Favorite Ultimate Moments (1st Edition)

This being my 7th year of ultimate, I've collected memories too numerous to mention all in one post. I imagine I could write about 2 dozen favorite moments from my ultimate career, but none of which involve a single game at Nationals -- college or club. My teams have never qualified and being that I vowed long ago to make my first trip to the Championships by UPA-invitation-only, I've never been a live-and-in-person spectator either.

The first edition favorites will include some memorable moments from two rather exciting games on Sunday at Beasterns of '03. Three teams finished 4-1 in our pool on Saturday. Our point diff was 0, which put us at #2 in the pool and pitting us against Kansas B first round Sunday. The rain came down hard on Saturday afternoon -- which reminds me, Lehigh had a kid pulling a soaking wet disc with his forehand and the disc still was making it to the back of the endzone. I wonder if that kid's still around. Anyway, the hard rain left large, deep puddles on the fields for Sunday morning. Several times during our game, while getting on D after the pull I would discover in a large puddle between me and the player I was to mark. One time in particular, a player that had been arguing with my teammates earlier in the game had the disc as I was approaching him. As I waded through Swamp Midfield in a full sprint, I made less of an effort to lift my feet out of the water with each stride. My failed efforts caused a significant deluge of muddy puddle water, engulfing the player, soaking his uniform, and disorienting him for the first 6 counts of the stall. In the four seconds that remained, he failed to find an open receiver and threw an incomplete pass as I snickered to myself.

Later in the same game, in what I believe to be one of his teammate seeking revenge, the player made a dangerously aggressive bid on one of my under cuts. He landed near my pivot foot and was slow to get up. Jakob was well covered, but streaking deep. As my mark slowly started to get up, predicting he'd have to push me off to get all the way up, I straddled his body, hucked it (as it was a free throw to the endzone), and called a foul as he fulfilled the push-off prophecy. My throw wasn't very good, but the disc came back on the contested foul. Actually, he never offically contested. He just yelled something like, "well what the hell was I supposed to do?"

We defeated Kansas B and faced Columbia in the quarters. A crosswind grew in this game and I made two fun plays. The first wasn't all that good, but the Columbia coach's reaction made it unforgettable. I was cutting on the backhand side when one of our handlers threw a floaty, bendy flick to the forehand cutters. As the 2 forehand cutters and their defenders positioned themselves under the disc, I started running towards them. I saw an opening among the group of 4 and jumped up and snagged the disc out from between them all. I landed awkwardly, falling to the ground about 2 yards away from the feet of the Columbia coach. With nothing but resignation in his voice, he exclaimed, "well, that's just the greatest play you're ever gunna see," and literally tossed his clipboard and pen in the air in defeat. Greatest play ever? Not hardly. Funniest opposing-coach exclamation ever overheard? Pretty much.

Late in the game, on what was probably the 50th floaty pass of the "tilt," I was chasing down a disc drifting out of bounds and yelled "get over here" to Bruss. I jumped out of bounds and completed the World's Greatest to him for a goal to extend our lead to 2, the final margin of victory for us.

Oh, and less of a favorite moment, but still memorable was when for about the 12th time in the semi-finals against Iowa State, Zach drew a ticky-tack foul to restart the stall by motioning a backhand into the arm of his mark (as is his trademark move). From no less than 25 yards away, Kevin Seiler in a determined pace towards Zach screams, "fuck you, you fuckin' faggot!" We all stood in shock with "where did that come from?" looks on our faces. Apart from that, the game was pretty uneventful, other than setting the groundwork for what would become a season long theme for us: Iowa State defeating us by a large margin.

More to come . . .

I’ve never heard the term Winner’s Remorse before, but I’m sure it’s been already been coined. I experienced it last night slightly and this morning in a big way. I guess it’s bound to happen when my opponents are usually my friends.

My games against my weekly match against Paul went

W, 15-8
W, 15-6
W, 15-4
W, 15-6

I was especially motivated to win today because for the first time since we’ve begun playing regularly again, he won 2 games in one session last week. He probably should have won a third game since he was up 13-8, but I ran the table to win 15-13. I probably only play at around 60% of my top game against him now and I’m winning easily (with the occasional random loss).

Despite my motivation to win, I really was only giving it about 70% effort today, though I will admit I was putting forth more concentration than I usually do. In each of the games, I had 11 points before he had 5, at which point he became very vocal with his frustration – with his misses and with my consistency. This is when I started experiencing this Winner’s Remorse.

And I let up.

I actually started making less of an effort and allowed him to score more points. Particularly in the third game, I gave no effort to finish the game four times serving at 14-1 until he finally put up a few points on his serve.

Last night in my league match, I experienced some Winner’s Remorse, but not quite to the same degree. My opponent, maybe the top player in the league besides myself, happens to be an angry, vocal guy. I destroyed in him the first game, 15-6. But when it got to be around 13-4, I stopped giving it my all. The second game surprised me a bit because it turned out to be one of the most fun games I’ve ever played. I was ahead 12-6 and we had a really long point, maybe 12 shots each, in which he dived twice and ended up killing it on a spectacular running shot that barely came off the back wall. At 12-7 then, I felt like it was over. I couldn’t beat that. Sure enough, he fought back to make it 13-11 and we each served probably 5 or 6 times at that score before I got an ace and an easy kill for the win.

We left the court and a crowd had gathered watching our game. Someone asked me what the final score was and that twinge of Winner’s Remorse hit me. I actually felt bad telling someone I had won directly in front of my opponent. In those situations, I’ve always felt more comfortable saying, “he whooped me,” than something like, “I won by 12.”

I have felt it in Ultimate, too, especially in the years where I played against Brother. After he transferred to UMD, the Main U matched up against them frequently. And it was always easier for me to shake hands/hug after the games where I’d lost.

What’s odd is that I do prefer winning, by an enormous margin, but this Winner’s Remorse is starting to get to me. Maybe it’s pity, maybe it’s sympathy, but at some point it might cost me more than a meaningless league game so whatever it is, I want to get rid of it.