College Nationals

Hello.

I have not written recently and thought that I should make a new post and throw some fun photos into the mix.

As noted by Lori in previous posts, our trip to Idaho was great. Although it was only a long-weekend, we had fun while we were out west. The landscape and topography is vastly different than ours here in Ohio. There is so much to see in this world. I look forward to a return trip to see Kara and Ethan, and the chance to see more of Idaho.

To catch you, the reader, up to speed.....Lori and I had a fun filled weekend. On Friday, we took a personal day off from work to volunteer at College Nationals (Ultimate). As volunteers, our designated role was as official scorekeepers and statisticians. We used walky-talkies to radio in the scores of games every half-hour, halftime, and final score....which was then updated at HQ and on the WWWeb. The cool thing about volunteering at Nationals is that you get a great view of the games, while being an "official". I also got a chance to chit-chat with lots of nice people. For example, while I kept score during the Colorado / Texas game, I spoke with a number of Colorado parents who had flown out to see the games. Big crowd, nice people. The tournament seemed to be a success and was well organized. Credit to the poeps in Columbus. The fields were great and probably very nice to play on. Lori and I watched games on Friday and Saturday. The games seemed fairly spirited. I enjoyed watching Stanford, Colorado, Carleton for their offense and methodical nature (especially Stanford). Colorado has a great O-line with lots of height and speed. The tournament was won by Madison, WI who played tuff defense and likes to gamble on offense with the quick score big bomb, long game. I was not impressed with their spirit as much as some of the other elite teams that were in the quarterfinals and semis.

For all you frisbee nerds reading this, I encourage you to watch college nationals some time in your life...as well as Open Club Nationals. It is a great learning opportunity...frisbee speaking. College Nats. appears to be dominated by the big schools ie: Big conference schools with large enrollment. The exception would be Carleton college in Minnesota (where they have a huge intramural program of ultimate) and some of the East coast teams. Pitt who qualified again, can boast from benefitting from a great summer league program and high school ultimate leagues. I am guessing that if programs like OU want to get better, than they will likely have to have tryouts, an A squad and a B squad....and a better practice facility/grounds. The quarter system is also a drag and not conducive to the college ultimate schedule. I wonder how many teams at Nationals are on the quarter system. OSU for sure.....I will have to look into that one...



Friday night, Lori and I stayed with Doug and Gina who live in Delaware, Ohio...just a bit north of Columbus. We went out for pizza, which was yummy, and then a stop at UDF for ICE CREAM!