It's 2013 and I'm driving the so-called "Wild Van" to a travel weekend with games against the Windchill and Radicals. Wild Van is a pretty impressive sounding name for the drab rented white Ford E-series 10-passenger van. Someone brought an N64 and is playing mario kart in the back seat. Other people are napping, listening to music.
Geoff is sitting next to me, riding shotgun, tasked with navigating/keeping me awake. We're chatting about random stuff, we've got a lot of time to kill on the road. Eventually I bring up his college career and the conversation shifts towards college ultimate. I ask him what it takes for a college team to be successful, in his experience.
"You just have to have the players." he says.
He goes on to talk about how the best college teams are those that both have good players and utilize them well.
I didn't say anything after he said that, I just let the idea marinate in my mind a bit. Seems obvious, I thought. I wanted to say "But great players don't just show up on campus on day 1, people aren't born great ultimate players!", but I didn't. I wanted to think on the topic a bit more before I jumped to conclusions about what he meant.
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So how do you get the players you need to be successful? Well, it seems apparent that you need to recruit well, cast a wide net. The goal of this is just to attract as many people as possible. The wider the net, the more likely you are to pick up people who can help your team in a meaningful way down the road. The qualities you are looking for are not obvious. For example, height, while great, is not really an indicator of future contribution potential. Recruiting athletes is another popular strategy, but again, current athleticism isn't necessarily a great indicator of future success. So, throw out preconceptions and just recruit everyone.
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I'm driving Zubair and KB to a pickup ultimate/bachelor party for Kennedy. We're chatting about what it takes to develop a good ultimate culture. Zubair starts talking about how pushing a team/program to the next level is about both sharing mechanical knowledge of the game and spreading a good environment for growth. Zubair and KB continue to discuss for some time, but I'm still quietly thinking about this idea a good 30 minutes later.
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My thought is that everything centers around environment. I'm thinking of environment as something that fuels everyone in the program. I'm thinking that a good environment leads to everything else.
My thought process went something like this. A good environment would emphasize things like:
Geoff is sitting next to me, riding shotgun, tasked with navigating/keeping me awake. We're chatting about random stuff, we've got a lot of time to kill on the road. Eventually I bring up his college career and the conversation shifts towards college ultimate. I ask him what it takes for a college team to be successful, in his experience.
"You just have to have the players." he says.
He goes on to talk about how the best college teams are those that both have good players and utilize them well.
I didn't say anything after he said that, I just let the idea marinate in my mind a bit. Seems obvious, I thought. I wanted to say "But great players don't just show up on campus on day 1, people aren't born great ultimate players!", but I didn't. I wanted to think on the topic a bit more before I jumped to conclusions about what he meant.
-----
So how do you get the players you need to be successful? Well, it seems apparent that you need to recruit well, cast a wide net. The goal of this is just to attract as many people as possible. The wider the net, the more likely you are to pick up people who can help your team in a meaningful way down the road. The qualities you are looking for are not obvious. For example, height, while great, is not really an indicator of future contribution potential. Recruiting athletes is another popular strategy, but again, current athleticism isn't necessarily a great indicator of future success. So, throw out preconceptions and just recruit everyone.
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I'm driving Zubair and KB to a pickup ultimate/bachelor party for Kennedy. We're chatting about what it takes to develop a good ultimate culture. Zubair starts talking about how pushing a team/program to the next level is about both sharing mechanical knowledge of the game and spreading a good environment for growth. Zubair and KB continue to discuss for some time, but I'm still quietly thinking about this idea a good 30 minutes later.
-----
My thought is that everything centers around environment. I'm thinking of environment as something that fuels everyone in the program. I'm thinking that a good environment leads to everything else.
My thought process went something like this. A good environment would emphasize things like:
- Working hard, for yourself and your teammates
- Being a student of the game, knowing your world
- Taking responsibility as a player (and as a man) to improve
- Understanding the responsibility process at the team level, supporting your teammates
- Commitment to mastery of fundamentals
With ideas like these in place, I think that things great teams do follow naturally. I think these cultural things can help to drive motivation and help to grow it intrinsically. Working hard with a purpose and clear progress is fun and fulfilling.
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So I think two pieces of "having the players" are recruiting well and creating a strong environment. I am pretty sure this is not the final evolution of my thoughts on this subject, and I am interested to see where this mental path takes me next.
