Club: support for new Wednesday night PADA youth thing

[Colin Mcintyre]

Hey guys,

I'm working with PADA on putting together a new youth-oriented division (U23 or U19) for Wednesday nights in the wake of Rocky. Some of you might even be eligible to play in it.

The idea is to have maybe 10 club players come out each week and help facilitate that night's session, with some drilling and instruction followed by scrimmaging. So we don't need the same 10 players each week, but it would be great to have everyone commit to coming out one night (or as often as you like). And the club folks will be able to participate in drills, get some throws in, maybe scrimmage a little in a facilitator role, maybe do a workout while you're already out there, 

So that's the quick summary. I'm going to send you a really short survey, and I'd like you to fill in a response (even if the response is "not interested" or "not available"). I want to get a gauge on our level of support so I can pitch it to the PADA folks.

You can stop reading there, if you want, unless you want to hear more about this exciting opportunity, all the good things about it, and why you should help.

-Colin

Ok, now my pitch for why it's good for us to support this. First, I think it's important for us to connect with PADA and the greater community. We are the next generation of leaders in the community, so it's good to get connected and get involved in growing the sport. Second, it connects us with the young players in the area, which helps build our program. And finally, sparing the many other reasons, I'll just say, I think it'll be fun, and it'll be a good chance for us to spread our message, that players should be looking to improve (there's more to Ultimate than winning every league game).

Next, details on the Wednesday night concept. This will not be a league with pre-formed teams that show up each week to play one game. Instead, each session will consist of drilling/teaching to start, followed by a variety of small-field scrimmage games. Sometimes we'll play mini. Sometimes we'll play 5-on-5 on a small field. Sometimes Goaltimate. And we'll form new teams each week from the people who show up. 

The drilling is to give the kids a chance to show up at a PADA thing and actually receive real instruction, rather than stray comments in the midst of a scrimmage. And with a good turnout of club folks, each kid can actually get meaningful attention, and we can set the tone that improvement is most important.

Small-field games let us use the space more efficiently and give us more control over game play. We can control gender ratio, separate girls only or boys only games, different skill level, different age, etc. We can also assure a successful session, whether 10 kids show up or 80 kids show up. And each kid gets a chance to get a lot of touches and really get involved in the play, which is a way better developmental opportunity than just playing a single 7-on-7 game.

Finally, I want to bring a different focus to this PADA experience. In what is really a low-level recreational league (that describes every level of PADA), I think PADA folks grossly over-emphasize winning, at the cost of player development (and also fun, sometimes). In a 7-on-7 single league game, the worst player gets lost in the stack and the best player plays bad, ball-hog frisbee. In the small-field formats, everyone gets to participate, and the competitive side of the game emphasizes moving the disc to create offensive opportunities.

Ok, so that's the full pitch. Thanks for reading this far. Please fill out the survey.

-Colin