Tag Archives: YUCC

Conference, Coach development, Coaches, middle school, high school, collegiate

2017 Youth Ultimate Coaching Conference theme: building to win

February 8, 2017 Scott Veirs Leave a comment

The 4th Annual 2017 Youth Ultimate Coaching Conference is returning to the Bay Area on Sunday, March 12th, 2017. Early registration deadline is March 1.

This year’s conference theme is “Building to Win,” which will focus on team strategies and increasing player & team competitiveness. Our highly trained and elite-level Instructors will lead you through how to plan your season and individual practices, how to best utilize your captains, and managing your team during a tournament. Gain hands-on experience teaching drills and working through critical player/team scenarios. All coaches, players, and captains, whether new or highly-experienced, will gain valuable skills and strategies to help your team flourish!

Date: March 12th, 2017

Time: 8:30am – 4:30pm

Location: TBD (web site says Palo Alto, CA, as of 2/8/2017)

Cost: $85 early bird (before 3/1/2017), $95 regular

Financial Aid: Financial aid is available upon request. Please complete this application by 3/1/2017.

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Coaches, Conference, Coach development, elementary, middle school, high school

Early 2016 coach training options in Seattle & beyond

January 28, 2016 Scott Veirs Leave a comment

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
Melissa Witmer (Ultimate Results, Ultimate Athlete Project)
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

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)…

Conference, Coach development, Coaches, Managers, elementary, middle school, high school

William Bartram’s Perspectives on Youth Ultimate Programming for Coaches

October 26, 2015 Scott Veirs Leave a comment

William Bartram (aka “Bunny”) had been Executive Director of the Northwest Ultimate Association (aka DiscNW) for almost 10 years when he gave the following presentation at the inaugural 2014 Youth Ultimate Coaching Conference.

Below are the notes I took (along time stamps) while watching the recording archived by the Bay Area Disc Association and Skyd Magazine’s YouTube channel. The first slides offered a little background on Bunny (which is otherwise hard to find):

“Perspectives on Youth Ultimate Programming for Coaches”

Overview of youth ultimate in Seattle

Time line —
Early youth scene in Seattle was all coach-driven. Key coaches were teachers who formed teams independently at their schools and eventually organized scrimmages
- Mary Lowry – SCDS
- Dan Costigan
- Joe Bisgianno — Northwest School?
Mary would photocopy rules & newspaper clippings and send to PE teachers around town
Over time a league developed (MS in lat 1990s)
Those middle school players drove development at HS level because they wanted to keep playing
Jeff Jorgensen, Mary and Joe started Spring Reign [in 1998?]
Joey Gray and others formed DiscNW (mostly focused on adult players)
Mike Mullen and Roger Crafts start summer camps (originally in partnership with Seattle Parks with 40 players; 10 years later it would partner with DiscNW serving 900 campers each summer )
Over time, DiscNW took on administration of youth programs (web site, registration tools, insurance, communication, scheduling, etc.)
- 2004: first full-time staff
- Eventually hired admin assistant
League thrives due to DiscNW handing logistics so coaches can focus more on coaching
Financial story
- Originally subsidized by adult leagues
- Now many youth programs are self-supporting
- Youth Development Fund provides financial aid and important programs that might otherwise be unsustainable
- Fall Bid fundraising event
- Hosted youth summits (to get feedback from community)
(6:10) Overview of DisNW youth programs
- (6:30) Leagues
  - Good financial performer
  - Spring elementary and middle school
  - Fall boys HS; spring girls HS
  - Fall middle school league with Seattle Public Schools
    - Started when Joey Gray & others lobbied District to use funds from the Families and Education Levy
    - SPS pays for fields and coaching stipends
    - Principals love it because $ comes from District budget, not their own, and it’s a great after-school program
    - DiscNW provides expertise, scheduling, free discs
  - Spring club league (but most teams still based on school affiliations)
  - Summer league leads towards YCC; 2014 new winter club league also popular with the U16 crowd
- (8:45) Camps
  - Very successful as a learning program and financially
  - 2013: 255k$ revenue, 150k$ in expenses (100k$ profit supported $16k financial aid & 4k$ for south Seattle free camps [led by Sam Terry])
  - Camp directors, counselors, leads all paid
  - More popular with MS than HS, but elite HS players getting new elite & leadership training during summer 2014 implemented with Lou Berris (sp? skilled coach)
- (10:33) Tournaments
  - Many run but most discontinued because they aren’t profitable & sustainable
  - Usually take a lot of energy and serve teams that already have regular playing opportunities
  - Trying now to serve teams that have fewer options?
  - Spring Reign is largest
    - 96 teams (8 elementary, 40 MS, 48 HS)
    - Last week of April
- (11:45) Elite Club
  - Started with MoHo in late 1990s
    - Not affiliated with DiscNW initially
    - Started when NOMS MS players wanted to keep playing together as high schoolers
    - Interest has waned, but spirit of that program guides current programs
    - Elite player development centered on Youth Club Championships
      - Early summer club leads into Championships in Minnesota
      - League incorporates YCC and other high-level teams
      - Hiring committee for coaches who select assistants
      - Coaches paid by DiscNW and travel with teams, manages player fees, order uniforms, logistics
      - Rusty Brown serves as general manager
- (14:25) Beyond DiscNW (filling gaps, developing new programs)
  - Fryz – Started by Randy Lim (over 200 players in 2014; travel to play teams across U.S.)
  - RiseUp
  - Ultimate for Peace
  - All Girl Everything
  - Future YUCC focus?
  - Up Dawg (UW Element)
  - Fall Drizzle (WWU Chaos)

(16:20) Conceptual Framework for Events

Build it and they will come works for a while; but long-term growth requires more planning
Focus here is on local or regional level (not National like RiseUp)
Ultimate does not yet enjoy “Varsity Status” —
Ultimate can grow within a club sport setting with key advanatages:
- Self-officiation, Spirit of the Game
- Strong community
(22:19) Youth ultimate event components
- Spring Reign as an example with goal being “celebrate community”
- State Championships
  - in fall for boys and spring for girls
  - (31:30) tried co-ed a couple times, but interest wasn’t there

(32:00) Building a Coaching Community

“Finding coaches to meet player demand is one of the biggest hurdles to growth in our area.”
- We try to find coaches within our membership
- Low rate of success, but matches are valuable!
- Learning ops for coaches
  - Host USAU clinics
  - Educate PE teachers
- Development ops
  - YCC coaching ops
  - Many returning players choose to coach
  - Fall 2015 Disc NW starts paying stipends to fall HS boys coaches
- Role of coaches to make organizing easier —
- (40:00) Couple anecdotes about coaches
  - Ken Round
    - Didn’t know ultimate when he formed MS team and brought to Spring Reign (caused friction)
    - Parents brought RVs, set up tents
    - Took 6th grade cohort through 12th grade
    - Some players went to YCC and Westerns (2nd)
  - Fighting in ultimate!
    - Seattle team and less experienced Vancouver team
    - Fisticuffs in 2nd half
    - Spirit circle later in the weekend (including some parents)
    - Vancouver team made finals on Sunday playing OR team
    - Foul called on final point; resolved without violence; came back to win!
  - Help find more coaches! Builds resiliency
    - Mr. Jamsheed
      - Large program at Bailey Gasherd (sp)
      - Terrible at administration (e.g. Spring Reign registration)
      - Started team at Jane Addams and recruited team parent to handle logistics

(45:00) Q&A

(47:00) How do transition from volunteer to staffed organization?
- (47:25) DiscNW example
  - Managing DiscNW was done by operational Board and voluntary E.D.
  - Lot’s of uber-volunteers doing things, but buy-in from Board and understanding from the community that there was going to be a paid leader
  - 2001: Part-time E.D. Mike Keiran (main job was to figure out how to fund his position!) IT guy, so he made changes to web site and forced payments (via a waitlist).
  - As you get organized, you can deliver higher-quality events and therefore raise fees.
- Youth director was hired because Bunny was doing it on his own, but youth was a different customer!
  - Hired a part-time organizer and lost money, but promoted youth programs, and hired Wynne and later an assistant to 3.5 FTEs…

Coaches, Coach development, Conference, News, Women-girls

2016 Youth Ultimate Coaching Conference (YUCC) theme: Developing Girls’ Ultimate

October 14, 2015 Scott Veirs 1 Comment

The new Executive Director of the Bay Area Disc Association announced in his 9/30/15 welcome letter that the theme for the 2016 Youth Ultimate Coaching Conference (YUCC) will be “Developing Girls’ Ultimate.” The conference is to be held next March (2016) in the Bay Area and plans to “convene inspirational role models from around the country like Qxhna Titcomb (All-Star Ultimate Tour founder and World Champion) to present…” Watch their youth ultimate event calendar for further details.

In anticipation of learning more about how to coach girls, here’s a related presentation from the 2015 YUCC by DiscNW’s Heather Ann Brauer entitled “Giving Girls a Voice: Tools for empowerment and confidence on and off the ultimate field” with my notes appended —

1:05 Asked 7 girls and 7 boys why do you love ultimate

girls: community, spirit, friends, athleticism, fun
boys: similar themes (though also + layout, callahan, greatest, aggression, intensity)

2:00 More important than these differences is how we approach the off-field culture and connectedness of the team.

Girls (and women) often under-rank themselves

How do you empower them? CLEAR

Culture – giving girls tools to create a culture they want to see in their team
Language – e.g. not saying “sorry,” saying “person-defense” instead of “man defense”
Emotions – talking about empathy, connectedness; being able to be where you’re at and valuing those emotions
Agency – giving girls a voice or say, adds to the buy-in they have in the team
Role models – getting women to be role models, but also giving girls a chance to be role models themselves (e.g. GUM clinics)

4:55 Tips and tricks

Create a team charter
1. How do you want to feel as an individual (at practices, at games)? [Challenged to learn; happy and social; enthusiastic, excited; valued; accomplished; improved/better; successful]
2. Narrow down to 4-6 words and create actionable items, e.g. for “confidence” the high school girls came up with: “We will consistently attend practice and hold one another accountable. We will not say “I’m sorry.” We will be stars. We will give one another positive feedback. We will give each other high fives. And we will conduct ourselves with the utmost swagger.”
3. (11:55) Establish a buddy system
  1. Usually not established friends
  2. Check-ins throughout the season; ask buddy if you missed practice; share personal goals
4. Coaches can help create tangible goals (e.g. 50 completions in a go-to drill) and remind team of the goal, especially if they are straying away from the key-words of their charter
5. Attendance at practice went from ~8 before charter to 12-14 afterwards because they felt bought-in
(15:40) Check-in/Check-outs
1. At beginning of practice let each player say one word describing how they’re feeling (or using thumbs up/down/sideways)
2. Check-out? [presumably the same process, but at the end of practice…]
(17:35) Interactive warm-up
1. Variation of team USA U23 warm-up
  1. (19:30) Demo of paired, interactive plyos
  2. hi-5s are the most important part!
(22:35) I’m a star!
1. If a player makes a mistake and says “I’m sorry”
2. Teammates say “What did you say?”
3. And player jumps up and says “I’m a star!”
4. To which teammates respond “Yes you are.”
(23:35) Collaborative challenges work really well
1. Try to meet a goal. Each time you make it as a team, reduce your 10 planned 40-yard sprints by one.
2. Create drills that have progressions to create challenge: dishy pass + look to huck + add defender + a fake + under pass…
3. Supportive drills: e.g. 3 or 5 lines with people cutting towards you. By saying names and making eye contacts, you make a social connection every time.

Co-ed, Conference, Coach development, elementary, middle school, high school

2nd annual Youth Ultimate Coaching Conference

February 10, 2015 Scott Veirs Leave a comment

I’m really sad I can’t fly down to San Jose for the 2nd annual Youth Ultimate Coaching Conference (YUCC 2015) this weekend, but I was glad to hear that some content will be online via Skyd. The theme this year is Long-Term Athlete Development (LTAD).

Background/description of Youth Ultimate Coaching Conference

Registration is $95

Video of select presentations from the 2014 Conference

“Perspectives on Youth Ultimate Programming for Coaches”

Overview of youth ultimate in Seattle

(16:20) Conceptual Framework for Events

(32:00) Building a Coaching Community

(45:00) Q&A

Coaches, parents, and players sharing K-12 ultimate