T-shirt #88 - KUDL - White Castle of Bunnicula - 2007I have decided to post a different Kalamazoo Ultimate Disc League shirt every Monday this summer, building to this year's shirt, which will make its appearance on the last Monday or the tournament Saturday depending on my mood.
We started the league in 2006, and in that first year, we were called KUSS: Kalamazoo Ultimate Summer Syndicate, which we thought sounded cool.
In an effort to be more friendly and inviting, we changed the name starting with the 2007 season to what it is today: KALMAZOO ULTIMATE DISC LEAGUE or KUDL. And we added the "kudly" bear as our logo.
KALAMAZOO ULTIMATE DISC LEAGUE can be found via the web at http://kudl.org/.
We can also be found on Facebook at Kalamazoo Ultimate Disc League.
So, far I have blogged about KUDL three times, and maybe I should have saved some of those shirts for this weekly KUDL posting. Nah... I have A LOT of KUDL T-shirts: T-shirt #56: KUDL 2009, T-shirt #59: 2007 Pink Shirt, T-shirt #74: COOL PATROL CHAMPIONS! Okay, and if I run out of KUDL shirts (not likely), I can surely fill in with other Ultimate shirts. There's going to be A LOT of Ultimate shirts. :-)
Pictured here at the top, you see me wearing the 2007 shirt. It's actually the cotton shirt, which I will feature separately because today is dedicated to the PATAGONIA, moisture-wicking shirt pictured in the final photo with the team. See? There's two of the same shirt right there, not counting how I featured this in pink for T-shirt #59. In the picture, I am posing with my good friend Dave Heimberg at the Grand Rapids tournament HUCKFEST in November, by when my toe was surely healed (see explanation to follow).
After a disastrous season as the Purple team with KUSS in 2006, the white team I drafted for 2007 definitely held its own (we won games; Purple did not). I am very proud to have been a part of the White Team in 2007 and forged many strong friendships with that team with people I did not know prior to drafting them, such as Dave Mandrick, BJ Cherup, Keith Wikle, and Paul Abueva.
The 2007 KUDL logo was designed by Ryan Walters. I am not sure who designed the bear. But if and when I find out, I may update this blog entry. You know how I am about historical accuracy.
THE WEEK FIVE EMAIL TO THE TEAM
(for posterity, historical accuracy, and amusements)
Hey White Castle of Bunnicula,
For those who missed last week, we decided on our team name: White Castle. I added the “of Bunnicula” because so many teams seem to be “of something,” so I decided it was best that we conform. As you all know, I am a big fan of conformity.Yeah, my emails are a bit wordy and more than a little outrageous, and yet, I go for the humor. If it's not obvious, there is much love and respect for the esteemed opponents. I have no idea if we won that game against WHITE RUSSIAN (Black), but Ed's team did go on to win the tournament. On the other hand, my toe had been swollen for over a month. I did not know what it was at the time. By the August tournament, it had swollen to twice its normal size, and I could not run on it. I could barely walk. It would be another two years before I would identify this problem as GOUT, which I know have under control.
Check out game reports on the KUDL message board, which is also the place to do a lot of our trash talking...
We won last week, both games, against a depleted Blue team (don’t let Little tell you otherwise). We had only two women (Mya and Deanna) who played every point of both games and were awesome, and even sore and at half-speed Robshaw and Wheels rule the field. Andrew and Dave Mandrick made many key, and awesome plays. Mike Wallace was out for the first time and played well with roommate BJ, who matched well on defense against some of the best blue players (Little).
Sorry to be such a slacker and not spam you weekly, but, well, I have no excuse actually. Anyway, our week five, June 25th game is a biggie, a grudge match between the Ed and Kyle led White Russian (Black) and our far superior team returning to field one, the Woodward Street field.
Ed (Kenny) has been talking a lot of trash and apparently the plan is to see just how many scores he can catch between my legs. I am not making this up.
So we really need to beat these yahoos. Herein you will find my helpful (I hope) scouting report and some directions on the zone, which we may surely face, even if it’s not windy.
SCOUTING REPORT: Okay, first of all, they’re called White Russian to stick it to us. I wanted the colour black for our team and Ed poached it before I could select it. There also seems to be this mistaken impression that I am much like “The Dude” from The Big Lebowski.
Captains Ed and Kyle. But Kyle is gone. So that leaves Ed, who likes to huck. Chris Lee is on the DL with a torn ACL, so even if he plays, he can’t really run. They have some players with a little experience: Cody Leonard and Colin Priest but I don’t think they match our players of greater skills and experience.
They have a ton of newbies, many of whom are young and have wheels but no throwing skills. And they have two old guys who match very well on me, especially if I continue to recover from whatever injury I have.
Their women are pretty tough. Jen Blacker is a great player. Dube is also very very good. Our women are great, too, but it’s going to be harder on them if we only have two and they play every point. Jen and Dube are much faster and tougher than the Blue women. And in addition to Jen and Dube, Black has Kate (who is steady and solid and may play even without Kyle), Peggy, and Alexandra. They could have all five women rotating out there and even want to go 4-3 at times. So we really need our women!!
We will see the return of Kent “The Designer” Elliott. I hope the rest of you who had to miss can make it back, too. We need all our numbers to make certain that we dominate black!!
STRATEGY? Ed will huck it. But without Kyle and Chris he is down two handlers. I suspect they will play zone even if it’s not super windy. We will have to try to deny Ed the disc and keep tough coverage on their deep threats.
On offense, we have Mya deep all day, and I think we’re fine with that. We have to keep the rest of our women involved ESPECIALLY DEANNA WHO IS OPEN ALL THE TIME AND MUST BE THROWN TO (this means you Dave)!!! ;-)
I think matchup wise we come out ahead especially if we are all there. I amazed that we beat Blue without Kent, Maria, Jackie, Kathryn, Bill, Nic, Paul, Michelle, and Keith. So I hope you can all make it. If we have numbers and we run them, I think we win.
ZONE
Ed is sending instruction stuff to his team every week, so, since I am big copy-cat imitating conformist, I must do the same.
We discussed zone briefly, but we have to be ready to play O against it and to throw it on defense if we want to beat Black.
Check out
http://www.ultimatehandbook.com/uh/strategy_zone.html
This is what Ed’s team has studied. We will throw the 3-3-1 zone. Read up and be prepared!
If we have a critical mass of people early, then we can practice zone or just warm up with a drill to put the fear in BLACK.
We are on field set up duty, which I can handle, but please do try to get out early.
peace - tower of rectal plantar facetious forgetfulness
THE TEAM
WHITE CASTLE OF BUNNICULA - KUDL 2007 - Team pictured here from the tournament.
In the picture: BACK ROW(L-R): Kent Elliott, Paul Abueva, Alex "Wheels" Wheelwright, Chris Tower (Me), Deanna Roell, Jeremy Welter. FRONT ROW (L-R): Keith Wikle, William "BJ" Cherup, Dave Mandrick, Mya Hernandez, and Nick Martinez.
NOT PICTURED: Bill Brieger, Maria Markus, Michelle Miller, Matt Robshaw, Jacqueline Rogers, Andrew Schneider, and Mike Wallace.
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| White Castle of Bunnicula - KUDL tournament 2007 |
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