1998

Indeed, Mark Enright (Paco) had decided to stay intown instead of traveling to play with Z. This was a huge boost to our team as he was a guy who has been there and is an incredible athlete. He is the type of guy that one can watch what he does and never be able to reproduce it.
One more member of Z, Steve Steury, came to join our team that year. He ran for captain and won. This was a good thing in my eyes as he had the authority of also being somewhere only paco and Tross had been on our team. There were a ton of players out this year for tryouts, so it was a very nervous time for me as I believed I was firmly on the bubble. I had played and worked hard all winter long in preparation for this year. I distinctly remember Turtle and Tross calling me "bubble-boy" while on the line at Bethel indoor.
I can't exactly remember when we made cuts that year, but I think it was after the Boston tournament. The team, because of Tross, had secured a bid in the elite pool at the Boston invitational tournament (easterns). We had not earned it, but they believed Tross that we were an up and coming team. This was another huge step for me. To travel by plane to play a tournament..... I had decided that I would go. At the time, Marty Bakko, Dan Rydel and I hung out a lot together. We called ourselves the 'Web'. Kind of to affront the Borg. Now, I was kind of in a pissy way a bit that week as my girlfriend kari had broken up with me, so I was really ready to get on the field and stir it up. Marty met Ryder and I at the airport and after a bit of chiding by Ryder and me, he let us know that he was feeling a little outside the web. We all had a good laugh. Boston was a fun town as really the only town I had been to really on my own accord. We started at Cheers and I continued to drain one beer after another until I found myself at fort devens in the morning(which is about 2 hours drive away from Boston) in all my clothes wrapped in the window curtain. I was young, however and this did not affect the aggression with which I went out to play. I remember little from the tournament except playing DoG for the first time (getting a deep poach d on them on the first point). The extreme confidence they played with. We lost big to them. We also lost a close one to the hounds, but fared well at the tournament overall. I do remember playing Pumphouse boys.....we still hated them. We beat them ( a big step to gaining the confidence to go to natties in the fall). There was a guy imparticular who I despised, a Matt Wadenpool, I believe. He was a dirty and arrogant player, so of course we clashed on the field. I remember him saying that "this is how it is played at nationals" like he knew because he had been there but had been beat bad every game. It was that I am elite and you are not tone that fired me up the rest of the game. Florida ended up winning the tournament, but we had played against national caliber teams and that is what mattered.
We had some fun that tournament. Cooter stayed and played cards with me, omar and Marty. For that we dubbed him Hugh as the first of the Borg to venture out. They were such a close knit group that it really was an important step in team unity. I complained a lot about the band on Saturday night and so Marty named me the little bitch, which still sticks as either Butch or Bitch.
We practiced hard that year and early. No one seemed to get burned out. We were all too excited as it was clear that we were apart of the best team any of us (Tross Steury and Paco aside) had ever been on. We played a man offense that was basically predicated on jamming it up the forehand side and when that bogged to get it to what we called the "soviet" or red side. Two handlers man, buddy, soviet man buddy and finisher. We basically cleared a ton of room and tried to score on very few throws to very open men. It worked. Nobody in the central had seen anything like this and so we got to the finals of Cooler only to lose to the Finnish national team that was in the area to play worlds. We would have beat them, we were better than they were, but we were less focused because it was cool to play against another country.
Tune-up tournament bids were made and we were overlooked in the elite pool. We still didn't have the props to be known as a nationals team. We played in the B pool and ran the table beating ring of fire, Philly rage and red tide. All three nationals teams of the recent past. The pools crossed over, so we did get to play some of the elite teams and won every game. We had some incredible offensive talent and a relentless D. I remember being on the starting D with Randy Russ and Seng and of course, Paco(who caught more D's from behind than anyone I have ever seen). We could outrun almost anyone. The Turtle started to get a lot of respect with his deep game, so guys would let him have a 20 yard under without barely cutting. It was a very exciting time to be in Minneapolis ultimate. Steve Steury kept getting emails from around the frisbee country giving our team nice props. We couldn't wait for sectionals. I remember what Tross had said to Madison "we will use it next year and we will kill you with it" and we did. We steamrolled Madison. They would not be in our league again until 2001.
Now we had a single purpose.....nationals in Sarasota. First we had to finish top three at regionals. A deed we had never achieved in the history of Minnesota.