On the outside looking in
I've spent roughly 21 hours outside over the last 5 days. I watched a lot of Ultimate over the weekend. I don't think I've watched that much since Nationals 2 years ago. It's usually hard for me to watch because I want to play, but this past weekend it was different. Maturity? perhaps. More likely vanity. It was a B-team tournament and not to say that there weren't a number of athletes who could have jumped over me, run past me, and thrown 10x as far, especially in my current state, but I was content to watch knowing that I had a funny thing called experience on my side. I'm an old man, but at least I don't prance around with my shirt off like some other team's coach.

Coach. There it is again. I've denied that term all along, but I seem to be slipping into that role. I'm trying to figure out how much you need to know to be a coach. I feel like there's a line I should have to cross or a test I should have to take to be a coach, but maybe it's not so much a matter of skill but a matter of commitment. I'm going to ask some coaches I know what they think. Maybe I crossed that line when I showed up to support the team for a whole weekend. Maybe I passed that test when I kept right on screaming until the last moment of Sunday. I'm not a Bobby Knight kinda coach, but if you've shared the field with me you know sometimes I like to add a little volume to my instruction/opinion/blatantly ridiculous statement. My two favorite hollers of support from this weekend:
1. Hard Defense. Smart Offense. Hippopotamus.
2. That was boring as hell. I love it!

The latter was in reference to my team (they also became my team over the weekend) making pass after pass down the field. It was always the easy pass and it took a while, but they scored and it was one of the most satisfying moments of my Ultimate career.