The Hopkins season has ended and we failed to become 3 time defending state champions. All in all, the season was a good one in which most began the season all thinking this was a "rebuilding" year. Our team was composed mainly of players who last year lost at State to Como Park in a Chumpionship bracket game. No disrespect to Como Park, but no one will argue that they are contending State Champions any time soon. Maybe I'm still mad that I didn't get a hot dog from them at the Granite City Letdown ... I mean ... Granite City Classic, which was officially the worst tournament I've ever attended.
Story time: games were to begin at 9:00. At 9:10, there was an impromptu captain's meeting in which about 75% of the important information was discussed. Then "is there a girl's schedule?" was asked. "Um ... ", a dramatic pause, "... yeah, I think so, there should be," was the response. Still, no full schedule or maps were out for the boys and the first round was to end at 10:00 because there were 9 rounds in this one day event. That's right, we had 8 games and 1 bye. We began our game at round 9:35. We did manage to complete the game before 10:00, however, with a winning score of 11-0. The rest of the game were not all that different, including the finals against Cathedral in which we won 13-3.
Cathedral went on to be given the 1 seed at the State tournament, forcing a semi final between the two best teams (by far) in the state, Hopkins and Cretin-Derham Hall. We lost. Despite an 8-6 lead at half and receiving with the wind at our back at half, CDH went on a 6-2 run to defeat us 12-10. In the other semi, Mounds View (a team that we easily defeated in pool play) defeated Cathedral. CDH went on to win a well deserved state title in a 15-3 domination of Mounds View.
On the girl's championship game sideline, John Sandahl was asking about whether we had played CDH before (somewhat in reference to the seeding) and I said we had and we lost by 2. I added that we had defeated Cathedral 13-3 two weeks earlier. "Yeah, but there were missing their best player," John said.
"John, we were missing our two best players," I countered.
The next thing he said really surprised me. [closed circuit to Greg: do not read this next sentence] Greg Arenson, our captain, and one of the finest high school ultimate players in the country was standing directly between John and me as John replied, "Eric Johnson is way better than anyone on your team."
Greg says, "Gosh, thanks a lot, John."
I then said, "John, Eric played today and they lost to Mounds View."
"That's true," he conceded. He didn't add anything further and slowly walked away.
This addresses (on the surface) a point I've been making a lot this season: one player in ultimate cannot elevate a team as he can in most other sports (especially the 4 majors). I'll dedicate an entire post to this later.
Back to the item at hand, back in September, knowing our squad, it would have been hard to believe we could come as far as we did, but with such massive improvement from some of our guys, we did fight our way back toward the top of the pack at State. A third place finish was not indicative of our strength and more a product of some really poor seedings as I think everyone would agree we were at least the second best team there. Even at Nationals, we were about the 6th or 7th best team there.
With that in mind, I'd have to call the season a success. At times, the talk nationally was that Hopkins was "a joke" because we "lost everyone that was good" and other similar notions. But we overcame that and picked it up to be in the pack of some National caliber teams. We survived losing a very strong senior class AND a changing of the guard in the coaches' positions. We nearly doubled the number of participants in our program, which necessitated replacement of 3 coaches who left and recruiting one more. I learned a ton as a coach, too much to mention here, but I will outline it in another post. Not to mention, we strengthened an already very strong group of sophomores and juniors, as well as solidified some younger talent (and their learning structure) to prevent future "rebuilding" years. In fact, if you ignored wins and losses, and took only into account everything else that this team is about, this season was probably the most successful Hopkins has had.
And next year, we're not going to have to ignore wins and losses.
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4 comments:
Of all the people in the high school ultimate community, John deserves the most credit for growing the league and developing this cities' juniors ultimate. If the specifics are as you said this might be a minor slip for him in an overwhelmingly positive influence on juniors ultimate.
I suggest focusing your thoughts on what you could have done better as a coach and a team, and not how you got cheated out of seedings.
First, I wholeheartedly agree with Mr/Ms. anonymous. Every spring when I was Minneapolis, John John devoted several months towards getting teams and coaches together to play during league nights and tournaments. Every level of play has benefited from John's work from basic league play to Sub Zero. Every team in the upper Midwest has gained from John's tireless efforts. Look no further than the national champions from Madison to see several great examples.
Second, let's assume John was wrong in his seedings and that player so-so really wasn't that great. The best argument you had in your pocket was the fact you were 1-1 with the team eventually seeded first AND you were returning state champs. I would have argued some sort of hey, we split with them plus we are returning champs.
Although you believe that 2 good players are better than 1, that is a subjective argument. Which is usually a lot harder to convince others to change their mind, especially those in charge of seeding.
Ok. I'm going to attempt to stop this from spiraling into a hate fest on words I never said.
Ordinarily, I prefer not to respond anonymous comments, but I also don't want to this post to garner the wrong impressions because of an anonymous post.
1) I'm an enormous fan of the work John John has done for the league. He, with the help of a few key others, essentially created this league. If not for him, the league would probably simply be the "CDH/Simley/Hopkins weekly round robin pick up games" leagues. I am especially aware of the league's impact (and indirectly John's) on three levels: One, as a coach of a high school team, two, as an alumnus of a team who's benefited greatly from high school talent, and three, as a player on a club team who's rostered high school players for years. John's contribution to youth ultimate is unmatched in the state and probably the region.
2) I'm not complaining about the seedings. This post was in no way sour grapes. I've told people repeatedly that the seedings had virtually no effect on the outcome of our game with CDH. Further still, I think that defining the seedings was a challenging job that had no perfect solution and what was decided was probably not all that wrong or unfair. But John presumably wanted to say something about the seedings and I merely offered a counter point to the justification he volunteered. Further still, it wasn't John who was solely responsible for the seedings, so if I were complaining, which I am unmistakably NOT doing, it wasn't he who would be held personally culpable. I know who was among the group deciding seedings, so I would never put personal blame directly on his shoulders -- nor the group's shoulders, for that matter.
I won't lie, though, I was disappointed that the seedings forced a CDH/Hopkins semi. I was more disappointed, though, that seedings were announced the night before the tournament, allowing no time for any adjustments, if need be. We all help to run a VOLUNTEER organization, however, and mistakes, oversights, and imperfections are the nature of our "business" and expected. With any luck, we learn from them and avoid them in the future.
Recap:
John John is the best.
The seedings were neither unfair nor the reason Hopkins lost to CDH.
joe's brother,
The intent of your post was undeniably clear. I know John well (how "well" is not important), and he deservers more credit than anyone gives him. So do you. Speaking before thoroughly thinking is a mistake even the wisest of people make. Fact: Hopkins Ultiamte was a success this season. Greg is not necessarily the best high school player in the state, though maybe the most fun to play with (I had the opportunity at the YWCA indoor tournaments). And in the end, is that not what counts? In regards to the first comment, thanks for your thoughts... anyways, I look forward to the upcoming posts. Keep it coming. tesha
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