Roles

Reading one of Ryan's most recent posts got me thinking about what my role has been on the teams I've played on throughout my Ultimate career. Maybe this is blatant post plagarism, but almost nobody reads this thing anyway, so here are my thoughts.My role on a team has never been well-defined. I've had 4 coaches in 5 years of playing, and most were coaching for the first time, so I haven't had the benefit of an established program with an experienced coach. Now, the coaches were very experienced in terms of playing the game, and at least two of them had an incredible sense of not only how to play the sport, but how to teach it as well. Nevertheless, my specific role was never broken down for me until College Sectionals this year, so I've had to basically figure it out myself.

In high school, I basically chose to be a handler. I wanted to touch the disc and make the throws. I like how Ryan described it, because I feel the same way: I want the disc in my hands. I was neither tall nor naturally athletic, so I did two things that I saw as being the quickest path to being important enough to warrant possession: I worked my ass off in conditioning, and I learned to throw. Sophomore year, I was starting O-line as a secondary handler, and by junior year I was one of the primary offensive handlers for both man and zone. I lost my starting spot on defense, and for some reason accepted that as a matter of course--I was a little resentful, but believed that I was more of an offensive player anyway. Senior year, I took over. Though I wasn't that exceptional, and certainly not the best player on the team, I was the most consistent thrower. I picked up, anchored the zone offense, hucked in the pull play, and made almost every assist throughout the season. I feel like we were a second-tier team on the cusp of jumping into the first tier--the clearest example, for me, was 10-13 and 12-15 against CHS. I wasn't able to attend our game against Pennsbury, but my experiences at NUTC and JEM gave me a good idea of how I matched up against the best junior players in the country. I could carry an offense, break marks regularly, get open against good defenders, and play tight D against the ballers. I couldn't shut them down, but they couldn't shut me down either. I had trouble coming down with floaty shit, but I could still take dudes deep.

Going to Rutgers, I believed I was heading into another second-tier program. 5th, 5th, and 9th at Regionals, and a state school that had the potential to be big in the Ultimate world. I think we fell to the third tier this year, a rebuilding year, and yet I was not able to cement my place on the team as well as I would have liked. I got random playing time in the fall and early spring, on both O and D. I never picked up, was in the pull play only rarely, and played a wing in the zone O. I handled occasionally, but only in the ace position until Sectionals. I was frustrated by the lack of communication about my playing time, and to compensate I often tried to stay on for too many points in a row. Really, what bothered me is that I knew how to regulate my mental game, and nobody else did--I couldn't have expected them to, and it probably wasn't that important, but it still bothered me at times. I often felt jumbled, especially after having regulated my own playing time for more than a year, understanding when I needed to take myself out, and when I needed to get back in and use the previous point as fuel. Not only that, but I was completely out of my element--used to being a primary handler, I wasn't as prepared to step into a new role as I thought I would be. Consciously, I knew I would be in a new situation, a sub who doesn't yet have a niche on the field, but I don't think I really knew how much it would affect me.

But it's a new season. At Sectionals, Coach Mio told me what he expected of me on the field, and that did wonders for my mental game--I finally felt like my role was defined in such a way that I knew what to expect of my playing time. This year, now that I have experience with the team, and especially since I'm an officer, I feel like I will be able to define my role much more clearly. I'm hoping that this will prepare me for the challenge of bringing this team to Nationals.