Well, I don't want to talk about worlds... (Zero will be going but not a full team and maybe some alumni and maybe some friends). Too much damn money. And isn't it the farthest city away from the states?

Back to the fall of 97, my junior year. 2nd year of frisbee. We had a ton of kids out to tryouts that year. We had 2 fields full, which was huge for Michigan at the time. Eventually we make cuts and basically 3 freshman stick, Hales, Graves, and Rook. These guys would help form a solid core over the next couple of years. Also, we picked up a couple of graduates who could throw, Reiks and Bischoff from Fla and Duke respectively. 5 new guys added to a roster of ~13 downfield cutters/defenders.

The fall was mainly practicing. We would finish 2nd in our own tournament to Big Ass OU. Mainly, the Ohio U. college team but they added Geile, Ricky, and Mike V for the finals. That made the game very fun and we lost by 1 or 2 late. We made our first venture to the OU Halloween tourney. That is/was a fun one day tourney. Lots of games and a pretty fun time to hang out around the town. I believe this was J + myself stealing the polaroid pic of our team from the bum downtown. I mean we needed that $5. Cower in the hotel parking lot.

We also took our first RV trip to Knoxville. We had 12 or 13 guys pile into the RV and head down to Knoxville. Good times. If you got a decent drive ahead of you and about 13 guys or so, this is the way to go. You get one hotel room for Saturday nite and everything is good. TV + hearts the whole time. J would not let me drive, so I did plenty of drinking. If I recall, this was the same weekend Wu was assigned #8 b/c Michigan beat PSU 34-8 and also the same weekend as Nebraska "beating" Missouri to stay undefeated. The "kick" game if you will.

As far as playing ultimate there, UT and CLemson were the 2 best teams there. So not a great tourney, but good for us. 2 things stand out: 1. Rook - a rookie throwing a hammer for a goal. Unbelieveable to most of us. And 2. we did lose to Clemson, led by Matty L of Bravo fame, on Saturday. I think it was double gamepoint and Jaegs threw a hammer away against a zone. Somewhat "anti-clutch". Everything else is a blur.

So, we were pretty pumped for the college season. So much so, some of us shaved our heads for the first indoor practice. Of course, my parents visited the next day. My mom was psyched.

We would win our indoor tourney, all Great Lakes teams as well as a AA club team.

2nd in the all nite Cleveland Indoor (mainly club, all co-ed tourney) in which I sprained my ankle before the tourney and threw a scoober to Karl for the game. Unfortunately, there was a wall in the way. The drive home from Cleveland to Ann Arbor at 6 am is usually a good time, but this one was very fun.

Then we ventured outdoors, losing to ND in the quarters of Artic Vogue, a cold tourney in Cincinnati. Half club/half college tourney.

Over spring break, we played at mudbowl, again another RV trip. I remember losing to a Dave Beller club team in quarters. And playing a bunch of bad college teams on Saturday. Getting the RV stuck in the mud somewhere in Birmingham.

Finishing 2nd to Iowa (we lost to them twice) in the mudbowl of Whitesmoke. Saturday started out with about a foot or 2 of snow on the ground. Everyone showing up right before gametime and playing a game that resembled ultimate. Rook was "not in condition" to play. By the end of the day, it was a mud pit. This meant only one thing, you tried to make everyone layout. I think we killed the fields next to Stepan Center. Sunday, we avenged our early season loss to ND in the semis, but lost to Iowa in the finals.

Oh yeah, wasn't this when Andrew Feller officially started to not play with us? Some excuse about a girl or something.

Next tourney was Clemson. This was the biggest tourney we had every attended. Back in the day, this tourney was huge. Not Easterns (or Centex) huge, but still CUT, Madison, Colorado, UCSD, etc... were there. But I can't remember a single ultimate related thing. This tournament is a complete blur, I will take the 5th on this one. We did steal the keg from the party. And by we, I mean other people. Apparently, they got chased in the woods for a very long time. This weekend is summarized for me by "I just puked, so I am solid". That is all. I do remember that we played Clemson and lost to them first game on Sunday.

After Clemson was Sectionals. We still weren't very good, but the Michigan section was extremely bad. I recall doing sprints for every point we were scored on. There is a picture out there of Pfil with a slightly gratuitous bid. I really wish I could find that picture. That would be a fun one to post.

Now, after sectionals, we weren't stupid. We did not think we were definitely going to make nationals, but we thought we had a chance. Iowa was obviously better than us. Plus CUT and Colorado. Oberlin was always good. Madison, Ohio, ND, Winona... But regionals were in Ann Arbor that year. We thought that might help us out.

Regionals is a little better in my memory, but the weekend was pretty crazy. That will be my next post.