Coach Email Archive

Hey Austin High Ultimate Parents!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Spring Break! I am so excited to be back and have our first spring league games this weekend. This email is going to be full of lots of info related to Spring League and more, so apologies in advance for the length of it. I've tried to bold anywhere with important dates or calls to action. Please reach out to me if you have any questions!

Spring League - Rosters, Schedule, and Location

The first Spring League games start this Saturday, March 23rd at 12pm and 1:30pm! All three teams play in both rounds, so all players should plan to arrive around 11am and be ready to warm up by 11:15am. Games should be done by 3pm. The full schedule is visible here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18DXYK4pG-8Lrxq9_oz3x80-5TyOkDJXIkKc2Tf94og4/edit#gid=0. All the Austin High game dates are included on the Austin High Ultimate calendar, which you can add to your personal calendar using this link for Google Calendar or this link for iCal. Thanks to our boosters for managing that!

Games will take place at Northeast Metro Park, 15500 Sun Light Near Way, Pflugerville, TX 78660 on fields 16, 17 and 18.

The coaches and captains met over the weekend to formulate three rosters for Spring League. First off, I am so excited that the team has grown enough to be able to field three rosters! It is absolutely incredible to see how many players are involved this year, and I love the enthusiasm and energy each of them brings to the team. Some of the decisions of how to roster people were very difficult, but rest assured we did our best to ensure everyone ended up in the right place. If you or your player have any concerns or questions about the rosters, please don't hesitate to reach out.

I am confident that all three of these rosters are going to have successful Spring League seasons. We've got an awesome group of kids top to bottom, and I can't wait to see them all get the chance to play against other schools each week!

* Captains for Bam and Chazam will be announced to the players tomorrow, March 21st at practice

** When looking at the TUSC Spring League schedule, "Wham" = Austin High A, "Bam" = Austin High B, and "Chazam" = Austin High C.

If you expect your kid was already registered and don't see their name listed above, please reach out to me. It is possible there was a registration mixup and I can work with TUSC to sort it out.

If you have not registered your kid yet, it is not too late! Just register them at https://www.tusculti.com/springleague2024 and notify me when you do so I can get them added to one of the rosters.

Parent Meet-up & Spring League Snack Sign Ups

Please join some of your fellow Austin High ultimate parents at Mozart's Coffee, 3825 Lake Austin Blvd, Austin, TX 78703 from 6:00pm - 7:00pm tomorrow, Thursday, March 30th! Come grab a beverage, ask and answer questions about spring league, coordinate snack duty sign ups (use this link to sign up - https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0945A9AC22A4FBC70-48638634-snacksdrinks), and connect with each other!

Thank you to Maraba for organizing!

Jerseys

Jerseys have arrived and will be distributed to the kids starting at practice tomorrow! I will also have them at the fields for the games on Saturday and they can be picked up there. I will be ensuring everyone got everything they ordered as the items are distributed, but please let me know if there are any mistakes or missing items.

Note that the discs have not arrived yet, so if you ordered one of those they should be in soon and will be distributed as soon as I have them.

Calendar

Key upcoming dates:

• March 21st

  • Thursday practice times will be extended to 7:15pm due to Daylight Savings time.

  • Parent meet up at Mozart's from 6:00pm - 7:00pm

• March 23rd: TUSC365 Spring League games begin (no more Saturday practices until May 4th)

• March 26th

  • 4:45pm - 7:15pm Girls and non-binary practice at the normal practice location! The regular captain-led Tuesday practice will be canceled to make this a possibility. The male captains may organize something at a different location - if so it will be communicated to players via the team groupme.

  • 8:00pm - 9:00pm Austin Ultimate YCC information session (more info below)

• April 7th, 21st, 28th: Youth Club tryouts (more info below)

• May 18th-19th: Texas HS State Championships at Lakeline Park in Cedar Park, TX

Youth Club Teams

Youth Club Championships is the premier youth tournament in the country, and is happening in Aurora, CO in early August. Austin sends three teams to this tournament, Texas United (U-20 Boys), Texas Double Trouble (U-17 Boys), and Texas Tango (U-20 Girls). YCCs are an incredible experience and a unique opportunity to get to travel for a major youth tournament and face the best youth players in the country.

There will be an info session for all players & parents of players who are interested in YCC on March 26th from 8:00pm - 9:00pm! Join via the meeting link info below, which can also be seen on the AU site here: https://austinultimate.org/youth-club-teams

The info session will cover travel and tournament logistics, expected costs, financial aid, and more.

We will have an all-star guest speaker panel featuring Cara Crouch, Joe Sefton, Caroline Stone, and Owen Smith joining us to talk about their experiences playing on elite & championship winning teams! See below for brief bios on our wonderful speakers.

• Cara Crouch, USAU Hall of Fame member, Callahan award winner, and 2x World Games Gold medalist

• Joe Sefton, 2016 World Championship Gold medalist and long time Seattle Sockeye former player, and current Austin High coach

• Caroline Stone, Vermont Ruckus player, former Tango player, and 2022 U20 World Championship Gold Medalist

• Owen Smith, Texas TUFF player, former Texas Double Trouble and Texas United player, former Austin High captain

• 
  

2024 YCC Info Session

Tuesday, March 26 · 8:00 – 9:30pm

Time zone: America/Chicago

Google Meet joining info

Video call link: https://meet.google.com/dvj-rxre-sfa

Or dial: ‪(US) +1 302-846-7615‬ PIN: ‪930 930 405‬#

More phone numbers: https://tel.meet/dvj-rxre-sfa?pin=8260721727494

The meeting will be recorded, and the recording and slides shared for those who are unable to attend

Tryouts for the teams will be on the dates listed below:

• Texas United (U20 Boys) - April 7th and April 21st

• Texas Double Trouble (U17 Boys) - April 21st

• Texas Tango (U20 Girls) - April 28th

Additional Playing Opportunities and Local Events

Spring is the busy season for youth ultimate frisbee in Austin! There are lots of exciting things going on outside of Austin High events, so please take advantage of some of these if you are able.

• On April 6th from 3:00pm - 7:00pm, there is a Women's and Non-Binary day of play that is open to girls and non-binary youth players! GNB players are encouraged to head over after Spring League games if they are able. Register here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc_8vXVpknH30ppaQr5LrOrxY69a8OBKkoQGl-6zsahPPQ5Cg/viewform

• On April 7th at 12:00pm the Austin Torch (Women's and Non-Binary Semi-pro team) is having their home opener, and it will be TUSC day featuring a showcase of all our local high school players at halftime! See the full schedule and game locations here: https://atxtorch.com/schedule

• Austin Ultimate is hosting a weeknight clinic series for youth players throughout April on Tuesdays evenings in partnership with the city of Cedar Park! The clinic is primarily intended to be beginner focused, however it is open to players of all skill levels. The clinic will feature coaches from Austin's two pro ultimate teams teaching a different topic each week and will present a unique opportunity to learn from some of the best ultimate players in the city (and the world!) in a small group setting. The clinic operates on a sliding scale pricing model, so please select the payment option that is appropriate for your family's financial situation. This event is open to players of all gender identities and any age 12 - 18, so if you have a younger kid who wants to try ultimate, this is a great opportunity for that! Register here: https://austinultimate.org/e/spring-24-youth-clinic-series

• The Austin Sol (Men's semi pro team) home opener is on May 3rd at The Pitch. See the full schedule and game locations here: https://www.watchufa.com/sol/schedule

Waivers

Please make sure you have provided waivers for your player (or if they are 18 or older, that they have provided them for themselves). Use this Google Form to submit waivers. If you are not sure if you have provided them already, reach out to me and I will check.

Hey Austin High Ultimate Parents!

Thank you to everyone for paying for jerseys so promptly. We have submitted the order to our jersey vendor and are expecting jerseys to arrive sometime in mid to late March, prior to the start of Spring League games.

Upcoming Schedule

With the sun setting later, Thursday practices will now end at 6:30pm starting next Thursday, February 22nd. Saturday practice times remain unchanged, 9am - 12pm.

Today, February 15th Austin High is having our first ever Girls and Non-binary only practice. We are really excited to have enough girls & non-binary players to make this possible. The boys are having a captain-led practice at Zilker park to create space for the girls/non-binary practice to thrive. There will be no coach supervision at the boys' practice, but players are encouraged to go as long as their parent or guardian is comfortable with them practicing without coach supervision.

There is tentatively a small tournament planned for this Sunday, February 18th by the McNeil HS team. Unfortunately they are having difficulty securing sufficient field space, so it remains to be seen if this tournament will go ahead as planned or not. We've taken a poll with the players of who can make it - if your kid is planning on participating expect them to be busy from about 9am - 2pm on Sunday. I will send an update when we have more information about location or if the tournament is cancelled. If the tournament is cancelled, we will attempt to schedule a shorter scrimmage with one or two of the participating teams on Sunday instead.

Key upcoming dates:

• Feb 15th: Girls and non-binary only practice at Austin High

• Feb 18th: McNeil Tournament OR scrimmage, TBD

• March 1st: Initial registration deadline for TUSC365 Spring League (see below) - registration will remain open, but you must register by this date to guarantee you will receive a TUSC jersey and disc

• March 7th: Girls and non-binary only practice at Austin High

• March 9th: Optional practice due to beginning of spring break

  • Internal Spring League registration deadline - please get your player registered by this date so we can coordinate roster structures prior to the start of games

• March 14th: No practice - Spring Break

• March 16th: Optional practice - spring break

• March 21st: Thursday practice times will be extended due to Daylight Savings time. TBD on end time - will communicate that when it gets closer.

• March 23rd: TUSC365 Spring League games begin (no more Saturday practices until May 4th)

• May 18th-19th: Texas HS State Championships at Lakeline Park in Cedar Park, TX

Spring League Registration

Spring League games are right around the corner! TUSC365 Spring League will begin on Saturday, March 23rd. Please go to https://www.tusculti.com/springleague2024 to register. You have to register by March 1st to guarantee that you will receive the complementary TUSC jersey and disc with your registration. When you go to the page to register, scroll all the way to the bottom to enter the registration process. There are multiple price points, choose the one that feels right for your family's financial situation. Cost should not be a barrier to anyone to participate. If you have questions about the registration process or the sliding scale payment system, please reach out to me or to TUSC directly and we can help you navigate that. 

When registering, there will be an opportunity to indicate which team you are registering for. Simply indicate you are registering for "Austin High" and that will be sufficient to get your player correctly placed on our roster(s). With the number of players we have participating this year, we will have two or three Spring League rosters. The structure for those and whether we have two or three is dependent on registration count, so I will provide more info once we have a better idea of headcount next month. 

With games starting on March 23rd, you will be receiving schedule updates from TUSC365 indicating time and locations of games each week. I will also be sending more regular emails during the season to provide updates and help coordinate any logistics. Once games start, we will not hold Saturday practices again until after league concludes (May 4th). If you would be willing to help coordinate rides, snacks, filming games, and other logistics for Spring League, please reach out to our boosters at austinhighultimate@gmail.com (cc'ed here) to volunteer!

Other Updates

Some of you who had kids on the team last year may have received an email from USA Ultimate about registering for the team - that was an accidental side effect of me rolling over our roster in their system. That is only used for State, so if you would like to take care of waivers/membership/accepting the roster invite now, you are welcome to do so and it will put you ahead of schedule, but otherwise there is little urgency to that. We will get everyone rostered and in good standing with USAU in April/May in the leadup to the State Championships.

Austin Ultimate held a town hall earlier this week that included a look ahead at youth events for the year. Apologies for not providing advanced notice of that, but if you would like to watch the recording you can do so here. The slides from that town hall are attached, as is a standalone image of the youth events calendar for the year. I will make sure to communicate about any sign up links for additional playing opportunities that are not school based as they become available. 

As always, please reach out to the coaches or boosters with any questions or concerns.

Thanks!

AHS Ultimate Coaches

Adam Croissant

Eileen Nehme

Joe Sefton