We had the privilege of playing Ultimate this weekend past with Pasquale Anthony Leonardo, the author of Ultimate – The Greatest Sport Ever Invented by Man.
Tony is a bearded Ultimate aficionado who’s a good 6’5″, so he’s too tall to throw over and has way to wide a reach to throw around. Hope this guy never marks you in a game.
Actually, he’s playing at the Malaysian Ultimate Open in KL this weekend, on the Thailand team no less, so there’s a real possibility I might have to face him. Anyway, we bought his book, so I’ll ask for mercy based on that.
It will not improve your game, says the author
The book entitled Ultimate – The Greatest Sport Ever Invented by Man will not improve your game, said Tony. Our faces dropped, because why else would we want to buy it then?
Because it will make you a better player, he says. We’re no less confused. The book teaches you the culture of Ultimate. For a game that is self regulated, have no umpires and whose number one rule is Spirit of the Game, culture is a major issue.
But Tony sells himself short, because I’m not 10 pages into the book and already I feel as if my game has improved.
The Journo and I went to throw the disc at Likas Sports Centre this evening. We need all the practice we can get, as although we’ve sort of got the knack of both the backhand and forehand throw, we need to build supreme confidence this week so that it’s really second nature by this weekend.
I’ve also learned a valuable lesson about t-shirts. We managed to get our team t-shirts sponsored and went to have it silk-screened. We realised that the t-shirts are not really great for playing in. They’re not as big as we thought (perhaps it shrunk during the curing of the paint?) and they’re not as breathable.
And what we imagined would be great big lettering on the back of the t-shirt, turned out no bigger than what I had designed it in CoralDraw, and that was an A4 page. But what to do?
Team Borneo Bristleheads
50 t-shirts have been printed and the smallest of our team and those who over-estimated their shirt sizes, should be comfortable – the rest of us will hopefully bite their lips and pretend it’s the greatest things they’ve ever had the pleasure of wearing. Go Team Borneo Bristleheads! Ka kaaa! Ka kaaa!
Next time we’ll get samples for approval before we do the deed. This time we were inexperienced and excited about what we were doing. At least our sponsors will get their exposures and material and sizes aside, the shirts look good.
What we hope to gain from this tournament, other than experience of course, is lots of wannabe Ultimate players joining us on Sundays. We are aiming to take more than 1 team to the tournament in Singapore, so we better gets those eager people out to the field soon.
As you know, Ultimate in Sabah is played in Kota Kinabalu at the Likas Sports Complex, right next to the hockey field and behind the hostel, every Sunday.