When I joined ISU's ultimate team my freshman year the program was still considered "mixed" aka coed. We were one student organization that used one bank account and attended mainly mixed tournaments. The Men and Women did EVERYTHING together. Seriously...we were attached at the hip. the first practice that 10 girls showed up to was a BIG DEAL. We had a lady 5 vs. 5 scrimmage and I was that freshman who insisted on handling. Yeah...I was that girl. If I met my freshman self now I guarantee I would roll my eyes at wee Emily.
The first Women's tournament we competed in was Fall Out '06. I can remember every single game of that tournament and most of the little details in between...catching my frist point against Purdue off a huck from Jackie, Basia sitting out because of a nasty case of mono, meeting Jennie G. and Mel for the first time, wondering if I'd ever be a baller like Nikol, Jackie pulling a u-turn and boasting about her car's great "turning uterus", almost being left behind Sunday morning, losing to North Park in universe...it honestly seems like it all happened a month ago, not three years. We lost every game that tournament...but did I care? PSH no way! I had the time of my life!
Freshman year I learned a ton about ultimate culture and started to shift from high school soccer jock to ultimate junkie. With that came the start of the Women's team. After at couple drinks at Huber's apartment one night I had a heart to heart with the Men's captains. I remember saying something along the lines of "ummmm we've got a bunch of baller girls...Fall Out was the best thing everrrr... I want to make this Women's team happen!" After a bunch of paperwork, lots of help from Gnomie vets (Pat, Jackie, Ryno, Basia and several others) and a drive to make this club happen...we had a Women's team! My goal was to send the team to Western Classic and Sectionals that semester. Well...Western's tournament was canceled and I couldn't generate enough interest to send a team to sectionals, so instead I studied what the men did (on the ultimate field! I swear!). I had a lot of respect (still do) for all the hard work Ryan put into that program to make it what it is today.
Sophomore and Junior year is when the split started becoming complicated. My sophomore year we had 2 mixed practices and 1 women's practice a week. This was good because I definitely did not know enough about the sport to run practice at the time and we also had trouble getting enough girls at practice to scrimmage. I will say that Choz played a big role in teaching our newbies during the 07-08 season. What an awesome guy. Both years we still had a lot of interaction with the men at practice and at parties on the weekends. It was a good balance and life was good.
This year things are a little different. Mixed practices aren't feasible anymore. We've got 25 girls (give or take a couple) on the team and uhhh I'm going to estimate close to 40 men. There simply isn't a location big enough to hold us all. Last semester mixed practices became more of a distraction and were pretty counter-productive, so even if there was a place big enough to house all of the Manly and Lady Gnomes, it would be very hard to conduct a solid practice where everyone got an adequate amount of touches on the disc. At the beginning of the year a lot of girls asked me what we were going to do about mixed practices. I tried to think of a way to make them work, but deep down I knew it wasn't going to happen. We practiced with the men a couple times before Stanley Cup, but that was it.
The bottom line is that we've got two teams (well, actually 3 since the men have eough for two teams) that both have ambitious goals that we can't accomplish as a mixed team. There's no mixed series in college and from my expereince as a captain if you want to go anywhere (regionals, nationals) as a college ultimate team you have to do it as a Men's team or a Women's team.
Sometimes, though, I still think with that mixed team mentality. Yes, Women's Ultimate is our own organization with our own officers, bank account, captains and practices, but there's always that looming "I wonder what the men's team is doing..." thought. This thought, I believe is the source of most tensions between the two teams. The girls spend way too much time worrying about what the men are doing and the men spend way too much time worrying about what the women are doing. These days, we don't make all the same decisions, it doesn't mean either team is making the wrong decisions, it just means that we're establishing our own identities. Does this mean we can still both be the Gnomes? Um...of course is does! Do you always agree with everything your brother/sister does? Prolly not, but you still (usually) love and (usually) respect them.
In general, I think ISU has handled the split pretty well. I remember talking to a guy on U of I's team my Freshman year and saying "Oh hey! One of your women came to pickup last week". His response was "oh...I don't know any of the women. We don't really talk to them"...and I was totally shocked. I genuinely hope it never comes to that for ISU. The Gnomes really have something special rooted back to Stanley the gnome, the founders of the latest reincarnation of ISU ultimate, and a love for this crazy sport.
Unfortunately Fall Out, the first Women's tournament this year was canceled. We'll be heading to No Wisconsequences on the 17th and 18th and Glory Days the following weekend. I'm itching to play with the Lady Gnomes...I know it's going to be a great year for both the men and women.
Good Luck at Western this weekend, Manly Gnomes!
-Emblebee
Lady Gnomes...Fall Out '06. I'm the one with the beard.
Good Post, Emily.
ReplyDeleteps the men's practices are boring
Steve
Nice Post, I enjoyed the read.
ReplyDeleteI totally remember that fallout tournament too.
i wish that i still had my drunken comment that explained how sad this made me.
ReplyDeletebut sad in a good way. nicely said em.
At Chicago, back in the day, we used to do split gender practice twice a week and then coed pickup 1-3 times a week. Pickup was optional but we got reasonable turnout and it helped us in some coed tournaments in winter and spring. Plus there were always parties :}. We were always really close with the men's team although as far as I know everything had been separate officially for years.
ReplyDelete