Post date: Feb 10, 2019 5:15:6 PM
Spring season is here! Tryouts this week will officially kick off our spring season. I hope you are super excited! We have some outstanding returning players and most of you have been working hard to recruit friends and siblings, so we are looking forward to some awesome new players too! Spring League registration is now open. Returning players and parents of returning players - will you please register now, before tryouts are over, so we can focus on the new players after tryouts? The registration process is easy.
There are some (somewhat) helpful instructions here: https://utahultimate.org/register. You can pay both the USAU fee and the spring league fee at the same time. Returning players really only need to worry about steps 1,2 & 5: sign in, check off the waiver and pay fees. Of course you are welcome to contact me with any questions. Girls, I've been working with the Bingham coaches and we are going to do a combined girls team, so you will be signing up for the Bingham / CH team. If you have any problems or questions, feel free to message me via groupme or email or text any time.
Note about utahultimate.org Sign in: If you are like me and let your browser save your passwords for you so you don't have to remember them, the Sign In popup window may not autopopulate your saved email and password. In that case, just click 'Sign In' in the Sign in popup window without entering an email or password. You will be redirected to a login page that will autopopulate email and password so you don't have to type them in.
Tryouts
See you this week for tryouts! Mo, Tu, We, Th 4-6pm, and Sa 9-11 at Park Village Park, 7600 S 4800 W. I am going to be relying on our returning players to get tryouts started. I am starting a new job this week, and I will not be able to make it by 4pm. Please get started with warmups and plyos and go ahead and get started on the drills before I get there. Please print this signup sheet and have each new person sign up (click here). Each day the schedule will look like below. If you have any ideas for tryouts, please let me know. And please invite your friends! Click here to print fliers.
Daily outline:
warmups & plyos, every day of tryouts. Warmups: give-n-gos, 3 man marking drill, or circle drill
throwing & catching instruction, every day of tryouts : flicks & backhands. Grip. Pivot foot & step. Wrist. Lots of wrist. Lots of rotation.
throwing & catching drill, every day of tryouts: set up cones at 15 yards, 25 yards and 35 yards. throw 10 forehands & 10 backhands at 15 yards. Those who can throw 9 of 10 accurately can move back 10 yards or for experienced players, pick a more difficult throw to work on (high release, low release, IO, OI, dishies and push passes). Don't spend time explaining advanced throws though. Not for tryouts; we will get to those during the season.
running drill, use one of these drills each day:
1-minute drill - you have run back & forth between 2 cones, gradually increasing the # of laps each time (3, 6, 9, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
ladders or hill ladders
distance run (1.5 miles)
cutting, throwing, and catching drill, use one of these drills each day (no marks for tryouts):
crossover cutting drill
throw to space drill
power position drill
square drill
30's
3v3
We will cheer and officially end practice and then run a 7v7 for anyone who wants to stay later.
Questionnaire results
Thanks so much to everyone who took the time to fill out the questionnaire. If you didn't, feel free to do so now. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/18eXYex9nNWC1WkorLK1cF7OWGhX1u6boktrPrBy4gSI
There was a request to leave practice times at 4pm until March so we weren't ending practice at dark. I've adjusted the schedule so practice times will start at 4pm until Mar 8, after which they will start at 5pm because daylight savings time starts that weekend. There are a couple reasons for the 5pm practices: 1) I can't make it from work to practice by 4pm. Even 5pm sometimes is a struggle 2) Players who choose to do 2 sports (not recommended, but your decision) or other extracurricular activities after school can have time to make both practices. 3) We have a few players who work immediately after school some days and can make practice if it's later.
2/3 of you elected to have practice 5 days / week. I think this is a good idea. Most other sports practice at least 5 days / week. The level of ultimate competition is fierce, and as you know, we have continuously been a slightly above average team at best. The key to winning more is simple: play & practice more. Some of you cannot do 5 days / week. Either you have work obligations or family or other commitments. Please pick the 3 or 4 days per week you can make practice and message me to let me know which days you will be at practice. And BE CONSISTENTLY AT PRACTICE on the days you choose. Having practice 5 days / week increases the number of days you can be at practice. I know there are some players who work Mondays and Thursdays. Others of you may work Tuesdays and Wednesdays. If we only had practice Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, that means the player who works Mondays & Thursdays gets to practice only on Saturdays (and only when there's not a tournament). But now you can practice Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday. Commit to that, and be consistent! For those who do come to practice 5 days/week, you will be surprised how much your game will improve.
Most of you were interested in all of the tournaments: LPI, Cache Valley Classic, Daweena, girls classic and state. I will put in a bid to all of them (doesn't mean we'll get in).
A few of you said you can't practice Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, but most of you can practice every day of the week. This is great as games should be on Thursdays & Saturdays. We will practice every day but Wednesday, giving players as much opportunity to be at practice as possible according to the results.
I was very glad to see that several of you were interested in ultimate events outside of HS & MS ultimate, such as community pickup, hat tournaments, county league, club ultimate, YCC nationals, etc. This is great! It means you want to take your game to the next level. I will keep the team apprised of these events and I hope you can take advantage of them. One of the highlights of coaching has been being able to play with some of our HS players at adult pickup games, in SL County spring & summer league, and at the Utah Summer Games. Two summers ago at USG on a team with Tate, AJ, Spencer Norris, and Lake we took home the bronze medal. Last year I had a great time playing SLCo league with Jack, Ben, Garrett, Hunter, AJ, Kate, and Christian. We had a very competitive team!
Thank you to those of you who volunteered to be a spirit captain, manager or some other leadership position. This is your team, and players should be running it, not the coach. I'm just here to provide help when needed. I have work and family to take care of in addition to coaching, so thank you thank you thank you. I will speak with you individually before the season starts.
The most requested things to work on at practice were good decision-making, advanced throws, getting open, and cutting to create space between you and your defender. Also popular were end zone sets / plays, man, zone, and advanced defense. So we'll spend lots of time in practice working on those things. Of course we are always open to your ideas about what we need to work on as a team.
A couple of the comments mentioned team discipline and being on time to practices should be a goal. I agree. We discussed it during our winter pickup / practice games and came up with the following team policies. I think they are more than fair and will inspire each of us to be better teammates. If you have any concerns, please let me know. 1) Any player who misses more than 1 practice in a week without letting a coach or captain know beforehand will not play in the next game. 2) As far as tardiness to practice - let's make it a team effort. I don't want anyone to say well, since I'm already late I'm not going because coach will just make me run. Instead, let's work as a team. For every 10 practices where we get 70% of our registered player count there by warmup time, I will bring a treat for after practice. We'll ask someone do counts at team warmups every practice. Open to suggestions on what those treats should be, but it should be something at least reasonably healthy - ie, soda and candy are out, but chips and dip ok, trail mix, granola bars, fruit ok. Something like pop tarts, popsicles, ice cream, maybe.