There are LOTS of summer playing opportunities in and near Seattle in 2016! In addition to the normal summer camps and clinics, we are seeing a blossoming of new youth ultimate opportunities this summer. It’s complicated to sort out all the dates, times, age-levels, and program details, and some are just opening this week for registration, so we’ve compiled a Google spreadsheet of seasonal youth ultimate playing opportunities to help you sort out your options.
Note that in addition to the start and end dates, there are columns that list the format, age range, grade range, etc., as well as links to more information and/or registration pages. Feel free to sort the columns (e.g. chronologically by start date, or by the school group columns (ES=Elementary, MS=Middle school, HS=high school). We’ll add playing opportunities for other seasons, including any that you suggest in the comments, to both the Google spreadsheet and this Google calendar (though the latter is a work in progress — and help is welcome).
Elementary school options
Here is a synopsis of the options for current 3rd-4th graders —
6/12/2016
6/12/2016
Riot summer clinic
6/20/2016
6/24/2016
DiscNW summer camp – June
6/24/2016
7/29/2016
TUC summer league
6/27/2016
7/1/2016
DiscNW summer camp – July
7/11/2016
7/15/2016
Nike option (Vancouver, Canada?)
8/8/2016
8/12/2016
TUC U12 camp
8/15/2016
8/19/2016
DiscNW summer camp – August
— and in addition to the above listings, here are extra options for current fifth graders (many middle school summer programs incorporate incoming 6th graders) —
6/4/2016
6/4/2016
UpDawg MS Tournament
7/5/2016
7/8/2016
TUC summer camp – Jane Addams
7/18/2016
7/22/2016
TUC summer camp – Eckstein
There are also other TUC camps in the spreadsheet aimed at kids heading to other middle schools around the city…
Middle and high school options
There are really too many middle and high school options to summarize! Take a look at the spreadsheet and sort accordingly… but here are two quick cut/pasted lists of middle school and high school ops.
Middle school:
6/3/2016
6/3/2016
Seattle Jam
6/4/2016
6/4/2016
UpDawg MS Tournament
6/12/2016
6/12/2016
Riot summer clinic
6/20/2016
8/1/2016
DiscNW U19/U16 Hat League
6/20/2016
8/1/2016
DiscNW U19/U16 Performance League
6/20/2016
6/24/2016
DiscNW summer camp – June
6/27/2016
7/1/2016
DiscNW summer camp – July
7/5/2016
7/8/2016
TUC summer camp – Jane Addams
7/11/2016
7/15/2016
Nike option (Vancouver, Canada?)
7/11/2016
7/15/2016
TUC summer camp – Hamilton
7/11/2016
7/15/2016
Rise Up leadership camps
7/18/2016
7/22/2016
TUC summer camp – Eckstein
8/1/2016
8/5/2016
TUC summer camp – Washington MS
8/1/2016
8/5/2016
TUC summer camp – Salmon Bay, Whitman, & Broadview
8/8/2016
8/12/2016
TUC summer camp – Southwest Seattle Camp
8/15/2016
8/19/2016
DiscNW summer camp – August
High school:
6/12/2016
6/12/2016
Riot summer clinic
6/20/2016
8/1/2016
DiscNW U19/U16 Hat League
6/20/2016
8/1/2016
DiscNW U19/U16 Performance League
6/20/2016
6/24/2016
DiscNW summer camp – June
6/27/2016
7/1/2016
DiscNW summer camp – July
7/11/2016
7/15/2016
Nike option (Vancouver, Canada?)
7/30/2016
8/4/2016
VC leadership camp – session 1
8/6/2016
8/11/2016
VC leadership camp – session 2
8/15/2016
8/19/2016
DiscNW summer camp – August
Again — please comment if you have other suggestions, or just request to edit the Google spreadsheet directly. Any help is mapping out the increasingly, wonderfully complex ultimate landscape of the Pacific Northwest is welcome!
Trying to understand that ultimate tournament, we’ve got ya covered.
Sophie Scofield-Selby of Birdfruit fame and no stranger to Ultimate tournaments has put together this ever so handy primer on understanding tournament formats. With Spring Reign right around the corner, it seemed a perfectly fine time to get this out there. Whether this is your first tournament or you are a seasoned veteran, this guide is a nice brain dump of information.
No doubt that Spring Reign will give more information rather than less, but some times the information can take awhile to puzzle out. Hopefully this helps.
Note there is something of a glossary at the bottom of this post in case some terms or references don’t make sense.
Format:
Generally, but not always, a two-day tournament will have pool play take place on Saturday, and bracket play take place on Sunday. Sometimes however, the first game or two of bracket play will take place after pool play on Saturday. This usually happens when the pools are only 4 teams big.
Reading a schedule:
Reading a schedule is probably the most daunting part of an ultimate tournament. Schedules are covered in seemingly arbitrary numbers and letters, that are somehow supposed to correspond to games, that then point you to a place on a map (usually several numbered rectangles). But the thing to keep in mind is that all the information is there, you just have to get used to how it’s formatted.
An above-and-beyond TD will write down and email out each team’s location and opponent explicitly for each round. This is rare, however, as most TDs have far too much to do.
In the most confusing case, each team is assigned an ID of sorts going into the tournament. If my team is the 7th seed in the B division going into a tournament, my initial ID will be B7. This will show me what pool I’m in, and the pool play will then have a tabular schedule I can reference. Usually the fields will be on one axis, and the round on another. For any given round, I can look to find my team’s ID, then see which field number that corresponds to. I will then have to look at the field map to see where my field number is.
The really confusing part comes in after pool play, when teams are put into bracket. It’s confusing because that initial ID your team had [usually*] no longer matters (and the way your team is referenced will continue to change based on the outcome of games). Each division’s bracket will be labeled, with each game on the bracket attached to a pre-determined field. Each game in bracket will be lettered. Pay attention, because these letters are important later.
Usually, teams will be initially placed in brackets based with the name, but sometimes you may be labeled with a combination of your pool and rank within the pool. For instance, if I finish 3rd in the B pool of Division B, I would look at the Division B bracket, and find B3 (because obviously).
If my teams wins all of our games, the bracket is usually pretty straight forward, and can be followed visually with ease. Losing, however, makes things a little trickier, because you then move into the consolation bracket. Let’s say my team loses in quarter finals, in the game labeled ‘G’. To find my next game, I need to find the consolation game between ‘LG’ (meaning ‘loser of the G game’) and some opponent. This game will also have a letter, and I will then have to follow the bracket somewhere else at the end of that game.
Obviously this sounds like a huge headache and you’re probably wondering why on earth tournaments are set up like this. The answer is that it allows for organizers to follow a pre-determined schedule, that can be followed an read regardless of the outcome of games. This removes the need for organizers to check in a tournament central to give TDs their scores and tell them the outcome and next round and for TDs to then distribute that information, all within a narrow time frame.
*The only time this isn’t true is when pool play doesn’t matter and only exists for the sake of giving teams more games. This is rarely the case, but can usually be figured out through context or labels.
Keywords:
Division: Subset of teams competing. Sometimes divisions are broken up by gender (men’s, women’s, co-ed/mixed), sometimes by experience/skill (A division, B division, etc), sometimes by age (middle school, high school, etc), and sometimes by size of school (Div I college, Div III college). With large tournaments, some combination of criteria might used to create divisions. In the case of skill-based divisions, placement is either dictated by past performance, or by self-selection. For any given competition, teams will generally only play other teams within their division.
Seed: Rank going into a competition.
Pool: Within a tournament, a pool is a further subset of 4-5 of the teams in a division. If a division at a tournament has 16 teams, there could be 4 pools, each with 4 teams. Usually the goal is to make each pool an even sampling of the talent in a division. For instance, Pool 1 might have the 1st seed, 5th seed, 9th seed and 13th seed, while Pool 2 has the 2nd seed, 6th seed, 10th seed and 14th seed, and so on.
Pool play: Pool play consists of playing a round-robin with all the teams in your pool. This is basically a sanity-check on the seeding. In the example above, Pool 1 had the 1st seed, 5th seed, 9th seed, and 13th seed. If the 9th seed beats the 5th seed in pool play, this will then affect their rankings in the next stage of the event: bracket play.
Bracket play: After the ranking are shifted due to the outcome of pool play, the new rankings determines a team’s placement within a bracket. The format of the bracket can vary a ton tournament to tournament, but the general idea is that, as long as a team continues to win, they will progress to the finals. Most tournaments also have consolation brackets, so when you’re eliminated from the championship, there are still games to play.
Tournament Director (TD): The person, or people, in charge of organizing the event.
Tournament Central: At a tournament, this is the location to go for information. At a sparse tournament, this may just be where the TD(s) hang out. At a large tournament this will include snacks, merchandise, a trainer, as well as maps, schedules, and of course, your friendly TDs. Most tournaments fall somewhere in the middle.
Round: A period of time during which several games are being played simultaneously
Bye: A round that a specific team doesn’t play. Ex: My team has a round 2 bye, so we won’t be playing between 11am and 1pm.
Notes from the mandatory pre-season meeting run by Jude Larene, Youth Coordinator for Disc Northwest, on Wednesday, March 2, 2016 from 6-7:30. Impressively the number of teams has increased by ~20% this year (including 5 new teams within Seattle) — the fastest growth of all the youth spring leagues run by DiscNW. The meeting was attended by ~40 coaches, as well as Jude and the DiscNW Account Manager, Kate Speck. A highlight was receiving 5 free J-star 140-gram discs with an entrancing rainbow print of the DiscNW logo!
140-g J-star youth ultimate disc with RAINBOW DiscNW logo! You can buy more for $7/each!
Here is a (low quality) audio recording of the meeting…
Please read it before you sign it! (Feedback is very welcome)
Consider the role you play as a coach in the lives of your players
Set the coaching bar very high!
You may also need to sign a coach’s liability waiver
Spirit scores
Average will be visible after 3rd week of play
Please enter after each game, along with point score
Get your team together at end of game and ask their opinion
Provide feedback to the opposing coach via on-line form
Score of 2 or 1 will require a comment this year; please provide a detailed explanation; Jude will contact the other team and help educate.
If you can’t field a team for a Saturday game, please notify other team and Jude by Thursday
Games to 11; 75 minutes; hard cap at 60 minutes.
Only one field marshall hired for whole league!
So, don’t expect timing horns (except at Magnuson); bring cones & keep time; know field dimensions (It’s OK with Jude if agree with other coach on smaller field, e.g. in high winds!!)
Send responsible high school seniors to Jude to be additional marshalls!
Please manage your own lost and found items (use Facebook group if necessary, not Jude!)
If one coach of multiple teams needs sequenced games in one location, it increases scheduling challenges
Working on Coach Development Program (but may be ~5 years behind)
May need to make league changes
E.g. go to 5v5 in elementary
fixes field problem by allowing
but requires even more coaches
E.g. go to 4v4 to for gender equality
As one of biggest youth program in world/U.S. we have a chance to influence
7:30 end
More growth and teams will require more financial aid to maintain access for all
Save the date and start planning bid items — 2016 Fall Bid is Saturday Nov 12 is Fall Bid
Questions:
Are there AEDs available at major fields like Magnuson?
Phillips deal through Michael Lapin on AEDs for kids (cardiac risk is relatively low for elementary students; risk increases dramatically around grade 9)
John Leahy: is going to 5v5 a sacrifice or not?
Jude personally thinks it works better for elementary kids
Scores are higher; more touches per game; more success
Jenn
voluntarily signed up new 4th graders
expectation is that girls will have a more equal experience
Shannon’s 5v5 fall league packed a lot of kids onto the Roosevelt field
Ideas:
What about playing on other days of week, e.g. after school?
Could elementary teams play in other seasons? (Conflict with soccer?)
Field advocacy group (in 80s?) used to go to city council meetings and wave discs around (John Beal is still at Seattle City Parks)
Jude: City wants to put turf only where lights already exist (due to NIMBY light pollution concerns)
Sometimes less is more
Maybe 3 game tournament once a month is as good as weekly Saturday games
Do playoffs make sense for elementary school?
Maybe play 2 weeks out of 3? Weekend conflicts are tough, e.g. jazz
Fridays? Some elementary soccer teams like a Friday evening practice
Could fields along I-5 corridor expand capacity (e.g. Shoreline)?
It was a cold, crisp morning (even in the classroom).
John welcomed us to his awesome teaching space.
(We all thank John for helping us access the school where he’s a teacher. Prior to his help, Scott was really struggling to find a space that met the USAU facility requirements and budget!)
8:30 Introductions
Alex led the group in a quick name-game. We went to the cafeteria and threw a soft cone in two circles of ~10 participants. You had to thank the person who through to you (e.g. “Thanks, Alex”), say your name, say the name of a person who had not yet been thrown while making eye contact with them, and then throw the “disc” to them.
Getting to know name-game
The two groups competed to see who could cycle through everyone in the circle and back to the original thrower. The groups were different sizes, so it wasn’t fair, but it was fun to add complexity to the game — first by speeding up the cycle; then by adding a second “disc” that was started after the first disc had reached the third or fourth person. We headed back to Leahy Land with a new game that could help a team of unfamiliar players learn each others names efficiently.
Back in the classroom, Alex had us go around the room introducing ourselves. This was the beginning of one of the best aspects of the in-person workshop: getting to know other local coaches and sharing ideas with them. Here are a few topics that folks said they were hoping to learn about during the day:
How to manage middle schoolers!
Nuts and bolts of running a practice
How to get more young girls involved
How to teach the rules
How to get equal improvement in a group with varied experience or different learning styles (e.g. not leaving passive kids behind)
How to “seed” elementary and middle school teams in ways that support the development of high school teams
Best practices for coaching elementary school
9:00 Why do people play ultimate
This was a great group discussion. We came up with lots of ways to “hook” new players on the sport, as well as some shortcomings of the game as it’s currently played by younger youth (mostly grades 3-8). I’ve listed some highlights (ideas that were new to me), but there were many more that Alex noted and discussed.
Why people play ultimate:
The beauty of the disc flying (play Dog on the first practice!)
Spirit of the Game (try playing look-up/down to choose throwing partners)
More equitable and confidence-building play:
Don’t say sorry rituals
The “special” (has to be thrown to before team can score)
All-touch points
Keep away (practice low-emotion mistakes)
2v2 scrimmages (lots of touches for everyone)
try mixed and single-gender practices/drills/scrimmages
rotate who leads a middle school team each practice
girl-girl leadership pair
boy-girl leadership pair
boy-boy leadership pair
Try 4 girl, 3 boy scrimmages
Hire more female middle school coaches!
Attracting more girls and retaining them through middle school
understand other sport calendars and trends
market to groups of girls/women
classrooms, especially social groups of girls
siblings
teams from other sports that are burning out
Verbal face-to-face recruitment of girls by coaches (helps make them feel valued!)
Riot’s 3 tenets: ETL = Excellence. Trust. Love.
Team work and athletic development: be purposeful with a charter?
Seattle Public Schools has a process to follow for creating a charter (Charlie mentioned it, but I missed its name)
A charter should describe how do you want to feel (as players; as a team)
Then plan: What do you do to achieve the charter?
Camp Orkila has a process for creating a constitution/charter with new campers…
Engagement
As a coach: watch 1 player for about 2 minutes and ask “Are they engaged in this drill/lecture/game?”
Experienced parent’s role: teach ultimate culture to other parents
Things that detract from ultimate:
“Disc-organization”
soccer gets calendars out 6 months in advance!
USAU web site is messy (trick is to google your search term and append “site:usaultimate.org”)
General turn-offs
Lack of good practice fields
Canceled games (because many youth games are played on grass fields which SPS closes when super-wet)
10:30 Ethics
Handout: 25-page booklet — “Coaching Ethics Workshop” including sections on: intro; the sport; Spirit of the Game; Liability and Insurance; Safety; & Emergency procedures; plus 2 appendices on: child abuse reporting agencies; references/readings.
We read through the USAU ethics pamphlet, discussing each point (many of which originated with the U.S. Olympic Committee).
Key concepts for coaches of youngest youth:
Teach and practice the foul/conflict resolution process (Rules; how to call fouls; how to contest; how to resolve; best perspective)
In game, coach is a resource not a judge
“Do you have a question about the rules?”
“Can I help you with the process of calling and resolving a foul?”
Spirit circles
Use them mostly for compliments and positive coaching
If both teams mis-understood a rule in the game, coach can use as a teachable moment and clarify for all
Pet peeves (of various participants)
Don’t teach middle schoolers to call travels!
Don’t allow kids to kick rolling discs!
Common issues
Playing time: try to keep it balanced by using a sub-sheet
Player is unspirited (cheating): start with a question, like “How did you feel about that last play?” Then educate about a relevant rule or process.
10:50 Took a 15 minute break for snacks!
Sign-in and snack tables
11:15 Parents
11:20 Spirit of the Game
We broke up into small groups to define and discuss SotG. Then came back together to share and look for commonalities.
Try having a spirit “captain” (esp on high or club school teams)
Coaches role is as a model of good spirit (calm communication; fairness
Incorporate SotG into drills: e.g. high 5s when you enter a line; offering encouragement and compliments to teammates.
12:05 Liability
5 duties to avoid exposure
Proper instruction for risky activities (e.g. lay outs)
Provide safety equipment (safe field; don’t mix cleats and bare feet!)
?
Supervise
Provide care (upon injury)
12:10 Insurance
12:15 Concussions
12:20 Lunch
We made sandwiches, ate chips, drank juice, and chatted at our desks.
12:55 Fundamentals
Handout: 76-page booklet “Coaching Performance Workshop” covering: intro; communicating with your school; parents; logistics; growth/promotion; equipment; conditioning; & tips; plus 12 appendices on rules; affiliates; state associations; sample season schedule; sample parent letter; sample med form; intro clinic schedule; 12-week fitness program; injury prevention; nutrition/hydration; injuries; and references/readings.)
We discussed the fundamental skills and knowledge we need to teach in ultimate, then prioritized them into an optimal sequence for new players.
In what order would you teach these fundamentals?
5 steps to learning:
explain
demonstrate
imitate
critique
repeat
Brevity ends with a “Why?”
TALK LESS (2 minutes is too long)
Why (explain)
Use 2 or 3 cues, e.g. for backhand “keep disc level” (see hard-copy handout “Skill Specific Cues” for lots more)
Try mnemonics
13:15 Transition to gym
The active portion of the workshop included: coming up with a drill (in groups of ~4 participants) to teach fundamentals; demonstrating how to run those drills to the rest of the group; and Alex demonstrating typical parts of a practice (warm-up/plyos, throw foci; drill iterations).
13:15-14:30 — Coming up with a drill to teach each fundamental
Groups formed up, took 10-15 minutes to prep a drill, and then demonstrated it (for a few minutes). [I have video of some of these if folks want to see themselves in action!]
Cues and notes on each demo:
Backhand
level the release by thinking of serving a glass of water on it
Step out
Snap your wrist (like snapping a towel?)
“pull through” (not uncurl, that’s the “BBQ throw”)
hinge from the shoulder
“buckle the seatbelt
Forehand
booger flick
outside edge down
finish with palm up
Mark
hips low, shoulders up
arms active and low
“low hands”
high energy
Pivot
“land” then throw
be clear with language
“pivot on foot opposite your throwing hand?”
“move foot on same side as your throwing hand?”
Force — emphasize it is a form of team work
Cutting
Sharp change in direction
Clap near end of cut?
Chop stop (NOT 1 big stop and step)
Go/fake away from target area, then cut back
“Cut to a cone” (e.g. any corner of the endzone)
Defense
3D: defend, deny, deflect?
dictate (instead of chase)?
But be careful with language and younger players!
“head up”
backing, fronting
stop the under; stay between receiver and disc
shadow movement; dance
“be the mirror (image)”
14:30-15:00 — Demonstration practice (by Alex)
Started with a cheer: e.g. “1, 2, Learn!”
Do a lap while tossing with a partner (take note: 40 throws/lap x 10 practices = 400 extra throws per season!)
Warm-ups
We’re teaching movement (to protect bodies over a lifetime)
The goal is to talk about and practice movement (e.g. running form)
Think of plyos (dynamic warm-up) as movement puzzles
Have a base warm-up; make small changes; add new challenges
Practice names of muscles and parts of bodies
Go from small, low intensity to big, high-intensity movements
Practice names of muscles and parts of bodies
Science shows: static stretching is good for flexibility after exercise (not before when a dynamic warm-up is better)
Sequence of plyos (from toes to head) [we did these as a big group lined up across the gym]:
Toes out; heels back
High knees; lunges
Airplane; picking dandelions
Close the gate; open the gate
Torso twists
Arm circles (forward, backward)
Fast feet out; high knees back
Butt kickers out; Door busters back (toe pointing to sky; hit door with sole not toe)
Leg swings (with partner or fence)
Side shuffle
Kareoka (or Kareoke)
Run @67% out; 42% back
Skips (emphasize height, or distance, or both)
Jump and land (prevent ACL tears [7x more prevalent in girls than boys!]: quiet; soft; knees over toes, NOT knocked-knees)
Proplyoception => challenges (do it backwards; close eyes); try airplanes w/eyes closed; fast knees backwards (and eyes closed?!)
Retro-runs (forward, backward)
15:00 Drilling
Choose high repetition
Prioritize familiar drills; then build on them
Lots of iterations w/small changes and limited focus (2-3 cues max)
Examples of coach challenges and nuanced skills:
How to counter blacksmith leg (from always pivoting on leg opposite dominant throwing hand)?
Catch with dominant/throwing hand under in the alligator (so grip is ready to throw)!
Step back to throw hammer.
Variants on paired throwing drill (we tried these with a partner)
3 forehands; 3 backhands
vary release points (regular, high, low, wide)
vary release angles (inside/out; outside/in;…)
Goofy foot compass throws
15:20 Overhead throws
Normally discouraged with youth, but Alex likes them for fun and to help handlers practice decision making.
15:30 Practical aspects of drills
Clear wide; yell “Safety” to prevent collisions
Alex led a “Go to” drill (2 sets of participants) as an example of how to iterate w/distinct cues
chop feet; go to disc; ready; eye contact
alternate sides to give drops a chance to clear
different focus point each day
5 full steps = deep cut
chop feet; get low; rotate hips; explosive first 3 steps; drive knees.
challenges: pancake every disc; non-dominant hand catch
add a mark (open side; break mark)
different cuts (out/in; handler cut = fake to open side, cut to break mark side)
competitions; games
15:45 Return to classroom to discuss practice planning and structure
15:50 Practices
Set expectations with players and parents
Pre-season “goal setting” (+ a mid-season check-in)
will this work for elementary?
best practices for goal-setting are still developing
Plan specific practices to tick off skills; select specific drills
Planning process should help clarify goals…
For each practice, don’t forget:
Talk about Spirit of the Game
Specific over-arching concepts: e.g. throwing skills, or a particular defensive strategy
Every good practice looks like — group brainstorm:
16:30 End with evaluation forms, handing out coach bags, discs, FiveUltimate coach benefits (CDP Odyssey 1/4 zip, other gear if your team orders gear thru them), etc.
Good ideas? (Some voiced; some just in Scott’s head)
What about a dual-model for coach development by USAU (and/or local organizations)?
Youth only (grades K-8): FREE workshop (maybe requires a coach membership, but fee is subsidized) for volunteer coaches of elementary/middle players, camp counselors, etc.
Level 1 (high school, college, club, pro): ethics and performance workshop for new coaches (typically paid, not volunteer?) of teams that may have some players who are new to the game
Level 2 (high school, college, club, pro): strategy workshop for advanced coaches of more competitive teams
Ways to boost girl recruitment and retention
Get a middle school girl to assist with your elementary team
As we prepare for another spring season of youth ultimate, a growing menu of “professional development” opportunities have arisen. First — a new, potentially annual, coaches conference is being offered in February by RiseUp in south Seattle (WA). Then in March the third annual Youth Ultimate Coaching Conference will take place in San Jose (CA). If you can’t make these in person, both will offer video content from the speakers after the event: RiseUp for a small fee; YUCC for free courtesy of Bay Area Disc and all the YUCC partners (see Skyd Magazine for archived YUCC talks from 2014 and 2015).
The first (annual?) RiseUp Seattle Coaches Conference will happen on Saturday February 13, 2016, from 11-6 at the Rainier Beach Community Center (in south Seattle). The cost is $100 and registration is prioritized for female coaches and coaches of females and/or disadvantaged Seattle communities. While the web site speaker list and topics suggest the content may be most useful to higher-level coaches (e.g. high school and above), the conference Program Director Mario O’Brien assured me that it would also be “valuable for coaches who work with the youngest spectrum of youth” (elementary and middle school coaches and teachers). He pointed out that it would be a great networking opportunity for any coach — which I believe after reviewing this impressive speaker list:
Heather Ann Brauer (YCC coach, GUM chair)
Age Up (Seattle Youth)
Ren Caldwell (Ren Fitness) – 3 Strategies to Promote a Team Culture of Better Health and Performance
Frank Nam (Franklin HS, South Korea National Team)
Dr. Ben Wiggins (Sockeye, Riot, RISE UP)
Mario O’Brien (RISE UP, Sockeye, Cascades, University Prep)
Other Seattle coaches
The 3rd annual Youth Ultimate Coaching Conference will follow the theme of “”Gender Equity and Girls Ultimate” and is scheduled for Saturday March 5, 2016, from 8:30-5, at Bellarmine College Preparatory in San Jose, CA. The cost is $65 before Feb 29 and $95 thereafter. The keynote talk will be by Marlene Bjornsrud, Executive Director of Alliance for Women’s Coaches. The conference looks like it will be very valuable for coaches at all levels of youth ultimate — primarily because the program portends a broad contemplation of girls and youth sports:
The 2016 exciting program includes:
– USA Ultimate unveiling the latest on Gender Equity and GUM curriculum
– A panel featuring non-Ultimate organizations working with girls
– Qxhna Titcomb reporting on her successful All-Star Ultimate Tour
SCHEDULE
8:30-9 | Registration 9-9:45 | Keynote 10-11 | USA Ultimate Gender Equity Guidelines 11-12 | Panel: Non-Ultimate Girls Organizations 12-1 | USA Ultimate GUM curriculum 1-2 | Lunch Break and Networking 2-3 | All-Star Ultimate Tour 3-4| Panel: Girls Programs and Play opportunity 4-5 | Panel: How to Grow 5:00 | Closing
As of Jan 28, round-trip tickets to San Jose from Seattle look to be about $200-250 ($220 same day flight, or $170 Fri pm – Sat pm RT + hotel)…
Coaches, parents, and players sharing K-12 ultimate
