Adding a third gold star to that sleeve

(These thoughts have been burning a hole in my drafts folder so it's time to purge)

A belated congrats to the Brodags of Wisconsin (although I've congratulated most of you in person). Taking the 2008 College championship title makes them back-to-back winners, with three titles over the past six championships (and a close loss to Florida away from four in six).

Give credit to CUT as well for making their way into the semis and taking their part in bringing the double strength bid back to the the Central Region. As if there wasn't enough historical evidence of the late season win when it counts during the Series trend, the (comparably) short guys pulled together another great run when most don't give them much attention.

Sub Zero's vacation period is coming to a close soon. I can only do some many early morning hill/plyo/sprint workouts before needing to play some real ultimate again. My nights have become so busy with taking care of my daughter so that we can avoid daycare costs, that most mornings I'm done running by 7 AM. It's a sickness.

SZ's tryouts ended well with (in my opinion) the toughest and most talented additions in all the years that I've been playing here including Hector (brings in welcome elite club experience), Chris Rupp (previous SZ experience and starting O line handler), and Grant Lindsley (elite college talent with elite club time as well), just to name a handful. The current roster contains only two players at 30 or older. I have a feeling that the possession game won't be our style.

There's also been much discussion lately as to Match's writings and the coverage of ultimate in general on the tails of the CBS coverage of college nationals. Compared to the current main stream popular sports environment, ultimate is intriguingly attacking from the complete opposite angle. As an off and on Deadspin reader, I read frequently about bloggers and the non-traditional media outlets gaining ground on sports coverage and the increasing resistance by print and television media due to a perceived lack of journalistic credibility.
Uniquely, ultimate receives little to no traditional attention, and therefore, because ultimate players love reading about and watching themselves, we fill our own need. This puts us right in the middle of "lacking legitimacy" camp. This doesn't mean that we can't or shouldn't gain attention this way, but we do need to have realistic expectations about our resources. Two great examples of which are Match, very entertaining and charismatic but needs to iron out the logical flow of an argument, and Kyle Weisbrod, very positive influence on the evolution of the game but brutal doing color commentary. Both seek to improve and expand the game we love, but journalists, we ain't. I cringe at a lot of the things that are written or portrayed about ultimate (this blog included), but as long as we continue to maintain grassroots culture and organic growth via electronic media. These things aren't necessarily good or bad. That's ultimate.