A Rookie's Guide to the Illinois Menace

A preamble: If you don't have much time to read, I suggest skipping to the last two lists, as they are probably most valuable to you. But you know, I did put time and effort into this so don't shit on my effort kthnxbai.

As the temperature drops along with the leaves, the number of rookies usually begins to dwindle a little (hopefully that's not the case this year, though), and the rookies who are serious about playing are sticking around. If they want to be on this team, they need to learn a little about what this team is all about. I give you Jewann's Guide to the Illinois Menace.

First, I should probably introduce myself. Hello, rookies! Like my hilarious white counterpart Maggie said, you don't know me yet, but you will soon enough. My name is Joann, more commonly known by a slew of nicknames you will probably soon learn, and the reason why you haven't met me yet is because wo xianzai zai Zhongguo, or, I'm currently in China, getting my study abroad on. When I am at Illinois, my positions off the field are Balling Out of Control at Lookin' Ass, Bent Over Wheezing, Sucking on an Inhaler, Putting My Hands in My Shorts, and Creeping Behind the Camera Lens, and my numerous positions on the field are Running and Panting in the Cup, Panting an Obscene Amount, Having an Offensive Number of Asthma Attacks, Dropping Easy Pancakes, Getting Broken While Everyone is Yelling "No Break", Missing the Mark on Backhands, Catching Passes with My Face/Eye, Looking Fake-Badass with My Headgear and Knee Brace, Turfing Fo'hands, and perhaps most importantly, Wearing the Same White Shorts as DFagz. I play a LOT of positions, essentially, and excuse me for tooting my own horn (toot toot), but it's sort of a big deal. I also write about our team and sometimes about ultimate in general, sprinkling in a great deal of obscenity (I might have the dirtiest mouth you've ever heard in your entire life. Shame? I don't have it. Hell? I'll probably be there.) and my unbelievably clever witticisms in the posts. So yeah, at the first practice after winter break, when you see an Asian wearing a sweatband or a bandanna with a look on her face like she just baked out in the car before going to practice, that'll be me. I'm jazzed to meet you all. 

We will start this Rookie's Guide with a short history, as I have only been with the team three years, and my knowledge of the team preceding my rookie season is not as extensive as it should be. A few things I do know, however, are that in 2002, the team, then known as Id, was a Nationals team and featured a number of very solid upperclassmen players, including a few who went on to play with relevant club teams in Chicago.

This brief history begins in the fall of 2006, when the absolute tightest, dopest, sickest, most fresh to death recruitment class ever joined the team en masse.  It was the biggest recruitment class we've had in recent history (until this year, I hope). That fall, we played in a few tournaments, including Fall Out and Blue Ridge Blowout. Fall Out is our home tournament that you will soon participate in, and in 2006, we advanced all the way to the finals, until we fell to a Wisconsin team that had the help of a few soon-to-be familiar faces. Blue Ridge Blowout took place in North Carolina, and we went there and straight up dominated. We never lost a game, and in the finals, the team we faced only put up one point against us. We were just too much for the Atlantic Coast to handle. In the spring of 2007, our already baller team added a whole new group of women from the co-ed team -- Meg, Tracy, Shawn, Tania, and MaryKim, who had played with a short-handed Wisconsin team earlier in the year at Fall Out. We became an even greater force to be reckoned with. We played a few more tournaments in the spring, including Hendrix, Mudbowl, and College Southerns. That April, during a windy weekend in Naperville, we would win the Central Plains Sectionals, by virtue of a down-to-the-wire victory over a familiar regional foe, Northwestern. This would not be our last meeting with them, however, as a few weeks later, on a very hot and sunny weekend in Rantoul, we met them in the semifinals, just two games away from Nationals. From the start, Northwestern took control of the game and never looked back. We lost, and Northwestern ended up beating Michigan for the Great Lakes' only bid to Nationals.

That year, we graduated a lot of great players, including Shawn and X, and a name that has become legendary in Illinois Menace lore -- The Ann Dailey. We all strive to be like The Ann Dailey. Fucking awesome at ultimate, smart as a whip, and hilarious to boot. She also works for Barack, so yeah, she's cooler than most other people in the world. You want to be just like her.

The fall of 2007 began with a great surge in the recruitment process. We put massive amounts of energy into the campaign, but only the few, the proud, and the great stuck around -- Mader, Rachel, and DBD. We played in Glory Days, where the only two games we lost were to the two teams that eventually wound up in the finals, and we also played in Fall Out, where the Illinois split squads faced each other in the finals. We also sucked it up big time at Missouri Loves Company, and closed out the fall with CCC in Tennessee, where we debuted our crazy zone defense and beat a few teams that would make Nationals the upcoming spring. That fall, we again graduated two amazing players in Tracy and Rasa, who are now working and playing in Chicago and Santa Barbara, respectively.

The spring of 2008 was an epic one. Our first tournament was Trouble in Vegas, where we flew out to Vegas and gave a lot of people a pretty big surprise when we played UCLA and Wisconsin, two of the top teams in the country, really close and ended up in the top eight of all teams in the tournament. This tournament also marked the birth of this blog, so remember to wish it a happy birthday next February! Our next tournament was Texas Throwdown, hilariously enough in Missouri. We went in with high expectations, knowing we were going to face some of the top teams in the nation. After going up on Wisconsin a ridiculous amount of points, they came all the way back and beat us by one or two in the end. That kind of took the air out of our tires, and we lost the rest of our games for the entire tournament. Our next tournament was a "home" one, and it was the Chicago Invite, which we won amidst a great deal of Regional competition. Roll Call followed, but was again disappointing, because we lost twice to a team we had beaten previously (Maryland), and we also lost to Northeastern, a relative unknown until Nationals. This same type of disappointment followed into Sectionals, when our morning started with a tough game against UChicago that we just barely won, and our morning took a downturn when we lost to a lower seeded Northwestern, thereby removing the possibility for us to outright win Sectionals. We rebounded, and came back and responded to the challenge by beating up on teams the rest of the day and the next morning, and when the pressure was on, we defeated Indiana and Northwestern in convincing fashion to win second place.

Finally, Regionals '08. Saturday was a looooong one. After Lord even remembers how many games, we finally came down to the semis game against UChicago, a very, very tough team. Lose this game and we had a good number of games to play the next morning before making it to the backdoor finals, tired and battered. Win this game and we went directly into finals the next morning against Michigan, who was sitting on the sidelines to watch our semis game. We had just beaten Northwestern the game previous, and we were fired up for this game. The game started, and it was a dogfight. Both teams very clearly wanted it bad, and both teams played hard. I think at some point, we were even down a point or two. But we'd always fight back. We'd go up a point or two, but UChicago would always come back. In the end, after some gritty O and hard D, we ended up winning on a DGP upwind hammer. FINALS.

The first finals game is kind of not really worth mentioning, as Michigan straight up rolled us. Michigan was really a top rate team, and we just couldn't compete. This set us up for a backdoor finals matchup with Michigan State, a team we had beaten twice at Chicago Invite. We thought we knew what was in store for us. In fact, the team we faced this time around was much different, quicker, better handlers, and more up-the-line cuts. We fought hard, but fell down a few points in the end and just couldn't make it up in time. They got to fifteen first, three points ahead of us.

Last spring, we graduated a small, but extremely valuable senior class in Catherine "Miss Doyle" "Doyle, Meg "Hofner's Hammers" Hofner, and Ashley "Spashley/Chansy" Chan. Catherine made the most perilous faces of any person I've ever met, Meg could throw hammers farther than most people can even throw forehands, and Chansy was one very vital third of Team Asia (this is not including honorary members).

This season, it's go time. Time to put to rest all the naysayers and just get shit done. There's been enough talk, you know? Now it's time to come through. My personal motto for this season? Get bank.

Put in the work, and get bank.

Natties '09, baby!

Now rooks, you will soon find that I love making lists, both in life and in ultimate, and so here are a few lists I hope you read. If you skipped everything that came beforehand, that's fine, just read these:

Jewbag's Tips for Having a Great Season

1. A lot of people who end up playing ultimate played a sport in high school. You need to be okay with maybe not being very good at first. Maybe you turf all your forehands, and maybe you run around in circles looking foolish, but with time, you'll get better. With ultimate, you get out what you put in. Put in the time, the patience, and the effort, and you will get better. Everyone will recognize the work you've been putting in to get better, and you will reap the benefits if you keep at it. Another big group of new ultimate players have never played before. If this is you, don't be discouraged and don't think you're "not athletic" enough or "not coordinated" enough. I'm still not athletic or coordinated, and I'm a third year player. With time and a lot of practice, you're going to improve.
   
2. Throw, throw, throw, and throw some more. I was throwing my forehand wrong for a year and a half. I learned that one the hard way. After a lot of throwing and a lot of practice, I've moved out of "No Forehandville". That's the only way you can get better at your throws, is by practicing.
3. Workout! Obviously most importantly, you start looking cut and/or swole and people start hating on how much of a dime piece you are, and I guess it's also good for your body too, I don't know, whatever. A sidenote, it's almost a given that practically everyone on the team spits mad game, and it helps when you're fine. Aaaaaaaand now you think I'm a total douchebag for using the words "cut", "swole", "hating", "dime piece", "spits mad game", and "fine" all in the same two sentences. Mission accomplished.
4. Learn the rules. People might try to take advantage of you and break a few rules because you're a rookie -- but don't take any of that shit! If you don't get the rules -- there are a lot of them, and some of them can be confusing -- just ask. I still do that all the time. I still carry around my little rulebook with me, and when a call is made on the field, if I don't understand it, I still ask. It's important for you to know what a violation is and what to do when one occurs. Recognizing things like picks, fast counts, fouls, and double-teams and knowing to call them can be very helpful for you.
5. Listen when a vet talks -- they've been there before and they can help you. When they correct something you're doing, they're not picking on you or trying to make you feel bad, they just want to help you get better. On that same note, never be afraid of asking a question. If you don't understand a drill or if you want to know how to improve a certain throw or if you're not sure if you're making a cut correctly, just ask. Anyone would be happy to help you out.
6. Even if you're not on the field, you're still an important part of the team. The sidelines are extremely important on defense, and on offense, they can help players see options that they might not have seen themselves on the field. Our sidelines really set us apart from the other teams at CCC last year, and it has helped make our zone defense absolutely smothering. Without that communication, it's that much harder to play great D. And if you don't know what to say, just yell "UP!"
7. Media is your friend. Reading UPA Magazine and real ultimate blogs (i.e. not illinoismenace.blogspot.com) can give you better insight into different aspects of ultimate and different team strategies. My personal favorites are The Huddle, Hector Valdivia's, Gwen Ambler's, and Muffin's, for shits and giggles. Watching ultimate videos on YouTube or Ultivillage can help you visualize how players do certain things, like layout or position themselves on defense. Looking at pictures by photographers including but certainly not limited to Matt Lane and Scott Roeder, can also be helpful and pretty entertaining, especially when people are mean-mugging. Sites like bananacut and RSD might be helpful in the beginning stages of your Ultimate Education. Don't be afraid to get obsessed ... we all are and look, we turned out fine.
8. Go to every practice! You're probably so tired of hearing about it by now, but making it out to every practice is extremely vital not only to your development as a player, but also to our development as a team. By making it out to practice, you learn a lot and have a lot of chances to improve and practice many different parts of your individual game. Also, we get to practice things as a team, and work on how we, as a unit, work on the field. If you miss a practice where we learn something new or practice something new, you'll be left out of the loop, and you'll have to catch up.
9. Come to every tournament! The best way to learn is to just go out there and play. Plus, you'll get to watch other great players play, and you can learn from them. More than anything, tournaments are just a ridiculous amount of fun. What's the point of coming to practice all the time if you're not going to travel to tournaments?
10. Hang out with us! It's not that we're the best at everything, per se, we're just better than most people at being ridiculously awesome, you know. It's a fact. We're a fucking riot.

Jewann's Survival Tips

1. DON'T throw without shoes on on the Quad. You WILL step in dog poo, and it WILL be embarrassing and possibly the most shameful moment of your life. I'm not speaking from experience. It happened to a friend of mine, and oh man, sure sucked for that chump! What a loser!
2. Should you ever be in a car that features Mary FA Kim, The Claire Wright, or myself as a driver, I suggest you buckle the fuck up. The former two have been known to drive on the wrong side of the road, assuming it to be the left turn lane, and the latter has been known to reach ludicrous speeds in the pouring rain. We're all totally safe drivers though, no big. And if Meg "Hofner's Hammers" Hofner is driving, I suggest you go to the bathroom before you leave. You will probably not be stopping for like another six hours.
3. Should you ever be making a hilariously awkward face, know that someone will most likely capture it on film and we will mock it for weeks and weeks to come. If you want to know what this is like, just ask me or MaryKim. Our facial expressions are apparently permanently set at 'Awkward as Fuck'. Similarly, don't eat Mike & Ikes prior to the taking of a team picture. You will most likely choke and make a funny face or move about during the taking of said photo(s). This will result in a hilarious sequence of your aforementioned choking/squirming, to be posted on facebook, and to be commented on and ridiculed for the rest of the season. When I say ridiculed and mocked, I also mean with love. A lot of love.
4. With that last statement in mind, learn the meaning and usage of the term "no homo". KNOW YOUR RIGHTS.
5. Should you ever be lifting with Melissa "Death Before Dishonor" Blackford, do not try to outlift her. You won't be able to do it. You can't. Don't kill yourself trying, unless you have a death wish. I've never seen it done before. One time, Melissa "DBD" Blackford bench pressed so hard, the bar disintegrated in her bare hands. When she got up from the bench to move to another one, it collapsed the moment she laid eyes on it. TRUE STORY. I WOULD NOT LIE TO YOU. I DON'T EVEN KNOW YOU.
6. What's your accessory game look like? Cool seventies sweatbands and wristbands? Fucking badass aviators? Different sweatbands to match the color shirt you are wearing? Trucker hats? Ok Go wristbands? If none of the above applied to you, up your game, bro.
7. "I'll Make a Man Out of You" -- learn to love that song. You will be hearing a lot of it, whether you like it or not.
8. Wendy's is our Sunday, post-tournament meal, so learn to love Wendy's if you don't already (I don't know how you couldn't love Wendy's). It is affordable and delicious for beast eaters and non-beast eaters alike. Just ask The Claire Wright: she has been a beast eater and a non-beast eater and a part-time beast eater all in the past summer. If The Claire Wright can eat that chili, so can you, foo'!
9. At some point, you will probably get a nickname. Don't fight it. You will learn to love it. And even if you don't, it will probably not stop me from calling you that nickname that I most likely came up with. If you're dissatisfied with your nickname, hey, at least I don't call you T-Bag.
10. No matter how hot it is outside, DO NOT play without a shirt on, prancing about only in a sports bra. Maybe if it's deathly hot and you're on a bye and not playing and your pasty ass needs to work on your tan/your Jessica Simpson lookin' ass can't afford a fake bake, or maybe if it's an ungodly type of hot and any type of clothing is suffocating you and could cause you heat stroke and frothing at the mouth, then and only then is it okay to take your shirt off. But not when you're playing. Firstly, it is janky. Friends don't let friends be janky, and no one wants to have little janklet babies with a jank bucket. Second of all, you are representing the team whose name is supposed to be across your chest whenever you step on the field. Don't make us "that team". Most of all though, that's just shameless, even if you are ripped and have washboard abs. It just isn't an Illinois Menace thing to do, and we will most likely judge the shit out of you for it. You will be put on the same level with people who would punch their own mothers to get the newest version of the iPhone, people who kick puppies, and people who don't like the song "Love in this Club" by Usher, I don't give a shit if you walk old people across the street for a living or you've chatted about adopting sickly babies from Somalia and Laos over tea with Angelina Jolie herself.

So that's that, my young friends. I hope that was enlightening and helpful, and probably most importantly, wasted a little bit of your time you weren't really going to spend on homework anyway (Let's not lie to ourselves, shall we?). For recruitment purposes, I was actually sent away to China to lay low for a little bit -- my ridiculousness and awkwardness are a little too intense for some rookies, and extremely embarrassing for the vets. That being said, I CANNOT wait to come back and play with you all, so get jazzed, get r & b-ed, and get fucking motowned for this upcoming season.