BY: Michelle Ng
March 5, 2008
Building relationships on your own team can be a season-long process and good chemistry with teammates often takes years to build. So why even think about investing time in building relationships with players on other teams?
I think there are three big payoffs for building relationships with other players in your Section and Region (and around the Nation!)— it is an investment worthy of your time because these relationships:
1) Help to build respect and trust, which translates into more spirited and honest play, even at the highest levels of ultimate.
2) Help to promote more women’s ultimate.
3) Lead to the development of friendships with amazing people.
My own experiences playing with Berkeley and Texas have convinced me of the payoffs of building relationships in the ultimate community. My first experience with building relationships in college women’s ultimate was at Nationals in 2005. My (former) team, Berkeley, was playing against MIT in a very intense pre-quarters game. We were down 14-11 and our team and our sidelines were emotionally drained. Then Stanford came over to our sidelines to cheer us on, after winning their own pre-quarters game. We ended up winning the game 16-14, in large part due to their support. Prior to this, Berkeley and Stanford did not have a very deep relationship and while our win also ensured our Region a strength bid, there is little doubt in my mind that Stanford was cheering for us at least partially out of pride for our Section.
This small act of goodwill was the beginning of a more collaborative effort between our two teams in building women’s ultimate in the Bay Area Section. The following fall, we worked with Stanford to organize a one-day scrimmage with all of the local college teams in order to give our rookies an opportunity to play in a low-pressure situation early in the season. Our rookie retention that year was better than ever and the tradition continues, two seasons later. In fact, the local college teams now include a high school team, ACLC Sweet Meat, in the scrimmage day—by fostering a positive relationship Sweet Meat, the teams hope to expand opportunities for women’s ultimate in the Bay Area among middle and high school players. ACLC has also scrimmaged the Berkeley and Stanford B teams on various occasions and when I helped coach ACLC in 2006, Berkeley players made regular guest coaching appearances, further developing relationships with these young players.
The relationship between Berkeley and Stanford has continued to blossom over the past few seasons—alums of the two teams now live together and many players, both past and current, play together on the Bay Area women’s club team, Slackjaw. While we still give each other a hard time about who is the cooler team off the field (Berkeley, obviously!), there is a very clear mutual respect between our two teams that makes playing in the Bay Area Section a lot of fun. Berkeley has also had a long-standing positive relationship with Davis and Santa Cruz, the two other teams in our Section, and the good spirit has gone as far as baking pies for each team at Sectionals every year. During my senior year, Berkeley and Davis players hung out regularly on off-weekends and some of my best memories of undergrad involve the Pleiades. The Bay Area Section is highly regarded as one of the most competitive sections in the country— it is probably one of the most fun to play in as well as there is a high level of respect and trust among all of the teams and friendships span across all four schools.
Berkeley has also had a good relationship with other teams in the Northwest Region, namely Oregon. For the past couple of years, Berkeley and Oregon have sent a joint team to participate at Summer Solstice in Eugene and last summer, this team also included some Texas and Florida alums. The Berkegon Love Project, as the Berkeley-Oregon relationship has been named by some of the older alums, has led to extremely spirited games between the two teams as well as helped to foster a greater sense of community in the Region. Many strong friendships have been forged between Berkeley and Oregon players, and when I moved to the South Region last college season, I was fortunate enough to reconnect with a former Oregon player who had transferred to Vanderbilt. The friendly relationship between our two teams created the opportunity for instant friendship, even though we were miles removed from the Berkegon Love Project. This year, we are both captaining our respective teams and the friendship between our teams has developed as well.
My current team, Texas, has also taken a large role in developing relationships with the teams in our Section and Region. This past fall, we organized a one-day mixer with all of the college teams in our Section and also included local female club players. It was a great opportunity to get to know people on other teams and our rookies really enjoyed meeting some of the great people who play our sport, which got them further hooked on ultimate. Since then, we have worked with Texas A&M on a hat tournament fundraiser and we regularly produce a team newsletter which is sent to all of the female ultimate players in the Austin area. These projects have drastically deepened our relationship with the teams in our Section and friendships have been developed between many of the players on these teams. By building relationships with both the club and college teams in our Section, we hope to improve the quality and quantity of women’s ultimate being played in Texas.
Texas has also taken on a large role in running tournaments to promote more ultimate in our Region. We hosted three new tournaments this year: Melee Fall Tournament, Elite Eights, and Texas Throwdown. These tournaments have given teams in this part of the country more opportunities to play quality ultimate. Our tournaments have also attracted some of the nation’s top teams from outside of our Region such as Colorado, Wisconsin, and Michigan, which has given teams in our Section and Region more exposure to national-level competition. Texas plans to collaborate with Wisconsin next season to further develop these tournaments, in a joint effort to promote more women’s ultimate and to provide up-and-coming teams with opportunities to play high-level ultimate at tournaments within driving distance. The development of a positive relationship with teams in this part of the country has made running these tournaments possible. We were lucky to have the support of the Kansas Ultimate program in running Elite Eights, the Mizzou Ultimate program in running Texas Throwdown, and the support of many of our friends’ teams in attending and promoting these tournaments.
To further break down my experiences with respect to the three payoffs I listed at the beginning of this piece:
1) Last season, Texas was on less-than-stellar terms with two top-tier teams. Early this fall season, we established a friendly relationship with the leadership of both of these teams and worked together to build the respect and trust between our teams. This has very clearly translated into much more spirited games this season—our matchups have been intense and the scores close, but the games have lacked the ticky-tack calls and negative yelling that marred our matchups last year. Our teams now exchange heckles and pull pranks on each other at tournaments, our mascots are friends on Facebook, and we went as far as to send both of these teams holiday cards. At our last tournament, a carload of one of these teams slept at the house we were staying at when their captain, whom I would now consider to be a friend, called at 1am because the building they were supposed to stay at was locked. A small effort can completely change the dynamic of two teams’ relationships in the course of just a few months.
2) As described above, Texas has engaged in various efforts to promote more women’s ultimate in our Section and Region. By building relationships with players and teams in this part of the country, we have established the contacts in order to be able to promote and develop a series of regionally competitive tournaments, which benefits everyone involved. The support of our friends has been crucial in making these tournaments happen and we hope that the long-term effect is the increased competitiveness and continued development of women’s ultimate.
3) There are many incredible people who play our sport. It takes very little effort to meet some of them—do the simple things such as introducing yourself before you flip for jersey color or going up to the TD to thank them for a great tournament. The bottom line is that most of us want the same thing—more opportunities to play women’s ultimate. That bond alone is enough to serve as the base for a deeper friendship. Small but sincere interactions at frisbee tournaments may be the catalyst for life-long friendships. This possibility is well-worth the effort it takes. I feel blessed to have met a number of amazing people in the ultimate community and I know that I am not alone in feeling this way.
Building relationships with players on other teams takes time and energy, but the payoffs are enormous. The development of our sport depends on it and the sense of community we all enjoy is the result of the time we invest into our sport and each other. Small efforts can increase the level of trust and respect among our teams, help to promote more opportunities for women’s ultimate, and lead to the development of life-long friendships. The bottom line is that many people in the ultimate community want to achieve these things and if we all put a small amount of effort into building relationships with each other, our sport will benefit immensely.
