2017 Men's Club Closing Thoughts

Before I get into this, I have to point out that the Mixed and Women's finals were really excellent this year and the Men's final was a pretty brutal blowout.

Here is what happened:

Big surprises:

- Sockeye struggling as much as they did.  I felt they were pretty overseeded at the 2, but they did much worse than I thought.

- Patrol getting last.  And getting bageled by machine?!  Crazy.

Less-Big surprises:

- Doublewide showed up ready to play in Sarasota, which makes my initial take on them look pretty good.  This is a surprise if you believed the hype and seeding on them.

- High Five and Johnny Bravo not making quarters.  I felt like they got caught on a difficult side of the bracket due to some pool play wackiness.  But so it goes.

- Dig making quarters.  Let's note that Babbitt was at nationals and basically carried them to quarters.  Per the ultiworld live tweets, seems likely Dig would have not made it that far without Babbitt carrying them in big moments.

- Florida managing to win games with their style of play.

In conclusion, making picks like this is a tough prospect.  There's definitely a lack of information on which to base this stuff, even if you keep your ears to the ground on all of the content being created.  Too many unsung great players buried on these rosters to be able to make clear picks.  I think it's easier to identify the top few teams, but outside of that there's a ton of noise.  There's also a lot of variance from the games themselves, as you'd expect.  It's easy to say after the fact "oh, well revolver was a clear champ from day 1", but if you look at it at a micro level, if a few throws were an inch or two to the right or left, we might be talking about Ring of Fire's first title.  As Bruns said this weekend, probably better to look at the results as a Bayesian update, more than predetermined outcomes.

The Coaches Dilemma

Note: Champe is putting together a great series on styles of defense.  Check out the first one in his series here: 

http://champeman.blogspot.com/2017/09/styles-of-defense-baiting.html

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I have some miscellaneous thoughts about coaching as it relates to individual player development.  

To preface this, I think coaching should be specific to the team being coached and the one doing the coaching.  Every team has specific needs, and every coach needs to be able to speak their truth to be most effective.

Topic 1: Pushing versus Settling

In "Training Soccer Champions", Anson Dorrance makes the claim that players generally settle.  His thought is basically that players don't really know how good they can be, and therefore they generally won't have a reference for their own ceilings.  Furthermore, he claims that it's the coaches responsibility to keep the players from settling.

Dorrance postulates that this is the most difficult thing about coaching.  For example, an inexperienced coach might let things slide or be unwilling to demand the best from the team because they want to avoid an uncomfortable situation.  He thinks that it's the coaches responsibility to carry the burden of these potentially uncomfortable or awkward encounters for the sake of the team.  An obvious example of this might be a lack of focus in a practice setting.

I think that pushing people past their perceived limits can have a ton of value, which is how I interpret what Dorrance is saying.  I also think it's easy to interpret his perspective as an "assuming the worst" mindset, in which players are inherently lazy and unmotivated.  I feel this is generally untrue, it seems to me like players generally want to be the best they can be.

There is a natural tension with this for college ultimate, as no one is playing as a career or even for a scholarship.  Absent these external motivations, what drives ultimate players tends to be more internal I think, things like teammates, unity of purpose, shared struggle, community, personal growth, etc.  Notably I think these motivations can be incredibly strong.  But the fact remains that ultimate usually can't always be the top of the priority list.  So the challenge is to understand the level of pushing that is appropriate for the circumstances, both on a team and an individual level.

Topic 2: Influencing Culture

Words + Body Language + Actions = Culture

All of these things matter, and they matter a lot.  The interactions of every person on the team plays into the above equation.  For each of these components (Words, Body Language, Actions), I think there's a public portion and a private portion.  Public would be things done in practices or at tournaments.  Private would be conversations, interactions, etc related to the team that are done individually or outside of a team setting.  Coaches and captains have a strong influence over all of the public side, maybe 75% of that is up to them.  The other 25% of the public component is made up of non-captain leaders and other players.  The private stuff is much harder to influence.  I think maybe 5% of the private components of the above can be directly addressed through leadership.  And the private culture can make or break your team.

Hypothesis: If the private culture is mostly gripes about other teammates or about leadership, this can create rifts in the team and can lead to frustration and premature individual burnout.

Culture matters for individual development because a healthy culture motivates and nurtures players.  Effort is rewarded, teammates are able to put in work towards shared goals, visibility is clear, and the team ceiling is raised.  Premature burnout leads to disconnection and lack of interest, resulting in a lower team ceiling.

Topic 3: On Motivation

How do you maximize internal motivation?

We can provide external incentives to put in work (i.e. throwing challenges with prizes), but at the end of the day I think the motivation from sources like this is much less powerful than internal motivation.  But internal motivation just isn't consistent for a team, ever.  I have never encountered a team in which this was the case.  (this doesn't mean it doesn't exist, however)  Right now my best guess is that providing useful outlets for inter-team competition is the best way to drive constructive motivation on the team level.

I also think showing what is possible may help.  This would be like taking the team to spectate club nationals.  I think it was awesome we were able to do that last year, but this is likely going to be logistically impossible for the foreseeable future.  Not sure how to fix that, as I don't think video has the same effect.

In "Legacy", James Kerr writes "Human beings are motivated by purpose, autonomy, and a drive towards mastery."

I don't have a lot of good ideas about how to implement this better.

Topic 4: Food for Thought

- "Everyone deserves to have a fulfilling ultimate season." - M.N.

- Would you want to win a championship if the entire season leading up to it was terrible?

- What is fulfillment and how do you define it, at a team level?

- I have a feeling that "unconscious goals" exist for individuals.  These would be like a phantom goal that is on everyone's mind but no one ever addresses.  Are these bad/good?  How do we address and influence these?  My intuition is that season "success" has a lot more to do with these than with a stated goal that no one buys.

Club Lessons

I have played for a lot of different club teams.  All of them are tier 2 regionals mens teams from the Chicago area, and a lot of them have had overlap in terms of teammates or philosophy.  None of them have been particularly close to qualifying for nationals, but every season has had a different flavor and brought with it different lessons.  Here is a list of misc thoughts from each season:

Haymaker 2011 (practice player):
- This season taught me that sometimes club captains don't really know how to handle practice players and very likely won't email you back in a timely fashion (if at all), better to show up and talk in person.
- I learned that there were a ton of players out there who were better than me.

Haymaker 2012:
- I learned that people play club for a lot of reasons.  This team was a group of tight-knit friends.  This group was difficult for me to enter.
- I learned that most teams want to be great and set lofty goals, but only some teams want to work hard for those goals.
- I learned that a cultural expectation of being late to practice sets a very negative tone from day 1.
- I learned that I am noticeably slower and worse when I don't work out on my own (imagine that!).
- I learned that staying at people's houses on tourney weekends is way better than staying at dingy hotels.

Chicago Club 2013:
- I learned about the difference between a good team and a great team.  Here's a basic explanation:  Imagine 50 men's players who are all skilled, are athletic, and work hard.  Take the best 25 of those players and put them on one team, then take the next 25 players and put them on a second team.  Let's say the first team is great, the second team is good.  A game between these two teams at the club level will be something like 15-8.
- I learned that egos and internal friction can tear a team apart.
- I learned the importance of consistent coaching and vision.
- I learned that if I wanted to play ultimate seriously as an adult, I needed to take much better care of my body and my injuries.

2014
This year I did not play.  As I was recovering from my ACL injury, I traveled with nemesis and watched them play at a number of tournaments.
- I learned about self-discipline and taking care of my rehab.
- I learned that upsets happen all the time (i.e. nemesis taking down riot at PFF)
- I learned that there are a lot of different coaching styles out there.
- I slept on the floor of the 5ive warehouse, so I learned about that too.

BMU 2015:
- I learned that it's possible to have a club experience that is as fun if not more fun than college, depending on who's on your team.
- I learned that results being better than expected make early season problems seem distant and small.
- I learned that I could play an entire season and stay injury-free.
- I learned that tearing my ACL didn't end my playing career.

BMU 2016:
- I learned that manufacturing culture only works to a degree.
- I learned that success must be earned, never assumed, and that the wide world of ultimate is broader than I previously thought.
- I learned that relationships are key to trust, and relationships aren't automatic in the team setting.
- I learned that captaining can drain your soul if you let it.

SSL 2017:
- I learned that sometimes culture creates itself.  Especially with guys from ND.
- I learned that pain and joy don't only exist at the top levels of the sport.
- I learned that total detachment from the outcome can be a blessing and a curse.  In one sense, you are totally free, there is not pressure or responsibility.  In another sense, you rob yourself of the ability to achieve.  Shouldering the pressure of a lofty outcome goal takes courage.  Without goals, there is no risk, and there can be no joy in achievement of those goals.
- I learned about the cultural power of self-subbing.
- I re-learned there is no replacement for strong, clear leadership.