Cheering for Grey Duck

Yay for the first post on our Blog! As it explains in our "a look at the team section" April does numbers and Wilder does words. And, as one can imagine, a blog is mostly words, and therefore will be written mostly by Wilder. But to prevent any confusion, each post will be accredited to the author. But I digress.

This past sunday, we had the pleasure of spending the day at the polo fields of Cumming, GA watching Terminus, a large Ultimate Frisbee tournament. And we went to support our friends Joel and Jerod Johnson, who play for the University of Minnesota club team "Grey Duck". Where does such an interesting mascot come from, you might ask? It comes from the fantastic children's game, duck duck grey duck.

Wait, isn't it Duck duck Goose? The debate has gone back and forth, but history is on the side of Greyduck. You see, "Duck Duck Greyduck" was originally inspired by the popular children's story of the Ugly duckling, who doesn't look like the other ducklings, and is singled out for being such an odd grey color. Hence, the calling of a Greyduck is an affront which inspires chasing around the circle. Over time apparently it has been adjusted by a lack of understanding of the roots of the game or possibly by improper storytelling. Because at the end of the story, the ugly duckling doesn't turn into a goose, he turns into a swan. Hence the moral, don't make fun of ugly kids becaue they might turn out to be hot. Anyways.

So Minnesota Greyduck drove down to "Jojah" and found themselves in an underdog position. The tournament director had put them in "the Power Bracket" meaning the most competitive one, and there were a lot of people upset about this, nay sayers quick to pipe up about how garbage Geyduck was, how they didn't deserve to be in the bracket, and how they wouldn't win any games. Playing as an unranked underdog against all the big tough teams who don't think you're good enough? Grey Duck didn't mind, and Team Freed wouldn't want it any other way.

Grey Duck went 3-1 on the first day of the tournament, beating three teams that it wasn't supposed to have a chance against. And Sunday we got to be their number one fans (1 and 2? Where's April when I need her?) as they entered the tournament playoffs. And with Jerod leading the way with a collection of aerially impressive points, Grey Duck dispatched with relative ease the Michigan State Burning Couch (which needs a better mascot) and the Dogs of War before finding themselves in the semifinals. Ah the smell of haters, eating their words. In the Semis they met UGA, who prevailed, but Grey Duck played them in a great game that was tight through the second half, losing narrowly at the end. But hey, what do you do, right? Third place in a bracket that you weren't supposed to have a chance in, with an overall tournament record of 5-2? Bravo.

What I love about watching (and playing) Ultimate is the way the disc floats. Every now and then, there will be a toss into the endzone, and two players are there, just waiting to try to snatch it out of the sky. And the disc just floats, slightly out of reach, as if building suspense, demanding your complete attention, before it drops just enough for both players to leap for it, and the result is either a fantastic point, or a fantastic defensive play.

The other thing I love about Ultimate is the chanting. As I hear one player yell, "Duck Duck!" and the rest in an adrenalous mob cry out "GREY DUCK!" and the pattern repeats three times, I get tingles. It feels like they're going into battle. And I love it. Hopefully some of the game footage I got will be online soon.

So after Ultimate was done for the day, we took the Johnson brothers to Fat Matt's Rib Shack, a staple Barbecue restaurant of the ATL. If you're ever in Atlanta, eat at this place. The line is out the door, the tables are packed, and it's not a fancy place, but if you want barbecue ribs or chicken, this is the place. We tore into a bunch of ribs and some potato salad as we caught up on life, and I felt like a messy carnivore, tearing into it's dinner. That's the way Barbecue needs to be eaten. (I got a hard time for not being messy enough, but it was so good I needed to get as much as possible into my mouth, and so I kept licking my fingers clean.)

And we talked about how we're going to have to get together sometime this summer and grill. I'm looking forward to it already.

-Wilder