Maddy Roorbach speaks out about the U-20 National training camp
USA Ultimate
Posted: July 30, 2010 11:25 AM
This August, 44 of the best youth Ultimate players in America will be traveling to Germany to participate in the 2010 World Junior Ultimate Championships. But first, the Open and Girl’s teams will meet at Amherst College next week for a weeklong training camp hosted by USA Ultimate.
Five members of Team USA have agreed to blog about thier experiences for usaultimate.org - Bethany Kaylor, Sally Landefeld, Maddy Roorbach, Nick Stuart and Matt Barnes. Follow their progress here as they train, travel and compete throughout the next few weeks.
Our fifth entry comes from Maddy as she prepares for USA Ulimate's team camp in Massachusetts.
Hello from Amherst, MA! I’m Madeline (Maddy) Roorbach. In May I graduated from Grady High School in Atlanta, GA, and I’ll be a freshman at Emory University in August. Until then, however, I have the honor of playing with 20 of the most talented junior women in the country.
We arrived in Amherst three days ago to begin training camp—an intense period of learning to play with our teammates, bonding with our teammates, and, of course, plenty of beautiful Ultimate.
I must say, however, I was only able to start playing today. When I woke up Tuesday morning, I found myself infected with a slight stomach bug. So, two days and lots of sitting-under-the-tent-with-Dr.-Jamie-and-Meredith time later, I am pleased to report that I was able to fully participate this morning. Hooray!
Being sick and slightly incapacitated Frisbee-wise has given me the chance to see my team from an angle that I don’t think any of the other players have. In two short days, I watched as we morphed from a group of teammates into a team. Allow me to explain. We had known since April who our "teammates" were, but at least I had only met a fraction of the girls. All summer we emailed, texted and talked to our triads, but we still we not cohesive. Then, as we ran through drills and scrimmages, we slowly found our balance. Our talking in the dining hall has slowly gotten louder and our dancing more proficient (and wild) as the days have gone by.
Since April, the Worlds tournament has been a vague glimmer on the horizon—and now it’s real. We have three more practices to ensure that the bonds between all of us are as strong and as impenetrable as we can make them, so that when we face our first opponent in Heilbronn, we’re ready. I have no doubt we can do it. Look out, WJUC 2010—Team USA is ready to go!
U-S-U-S-U-S-A!!!
--Maddy Roorbach