The B-pool finals were to be between Strangelove (Colorado) and Tyro (Salt Lake). But Strangelove had played nearly savage all weekend, and they called it off to start the drive home. Thanks to all the teams for coming out and enjoying the smoothest fields in the West.
Our best wishes go with them as they spread mountain ultimate across the nation ;^)
From his team captain:
"As many of you have heard, a member of the Brigham Young ultimate team, Curtis Randall, was killed in a car accident while driving to northwest regionals in Vancouver on Friday, May 2nd. Curtis is survived by his wife, Amy, and 1 yr old daughter, Eliza. I would like to express my gratitude for the outpouring of support that has been expressed thus far. If others of you would like to express your condolences, please send them to Amy at superironman@hotmail.com.
I would also like to answer a few of the most common questions that I have encountered in the last couple of days.
First of all, who was Curtis Randall? To the ultimate world, he was a 6' 5", 180 lb nightmare for opposing deeps. He had good hops, great hands, and an uncanny ability to read the disc. I can't count the number of times in which all I could see was his hand extended above a mass of people to catch one of my crappy throws. He was one of those players that made his teammates look better than they actually were.
To the rest of the world, Curtis was a great friend, husband, father, brother, etc. He was enjoyable to be around on and off the field. He was a competitor, but never at the expense of others' well-being or his own integrity. He voiced thoughtful opinions, but never exploded (although there were times when I knew he didn't agree with how I was running things and could have easily strangled me). He was a jokester, an optimist, a mediator, and a guy whose life seemed to be in perfect order. He truly was an example to us all.
The second question I've gotten is, "How did it happen?" I'm only willing to answer this because I understand people's curiosity and I don't want this to happen to any of your teams. The accident took place on a flat stretch of I-84 near Le Grande, OR. There were four lanes of traffic separated by a large dirt median; the weather was perfect; the roads weren't crowded. Curtis had gotten a speeding ticket driving back from regionals last year and therefore refused to go more than 5 mph above the speed limit. So how did it happen? There are three theories that the passengers of the car have conveyed to me. The first (and in MY OPINION, most likely) is that he dozed for a second and overcorrected when he came to. I think this is most likely because everyone in the car, including the front passenger, was either reading or sleeping. There were also some Mormon religious talks in the CD player which are notorious for being both inspirational and sleep-inducing. Another theory is that Curtis was merely enjoying the scenery too much. Apparently, Curtis had remarked that the landscape was beautiful and was contemplating moving to the pacific northwest. The final theory is that a tire blew after hitting an object in the road causing loss of control of the car.
Regardless of the cause, the vehicle (a Ford Expedition) was overcorrected to the right and then back again to the left before" rolling approximately five times over the dirt median and finally stopping upside down in the left lane of oncoming traffic. Miraculously, no other cars were involved and help arrived almost immediately. All other passengers were safely removed from the vehicle and have since been released from the hospital. They all credited their seatbelts for their relative safety. Curtis, however, had to be cut out of his seatbelt and was pronouced dead at the scene. It is almost certain that he died of head trauma resulting from the roof collapsing in a way that it sloped from the top of his seat to inches above the steering wheel. He was alive when he was pulled from the car, but died moments later.
Those are all the details I can bear to write. In conclusion, I plead with you to keep your drivers awake, sober, and alert. Ultimate is a great sport, but it's not worth dying for.
Thank you for reading. For those of you that are going to nationals, congratulations, good luck, and if you feel inclined to play with better spirit than you normally would, I know Curtis would appreciate it. Whatever you do, be grateful that you can play another day.
Sincerely,
Don Clark
Captain, Brigham Young Ultimate"
The Come as you aren't tournament, Park City, September 2002.
Daweena Snow Flake Disc. Courtesy of Chris Watkins.
The Salt Lake City Women's Ultimate Team - Lake FX, at Daweena 2002.
Well this New Years we had our first ever "Hair of the Dog Hat Tournament" and it was sweet. The weather was perfect, the snow was only hiking-boot deep, and everyone enjoyed the chance to burn the last lingering toxins out of their systems.
The tourny was at Sugarhouse Park and started at 2pm. This turned out to be the perfect start time to let people wake up, shake out the cobwebs, choke down some breakfast and drag themselves to the fields. We started with people just randomly divided into teams. It was surprisingly competitive -- a game to 11 that went 14-12 or 15-13 (I don't remember). And with the snow slowing everyone and increasing the turnovers, it was an EXHAUSTING experience for one game. Nonetheless there were highlights of pretty hot action and plenty of snowplowin' layouts to go around.
After that it was time for the "Out With the Old, In With the New" game featuring one team of all the older players (Age 'n Wisdom, aka The Fogies) against a team of all the younger ones (Youth 'n Beauty, aka The Whippersnappers). By general consensus, it was agreed that this should just be a game to 7. People claimed that the reason was because the first game was so exhausting and ran so long, but many suspect that the real reason was that several members of Age 'n Wisdom wanted to get home to catch the "Golden Girls" marathon on Lifetime.
The pleasant surprise of the day had to be the discovery of budding ultimate progeny Michael, a middle school student who dropped his sled to come pick up with us for the last hour. He was a quick study and surprisingly comfortable interacting with all those adults. It was like having our own little Haley Joel Osment!
The Out With the Old / In With the New was played as 4/3 coed. For the men, the Old team was 31 years 11 months and older. For the women I don't know where the age division ended up being. The game was back-and-forth and sort of intense, I guess, if you squinted a little. The verbal japes were intense, at least. Whippersnappers took the early lead only to have the Fogies storm past. The Snappers rallied to tie it 6-all. After a series of nervous turnovers, the final crafty breakmark goal throw went to the Fogies for a 7-6 win. The game was highlighted by one of the most bizarre, out-and-out wack MAC goals you've ever seen.
The day ended with a quick group trip across the street for greasy cheese fries and relaxation. Everyone had a blast and I'm sure that we'll be making this an annual event. Thank you to all who played!
Editors Note: The following summary is by Keith Alleman concerning the Sub for Santa Program where a group volunteers to pick up presents for an under privileged family and bring them for the kids during Christmas. I want to thank everyone involved, and especially Keith, for spending their time and money doing something that made a small difference during the Holidays.
cheers
jim
By Keith:
OK I delivered our sub4santa gifts last Friday. Everything went smoothly and the family seemed like good people to help. The mom was nice and way thankful. She listened patiently through all my disorganized caveats and self-deprecation and a rambling explanation of how I could give her a pack of socks for her son but I couldn't wrap them as a gift because socks just are not a gift. The mom (5'6", 125, blonde, black sleeveless top and jeans) and I seemed to share the kind of special connection that comes from handing somebody hundreds of dollars of free stuff. The kids were appealing despite being a bit overstimulated by it all. The oldest kid didn't seem as broody as his gift list implied, while the littlest -- the girl -- seemed really well-adjusted.
Their neighborhood was really quiet and right next to the 53rd South TRAX stop and just across from where we play summer league, and I was thinking Hey, I could live here... settle down... commute... eventually learn how to tell my modest charmless red brick house apart from all the other modest charmless red brick houses on this street.... but the feeling passed.
Anyway, we brought a little light and love into their world and there were lots of smiles. The little girl immediately checked all the gift tags and segregated all of her gifts into a pile in the corner so she could stare at them and anticipate. There was a warm glow, and just for a while the place felt like a home.
Thanks again for all of your participation. I enjoyed it and I think we'll do it again next year. Cheers to everyone for finding a way to get your gifts to me, and to Catherine for hosting the wrapping party.
And yes, Monika, I wore the hat.
Besides the standard goal of the Halloween Hat Tournament to play good spirited ultimate in Drag, err... constume, this year we also thought to do some good.
It was decided to make a donation to charity in Honor of Natalie's Father who died in the September 11th bombing of the Pentagon. Our thoughts and prayers go out to her family and all those affect by these tragic events.
On Nov 14, Keith Alleman, representing Salt Lake City Ultimate met with Janet Wolf and dropped off a donation for $160 collected at the Halloween Hat Tournament. Through a matching program with the City Council it was doubled to $320. Janet was very thankful and spoke very very highly of Natalie.
She also said that she's interested in initiatives to have a summer program 1-day ultimate thing for kids and to link people from SL Ultimate with high school ultimate clubs to serve as coaches. (editors note from keith: actually she wants them to be "coach/mentors" but I think that's before having actually MET a lot of people from SL Ultimate).
From our section, with local players Emily Kimmel and Dave Green, Trigger Hippy took top honors, beating BRU (Charlottesville) 17-13 in the finals on Sunday.
Please send us any information about games played throughout the state of Utah and feel free to let us know about any tournaments or web pages that we should link to. We would be happy to place this information on the General Ultimate Information page.
We hope this web site will continue to grow over the years and provide a service to all level of players from national to beginner.
The team is made up of 25 members from Salt Lake and had to play nine grueling games of ultimate during the regional tournament in Washington a couple of weeks ago. They defeated Rippit in the final game to claim the final spot in the Northwest Region, representing us, the Big Sky Section. Our best wishes go to them on their way to Florida. May you all have a safe trip and a spirited tourney.