1997 continues

It didn't take the Carleton contingent long to decide what they wanted to do about Pete being captain. They had a coup. Sox would be captain of the team of Carleton boys and everyone else who wanted to play at the highest Minneapolis level. This ordered by Lord Lonsdorf from his throne in Boston. Sox would keep some of the existing older talent and some of the younger more green players and make a new team. This put me in a bad way. I loathed Sox, but really wanted to play with this new team.
There were cuts made right away that reverberated at the time through Minneapolis club ultimate. Brian Corradi who cared some that he was cut and Frank Peterson. Frank is a different kind of guy. He has great talent and undoubtedly was the most talented handler we had at the time, and maybe ever had. His mental stability was of balsa wood, however. Frank had to be coddled. He had to be told how great he was at a regular interval, and one could not fervently disagree with him or he would take his ball and go home. Anyone who knows Sox knows that he is not a coddler. Frank took the cut incredibly hard. To this day, Frank despises anyone who had anything remotely to do or were associated with this move.
Anyway, the coup being over, I was kept on the squad, my brother was cut. He still gives Turtle some heck for this. Cutting him from Boston. I played with a chip on my shoulder. Defense hard and mean. I felt I had to prove myself to this Carleton "Borg." as they were known.
We struggled for awhile to find a good name for the team. Cooter wanted "leather tuscadero." money shot was thrown out. Finally we came to the conclusion that we just had to pick a name and if we stood by this name, over time it would be known like the DoG's and Z's of ultimate. We picked "Sub-Zero" which amused Chicago as they were still the team we had never beat and we picked a team that could be shortened to "Sub-Z." They took it as we were still placing ourselves below them.
Sox came up with the offense called the bowtie. we would cut in down the sidelines and clear through the middle in an X formation. Restacking about 30-40 yards pinned to the sidelines. It seemed good at the time, but that was because we had no idea how to play at the elite level. We had an offense that was designed to complete 15 to 20 passes to score. We had good players and fared pretty well in the central region, but that wasn't saying a lot. There really was only one team that ever made a splash recently at nationals and that was Chicago Z. The other teams just picked up the table scraps, went to nationals if they got a bid and got trounced. We still weren't in the top 2 or 3 in our region and would have to crack that to get to natties. I can't remember how we did overall at tournaments. I do remember that we lost to Z at Cooler. That was the game Howard got mad and jumped on my back. I said I played hard and mean. A high swill went up, he and I were the only two that had a shot. He dropped it and called foul...the crowd bood him heavily. Howard got very angry at this and was fueled by Cooter telling him it was the worst call he had ever seen. He was very angry at this point. Howard was a better offensive player than I was by leagues. I was aggressive and mean and fast, however. He now was going to get the disc and show me up at all cost. The disc was checked in, he charged at me. I slung him to the ground. His fury bore him to his feet and onto my back. "He's out of control, get him off the field," Cooter yelled. We both exited the field. We lost the game, but it was the beginning of many meetings between myself and Howard.