Thanks for your hard work

[Dan C.]

Dragon Army,

Thanks to each of you for coming out to practice and giving us your
time and attention. Thanks for working through the drills each week
and then putting up with conditioning well into the night. Thanks for
absorbing the information and improving.

Although we may not have shown it on our tournament record, I have
been rewarded because I feel each of you has improved. Most
importantly I feel that you have all improved mentally towards the
game. You know when you make the right pass compared to the tough
pass. You know when you get to close to the handler as a dump. You
know when the timing of your cut is right on and when it is off. Being
mentally aware of the game is much more important to me than how you
physically play. To build muscle memory and conditioning is more than
we could have hoped to accomplish in one season (5 months!).

The other main objective for me was to show you or remind you how
cool frisbee really is. How setting up the dump 9 feet versus 10 feet
away can make a big difference. How setting up your mark in the
difference of inches can make a significant difference downfield. How
you can accomplish things together (Dump Defense!) that would not be
possible alone.

I have learned some important lessons too. We come out to frisbee
each week to practice for 3 hours. That is almost 60 hours of running
around chasing a plastic disc in a season. Enjoy the time spent
together. Sure, we practised for 60 hours but we spent at least 20
hours at Papusas! Good, quality, fun time. I was also reminded that we
are out to actually play frisbee. As much as I would like to run
drills all practice I would agree with you that physically running
them is not as fun as playing frisbee. I also learned a lot about
coaching so thank you for struggling through some of that for me.

I want to thank the captains Jen, Jess, and Kevin. Especially
Kevin. He never got to play but kept with us the whole season to
handle the details regarding ultimate that ensure the team gets to
play in tournaments and on lighted fields. Buy him a beer sometime.
Thanks to Jen and Jess for doing a really hard job. Running practice
is easy because we can control the mental, physical, and emotional
environment. Being the captain at a tournament is exponentially harder
because everything can change instantly. Thanks for being such great
people. I can't write enough to truly express my gratitude to all
three of them. If you see them soon, buy them a beer or root beer but
wait a bit because I am going to buy them each a keg!

So, thank you all for your efforts. I hope that you have been
bitten by the bug so that you are interested to learn more about
frisbee. I plan to see you in the future on the field. Hopefully we
are on the same team because I don't want to cover you. If we aren't
on the same team, I hope that you show me how you've improved.

Be well. Chase plastic!
- Dan Chao