First, who I am and why my endorsement matters at all (it doesn’t really.)

I’m Sam Harkness, my involvement in college women’s ultimate is coaching Western Washington Chaos the last 2 seasons with co-coach Jinny Eun. My current involvement in playing is elite club with Seattle Sockeye.

In order of who should win.

Shannon O’Malley (University of Washington Element – Captain)

Shannon’s skill has been Callahan worthy for the last 3 years, so I feel no need to touch on her elite club level skill sets.

A Callahan award could not even come close to returning what Shannon has put into the Ultimate community. I’ve been witness to her coaching a middle school team since she was a sophomore in high school, and turning that program into one of the most successful Frisbee programs in Seattle. She has more than played her role in helping Seattle become the mecca for youth ultimate in the states by coaching nearly year round. From summer camps, to fall and spring middle school and high school leagues, to free weekly skills and leadership clinics, and a service project bringing ultimate to low income elementary schools, Shannon has passionately spread her knowledge and love for the game through the youth of Seattle.

Her roll as a college player on UW Element has no doubt peaked this season. Her play and leadership has been inspiring. She is someone who you can immediately tell has taken 100% ownership to her team, and with that, takes ownership to the wins and losses that come with it. She’s not someone who is too afraid to commit the whole way because she is afraid of failure, she leaves everything on the field win or lose, and sometimes deals with wins and losses very emotionally. Yes I’ve seen her overreact to mistakes with ground pounding, hair pulling, and loud obscenities, but would you say Kevin Garnett didn’t deserve an MVP because he would overreact? Shannon plays with a fire and passion that very obviously to me inspires her teammates.

Kaela Jorgenson (University of California at Santa Barbara Burning Skirts – Captain)

At San Diego’s Pres Day tourney, I saw the best college women’s game I’ve seen played in the tournament final. It had Universiy of Oregon vs UCSB. The first 3 points of this game looked awful, UCSB didn’t take care of their opponents earlier in the weekend as efficiently as Oregon did, resulting in a fatigued starting line up. 10 games were played over the 3 days, and it showed. Lou Burruss put it this way, “It’s like watching the two prized fighters going 15 rounds exchanging blows with their guards down”. Or something like that…

The game picked up a few more points in, and things started to escalate. Oregon was taking big risky shots, giving UCSB a chance for some exciting D’s and UCSB playing their big deep game the whole game. I don’t think I’ve seen more lay out blocks in a women’s game before. Burning skirts ended up losing by about 2 I think, but the game never lost momentum after the first few points.

Having watched that game, and coached my team against them, I could pick out about 5 of their players that could make top 4 Callahan nominees. Kaela Jorgenson was definitely the leader on the field, and was one of the first to escalate that game into the awesome game it was with huge plays. Every goal scored on UCSB, you could see Kaela not jogging, but running back to the line. Her play was inspiring, and seemed like the kind of opponent that brings the best out of both teams. If someone from UCSB doesn’t win a Callahan in the next 2 years, then the system is truly broken.

Cree Howard (University of California at Berkeley Pie Queens)

I have only had pleasant encounters with Cree and the majority of her team. She is someone who I can tell is constantly assessing the game, and making adjustments utilizing her full team. I’ve seen her show nothing but confidence in all of her teammates. As far as a team leader and her spirit, she leads the Callahan race in my mind, but because of this, she lacks a certain mentality keeping her from being the most dominant player in college ultimate. She has the skill and athleticism necessary to easily average 5-6 goals a game, but she seems held back by attempting to involve her entire team, resulting in the Pie Queen’s going to nationals this year. The whole season I’ve been asking myself “Why doesn’t Cree just hit the endzone, she’s going to score over my best defenders…?” And again, when Cal made it to natties I finally answered “Oh…that’s why”. She may have been able to carry her team on her back to a nationals bid in the hardest region, but instead she spread the ownership of the team, and made the Pie Queens earn that bid, not just Cree Howard. Respectable.

Alyssa Weatherford (Western Washington University Chaos – Captain)

Three years ago when Alyssa took over the Western Washington ultimate team, she turned nothing into something. She didn’t create a team of robots with all the same fundamentals (Stanford), she allowed the team to grow as individuals. Which in some cases meant there were players that couldn’t throw a backhand on the team, but were competing in the top two tiers in college ultimate. Chaos was by far the scrappiest team I’ve seen in the game, they didn’t have a ton of tools, but worked extremely hard with the tools they had. If she truly wanted to shape the team into “her team,” you’d have a bunch of girls with an awkward running form, throwing 40yd blades to the end zone.

Alyssa could have easily gone to UW with Claire Suver and Shannon O’Malley and could have earned a gold medal by now. She instead (and we all know everyone who played in high school are considers the Frisbee program when picking colleges) went to Western and built a program up from scratch, helping develop elite players like Hannah Kryoclam and Daniella Welsh. Although a lot of people don’t agree with her calls, she is consistent with them. She will make the exact same travel call she sees in the semi-final of a UPA Series tournament that she would in a pool play round in an early tourney that doesn’t mean anything. Her consistency shows me that she treats every opponent and every game with an equal amount of fairness. To me, that embraces a lot of what the Callahan stands for.

Comments on other nominees:

Julia Sherwood has top of the nation talent. That being said, I am upset that Molly Suver isn’t nominated this year, I would have put her in my top 3 picks for sure.

Does Syzygy not nominate like Cut? Anna Snyder probably wouldn’t have made my list this year, but she is for sure on track for next year.

Georgia Bosscher is still the best player in College Women’s ultimate. Hmmm…Lebron just won MVP twice in a row…just sayin’.