Meeting Minutes - 21 February 2010

We met at Delancey Bagel near Edgely this past Sunday. In attendance: Reuben, Dusty, Chris, Trey, Tom, Jon, B-Lo, and special guest Jeff Snader. Strangely enough, there was one electrical outlet in the whole seating area so i couldn't plug my laptop in to take notes. Here's what happened as best i can remember.

A few of us have discussed with Jeff the possibility of him coaching, but this was the first time we as an entire core spoke with him.

The primary concern for the core was not so much whether having a coach would be a good idea - we are all in agreement that the right coach would be a huge help - the question is whether Jeff Snader is that guy. For myself, i would break that concern down to two questions:

• Does Jeff have the strategic/tactical wisdom to guide a national level contender in the open division?


• Would bringing in Jeff to a scenario where we're looking to bring in players from 5+ teams - a process that some people are already skeptical about - be too crazy and alienate tryouts?


• I should probably say that most of us are confident in Jeff's general management/people/communication skills.

We discussed Jeff's vision for leadership involving him as headcoach with a possible assistant coach and offensive/defensive field captains. Jeff gave us a sense of how he'd use the collective experience of the team while still being the final word and avoiding the all too common "too many cooks in the kitchen" problem.

The core is looking to come to a decision on whether to bring on Jeff as a coach before we meet with the SC on 7 March.

After Jeff left, the core continued to discuss. One suggestion was to use a model some of us had used before where the leadership was supported by a braintrust of experienced players who discussed issues (e.g. practice agenda, schedule, strategy, etc) on an online forum, but communication with the team was left to the leadership.

Other topics of discussion included:

• SC dynamics: We're looking at a core of 3 people: Trey Katzenbach, Walt Kalicki, and J Dono who have voting power over personnel. If we go with Jeff Snader as a coach, he'd have final say on roster decisions. That group would be assisted by 4 additional "scouts": Dusty Rhodes, Tom Pribicko, B-Lo, and Steve Wherry. The scouts would not have voting power but would provide insights and help facilitate tryouts.
• Schedule: We're debating the merits of going to Henlopen. We're also looking at attending Ring's invitational. We're also waiting on definitive dates for ME College Regionals, CUT, and Boston Invite.
• Jeff George has expressed interest in coaching the second team.

Meeting Agenda - 7 March 2010

For this meeting, we've invited all the potential selection committee members to join the core. The SC candidates are Walt Kalicki, Joel Wooten, Steve Wherry, Jeff George, Tom Carroll, J Dono, Curtis Maier, Brendan Smith, and Jeff Snader.

Topics of conversation include (but are most certainly not limited to):

• Dynamic - our plan is to have a small selection committee with voting power over roster decisions. This group will be supported by a group of scouts who will assist with evaluating, stat taking, running drills, etc. Based on availability and relationships to the Philly ultimate community, our current plan is to have Trey, J, and Walt as the voting members of the SC. The support group would be Dusty, TomP, B-Lo, and Steve. If we bring on Snader as coach, he would oversee the process and have final say on roster decisions. Jeff George has expressed interest in coaching the second team.


• Evaluation criteria - we'll discuss what we're looking for in players, how we're gonna track and share metrics and subjective evalutations, what information we need to have (scheduling conflicts, plans to move, etc).


• Schedule/Itinerary- As spring draws closer, we are honing in on a finalized schedule. We'll be discussing what we'll be looking to accomplish with each weekend with an eye on providing ample opportunity to evaluate everyone while developing strategic foundations for the fall.


• Feedback model - we're very concerned with providing extensive feedback to tryouts through the tryout process. We'll be discussing how to structure feedback into the schedule.


• Second Team - We'll be discussing how to manage tryouts/practices for one will start as one team and eventually become two.


• College Players - How will we accomodate tryouts playing the college series?

Meeting Agenda - 21 February 2010

We're meeting tomorrow to discuss the possibility of having a coach help lead this team. More specifically, we'll be meeting with Jeff Snader to talk about his possible involvement. I'm sure some of you do not know Jeff or don't know him well, so if you have any questions/concerns, please pass them along.

As was discussed at the last core meeting, we see leadership as a big issue. We're sure everyone is as concerned with making sure the right leadership (and/or the right process to establish leadership) is in place to guide the team.

As with any team, we are looking to create a leadership model that can pull from our multiple experiences and maximize all our resources while maintaining a unity of message. Leadership needs to encompass management, communication, organization, administration, strategy, tactics, etc. We simply want to address them more overtly considering how large this group is and how many teams we come from.

Thank you to everyone who's sent us thoughts about leadership, captain, coaches, etc. Keep the thoughts coming.

Other topics we're gonna try deal with involve scheduling:

• SC meeting scheduled for the next 2 weeks.
• tournament logistics: fools, henlopen, bellcrack (home tournament), boston invite.

Mission Statement

As promised awhile back, we've got a working mission statement:

The leadership from Pike, Love, and Roots are teaming up with men from Hooray, Amp and elsewhere to bring together the best talent the area has to offer with the express goal of raising Philly open ultimate to the top echelon of our sport. While we understand that every team develops it own identity as the season progresses, we will strive to play under the following core beliefs. We are looking for players that value chemistry and commitment to excellence as much as talent and athleticism. We are looking to build a sustainable team that is able to represent the Philadelphia community and ultimate as a whole respectfully. We will work hard, play smart, have fun and always put the team first. We recognize that the journey towards excellence is what makes men into champions.