Scobel Wiggins Photography

"There are things more important than just winning"

Except for the hangovers, coaching the 2005 World Games Team USA '05 was a pretty easy gig. Too much talent to lose and nothing more to say than "go out there and dominate." Besides, we had Deb Cussen and the other teams did not.

Early on, we set ourselves two goals. First, we wanted to win gold in Germany. Second, we wanted to represent the country and our sport as best we could.

Goal number one? Check. In the words Ziperstien had engraved onto his medal, team USA: "Brought It." As good as they were, Australia was not beating us that day in Duisburg. Maybe we couldn't beat the Portland Vagabonds at Potlatch, but we took down everyone else.

Our success serving the country and Ultimate is for others to assess. We didn't save America from its post-Iraq reputation, but otherwise I think we did a pretty good job, and not just because we were willing to drink with all comers. When Mike Baccarini (legendary coach of Paideia high and former bachelor) invited us to use his school's field for a weekend practice in Atlanta, part of the plan was to make our being in town a kind of event. The parents came out, we got a little local press coverage, and then scrimmaged Mike's team on Saturday. After that we mixed it up with both high school and middle school players. That's how a pre-pubescent twelve-year-old ended up covering Chase Sparling-Beckley. To mark Chase (a rather enormous 6' 4") the kid had to jump up, hands reaching for the sky. Even so, Chase could still pivot over him. But when the little guy jumped at just the right time and got a point block, we had the best play of the weekend. If that kid wasn't hooked on Ultimate before, he is now.

That Saturday night, locals Angela Lin and Miranda Roth led the team to a place where Stacey Schoemehl and Ron Kubalanza exchanged cash money for many tiny glasses of Tequila. Without going into all the details, this eventually led to early morning Team USA pole dancing. More money exchanged hands, many ro-shams were lost, and pole dancing winners were decided (Dominique Fontenette and, unsurprisingly, Will Deaver). Practice Sunday morning may have started late, but the team had bonded.

It's a lot of fun and a serious honor to be part of an all-star team representing your country. No doubt that's why those people who have asked me about the '09 team are curious how to apply. In '05 (as in '01) World Game teams were selected by a committee, which is probably why people want to know if this year there will be a tryout. I don't know; that is for the UPA to decide. But looking back on '05, I would argue how the team should be selected is less important than what the team should stand for. I mean no matter how it is chosen, the '09 team will be loaded with talent and set out to win gold in Taiwan. But what about beyond that? How can we get more moments like that scrimmage in Atlanta? Is that kind of ambassador role worth pursuing?

Being "Team USA" at a hotbed of youth Ultimate like Paideia was easily worth it from a service standpoint. Similarly, when we went to Poultry Days in Versailles, Ohio, many people were glad we had made the effort. No one seemed to mind that Miss Chick was sweet on [male player X], that Mike Namkung's tent floated away, or that [players Y and Z] missed most of Sunday, one because they had too much to drink Saturday night, the other because of repeated trips to get grilled chicken. The locals excused our behavior because for lots of teams it was exciting to play Team USA and we put on a decent show in the final. Jeff Eastham had a top shelf grab that I always remember because it brought such an audible gasp from the crowd.

One advantage of a selection committee is that everyone on it thought those picked should for the team should be good people, good representatives of the game, good sports—the whole deal. A tryout would not prevent this same ethos, of course, and given the rampant alcoholism of our crew, you can question the '05 committee's choices. But I like the idea that those chosen to represent the country and the sport have qualities that go beyond a wicked flick.

The tryout mentality is based, in part, on getting a dream team, that group of players so awesome that it crushes everyone and lets us all share in the fantasy of how great a group of Frisbee players could be. I am wondering if the fantasy can be one of some kind of do-goodership.

Some B-ball historians out there may know that there was a time in Boston sports history when Hockey was far more popular than Basketball. Thus people went to the Bruins much more than to the Celtics. To change this, Red Auerbach took his players on a bus and drove them around New England to play all comers. Barnstorming this way helped the sport become popular. What if the US team did something similar? How cool would it be if Team USA '09 went around the country to practice and play. What if they stopped somewhere—Central Europe say—on its way to Taiwan to teach a little ultimate?

You think this idea of service or ambassadorship is fanciful or cheesy, that the team should just focus on winning? Fine. But really either model depends less on how the team is picked and more on support, more that is, on long term planning for what the team does, where it does it, and how it gets paid for.

In '05 we raised as much money as we could and tried to share expenses. But it still cost each player close a few thousand bucks, even before anyone headed overseas. Lack of funds meant we did not practice as much as we would have liked and that some people could not make certain practices. Had he been able to make our Seattle practice (party at Andrew Fleming's place, much skinny dipping) Tully Beatty, an alternate, would have joined Mike and Deb as our third captain. Instead, Ron took that role. Ron is one of the greatest teammates I have ever known and was the de-facto coach in Germany, so it worked out. But money should not have kept Tully from an honor he deserved.

I'm not whining about the expense. I would have coached the team for twice the price. But if you want some dream team to dominate, they need practice time, the more the better. If you are like me and want them to promote and serve, then the more the better.

Maybe, since most of the likely members of the team will come from top club teams, there should be a small World Games Tax at Nationals the year before we send the team. Maybe every player who applies should have to get contributions from his or her team as part of the application process. Shouldn't your team mates be willing to cough up a few bucks for you to tryout for Team USA? Maybe schools or venues would be willing to host practices the way Mike Baccarini did to help keep expenses down? Maybe school teams would be willing to bid to bring the team to where they are? Maybe not, but I can tell you that those are the things that need to be set up ahead of time and depend, to some degree, on what we see as the role of this team.

As long as I have been in Ultimate (close to thirty years) one of the burning questions has been: "When will we be on TV?" Uhm, has anyone noticed that TV does not confer respectability on many things? Sure, if we had Monday Night Ultimate, then paying for an all-star team would be less of struggle, but how would we as a sport be better? I am much more impressed by our sport when I hear how Jit Bhattacharya (now of Revolver) or Riot manages to raise money to get kids from South Africa or Seattle to Tina Booth's NUTC camp. Let's have more of that, or take pride in reducing our carbon footprint or whatever. Hoping to get rich and famous for Ultimate? Go play Football.

How well known Ultimate will be in 2039 is less interesting to me, in other words, than what Ultimate will be known for, if anything. With so much competition in high school, college, and club, the World Games team is a small blip on the ever expanding radar screen of Ultimate activity. But for just that reason it might also be a good vehicle for helping us think about what the sport stands for, or should stand for.

Maybe the 2005 team wanted to be known too much for drinking? At Potlatch, despite my clear insistence that everyone be in bed (their own or someone elses) no later than five AM, no one ever made curfew. Even the night before the tourney started some people [female player A] did some naked dawn jogging in Kati Halmos's apartment building. I don't want use the three days of no sleep and heavy drinking as an excuse for the Vagabonds game. In fact I'd never trade those nights for a win in that game. In the first place, all the car bombs we served up at the tents and the big bottles of wine we downed there was a good way to win fans. And not having to play the final meant we got to hang out a little longer together as a full team for one last time, with Scotty Conway acting as our rock. "Great teams," he said, "lose at the right time." For us the timing could not have been better.

After she got hurt, starter Kirsten Unfried was replaced by Miranda Roth, but like Ron she came to Germany. If we had had a bigger bank account I sure would have loved to have had the whole team there. Maybe another model for future teams is to keep them together as long as possible, to send the alternates to the games themselves, even if only the starters get to play. Not exactly my service, do-gooder model, but the selfish wish I would have most wanted for our team. (Miss you guys.)

Anyway, the U.S. has no monopoly on talent. Canada won gold in 2001. The Aussies are ferocious; Japan is awesome, etc, etc. Just as Nationals seem to get tougher and tougher each year, there's parity on the world stage as well, especially because lots of countries focus on building top mixed teams. We will have to fight for any future Gold we want to win. On the field and off, future teams should be helped to represent the sport and the states better than we ever did, ideally so the whole U.S. Ultimate community can feel a part of a special team. But that means deciding what role, if any, beyond winning a Gold medal, we want such a team to serve.

Let's get this party started.

Ted Munter was the head coach of Team USA in 2005, and has coached Boston's Ironside for several years. Some of the names named were censored to protect the guilty. Ted misses the '05 team terribly.