You can cast your vote here: http://www.callahan-mvp.com/ or http://ultimate.scoreomatic.com/v4/users/callahan/vote.aspx

In order to help you make your decision, we wanted to create a repository for all of the Callahan highlight videos that have been released thus far (in alphabetical order):

As more videos come out, we will continue to add to this list.

Kami Groom, Washington University #7

Paula Seville, Michigan #22

http://youtu.be/8YrGded8tJs

Who do you think should get the award? Let us know below!

You can cast your vote here: http://www.callahan-mvp.com/ or http://ultimate.scoreomatic.com/v4/users/callahan/vote.aspx

In order to help you make your decision, we wanted to create a repository for all of the Callahan highlight videos that have been released thus far (in alphabetical order):

As more videos come out, we will continue to add to this list.

Alex Thorne, Pittsburgh #21

Dave Wiseman, Wisconsin #21

David Wenzel, Wisconsin-Milwaukee #14

Dayne Meyer, Washington State #3

Eric “EJ” Johnson, Luther #21

John Bloch, Oregon #8

Jordan Jeffery, Stanford #23

Nick Lance, Georgia Tech #11

Tommy Li, Claremont #16

Who do you think should win the award? Let us know below!

Standing on the sidelines near the east end zone for most of the backdoor final of the Georgia Tech versus Florida, I had a mostly unobstructed view of the game.  Almost everything happening was within my line of sight and after almost two hours watching high level college ultimate, I realized my heart was beating through my shirt.  Neither school is my alma mater.  It’s been four years since I stepped on the college playing field.  Yet this particular game was one of those instances that grabbed a hold of all players and spectators and produced tremendous emotional swings no matter who you rooted for.  The story lines only fed into the mental frenzy:  Georgia Tech hasn’t qualified for Nationals since before some of the current roster was born, Nick Lance is in the Callahan hunt and Florida has to go into hostile Atlanta territory to beat the hometown team.  What culminated for Tech was more than just a win.  The team exploded in a sheer embodiment of the triumph of victory.

Tech shouldn’t have been in this position: a two decade drought of the big stage as a result of some very recent near misses.  The 2006 team should have gone, loaded with (at the time) present and future Chain Lightning talent but alas they happened to be in the same region as Florida and Georgia who finished 1^st and T-3^rd in the nation respectively.  Had the current bid allocation rules been in place then, it’s easy to speculate that Tribe would have been a participant in Columbus.  The 2010 team should have gone, having beaten Georgia already twice that season including a recent sectional crown victory with some spectacular match-up play between Lance and Peter Dempsey that left a stunned Athens crowd near silent.  Though, when the bid was on the line in Tallahassee a few weeks later, Tech fell to Jojah in the game to go as the Dawgs continued their impressive Nationals qualifying streak by once again peaking at the right time.

This year, for the majority of the season, Tech was a bubble team at best, positioned tightly with Georgia and Florida in the rankings, which says a lot about the increased competition level among college open teams.  An eleventh hour second bid burst the prospects wide open and an unfortunate series of injuries to Jojah meant that the team that earned the second bid was unlikely to claim it.  The other prime contender for the ticket would be the Gators. Florida is, well Florida.  They’ve been an elite team for almost a decade now and have seen several classes of elite superstars take over the college game and progress on to the club circuit.  The fabulous critics of RSD have always been quick to point that “so and so has graduated so Florida is going to fall off.”  Well, they haven’t and scoffs at the perceived game breaking inabilities when compared to Gehret and Gibson and Smith only fuel the fire that is the Gator squad.

Is this a good explanation of the feelings that made up the diehard folks attending the game at the end of Sunday of regionals?  Probably not.  But factor in that those diehards were by and large a very dichotomous group, save for some raucous hecklers from Tennessee.  Florida Fuel had just qualified for Nationals themselves, which provided a hearty fan base for their ultimate family as well as slew of Tribe alumni and fans who took advantage of a local stage to hopefully see their team advance.  Past college nationals champions Dustin Travaglini, Joe Crinkley and Alton Gaines stalked the sidelines for Florida while past club nationals champions and Tribe alums Russell Snow and Jonathan Monforti did the same for Tech.  For an ultimate junkie like me, it was a great site to see.  Tech would go on a run and draw large cheers from the crowd.  Florida would go an equally impressive comeback in the second half which sparked excitement from the other half of the fans.  All of the past years which led to the past months which led to this one game left everyone overcome with at least a little bit of sensory overload.  Tech’s victory was not only a claim of a nationals berth, it was also a claim for all the invested emotion that both teams anted up through years of hard work.

So if Tribe ever wondered what comes next after reaching this point, they were certain to find out.  For me, it was apparent on all their faces: smiles.  Lots of them.  Little things now had meaning, such as Ramu Annamalai pointing out to me, breaking from shotgunning beers, that he unknowingly kept a lucky penny in his shorts pocket the entire game.  Jay Clark (jokingly) shrugging off his previous trips to the show with Tufts as casual and he’s used to this thing by now.  Everyone embraced the stereotype that a bunch of nerds could in fact play a hell of a game of ultimate.

Is this the peak of the mountain? Yes, but it’s only one mountain in a lifelong range.  There aren’t many scenarios that will spoil Tech’s trip to Boulder this year, but that means there’s a steeper slope downward next year.  On the other hand, I was very impressed with Florida’s standout freshman Bobby Ley.  He showed a lot of maturity and poise, not to mention spirit as well which bodes well for Florida’s future.  For now, kudos to Tribe and their return to Colorado for the first time since ‘92.

Feature Photo by Christina Schmidt of UltiPhotos

• NexGen Tour announces some 2012 tour dates. It’s on.

• Also, in case you are all wondering. It was the REAL Chad Larson’s birthday yesterday (i.e. the Iowa State alum that the mixed team, Chad Larson Experience, is named after).

• I2K looks beyond the numbers when it comes to success in Ultimate.

• Skyd is pleased to partner with Alex Smith to produce this sweet highlight reel of the games we shot at Stanford 2012. Enjoy.

The Wisconsin Hodags nominated Dave Wiseman for Callahan. Here’s his video:

Joel Wooten of Chain Lightning and George Stubbs of Ironside bid for a disc at the 2011 Club Championships. (Photo by Christina Schmidt)

]]> http://skydmagazine.com/2012/05/the-best-thing/feed/ 4 http://skydmagazine.com/2012/05/the-best-thing/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/SkydMagazine/~3/_GVVyd7Lciw/ http://skydmagazine.com/2012/05/diii-interviews-2012-carleton-college-gop/#comments Wed, 16 May 2012 07:00:11 +0000 Zack Purdy http://skydmagazine.com/?p=22060 Carleton Gods of Plastic come from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota (part of the North Central Region). And, yes, despite the feature photo for this page,  GoP is in fact an open team. If we are talking about teams who know how to win the D-III Championships, you have to start with GoP. They won the first official USAU D-III nationals which was also, coincidentally, held in Appleton, Wisconsin. They took a hiatus from D-III last year, but now they are back with a vengeance. They spent the Spring competing in high level DI tournaments around the country. While their results have not been spectacular, their 2nd place finish at regionals (Ahead of St. Olaf and behind St. John’s) clinched them the 7th seed at D-III Championship. While the D-III field in 2010 was significantly less competitive than it is now, don’t be surprised if GoP’s experience from 2010, as well as this Spring’s high level tournaments, allow them to make a run deep into D-III Championships. Also, GoP is one of the most fun-spirited teams in ultimate, as you may be able to tell by the pictures that they choose to be put in this feature. 

Now, here is an interview with captain Rhys Lindmark. Unfortunately, this was given to me in January. I hadn’t posted it until now. Thus, some of the stuff in the interview is a bit out-of-date. I try to update you guys where appropriate. Without further adieu:

Notable Roster turnover, young team? Veteran team?

Rhys: Lots of seniors graduated last year (10+). The youth of our team will be decided in a couple of weeks when we make cuts (endish of January) (So much could happen between now and the end of Ja-wait a second!) In any case, we will definitely have a good amount of rookies.

The GoP captains, Cory, Stockton and Rhys (from left to right), discuss important team business. - Photo by Jonathan Isaac.

Up and Coming players, guys on your team that are going to be making plays come the season

Rhys: Usually bosses like my fellow captains Stockton (Jonathan Isaac) and Cory Fauver (see “Year of the Beard” on youtube).

Alex Walker can be a bit loco, but he is a great competitive spirit, and loves disc. We have a strong junior class, with peeps like Jimmy (Will Gange-Maynard) and Nik-bro (Niko Duffy).  Obviously, Sam Feigenbaum for Callahan. Also, I will be terrible because I have been in Nepal for 4 months.

Star Players, who would be your callahan nominee? Who are the big playmakers and leaders 

Rhys: See above.

What tournaments are you planning on going to in the spring?

Rhys: Queen City Tune Up, Stanford Open, Southerns. (Editor’s Note: GoP went 1-6 at QCTU to take 16th, 4-3 at the extremely windy Stanford Open to take 11th, and 5-2 at College Southerns to tie for 9th. During the series, they went 4-2 at conference championships, and 4-2 at regionals, with 3 of those losses coming to St. John’s. They are 2-4 against teams at D-III championships.)

The most famous GoP baller of all time, Abraham Lincoln.

Who are the big DIII teams and players to look out for, both in your region, and in the entire division?

Rhys: Big DIII teams – St Johns in our region. We were 1-1 with them last year and we have a bit of a rivalry brewing. No idea how good they are this year. In the division as whole, I would say the usual contenders who are on the verge of deciding to go DI, but instead decide to go to DIII will be good.

Is this your first time competing DIII? If so, what made you change your mind from last year? If not, how did you do last year?

Rhys: We tried the DI route last year and failed pretty hard. We were not prepared (mentally or physically) for the amount of wind at our Regionals. We don’t really know which route we will go this year. It all depends on what the team wants.

Do you have any footage/media you want to show the world?

Rhys: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biTKgipMnR4&feature=related

Do you have anything else you want to publicize? I know it’s hard as a smaller school to get any press, but here’s your opportunity!

Rhys: Not really. May GoP win all of the Republican primaries. (Editor’s Note: Latest polls show that GoP is more well-liked than Mitt Romney.)

Feature “GoP Team Photo” by Claire Leichter

Notable Roster turnover, young team? Veteran team?

Evan Doucett & Charlie Whitmore: We had a large turnover from last year, graduating nine and losing two others to various circumstances.  Needless to say, we have a lot of new players on the team this year and we were lucky to have a solid B-team program to develop players.  Despite losing a lot of experience, we were able to replace that talent with athleticism and all the new players dedicated themselves to improving their ultimate skills.

Up-and-coming players, guys on your team that are going to be making plays come the season?

Evan & Charlie: Our new talent includes freshmen Ben Liska, Ben Marolf and David Anderson, as well as a host of sophomore talent brought up from last year’s B-team.  Look for Jeffrey Hudson and Matt Metcalf to make some plays on D and Weston Birnbaum and Mark Emmons to generate some points on O.

Star Players, who would be your Callahan nominee? Who are the big playmakers and leaders?

Evan & Charlie: Senior Cole Stiegler anchors the O-line cutters and creates a lot of opportunities down field with his hucks. Co-captain Evan Doucett impacts the game on both sides of the disc, and the other captain Charlie Whitmore is looking to come back from an injury and make some plays during the series.  Junior Tommy Cullen and sophomore Donny Harder are our top defenders, with the D-line offense running through veteran handlers Ben Aastuen and Eric Emmons.

What tournaments have you been to in the regular season? How did you play? Is there anything interesting we wouldn’t get from just looking at your Score Reporter page?

Evan & Charlie: We have been to College Southerns, Huck Finn, and the Northwoods D-III Conference Championships.  We placed 11^th at Southerns and 2^nd at Huck Finn and Conference.  With each tournament we have seen improvement from our newer players and our depth this year has allowed us to play deep into Sundays.  One thing you may not see from our Score Reporter page is how we never give up on a game, no matter what the score is.  For instance, in the quarterfinals of Huck Finn, we were down 1-5 to Northwestern and rallied back to win the game 12-10.  Our new motto “Zerks don’t lose on Sundays” helps push us in every game. It started as a joke but the team has taken it to heart and we let that attitude set the tone for each game.

Who are the big DIII teams and players to look out for, both in your region, and in the entire division?

Evan & Charlie: We feel like we have a pretty strong region.  St. John’s was in the finals of D-III last year and Carleton GOP has won the tournament in the past, so it won’t be easy to make it out of the region.  GOP has tremendous talent and discipline.  If you want a D against them, you will have to earn it.  The only other major D-III contender we have played this year was Harding in the finals of Huck Finn.  They were a very strong team with a lot of skill and athleticism.  We wouldn’t be surprised to see them go far at Nationals.

Is this your first time competing DIII? If so, what made you change your mind from last year? If not, how did you do last year?

Evan & Charlie: Yes, this is our first time.  Last year the tournament was too far away for us to attend because it falls directly on our finals weekend.  Luckily this year it is much closer (Appleton is about 5 hours from St. Olaf) and we can pull some strings with the administration to get players out of their finals.  We have always wanted to attend and are confident that this year could finally be the year.

Do you have anything else you want to publicize? I know it’s hard as a smaller school to get any press, but here’s your opportunity!

Evan & Charlie: We now have a team Facebook page at http://facebook.com/stozerks and a soon-to-be Twitter account so that parents, alumni, and students can follow the games as they happen, rather than waiting for Score Reporter to update.  Should be called something like Berzerker Ultimate or St. Olaf Berzerkers or St. Olaf Ultimate.

Editor’s Note: https://twitter.com/#!/ZerksUltimate