This is an open letter to Illinois Ultimate.

We’ve been working hard all year. I've repeated it ad nauseam, but you don’t need me to remind you. The soreness you feel when you walk up the stairs, the deep ache in your muscles when you go to bed at night … that should tell you how hard you’ve been working. Why is it that we work this hard? So that you can have a totally sweet bod that will bring all the boys to the yard? Maybe that’s your reason. My reason is that I want to be in Boulder this May, and as fun as it was last year, not as a spectator again.

Texas Throwdown was a really great tournament. As shameful as this sounds, lining up against teams like Wisconsin, Texas, Michigan, and Truman State scared me, for realsies. I stood on the line across from those teams, these girls whose pictures I had seen over and over again, and I had a lot of fear in my heart. When all those Wisconsin and Truman State girls were at Nationals last year, I was still getting schooled by all the vets on my team as a loser freshman. And then there I was. Staring at them, a mere 70 yards away. Fuuuuck. What if I end up looking like one of those girls you see in the background of all those photos getting pwnt? What if I get mad handblocked, or skied, or tooled on an in-cut? What if? More like whatever. Yeah, it sucks. I hate when it happens, but it does. But you take it, and you learn from it. I can’t even count the number of times I dropped passes and threw shit away. Remember when I got shoved out of the cutting lane against Michigan and didn’t call anything? Remember when I let that dump pass clunk off my chest against Truman State when we were so close to our endzone? Or how about, in that same game, when I let their handler get off six or seven big backhands on me? Or how about, at the end of that game, how even though I had at least four fingers on that disc, I didn’t layout for it and my girl caught it in the endzone? Yeah. That sucks. But if this is what it’s going to take for me to get better, so be it. If I have to go out there and embarrass myself, get yelled at, end up hating myself at the end of the game, if that’s what it takes, I’ll do it. If I have to go out there and make mistakes and suck it up in order to learn and get better, then I guess I’ll leave my pride at the door. Even though maybe this wasn’t my best week(end) ever (I love VH1) or whatever, I'm glad I ditched Aristotle and Locke and Hobbes to play. I'm glad I told Chinese 202 Chapter 17 "It's Almost Spring" (which it is!) to fuck off and came to play against some of the top teams we'll see for the rest of this spring. Because despite my fear and my reservation, I got to go out there with my team and take it to some really great teams. Yeah, we didn't win any, but we played hard.

For me, this weekend was better than Vegas, and better than CCC. Sure, it was exciting to go to CCC. It was the time of my life, going to Vegas with my ultimate team. It was loads of fun. But Texas Throwdown was, for me, a Nationals preview. I mean, consider the caliber of teams that we were playing – Michigan, Wisconsin, Truman State, Texas, and all on the first day no less. No cupcakes in that field. This was supposed to be our big chance to prove ourselves against big-time programs. When I heard that we were invited to Centex, I went apeshit. I got way psyched, told my mom I wasn’t going on our annual spring break trip, all this ridiculously hype shit, right?

But it turns out we’re not going.
I won’t be in Central Texas this Easter weekend. Actually, I’m going to be in Toronto. Fuck. My. Life.

Why? We don’t have enough people willing to go.
Why didn’t this weekend turn out the way I had hoped it would?
Because a lot of my teammates didn’t show up.

On a team of 18, 13 girls showed up, with only 12 able-bodied players.
That being said, I understand when you've made prior commitments that you really can't get out of. I can sympathize with that. You are a student first, a family member first, a whateverisimportant to you first.

But on another level, I’m frustrated. I’m hurt. But most of all, I’m disappointed.
I’m disappointed that my team couldn’t even field two whole lines. I’m disappointed that even though Missouri is only a few hours away, we couldn’t get everyone to come. I’m disappointed that even with all the hype we gave this tournament, with all the practice that we’ve put in to play against some of these teams, we couldn’t get our whole team to come. I’m disappointed that our team couldn’t get pumped for a tournament of this caliber. From here on out until Regionals, the tournaments we play won’t be as competitive as this. The way you get better isn’t by ganging up on teams that you’re better than, it’s by gutting it out against teams that are better than you, teams that will make you work for it, bleed for it, hurt for it. That’s how you learn. That’s how you grow as a player and as a team.

The 12 of us, with Ashley and Goose on the sidelines, we went on a 10 point run on Wisconsin. Wisconsin. And we lost in the end. Because their team wanted it more. Their team dug deeper. Their team believed that they could come back and win. Our team doesn’t have that quite yet.

Remember that exponential growth analogy? (probably not, less than half our team made it out to that practice) Maybe if I believe, and the six other people on the line next to me believe, then we can get the girls on the sideline to believe too. Maybe that belief will be infectious and it’ll push us to do things we didn’t know we could do. Maybe it’ll motivate us to work harder. But until we believe that we can beat teams like Truman State and Wisconsin and Texas and Michigan, and until we put in the work to do so, we won’t.

I wrote last week that as a team, you’re supposed to push each other, pick each other up, and hurt for each other. When are we going to start doing that? My teammates hurt for me this weekend. Jayne played with a dislocated finger and some major tooth pain. She couldn’t even really eat that night. Catherine played even though she couldn’t even straighten out her leg afterwards, and I’m sure those gnarly bruises only got worse. She didn’t even really get to practice this past week because of it. Tania played even though her shoulder was banged up. She took that ice off and went back into the game. And it hurt a lot to watch her layout. Just … the look on her face – sometimes I couldn’t even look. It really sucked when I couldn’t go out there and layout and get the D for her and Catherine and Jayne and the rest of my teammates too. So I tried to do it in other ways. I played hard D. I ran hard even when I was tired and huffing harder than an inhalant addict. The twelve of us, we were tired, and cold, and muddy. But we stayed on that field and battled for each other.

I guess it’s easy for me to say, “Hey come to practice, come to these tournaments, and we’ll be gold.” It won’t necessarily be easy. It sure as hell won’t be pleasant peeling myself out of bed after Unofficial to get to Saturday morning practice in the cold. It's also gonna suck going to practice tomorrow night after playing all weekend and trying to catch up on work. But we all should still try our best to get out there. I don’t think it’s necessary that everyone get over the moon obsessed with ultimate. Ultimate doesn’t have to be your life, it doesn’t have to define you, and I don’t think anybody will hold it against you if ultimate isn’t all you ever think about and dream about. That isn't what I'm asking of you.

But don’t honestly expect to go to Nationals when our whole team can’t even show up to an ultra competitive tournament like Texas Throwdown. Don’t expect to be able to just walk over teams like Wisconsin and Truman State and Texas and Michigan when we won’t even see them again until Nationals (except for Michigan, who we’ll see at Regionals). I’m actually really distraught that I won’t get another shot at Texas and Truman State for the rest of the year. I’m even more distraught that I won’t be able to play against Wisconsin (and continue acting on my fangirldom) again for a long time.

So from here on out, let’s change our attitude. Let’s pick it up. Let’s play like a team, like the team I know that Illinois Menace can be. We honestly have a shot to be a special team this season, but lately we’ve been settling with being “okay”. “Okay” just isn’t gonna cut it against Michigan in the game-to-go at Regionals in April.

I’m sorry if you think my writing this is a dick move, but its how I feel. I’m not trying to guilt anyone or make anyone feel bad, because that truly would be a complete d-bag move. I’m not pointing fingers and I’m not holding grudges. It’s all over now, I’m home in my room in clean, dry clothes, and I’m honestly not mad. So don’t harbor any ill will against me because I don’t against you. I see this as a second chance, not only for the people who couldn’t make it this weekend but also for those that did. This isn’t time for “Sorry I couldn’t make it”, this is time for “I’ll be there for suresies next time, I promise” and you making that commitment to do it.

So this is my promise to you.

From this point on in the season, I promise to get my work done early and on time. I promise to get out and run every week. I promise to get into the gym and lift. I promise to make it to every single practice that I can possibly make it to. I promise to work hard and sweat my balls off at every practice. I promise to breathe hard for you, to run hard for you, to ache for you, to hurt for you.

Will you be there with me?