Responsibility

Saturday morning at MLC, 2008.  There's a steady 15 mph wind gusting to 30, 34 degrees, and a pleasant mix of freezing rain/snow.  I've only been outside for 30 minutes, and it's already apparent I'm woefully underdressed to play in these conditions.

We're running a warm up in-cut drill.  I make my cut, disc goes up.  The wet disc slips off my cold outstretched hands and hits the ground.

"TWO HANDS"

The response is swift and automatic.   A captain shouts at me and the team, but mostly me.  I feel a collective groan from the team.  It hits me like a slap in the face, but I'm used to it.  This is the norm, the status quo.  They shout, I take blame.  Why shouldn't I?  It's my fault, right?

Three hours later.

We're playing Truman State and we're getting wrecked.  Down 2-7.  I've played 1 point so far today.  I'm mostly here because I agreed to tag along on the 9 hr drive.  The leadership decides we aren't coming back in this game and decide to give the bottom of the roster some PT.  We're on offense.  My defender peels off to help deep and I catch an incut.  Disc in hand, I turn upfield, no mark.

"CHILLY"

Automatic.  They shout, I take blame.  Chilly seems to mean: you suck and we don't trust you to not turn it over.  Blame assigned for a turn before the disc has even left my hands.

-----

If a team wants to be successful, I think a high standard of play must be set by both the captains and the non-captain leadership.  I also think that successful teams have trust in each other, and this trust must also be projected and amplified by the captains and non-captain leadership.  So the challenge is to both cultivate trust and a high standard of play.

When your team is fighting hard to get better, I think it is easy to be ultra-sensitive to the blame/fault process.  Especially in the heat of competition, be that at practice or in a game.  I'm going to refer to this as the "responsibility process".  As a player, I think it is natural to want to know if a turnover was the result of your mistake and how you can correct it.  As a teammate, I think it also feels like your duty to hold your teammates accountable, and even let them know if they made an error that needs fixing.  As with most things, I think there is a full spectrum of good and bad ways to go about this.

The little things matter a lot here.  I think the way a team goes about assigning and accepting responsibility is massively important in the long term development process.  If handled badly, the responsibility process can put a huge amount of pressure on interpersonal relationships, and as a result, team culture.  I think this can build up over the course of the 7 month college season and really wear guys down, leading to frustration, burnout, even quitting.

This gets further complicated by the wide range of perspectives and personalities most teams have.  In particular, maybe your team has guys who thrive when shouted at and love that pressure. Maybe you also have guys who hate that and feel that they're being attacked with that approach to the responsibility process.  Maybe you have guys who are off in their own world and need to be alerted to things, or maybe you have other guys who verbally berate themselves whenever they think they mess up.  So how can all those different approaches be managed at once, constructively?

I have a few theories that I like:

Trust

I think trust has to be a constant at all times.  I like to talk about trust when coaching.  It takes effort to build and give trust.  I like to design practices that give players a reason to trust in each other and themselves.  For example: everyone on Bolt throws a minimum of 50 throws every time we see each other.  I can put a guy in the game and trust him to complete a 20 yard open side flick, because I have seen him do it at least 3 times a week for the past 7 months.  I can trust his ability to do so, his team can trust his ability to do so (they've seen him do it), and he can trust in it (since he's put in the work).  Drills, games, and conditioning should build trust, not erode it.

Feedback

I think that the ability to accept and give feedback is massively important to the responsibility process.  I think teams must be constantly challenging themselves to do this well.  Some caveats: 1. It must be recognized that different players will receive feedback very differently (i.e. it doesn't matter what you say, it matters what they hear).  2. Feedback must always be constructive in nature.  3.  It must be clear at all times that the objective is to create the best team possible, together.  Feedback without constructiveness is just blame and degrades team culture.  Language and tone matters a lot here.

Lift Your Teammates Up

I think that if we are truly focused on creating the best team possible, the best version of ourselves as a team, we should always be striving to elevate each other.  This could mean a lot of different things.  I think the critical piece of this theory is that you are the support system for your teammates.  When times get tough or things get chippy in practices or games, I think it is imperative for players to be able to rely on each other.  Good plays should be encouraged and reinforced by teammates.  If the team energy is low, a player should help their teammates bring it back up.  This requires mental effort and must be practiced.  I think this is critical to creating a healthy team culture and giving guys room to grow.

-----

Aside:

I hate "chilly" and "two hands".  They're just noise and are meaningless.  It's like shouting "catch it" to a receiver.  Totally pointless, a waste of energy, faceless non-constructive blame.

Focus, Desire, Belief

"Effort alone does not win titles.  Effort -- hard as it is, and admirable as it is that you give it -- is like punching the clock.  Focus and desire and belief is what wins."  - Z

Focus

Desire

Belief

"This year's book is still open.  Let's make the last chapter a story of FOCUS, DESIRE, and BELIEF."  - Z

Photo credit: Ultiphotos.com  

[NUT] Some thoughts on motivation...

From: RF

To: [NUT]

Date: Tue, Mar 5th, 2013 at 7:30 PM

Subject: Some thoughts on motivation...

Hey NUT,

I have been thinking a lot lately about the direction of the team and why we sacrifice in order to work and improve. I've had a great fucking time this year pushing with my brothers on this team and I think it would be beneficial to run you guys through how I approach each and every practice, tournament, gym session, film session, etc.

Every day I motivate myself to be the best I can be through two main concepts:

1.  Plateaus-

“If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else. It will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.” –Bruce Lee

To me, the true essence of intensity and discipline can be summed up by the concept of plateaus. In all facets of the game (and in life), we reach what we believe to be impenetrable limits, both on an individual and on a team level. For the past two years, I, among many on NUT, have tacitly presumed college regionals to be the limit of our potential. Within this mental barrier, my thoughts over the past two years have been limited by irrational doubts. I convinced myself that teams like Illinois and Michigan were simply too good; they had a larger pool of athletes to draw from, they were more experienced, they had tasted victory before and were hungrier than I was. The problem here lies not in the content of these thoughts and doubts, but rather in their mere existence. There will always be moments, both mental and physical, in which we try to set limits on what we can do. This cannot happen. As a team, it is essential that we understand the concept of working through plateaus and constantly reaching for more. I am always fucking hungry for more. If we are truly hungry, we can take down big, athletic teams. It just takes one hell of a disciplined and concerted effort to reach a higher plateau of ultimate play. 

In every aspect of the game, you need to evaluate what plateau you are at and ask yourself: how can I improve? What can I do in order to challenge myself and my teammates? During practice, this is crucial. How can I stop more break throws? How do I position myself in specific defensive situations? When I am on the sidelines, how do I effectively communicate with my teammates who are on the field? If you want to truly succeed at ultimate, then you must be brutally honest with yourself each and every day. You must take humility to the max and understand that you are an essential member of a continuous unit that succeeds only when you push it to. This unit demands you realize that when your rate of improvement has stalled, it is time to work harder and level up. Most importantly, you must remain disciplined in this approach. It is not enough to purely push yourself completely day in and day out with no strategic direction. 

As a team, we are going somewhere and we fucking know it. When we play an opponent, we don't care what that opponent has or has not accomplished. Our opponent will play hard and will play honest, but we will fight our hardest to win and grow because we have pushed through plateaus and have learned from our past failures.

2. Failure- 

At last week’s practice, Ian called me out on having written the words, “Failure is not an option” on my hand. While this is a cute saying to think about when doing homework or masturbating, this phrase is simply not true. Failure is always an option. In fact, it is an option that, more often than not, dominates and corrodes our mentality late in a match. When we are down in a game, when the other team is in better shape or seems to want it more than we do, failure fights against our mental toughness. Failure creeps into our physical and mental faculties until it convinces us that it is OK to rest and stop pushing, that it is OK to accept defeat. In these situations, failure is no longer merely an option but rather it is the only option. As we struggle and get down on ourselves and our teammates, we begin to accept failure as inevitable. We begin to make excuses aimed at explaining why we are losing because it’s comfortable to accept failure as the only option. It’s easy to sulk after a lost point and blame the circumstances of the game as the core contributors to our defeat.

How I see it and what I think we all must understand is that failure is always a choice. We either choose to succeed or we choose to fail, it is that fucking simple. From being down in a hard-fought game to questioning whether or not you want to give it your all at practice on a cold, wintry night, you will always have a simple (but not easy) choice. You can either choose to be comfortable, or you can choose to fight until complete exhaustion. We will all fail on this team. You will play points where you let yourself and your teammates down. This is OK. As a collective unit of brothers we can never see failure as the only option and we especially cannot see it as defeat. It is opportunity. We must continually pound away at the gym, at practice, and at tournaments so that we can constantly refine our skill at success. Even if we have fought hard and convinced ourselves that we have finally found the elusive path to success, there will be times when we will still fall down. Again, this is OK. We must learn from this and grow from it. Following every practice and tournament we need to evaluate how to move forward and progress. Why did Kenyan beat us last weekend and how do we fix it? Why does our energy falter late in the game and what can we do to counter this? 

I’ll grant that our belief muscle is small and weak. An atrophied muscle cannot move large objects. But if we push this muscle 110% at every practice and at every tournament; if we dream about victory late at night when we toss and turn in beds littered with black, rubber field pellets; if we regularly imagine seducing this fully-formed belief muscle back to our bedroom after a long night on the Keg dance floor; it will steadily grow. It will gain on other teams who do not constantly push themselves to believe. Eventually, it will even surpass the strength and finesse of Holterman's glutes. If we choose success and everything that it entails, if we push our belief muscle as hard as we possibly can, then we will move forward and obtain progress. If we instead choose to fail from the start, then we will never know what strength is possible. 

We must accept that failure is always an option. But we must choose the path of success and exhaustion because it is the only path that will take us where we need to go. Failure can either stop us or fuel us. 

In the end, emotional intensity is a double-edged sword. I understand that at times I can let my emotions get the best of me and this is not OK. Too much emotion can let failure take over the mind and, consequently, corrode my discipline and humility. I know this and I will work on it. My motivation to pursue higher levels of intensity, discipline, and humility is defined through the parameters of failure and plateau. They may seem too simple or corny to be taken seriously, but to me they define the world of ultimate that I inhabit each and every day. I fuel myself with these ideas and I constantly create more for myself to be hungry for. I feast off of these values each and every day and look towards others to help me in this endeavor. I remind myself of what is at stake and I fear not being the best player I can possibly be. I fear someday being afraid of failure. I hope that you will understand how these two concepts come to define my efforts to work at practice and at the gym. 

It is not about the end goal, it is about the process, NUT. We must invest ourselves completely in this process if we are ever going to achieve what we desire. 

Let’s pound some Cunth tonight and see what exhaustion really feels like. Its time to get hungry. 

-Johnny "crushing it since '92" Frisbee

A Snapshot

I feel pretty good.  I've been moving well today, running reset cuts hard, getting open and hitting my spots.  My throws feel on the money, no turnovers yet today that I can recall.  I'm playing much better defense too, my legs still can bring the heat despite this being late in the 6th game this weekend.  Better than yesterday, that's for sure.  It feels good to be out here.

My team is doing well.  We're connecting on shots, encouraging each other, following the plan, keeping energy high.  Belief is strong in us, today.

The weather in West Chester, OH is flawless.  Sunny but not too hot, a slight cross-wind.

I don't know the score, but I know it's close because I overheard some of my teammates talking about it a few minutes ago on the sidelines.  This might be a big point.  Game point?  I'm not sure.  I push that out of my mind, it doesn't change how I'll approach this point.

I look over at Nick, on the line to my left.  He's fiddling with his jersey.  He looks back, we touch knuckles and nod knowingly.  It feels good.

Kennedy talks about the plan for a few seconds.  It's familiar.  Matt says something about being an "Alpha" and counts us down to clap in unison.  We clap.

I take a moment to breathe, refocus, and release the butterflies in my chest.  This only takes a few seconds.  I've done this before almost every point I've played today.  It feels familiar, too.

The pull goes up, it's a good one.  Brickyard's been pulling well all day.  I catch the pull, feel the disc in my hands, hit Kennedy.  Time to work.

-----

After putting it in the big box for the horses most of the game, our Oline worked it 70 yards to win on universe.  We scored on a 6 yard open side pass from Santi to Vock.  Brickyard backed us all day, terrified of being beaten in one throw.  Without our foundational ability to work it down the field, we would have been watching the game to go from the sidelines.

[NUT] Fwd: Northwestern Shout-out

---------- Forwarded message ----------

From: beau

Date: October 31, 2013, 12:54:58 PM CDT

Subject: Re: Northwestern Shout-out

To: C

CC: [NUT]

Hello Northwestern Nuts,

This is beau from revolver. It has come to my attention that your IHD needs a little boost in the confidence department. You can have both, in fact they complement each other nicely. However if you have a bunch of IHD and no confidence you will probably go down like ship in rough seas. You are all in this boat together, it's not always going to be smooth sailing: the waves are going to rise, the winds going to howl, but that is when you have to get all hands on deck, baton down the hatches, grit your teeth, and harness that storm for the good of your team. Don't shy away from it and hide below deck, embrace it. Sure you will capsize a bunch at first, but if you keep righting the boat, working together, grinning at the adversity, eventually you will see that storms are just winds that make you can use to go fast. Confidence is a sail, let it catch too much wind and you'll flip but too little and you will have a hard time going anywhere. Find the right size sail Nuts and use it.

Cheers, beau

Beau, Mark, Mac - Finals '09

Ceilings

I think one of the biggest things holding people back from improving is the lack of recognition that improvement can be made.  I think I would consider this falling under the "belief muscle" theory.  [Chuck: "Belief is a muscle that must be exercised."]  I think it's pretty hard for people to measure improvement in themselves, as gains tend to be incremental and appear marginal (until they aren't).  This concept is basically the enemy of the "growth mindset", and I think it crops up a lot with all levels of players.  

I'm going to call this a "ceiling".  Basically a limit you set for yourself based on your expectation of growth and estimation of your own ability.  It could be related to a specific throw ("My flick just isn't good"), athleticism in general ("I can't jump/I'm not good at 3v3"), or knowledge based ("I don't understand our endzone offense").  It could even be logistics based ("I don't know how to order jerseys, I've never done that before").

I think people set ceilings for themselves all the time.  I think it is comfortable, easy, even natural to set ceilings.  It feels right to set the bar for yourself based on what you think you know you can do and you think you know you can't do.

The thing is, I think ceilings are some of the worst traps a player can set for themselves.  Once you decide you can't improve at something, it's easy to dismiss it.  Then you don't practice or improve at it and essentially self-fulfill your limit.

I think overcoming ceilings requires both mental and physical work.  Mentally I think that it's important to hold the belief that consistent hard work can pay off, and bring this approach to practices, the gym, and the field.  Physically I think it's important to actually put in the work (duh).  First you must believe improvement is possible, then you must go out and improve, to demonstrate that belief.  Then you're back on your path and working past the ceiling.

For individual improvement, I don't think there are any real limits that are worth discussing.  No ceilings that exist that can actually be reached.  I prefer to think about it as a bunch of paths.  As in, how far along that path are you and how many steps can you take down that path today?  Tomorrow?  This season?

I think that ceilings can be set by a team as well.  I think the way this happens is that a shared belief is created about the ability of a team to perform at a certain level.  I feel this is a big mental trap.  I also think there are a number of effective ways to overcome this team ceiling.  Again, I think it's both mental and physical.  First, how do you address belief?  Maybe your team has a way to dismiss outcome and focus on process. (I think team ceilings are mostly outcome oriented)  Maybe your team has a mental tool like focusing on "fighting for each point".  Secondly, how do you put in the physical work?  Building critical mass of throwing repetition, strength and conditioning.  Creating a physical foundation that the team can trust in and rely on when the pressure is on.

Jack (Rogue Falcon) liked to talk about plateaus during his NUT captaincy, both with strength training and improvement in general.  Ceilings are no different.  I think it takes work to recognize them in yourself and put in the mental and physical effort points to get back on the path.

Thoughts from Frisco

I went down to Frisco to spectate and root for Nemesis, Machine, and the UPA.

-The grass fields at the field site were immaculate.  The fields in Rockford will be far worse, and that's really unfortunate.

- No one likes playing on turf.  It's hot and the surface is way harder, leading to quite a few broken bones.

- Texas in early October is great.  It's sunny and warm.  Calling it now: Rockford will be in the 50s and very windy next year.

- Revolver is operating on another level.  This feels obvious now, but the sharpness of their cuts and throws across the roster made them a lot better than the sum of their parts.  This was apparent in both pool play and bracket play games I watched.  Is anyone playing better than Cassidy right now?  That guy was unbelievably dominant this year.

- Warm ups matter.

- Mental game is a huge factor in elimination games, but I think experience isn't the only weapon teams have against it.  I think an easy way to assess nerves level is to count how many errors are made on routine plays.  Riot was massively more experienced than Brute Squad in finals games, but very clearly was way more nervous.

- The UPA was probably good enough to make semis.  Rather than this being a detriment to the level of the mixed division, this should be a compliment to the level of the players (especially women) on that team.

- Coaching matters a ton.  Or, having a person who can dedicate their energy to watching your team play and offer strategy matters.  The player/captain system puts too much pressure on leadership.  I think it's impossible to both play, line call, and see the game clearly enough to react/adjust well at a high level.

- The format is horrible.  Players are beginning to feel that Thursday doesn't matter, and it's really hurting the tournament as a whole.  It hurts the players because it puts them in an awkward position and forces them to go through the motions.  I think the format must be fixed for next year.  At a tournament with a national championship on the line, success and failure should be cut and dry.  There should be no room for guesswork.

- Machine made semis in storybook fashion, winning over defending champ Bravo and long-time rival Ring of Fire.  This was their outcome goal for this year, really the last several years.  It feels good to have them perform in big moments and show that success is possible, however a team defines it.  I think making semis by going through Ring is a career defining win (so far) for a lot of those guys.

- Lien won a title with Brute Squad in dominant fashion.  This puts her in some pretty good company.  The list of Northwestern Ultimate alumni who have won club titles is now: Ness (Fury), Kath (Scandal), Lien (Brute).  Unsurprisingly, these are all Gung-Ho alumni.

- The big man theory: having a dominant big man who can bail out your offense seemed like a consistent presence across semis level teams.  I mean dominant in the sense that if no one is open and your offense has no options, they can just put it up and have it work out.  On the Machine dline this was George, Oline it was Goose.  (aside, AJ could be this if he wanted to be)  Revolver has Beau, Sockeye has Rehder, Riot has Jaclyn, Brute has Kami/Lien.  I think it's interesting that with all the offensive strategy on display, the very best teams will go to their athletes once or twice a game in times of offensive need.  I think this happens because strong defense forces it, but if it works out it tends to be backbreaking.  I also think that 90% of offensive points aren't about that at all.

- Why are Chicago teams so much worse at throwing than everyone else?  This continues to mystify me.

- I hate the revolver jerseys.  Black print on navy?  What were they thinking?!

- I used to think that teams could choose one of two options: try to win or try to develop.  Now I think that framing the season like that is a mistake.  I think the answer is always try to develop, it's just a matter of how and what to develop with that years version of a team.  For example: a team will try to develop a better plan for defensive offense.  Trying to win feels like a given, so why even discuss it?

- I like the idea of killmode blacks from Ironside.  I didn't love the design though.  Aside: Animal is dirty.  Was Tyler Chan the best rookie at nationals?

- Nemesis finished 16th, but notched a good win vs Quebec Iris.  A lot of youth and good energy there, which should pay dividends down the road if directed well.

- You miss stuff if you just watch the livestreams.  Being there in person is very different and worth it if it can be managed.  Would highly recommend.

- BMW is retiring and he will be missed.  I think he was one of the best leaders and voices in Chicago, not to mention his obvious skills as a player.  I am glad he was able to make it to semis prior to his retirement.

- How many more years can Beau keep his spot at the top of the big man food chain?  I suspect his retirement will correlate with the beginning of a slow decline for revolver.