HMF Log: 11/7/04

All,

I have written a very long tourney write-up over the last three hours.  I 
have broken it down into time periods so you only have to look at what 
interests you.  I also uploaded most of my photos from the tournament onto 
the pbase account (http://www.pbase.com/harvardultimate/hhbp), which I 
suggest you use to follow along with the story:  my pics start on page 4, 
with some nice action shots presumably by Eddie on first few.  Enjoy.  And 
be sure to watch the attached movie -- there are more but due to the mail 
serves restrictions on size they will have to wait.

Friday night:

Brown Halloween Weekend officially kicked off at 4:20 PM on Friday when 
Jack, Lipson (carrying a freaking huge-ass bag), Eric and myself taking the 
red line down to South Station to catch the commuter rail to Providence, 
both to (1) remove our problem with car space and (2) support the women's 
volleyball team in an important road trip to Brown.  After buying greasy 
Chinese food, we settled down and started thinking about what we would put 
on the signs we were making for the volleyball game.  Thanks to the fine 
artistic skill of our crew, we came up with classics such as "I [Heart] 
Menlo School," "Tremble before Trimble," and "#3 Fountain of 
Points."  Our fellow travelers were very amused by our deliberations over 
which color of markers to use.

After arriving and finding out that no one in Providence actually knows 
where Brown is, we started to hike up some very steep hills in search of 
the Brown Athletic Complex.  Eventually, a kind old man points us in the 
right direction and we arrive at the Olney-Margolies Athletic Center (the 
OMAC) in time to watch warm-ups.  We settle down a few rows behind the five 
Harvard parents in attendance and roshambo for who will be in charge of 
which signs.

The game starts and the Brown fans are incredibly lame, despite taking up 
half the gym, as we out-yell them all.  Signs are thrown up by Eric with 
reckless abandon, and it looks as though the sideline is throwing a lot of 
attention our way.  Harvard loses the first game 32-34 on a very 
questionable call by a Brown student serving as a line judge.  I point at 
him and throw him a very dirty look, which he indicates that he recognizes 
by waving his little red flag at us.  From this point on, all close calls 
along that sideline go our way.  I'm serious about this -- ask anyone that 
was there.

So Harvard takes the next two games (one of them 33-31) and then Brown 
squeaks out the fourth, setting up a cataclysmic game 5.  Harvard jumps out 
to an early lead, but Brown rallies to tie the game at 13.  Harvard, with 
nerves of steel and the support of four dashing young men, put away the 
last two points and win the game 15-13, making them undefeated while HMF is 
in attendance.  On the way out, the parents thank us for coming, and I 
blurt out something about being there for ultimate, knowing none of them 
know what that is.  (NOTE:  Harvard got blanked by Yale on Saturday but 
remains in a tie for first in the Ivies with Cornell.  The game the Friday 
at 7 PM and Saturday at 4 are key.  Bring your A-game.)

Afterwards, we grab some food at Geoff's on Thayer (Dave eats a Sloppy Ho) 
while waiting for the Brown guys to find us and give us housing.  We then 
throw on the Brown quad until Reed from Brown finds us and puts us 
up.  Reed also lives with Dennis's friend from high school, making two 
tournaments in a row at which we have stayed with one of Dennis's high 
school friends.  How many friends does Chira have, for God's sake?  Jack 
knocks the rest of us around in Halo, though Eric and our host some very 
close in rockets.



Saturday:

Dennis calls Eric and wakes us up at Brown around 7 in the morning 
demanding to know where he is.  Eric groggily reminds Dennis that we are 
already at Brown.  The team arrives and sends Eddie back to pick us 
up.  Eventually we meet up with him, but not until after learning that the 
Brown Conservative Association goes by the acronym BAC, which makes little 
sense unless they are all Spanish-speaking Republicans.

This year's dwarf hats are distributed to the team and greeted with much 
joy.  Josh liked his Duke blue hat so much he wore it both days.  Favorites 
included Grant's tropical floral print, Willie's pandas, and Mike's 
Burberry print.  If you still owe me money for the hats, don't think I 
forgot.  You know who you are.

Our first game is against longtime rival BU.  It's a windy morning so we 
see a lot of zone.  Though we were talking ourselves up for this game, we 
come out awfully flat; a few errant hammers and dropped disks later and we 
have spotted the Ozone Pilots a few point lead in a game that is quickly 
approaching the hard cap, which goes on when the scoreboard reads 8-5.  But 
some nice throws through and around the cup from Steve and Will open us up 
and we turn up our D to rally back to score 4 straight points and take the 
game 9-8.  Though the win restores a sense of order to the Boston ultimate 
hierarchy, the closeness of the game reminded of what we need to improve to 
get better for the rest of the day and beyond.

Second up is Rutgers, a team lead by some guy named Keefer that our Metro 
East alums seem to know fairly well.  John Lei shows up around know fresh 
from his Google interview and proceeds to dominate Rutgers defenders with 
his beguiling cuts.  During the game, Josh, who continues to confuse Eric 
and Lee, decides one of them needs a nickname, and the sideline comes up 
with Tiger for Eric due to his Princetonian origins, which quickly gets 
changed to Le Tigre by most to avoid the slightly sexual undertones of 
Tiger.(NOTE:  Didn't you all see Spider-man 2 or at least read Spider-man 
comics?  Mary Jane Watson is HOT!)  We jump out to a 3-score lead in or so 
the first half and never give much ground, and the final score results in 
something around 11-8.

We move down to the lower fields to take on the Brown Alums, who are 
dressed as various alcoholic beverages, next.  The Wellesley girls come to 
watch for a while; one of them with a slightly British accent mocks our 
name. We play the alums very tight in the first half, spotting them a 
one-point lead 8-7.  In the second half we make a few more turns that the 
wily veterans take advantage of and end up losing by a score of around 
12-8.  Some highlights include Lipson making a sweet catch on a long hammer 
and Josh benching Dennis for an extended period of time for socializing 
with some Brown guy instead of watching our game.  Unfortunately, Ben 
re-injured the knee he banged up at UMass and has to miss the rest of the 
tourney.

During the bye, every player who had a block in the last two games roshams 
to see who will have the honor of presenting Tufts coach Funboy with 
wedding magazines in light of his recent engagement.  Lee wins and after a 
Tufts score against Dartmouth walks into the midst of the celebrating E-men 
and hands them over to a surprised Funboy.  Afterwards, I give a dwarf hat 
to a member of the Yale women's team, which receives a collective 
"awwwww" from their halftime huddle.

We attempt to drive off to the showcase game against Brown, but Lee made a 
national's caliber move and left the lights of Jack's van on, killing the 
battery.  Fortunately, Jack's dad has jumper cables and Eddie's car has the 
juice, and after some waiting we manage to get it started again.

We arrive at the field near their football stadium in time to warm up 
despite Jack getting slightly lost on the way there.  A crowd slowly 
assembles as we quickly jump out to a 2-0 lead.  After trading a few 
points, Steve unleashes a huge huck downfield to Will, but it gets sent 
back on a questionable travel call by the older, less spirited Mahoney who 
is about half a field away.  He later tells Steve he traveled about three 
feet, showing the distance with his hands, which receives many incredulous 
stares.  Brown ends up taking half 8-6.  Despite Jack grabbing a disc over 
Zip, Karim roping in an tough grab in the Brown endzone, some old-fashioned 
angry Rainbow Warrior defense from Manoah, and some nice zone work, we end 
up losing the game capped by darkness by a score around 13-9 (I'm sorry I'm 
not more exact on these, but it seems like a long time ago).  After the 
game Brown comes over and thanks us for agreeing to play in the exhibition 
because it helps their program and is a highlight of their year playing in 
front of their friends and family.  We'll see if it is such a highlight 
next year when they lose.

After the Brown game, a lot of people went home to Harvard to do nerdy work 
and sleep for the evening, leaving the non-lame people at Brown to hold up 
our end of the party.  It was a good thing, too.  Since we had a 
date.  With destiny.



Saturday night:

We head back to the dorms to shower and watch football while waiting for 
our assigned dinnertime.  We then feast on Subway sandwiches and Thai 
noodles for a while, but the Brown guys have run out of beverages.  Keefer 
tells us he is gunning for Will Chen, to which I reply that Will will 
likely be very scared.  After stuffing ourselves, we go to CVS to buy some 
beverages and food for tomorrow.  After walking inside, I see a singing 
animatronics Santa Clause in the middle of their up-too-early Christmas 
display.  An exchange like this occurs:

Mike:  Look, a life-sized animatronics Santa!

Jack:  No, I think that it the life-sized one on the sign.

Mike:  No, they are the same, but it's on sale for fifty dollars 
[NOTE:  Down from $70!] with a CVS card.

Jack:  Who has a CVS card on them?

After the awesome people present (Dave, Charles, Lee, Eric, Jack, myself, 
so excluding Dennis and BJ) got together to pitch in $5 a piece and Will 
and Willie were convinced over the phone to invest, we purchase said Santa 
Claus and head off to a fabled cookie store on a tip from the Yale women's 
team.  The cookies were indeed very good.  We then headed back to the dorms 
prepare to rock the party.  Mostly by constructing our Santa Claus.  We 
watch it dance then listened to Santa Rap some standards by plugging Jack's 
MP3 player into it.  Jack and BJ do demolish Lee and myself in spades and 
beat Dave and Eric in a second game while the rest of us listen to 
Santa.  We then carry the Santa through the streets of Brown to the party, 
where people are generally excited to see a four-foot tall dancing 
Santa.  Santa rocked out by dancing with numerous notables including Dennis 
(who became a convert to Santa's cult, and also pulled his hammy while 
saying Ho, ho, ho), Charles, Zip, Lee, half of the Colby women's team, a 
quarter of the Brown women's team, and numerous random ultimate players 
walking by.  No boatraces materialize and we decide to head out, much to 
the chagrin of the Wellesley women, who had just arrived a missed chance to 
dance with Santa and his posse.

We head back, watch a little of the SNL Best of Tom Hanks on the TV, and 
hit the sack excited about tomorrow's elimination brackets.



Sunday:

We pick Teddy up on a street corner after BJ confuses Teddys male friend 
for a girl.  Many people on this team seem to like to say insulting things 
about Teddy's friends.  I'll have to superimpose his head into the team 
picture from yesterday.

Our first game of the day and last pool play game is against the Brown 
B-team who we roll 13-2.  Teddy gets to run in the cup for pretty much 
every point.  That's what you get for being such a goddamned good fencer.

We go into the quarters as the 3 seed out of our pool and get the two seed 
from the other:  Tufts, who had just defeated Yale at double game 
point.  We take half on the back of a strong cups made up mostly of Mike G, 
Lee (who had a sick layout near-D where he got a good piece of the disk), 
Teddy, and Grant at 8-5.  Proving that downwind points can be as hard as 
upwinders, we let Tufts back into the game to tie it at 8-8 in a game 
capped at 9.  Receiving the disk and having to go upwind to finish off the 
E-men may have made some members of the sideline nervous, but the Red Line 
offense smoothly cut through the man D that Tufts threw up and took yet 
another 9-8 victory.

In the semis we faced a rematch with the Brown alums.  We came out roaring 
with a strong man defense and some well-placed hucks by Lee, Charles, and 
BJ.  Le tigre's inside out forehand breaks give the old men fits, and his 
call about venereal disease give the rest of the team fits of 
confusion.  Will had a layout D that still confuses me where both he and 
his man dove for a disc and somehow Will stood up with it in his hands; 
unfortunately, the play resulted in a injured shoulder.  Near the end of 
the game a near turnover is turned into a ridiculous full layout extension 
grab by Steve, who refused to give into the grousing of the Brown sideline 
about the disc being down.  After cheering Sor-ryBout-itat the request 
of our coach, we hold off any late rallies by the alums in their irritation 
and take the game 15-11.

Getting our wish, we earned a rematch with Brown in the finals.  The 
pairing resulted in another tight game throughout, leading to a 9-8 Brown 
advantage shortly after the half.  Highlights included Charles skying the 
Brown handler with cornrows, me catching a disc despite having Zip layout 
into me, Mike G's hot defense, and lots of freaking sweet plays I can't 
remember and simply solid ultimate by the entire team.  Though we fell a 
little short in the end at a final score of 13-10, we know that were where 
we want to be in November and can get freaking psyched for working hard 
this winter toward the Spring season.

In closing, I love playing with team -- it was a great weekend and failing 
my accounting final next Monday was totally worth getting to play out there 
with you all this weekend.  I'll see you at volleyball Friday night.  Don't 
wuss out -- your university needs you.

Sincerely,

Santa's Little Helper
(Mike MacKenzie, HLS '06)