USA Ultimate

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 third entry comes from Nick as he prepares for USA Ulimate's team camp in Massachusetts.

Wake up time is 6:30 A.M. and the USA Juniors players trudge off to breakfast at the gorgeous Valentines Dining hall at Amherst College. Talk is low as everyone begins to eat their meals.

We get to the fields at 8 and begin to cleat up. Everyone is very excited and nerves are running high. We present our team goal to the coaches, and bring it in for our first, "1-2-3 U-S-A" in cleats. We begin to warm-up by throwing with people we have never played on a team with before. We begin an active warm-up with a full field jog and then Jody leads us in stretches. As we begin to play it is clear to us what people like to do. Who our handlers are and who are cutters are becomes apparent and everyone begins to feel each other out. We drill and we scrimmage, until we break for lunch at 11:30.

The afternoon session begins at 1, and we go through the normal warm-up routine. Jogging, stretching, and throwing. We again begin to drill and scrimmage, with more intensity than the morning. The sun is now high in the air and not a single person isn't breathing hard. The scrimmages get more and more intense as the two teams begin to find a rhythm with each other. Defense begins to get more physical as we get more comfortable with each other and offense starts to get tighter.

After a long hard day, we bring it in for one last count down. Meet as a team after dinner, and continue coming together as a team off the field. 

-Nick Stuart