"You just have to have the players."
- Geoff S., 2013
What does it take to qualify for college nationals?
You need them all, in order of importance:
Desire - This is the most important thing. Everything flows from this. This is at the center of your team's motivation and drive. Are a critical mass of players willing to invest enough of themselves into this goal? If not, how can you cultivate and grow the seeds of this desire?
Culture - Your culture is the strongest tool you have, since it impacts everything you do. But especially, your culture serves to direct, cultivate, and share the motivation your players have. Specifically, a strong culture means things like having seniors that support and welcome freshmen, having players who train hard and encourage their teammates to do so as well, and players that are invested in supporting each other. A strong culture is also a necessity if you want to have good recruitment, no one wants to be on a team that is too cliquey, too aggro, or constantly disrespectful to each other. Your culture also plays a big role in governing your team's response to adversity. And if you want to qualify for college nationals, you are guaranteed to face strong adversity.
Talent - You need players who can compete individually at a national level. This means players who can get open well, defend well, and throw very well. Teams like Carleton, Pitt, and UNC have coaches down to the youth level who are individually personally recruiting most of the players ready to contribute immediately. Occasionally a player like this will show up at your door, but if you are not explicitly recruiting those players, you need to cast a wide net and invest hard in everyone. It's by no means a requirement, but attracting athletes (and particularly former captains) of other team sports (especially football and soccer) can help a lot since those players may be athletically ready to contribute and may understand how to succeed in a very competitive team sports environment.
Another way to look at this is by considering the "contribution above replacement" of your best 14 players or so. So basically this means, when to compared to a rough "average player" on a nationals level team, how much can each of your players contribute? Since the objective is to create a team that plays "competitive" games with other teams at a national level (for reference: games typically within 2-3 with a real chance to win = "competitive"), you need to have an adequate total amount of contribution above replacement from your top players. You can get this from 2-4 star players, or you can get this from 7-14 really strong role players. I'm not going to put an exact value on what is needed, but in general you need to have some critical mass of players with strengths that you can leverage over other nationally competitive teams. If your team is having trouble identifying this level of contribution in players, then you likely need to double down on your development and investment so that you have a plan to eventually get there.
Investment - Great teams are spending 15+ hours a week in practice, lifting, throwing, film review, etc. If the team is not willing to put in that kind of work, you'll be at a huge disadvantage from the start. If a team is putting in 10 hrs a week and is supremely talented AND is in a weak region, they may have an outside shot. If the team is putting in 5 or fewer hours, there is essentially zero chance of qualifying.
Development (physical, skills, leadership, ownership) - You need to grow the talent you have and get them invested in themselves. You need to work hard in the gym and on the track to develop athletically. You need to be invested in throwing and constantly improving people as throwers. The team needs to understand the ownership they have over the success of the team, and be given the tools to grow as leaders. You need to share and teach leadership techniques and encourage younger team members to take on roles within the team. As soon as a new player shows up, they are on the eligibility clock, so the sooner you can help them buy in, the more rewarding their experience will be and the more they will be able to contribute to the team.
Strategy - You need to understand your likely opponents, the likely weather conditions for regionals, and have some idea how your systems will work in those conditions against them. You should prioritize a system that teaches good basic skills, but you should make defensive choices and add wrinkles based on what you expect your relative team strengths to be compared to your likely opponents. There are regional differences between offense and defense as well, i.e. vert stack is common in the South Central for Men's. Things like this should factor into your calculations when you're picking systems.
The goal of all of these tactics is simple - to play great ultimate and to be a great team. We can't predict the level of our specific regional opponents in any given year, but at a macro scale we can estimate the level of play that it takes to be a top 10 team. In my opinion, this should be the level of play a program should aim for in the long term.
Other circumstances:
Bids:
If you are in a region with a team considerably better than you, you need to do all of the above and also sub hard enough and play well enough during the season to earn a bid. This puts more pressure (mental and especially physical) on your top players, but a few teams are able to successfully navigate this each year. Earning a bid is never a guarantee that you will take that bid, but you will dramatically improve your chances of success if you do so.
If you are a top 10 team:
You can't ever take qualifying for granted, you need to do what it takes to impress the importance of taking qualification seriously. Top teams don't falter the majority of the time, but every year there are a few that do.
Specific Regions:
"But coach, the great lakes is a weak region. Why would this work in other regions?"
It's the same recipe in any region, it's just the baseline level that needs to be achieved is higher or lower depending on the region.
- Geoff S., 2013
What does it take to qualify for college nationals?
You need them all, in order of importance:
Desire - This is the most important thing. Everything flows from this. This is at the center of your team's motivation and drive. Are a critical mass of players willing to invest enough of themselves into this goal? If not, how can you cultivate and grow the seeds of this desire?
Culture - Your culture is the strongest tool you have, since it impacts everything you do. But especially, your culture serves to direct, cultivate, and share the motivation your players have. Specifically, a strong culture means things like having seniors that support and welcome freshmen, having players who train hard and encourage their teammates to do so as well, and players that are invested in supporting each other. A strong culture is also a necessity if you want to have good recruitment, no one wants to be on a team that is too cliquey, too aggro, or constantly disrespectful to each other. Your culture also plays a big role in governing your team's response to adversity. And if you want to qualify for college nationals, you are guaranteed to face strong adversity.
Talent - You need players who can compete individually at a national level. This means players who can get open well, defend well, and throw very well. Teams like Carleton, Pitt, and UNC have coaches down to the youth level who are individually personally recruiting most of the players ready to contribute immediately. Occasionally a player like this will show up at your door, but if you are not explicitly recruiting those players, you need to cast a wide net and invest hard in everyone. It's by no means a requirement, but attracting athletes (and particularly former captains) of other team sports (especially football and soccer) can help a lot since those players may be athletically ready to contribute and may understand how to succeed in a very competitive team sports environment.
Another way to look at this is by considering the "contribution above replacement" of your best 14 players or so. So basically this means, when to compared to a rough "average player" on a nationals level team, how much can each of your players contribute? Since the objective is to create a team that plays "competitive" games with other teams at a national level (for reference: games typically within 2-3 with a real chance to win = "competitive"), you need to have an adequate total amount of contribution above replacement from your top players. You can get this from 2-4 star players, or you can get this from 7-14 really strong role players. I'm not going to put an exact value on what is needed, but in general you need to have some critical mass of players with strengths that you can leverage over other nationally competitive teams. If your team is having trouble identifying this level of contribution in players, then you likely need to double down on your development and investment so that you have a plan to eventually get there.
Investment - Great teams are spending 15+ hours a week in practice, lifting, throwing, film review, etc. If the team is not willing to put in that kind of work, you'll be at a huge disadvantage from the start. If a team is putting in 10 hrs a week and is supremely talented AND is in a weak region, they may have an outside shot. If the team is putting in 5 or fewer hours, there is essentially zero chance of qualifying.
Development (physical, skills, leadership, ownership) - You need to grow the talent you have and get them invested in themselves. You need to work hard in the gym and on the track to develop athletically. You need to be invested in throwing and constantly improving people as throwers. The team needs to understand the ownership they have over the success of the team, and be given the tools to grow as leaders. You need to share and teach leadership techniques and encourage younger team members to take on roles within the team. As soon as a new player shows up, they are on the eligibility clock, so the sooner you can help them buy in, the more rewarding their experience will be and the more they will be able to contribute to the team.
Strategy - You need to understand your likely opponents, the likely weather conditions for regionals, and have some idea how your systems will work in those conditions against them. You should prioritize a system that teaches good basic skills, but you should make defensive choices and add wrinkles based on what you expect your relative team strengths to be compared to your likely opponents. There are regional differences between offense and defense as well, i.e. vert stack is common in the South Central for Men's. Things like this should factor into your calculations when you're picking systems.
The goal of all of these tactics is simple - to play great ultimate and to be a great team. We can't predict the level of our specific regional opponents in any given year, but at a macro scale we can estimate the level of play that it takes to be a top 10 team. In my opinion, this should be the level of play a program should aim for in the long term.
Other circumstances:
Bids:
If you are in a region with a team considerably better than you, you need to do all of the above and also sub hard enough and play well enough during the season to earn a bid. This puts more pressure (mental and especially physical) on your top players, but a few teams are able to successfully navigate this each year. Earning a bid is never a guarantee that you will take that bid, but you will dramatically improve your chances of success if you do so.
If you are a top 10 team:
You can't ever take qualifying for granted, you need to do what it takes to impress the importance of taking qualification seriously. Top teams don't falter the majority of the time, but every year there are a few that do.
Specific Regions:
"But coach, the great lakes is a weak region. Why would this work in other regions?"
It's the same recipe in any region, it's just the baseline level that needs to be achieved is higher or lower depending on the region.
