Scobel Wiggins Photography

At 7:30 on Saturday morning, eight teams' captains gathered to participate in a unique captains' meeting of their own. Grinnell, John Brown, Western Michigan, Oberlin, Mississippi State, North Texas, Tulane, and Oklahoma State were about to meet their adopted coaches for the weekend. These coaches had coached national-caliber college teams like Stanford and UCLA, had captained elite club teams like Fury and Riot, had earned gold medals at Worlds with Team USA and Canada, and had flown in from as far as Boston and San Francisco to convene on lakeside fields in St. Louis for a weekend of intense teaching and mentoring. Over two days, each coach would lead their team through six games and one-hour long clinic rounds between games to teach drills and strategy.

A teaching tournament. When Michelle Ng and I first came up with the idea in late August '09, we were merely lamenting our inability to commit to coaching due to demanding work schedules. It's too bad, we joked, we couldn't get paid to travel around the country, holding clinics for youth and college teams.

A light bulb went off. Why couldn't we?

Well, perhaps not paid, per se. And perhaps someone more qualified — someone with serious coaching experience. And why stop at a clinic? Why not fly out and adopt a team for an entire tournament? And why not weave a little resemblance to a clinic into the tournament to maximize teaching time? Thus, the Roundup Division was born.

It's easy for me to forget what it was like being a rookie. In fact, I'm not sure you could call my freshman year at UCLA a "rookie year." Yes, BLU was a brand new team formed that year and I hadn't ever touched a disc, but three vets and eighteen rookies meant we all had to step up and fill starting roles. We had to break trapping cups, we had to sky for the goal, and we had to learn quickly because there weren't enough vets to pick up the slack and because we knew teams like Kali and Superfly were going to capitalize on our every mistake.

I often take for granted how lucky I was to pick up ultimate in California. Sure the weather doesn't suck, but more importantly I had incredible club players to look up to at every corner. Playing club teams that first year at DUI was a jaw-dropping experience for us. So that's what it means to really go to the disc! Or, that's what it means to step out around your mark! Or, wow, THAT's how you lay out. Just being exposed to such high caliber play gave us the self-awareness to realize how much room we had to improve. Now imagine being a new team at a geographically isolated school, with only other new teams around. It must be hard to find such self-awareness and motivation.

With new teams popping up every year, elite club teams scarce, and Michelle's growing frustration with the lack of investment, the Midwest seemed like the perfect place for us to hold a teaching tournament. I can only imagine that getting coached by someone who just played on Team USA would be equally as jaw-dropping and inspiring as playing Fury was for us freshman year.

As the sport grows and more teams are born, teaching divisions could easily be incorporated into already established tournaments. Sure, our eight coaches were nationally recognized, but you don't have to be an elite player to be a successful coach. Ideally, the coaches would be locals willing to donate their time and the tournament fee would then go to renting the extra fields for the division.

We owe our thanks to the Wash U team. It sounds cliche, but this literally would not have been possible without them. These women are so committed to increasing the caliber of Midwest ultimate that they sacrificed what for them would have been running a huge fundraising tournament in order to fly in coaches for a division that they didn't even play in. Did you get that? They donated time, money, and organizational skills and didn't even directly benefit from Roundup. That's true, selfless dedication. We also owe a huge thanks to the eight teams who were our guinea pigs. They believed in our vision, and judging by the feedback, their 10-12 hour drives were well worth it.

Anna Nazarov, 2007 Callahan Winner, former UCLA captain, current Zeitgeist player