, east and mid-atlantic have a little more parity (and more high-level teams), making it that much more difficult. I am surprised Tim from Zero was left off but maybe he wasn't asked.
I'm sure I'll be able to do some razzing at the NJ Invite this weekend.
bw: Word to your mother...about all of those comments...
Hey, Ian here. I feel like I'm tiptoeing into your blog circles (I don't recall ever posting on a blog before).
I just want a quick chance to say that choosing the teams was ridiculously hard. With such a large pool of teams, there's no way that I can know everyone enough on each of the teams to know who absolutely deserves spots and who doesn't.
To me, it was clear that there are well over 40 or 50 players that "deserved" invitations.
That is exactly why I asked a small group of superstars to help me choose the rest of my invite list. I will not say whether or not any of my consultants were on DoG, but I tried very hard to find out as much as I could about the players on DoG who should be on this team. Two DoG invites seemed too few at the time. It still does. It all came down to the lack of information that I was provided about DoG. I only know Ben, Sam, and Kelvin, but not from when they were even on DoG. Strangely, I am frequently absent when Pike plays DoG, so I just didn't have much to go on, and I wasn't given much to go on.
With so many awesome players to choose from, the invitations went to the ones the consultants were most enthusiastic about. It sounds like a lot of DoG players weren't hyped as much as they should've been. Then again, maybe Fortch and Zip really are the only two who worthy of a spot. To add players, that means some would have to be removed! Dare I ask who shouldn't be on the roster? Don't answer that... (Especially if you say me, haha)
But players on DoG weren't the only ones to get "slighted." I'm keeping a list of players that "should've" gotten invites, and it's well over 15 right now.
Happily, I doubt anyone can say the NE doesn't have an incredibly powerful team, and I believe we will destroy the other teams.
In the future, with more time and information, we can have a more extensive selection process to choose the best players to represent the NE.
Thanks for your understanding.
Ian McClellan
Ian: Hey, the more the merrier. As I alluded to before, I don't envy you your task. Sounds like you went about the selection process in a good way. What I will find even more instructive is reading about how such a random team of superstars meshed. I don't see it as quite the same as a potlatch, or other high-level pickup tournament. There will be some serious pride on the line, so I can't wait to hear some post tournament reflection on the various teams internal struggles. Hopefully some of the players or coaches will either rsd or blog about it.
And for the record, I don't believe I should have been selected. And no one would ever select me anyway because of the abuse they would incur...:)
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