Virginia is for Layouts Recap

From an organizer's perspective, it is a bit overwhelming to try to describe what happened at Virginia is for Layouts last weekend. 28 teams, 28 guest coaches, games, skills clinics, development sessions, classroom sessions, teammates, rivals, old friends, new friends. 6+ months of planning culminating in the pinnacle of the Without Limits season.

I've organized dozens of tournaments over the years, and I can't shake the feeling that what we accomplished this past weekend is truly something special. There are many tournaments that serve the top of the women's division extremely well, and as they have expanded to include more divisions and qualifiers, they are doing an increasingly good job of serving the middle of the women's division as well. But what about the B teams? The new women's teams who can barely field 7 people at practice? The D-III teams who are faced with a new competition structure and few resources? Who serves them?

Enter the idea for Layouts.

The tournament and its multitude of challenges have weighed heavily on me for the past 6 months. To be honest, a few months ago, I was fairly certain the tournament would be a huge disappointment, but after a meeting with the other organizers and a conversation with one of the Grinnell captains, I fell back on one of my major life mottos, "Refuse to fail." Terrified of letting these people down, I poured my heart and soul into the event. I ran clinics to help fundraise money, I begged my teammates and friends for their support, I emailed teams repeatedly until I got a response. The number of teams committed to the event grew from 5 to 28 in less than 2 months' time. And when the time came to find guest coaches for all of these teams, Lindsey Hack wrangled a dozen of her teammates from Phoenix and Ember to come coach, and players from Showdown, Molly Brown, Brute Squad, Ozone, RevoLOUtion, Ring, Cash Crop, Ironside, Haymaker, and The Ghosts joined them. The level of coordination required to pull off an event like this is something I cannot even begin to describe-- there are so many moving pieces, and as the event took shape, I began to realize the utter insanity that was sandwiching this event between tournaments sized at 52 teams, 42 teams, 40 teams, and another brand new tournament.

The weekend did not go perfectly. We survived a guest coast dropping the week before the event, a team dropping the day before the event, and a mix-up in the tournament location causing a team to miss their first round on Saturday. Some of the classroom sessions were smaller than I had hoped. The usual craziness of hosting an event for hundreds of people took over at times. Organization behind the scenes did not always go smoothly, and we talked through difficult issues. But in the end, I think we accomplished what we set out to accomplish. We created an amazing playing and development opportunity for D-III, B-teams, and on-the-cusp teams. And that is something we can be proud of.

Over the course of the weekend, I saw clear admiration in the eyes of many college players as they hung on to their guest coaches' every word. Some of them had spirit circles at the end of the weekend to thank their coaches, and at one point, I saw Tufts B marching two-by-two as their guest coach, Frances Deschenes, led them to their next development session. I saw some of the best players in the club division break down basic skills for young college players, I saw strategy being explained to teams, and I witnessed one-on-one instruction happening on the sidelines. I saw coaches rushing the field out of excitement when their teams scored, I saw a brand new women's team win 3 games on the weekend, and I got to witness what happens when you put players from 10 different club teams together at a dinner table. I had amazing conversations with captains, players, coaches, and even parents. I left the weekend feeling incredibly challenged.
I had the privilege of (unexpectedly) teaching a development session on "Building A College Program," and the focus and engagement from the players in attendance floored me. It reminded me that these players love their teams and our sport as much as my teammates at the elite club level. I believe that the development of the women's division involves raising both the ceiling and the floor. It is not enough to just serve the top of the women's division, and the opportunities for the middle and lower tier teams may have to look radically different than it does for the teams at the top.

The feedback surveys are showing overwhelming positive feedback about the coaches. "I learned so much" and "(Insert Coach Name) was AMAZING!" are recurring themes in the feedback. My inbox has also been filled with emails from college players over the past few days, more than a few which have brought me to tears. One of my guest coaches, a young club player, whom I have invested a ton into over the past year, wrote me an email yesterday saying, "I can't stop thinking about how awesome this tournament was, it was one of the most rewarding things I've ever experienced. Thanks for letting me be a part of it, I hope to do it again next year." That was enough to make me realize that maybe, just maybe, we have done something worthwhile.

While I am still exhausted from the weekend (with two of my biggest events on the horizon), my brain won't let me stop thinking about where I go from here. Looking back on a very uncertain few months, and looking forward to two more months on the road, I've spent a lot of time thinking about how Layouts fits into the bigger picture, and the kind of difference I want to make in the ultimate community. To organize a good event or to raise money for a college team are both great things, but I want to do more than that.
It's 5:00 AM and I still need to put the finishing touches on the Women's College Centex captains' packet, so I'll close with two quotes that have me thinking.
Sport and physical education play an important role at the individual, community, national, and global levels. For the individual, sport enhances one's personal abilities, general health, and self-knowledge. On the national level, sport and physical education contribute to economic and social growth, improve public health, and bring different communities together. On the global level, if used consistently, sport and physical education can have a long-lasting impact on development, public health, peace, and the environment. - United Nations International Year of Sport and Physical Education

Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire. It has the power to unite people in a way that little else does. Sport can awaken hope where there was previously only despair. Sport speaks to people in a language they can understand. - Nelson Mandela
Layouts would not have been possible without the help of many, many people. Thank you to everyone who contributed to this event-- your love and support have meant the world to me, and I hope to pay your investment forward many times over as I seek to make a difference not only in our sport, but in the lives of the people who make up this community.

Community and the Power of Positivity

My friends have been encouraging me to blog more, as the past couple of months have been filled with some interesting experiences. Hilarious / ridiculous things happen to me on a somewhat regular basis (more than I care for), and I've also been learning A LOT about myself, my work, and what Without Limits is and can be. I've also met a lot of great people along this journey, and for that I am exceedingly grateful.

I've had a couple of conversations with college players recently about energy, mostly as it pertains to team. I'm a firm believer that there is no such thing as being neutral in a relationship. You're either pouring positive energy into the people around you... or you're sucking energy away from them (which can also be looked upon as injecting negative energy). I know that for me at least, the energy I put into / take from the people around me is highly correlated with external factors (whether my team is winning or losing, how people treat me, how many hours I've driven that day, etc.) I've been pushing these college leaders to turn on the positive, no matter what the circumstances are. We all have the ability to be positive, and I believe that it's a choice we make. Sometimes that choice is harder than other times for sure, but I think we always have the ability to choose.

I've been striving to apply this concept to life and my circle of friends and acquaintances, or my community, if you will. Being on the road for 6 months leaves a lot of time for thinking (and hopefully challenging myself and growing), and this week, I've been thinking a lot about what community is exactly. I have a M.S. in Community and Regional Planning, so I have a fair amount of experience and training in building community. Over the past few years, I've been focused intently on the women's ultimate community. But lately, I've been thinking that there is more.

Yesterday, I did an interview with BTW21, a local television station who will be covering Virginia is for Layouts this weekend. I had a long talk with the News Director before the interview and it made me think more about the impact that this event is having on the local community. The sport we play is great, but not just because it's fun to chase around a flying piece of plastic. It's about the power of sport-- to create relationships, to test your personal limits, to learn life lessons, and to impact the people around you. And that community, our sphere of influence, is greater than just our team, or even the small group of teams we play against over the course of a season. Our ability to pour positivity into our community extends to the front desk clerk who checks us in at the tournament hotel, the checker at the grocery store when we buy field food Friday night, the local who stops by to catch a few points of one of our games, the attendant at the gas station... the list could go on and on.

Maybe this is just another one of my crazy ideas... but what effect could the power of positivity have if we broadened our definition of community and poured positivity into all of our relationships? What if we took the extra effort to invest fully into our teammates, acquaintances... and into all of the people around us?

The world might be a better place. :)

Layouts is this weekend. We just announced Heavyweights. We'll be hosting our first international clinic next month to help our friends raise money for Worlds. And planning for Virginia Fusion has also begun. It's a busy stretch ahead, and I'll be striving hard to keep the focus on investing positively in the people around me. Hold me accountable!

Midwest Throwdown:: Year 5

It's hard to believe that this is the 5th year of what started out as a small event to build the South Region. Over the years, the tournament has grown tremendously. This year, we'll host 52 teams, a 400% increase in tournament size.

The planning team is one of the best I work with-- the organizers have a huge vision for their sport, understand the privilege (and responsibility) of being an elite college team, and pay attention to the small things (a detailed timeline of Thurs / Fri / Sat / Sun responsibilities is always included in our tournament planning).

I just finished "The Tipping Point" yesterday, a book whose subtitle is "How Little Things Can Make A Big Difference." While I definitely don't think we've started an epidemic, it is interesting how I can point back to one weekend that has been the lynchpin for this event.

South Regionals 2007

Two very important things happened that weekend.

1. Texas didn't qualify for Nationals for the first time in half a dozen years.
2. After we knocked Wash U out in Semis, I saw one of their captains sitting on the sideline of the Finals taking notes on the game and planning how to take it back to her team for the following year.

So how did those two things lead to the development of one of the biggest tournaments in college ultimate?

1. Not qualifying for Nationals was a humbling experience for Texas. The team recognized that in order to be relevant on the national scene, we needed to build the teams around us. We went to the other top teams in the region and established a collaborative relationship with them.
2. Abby's display of crazy commitment and desire to improve stayed burned in my mind until I had the opportunity to meet her 6 months later at Harvest Moon. And so began a 4-year partnership with Wash U.

How Little Things Can Make A Big Difference.

QCTU Qualifier Preview

Queen City Tune-Up Qualifier in Chapel Hill this weekend is the first Without Limits tournament of 2012! The highest finisher (besides UNC A) will advance to Queen City Tune-Up in Charlotte next weekend. The Qualifier features ten teams from the Atlantic Coast region, and is a quality local playing opportunity for a number of teams.

The Pleiades are the clear favorite going into the weekend, but the team knows that they need to remain focused, not only to do well at the tournament, but to prepare themselves for tougher competition at next weekend's event. The team's most notable loss is 2011 Callahan winner Leila Tunnell, and in order to make another strong run this year, the team will have to adjust to the loss of their best thrower and all-around player. Other notable losses include 2nd Team All-Region players Janna Coulter, Britta Jones, and Kaitlin Baden.

Captains Lindsay Lang and Shellie Cohen will shoulder much of the burden for the Pleiades this season. Lang received All-Region honors last year and Cohen was voted FOTY, and both have spent time playing with North Carolina Phoenix (Lang in 2010 and Cohen in 2011). Their leadership and skills will be key to the Pleiades' success this year. The Pleiades also return coaches Lindsey Hack and Raj Prasad, who will do a great job molding young talent to play their best in April and May.

Elon takes the 2 seed into the weekend, coming off a strong showing at Wolfpack Invitational, with their only losses coming against 2011 Nationals Qualifiers UNCW and Virginia. Elon will be looking to qualify for next weekend's event and will be led by captain Lauren Krizay. UNC-Greensboro and Duke round out the top four, with Elizabeth Longmire and Meredith Chase leading their teams respectively.

Liberty is a second year team with a ton of athletic potential. Last year, they pulled off impressive wins against UMass and SUNY-Buffalo at Easterns, and also competed at Conference Championships for the first time. They will be looking to build on last year's successes and despite some personnel changes, have a dedicated coach and advocate in Jason Barett.

Wake Forest is one of the most interesting teams competing at the Qualifier. The team qualified for D-I Nationals in 2008, but has been rebuilding since. Gone are studs like Lucia Derks, Kennedy Wolfe, and Claire O'Brien. Coach Tammy Moose has departed as well. But this year, Wake Forest will be renewing their focus and competing in D-III. They will be a dangerous team in the Atlantic Coast and should easily contend for a bid to Nationals. This is the first step in their journey.

Davidson, UNC-B, JMU-B, and Virginia-B round out the field of teams. Of note, Kate Leslie of Bay Area Zeitgeist is now coaching UNC-B. Mary Schone will be a player to watch for Davidson, and JMU-B and Virginia-B represent some of the tremendous growth and development that is happening in the Atlantic Coast women's region.

In addition to tournament play, Triangle Area club players will be hosting a skills clinic on Saturday afternoon. The clinic is open to all QCTU Qualifier and TYUL participants.

Registration info is here:

http://withoutlimitsultimate.com/projects/queen-city-tune-up-qualifier

Happy National Girls and Women in Sports Day!

Happy National Girls and Women in Sports Day! I'm writing this post from somewhere (in the middle of nowhere) between St. Louis and Nashville. Today is a huge day for Without Limits, and it seems fitting that this day coincides with a holiday that celebrates the big things happening in girls' and women's sports. :)

Yesterday, I had the privilege of spending some time with the Wash U women's team-- I spent a day in St. Louis, caught some of their practice, and watched them destroy the varsity soccer team in IM basketball. I also got to spend some time with former and current captains, as well as a former and current coaches. There are few teams, besides those I have played on myself, that I have invested so much time and energy into. Watching their ridiculous numbers and energy at practice last night was a bit of a surreal experience. While I take no credit for how far they've come over the past few years, I can't help but feel incredibly proud of them, and to feel incredibly lucky that they are one of my most trusted partner teams. You all have taught me so much. Thank you.

Today, I am headed to Nashville to stay with an old college friend who now coaches the USN girls' team. We'll be running a tournament together next month, and I am grateful for the opportunity to work with someone who shaped my early college ultimate career and to bring some of the best women's ultimate in the country to the backyard of the girls she coaches. It's a bit of a reminder that as uncertain as the future is, friends are the one constant.

So, why is today such a big day? Well, aside from being halfway through my cross-country drive (YAY!), we reached a huge milestone for Layouts today.

The tournament is now completely full and we have all of the guest coaches we need.

28 teams, 28 coaches.

Over the past couple of years, I have felt a growing need to help the "next tier" of women's teams-- the teams who do not have the opportunities or resources that many of us are fortunate enough to have. Their passion for the game and their love for their teams are no different than what is found at the elite level-- but there is a gap in skill level and competitiveness because they have few ways to improve their game. The idea for Layouts was born out of wanting to do something to change this, and out of the desire to help a friend's team fundraise money for their season.

We launched what we thought was an awesome idea... and were met by what can best be described as the most underwhelming response I have ever received to any of my ideas to date. (And that says a lot, because I have had some truly crazy / terrible ideas.) Our emails recruiting teams went largely unanswered, the few teams we did get on board started to get cold feet, and we weren't even sure we could the guest coaches we needed. At the end of November, the organizers met to discuss the situation-- pulling the plug on an idea we were so passionate about was never an option, but we talked about scaling the event down, moving the tournament to a smaller field site, and adjusting expectations. We were discouraged to say the least.

With the end of November came a lot of life changes. A new job, no place to live, and a need for attention to other family and life matters...

What came next can only be described as a miracle. In two months, we have added 23 teams to the tournament. Our friends have stepped up HUGE as guest coaches. We now have the pieces for an event that has the potential to be a game-changer in college women's ultimate.

I could go on and on about every single coach who has committed to coming to this event, and about the dozens of friends around the world who have donated to make this project happen. I could tell you a million reasons why you should support what we are doing. And if you feel compelled to support this project, please do.

But Nashville awaits, and I ramble enough as it is.

So just a few important shoutouts to close this:
- Amber Sinicrope and Smith College LunaDisc for making me believe in this project even when I was ready to give up
- Lindsey Hack for recruiting MANY of the guest coaches, and for giving me a place to call home for a couple of months
- Adriana Withers, Steve Meyers, and the team at VC Ultimate for supporting this, and every other Without Limits project
- All of the phenomenal guest coaches- teammates, rivals, and above all, dear friends. Thank you.

Thank you for following our journey, and for supporting us however you can. Here's to many more years of working for the growth and development of the sport we all love.

Michelle
Without Limits Founder

Midwest Captaining 101 Clinic Recap

What a weekend. 12 hours of clinic time split between the fieldhouse, auxiliary gym, and classroom. 6 coaches. 65 players representing over a dozen teams in attendance.

For an outline of the weekend, check out:
http://www.rsdnospam.com/index.php?t=msg&th=37072&goto=109761&#msg_109761

At the beginning of the weekend, I encouraged players to come to the clinic with an open mind and to be willing to listen to and learn from players with backgrounds different than their own. The coaches did a great job at covering an incredible breadth and depth of information. Seeing players furiously taking notes on the knowledge being dropped by the coaches was awesome. The players were SO engaged, and asked lots of really thoughtful questions. It was really inspiring to see such a desire to learn from these players.

Robyn teaching a session on "Team Structure and Developing a Team Identity"

The majority of the players in attendance at the clinic play for teams that are uncoached. The captains and team leaders shoulder a tremendous amount of responsibility developing a vision for the season, planning practices, taking on administrative tasks, etc. While some knowledge is passed on from year to year, many of these players struggle to figure out how to get their team to the next level. Our goal with this clinic was to equip these players with more tools to lead their teams, covering topics such as basic O / D fundamentals (and how to teach them), practice planning, matchups and game-time adjustments, how to get the most out of the players you have, among many other things.

Our coaches have played at the highest levels of the sport, and have wide range of backgrounds, from helping grow young college women's teams to coaching and captaining elite college teams to captaining elite club teams. While none of us claim to be an expert, our experiences over the years have helped shape us into the players and leaders we are today, and our hope was to share that with these younger players.

Over the course of the weekend, we also had the opportunity to meet on a more individual basis with the leaders of several teams including Oberlin and Grinnell. What a joy and privilege to interact with players with such vision for their teams and such passion for our sport. THIS is why we do what we do!

Paige Hill, one of the captains of the Grinnell women's team, was the driving force behind the clinic, organizing all of the on-the-ground logistics. The Grinnell men and women were also gracious enough to offer free housing for everyone who needed it. A huge thank you to them for their hard work, as well as to all of the coaches and players who made this weekend such an awesome, rewarding experience. The future of ultimate in the Midwest is bright thanks to so many invested players and leaders, and we look forward to watching all of these players lead their teams to glory this season!

Pre-Midwest Captaining Clinic Thoughts

I was thinking back to the first time I met the Grinnell girls at Midwest Warmup in Fall 2009. I had gathered a bunch of team leaders in an ice cream shop on Saturday night to talk about how to grow women's ultimate in the South and Midwest. Wisconsin, Michigan, Texas, Kansas, and Illinois were all represented-- these were all teams I knew well and had worked with in the past. On a bit of a whim, I extended an invite to the other teams at the tournament, and the Grinnell girls showed up.

At first, there was a lot of talk about how to develop events in the region like Midwest Throwdown and Women's College Centex into more competitive events. Most of the talk was about the elite teams and how we needed to work together to get on a more level playing field with the West Coast teams. At some point, the conversation shifted and one of the Grinnell girls talked a bit about her team's perspective. It was eye-opening to listen to her talk about the need for us to invest in teams like hers, how they wanted to learn from us, and how they didn't have club players or many resources to help them. She said that when she wished playing elite teams was more of a learning experience and that it would be cool if we would give them tips on how to improve. I remember being half-incredulous and asking, "So you wouldn't be insulted by that?!" And her response was, "How else are we going to learn?" I left that meeting challenged and humbled, realizing that it wasn't enough to create a few well-run events. There are countless teams on the fringe of those events, who want to improve, but who have relatively few resources to do so... that's how the first Roundup Division was born.

1.5 years after that ice cream shop meeting, Grinnell made Quarterfinals at D-III Nationals, which is quite an accomplishment. Their hard work and determination to build a program have brought them a long way. They have created opportunities, and have done a phenomenal job of turning those opportunities into success.

Largely thanks to the efforts of Grinnell captain, Paige Hill, I am sitting on a couch in Iowa, getting ready to run a Captaining Clinic for 64 college captains and team leaders in the Midwest this weekend. This spring, Grinnell will also be participating in Roundup Division v. 2.0, this time in Virginia. This time, we'll be more than tripling the number of teams and guest coaches-- it's overwhelming to plan and fundraise for, but if even a small number of teams get something out of it, it'll be well worth it.

This weekend should be fun. I'm prepping the coaches' notes for printing, and wow, there is some good stuff. It should be a great kickoff for a crazy spring. Stay tuned to Facebook and Twitter for updates, and I'll try to get a recap posted after the event as well.