Teamwork - Ethan Chen

The Frisbee Game

“Remember you are first cut, he second cut, I will call stack, and he will be swing.”

Hearing an actually formulated plan from my teammate woke me up as my mind was quickly losing focus. Right now we are tied with a score of 2-2. He was telling me the position I should be playing in the field. I will be the first man that the handler will attempt to pass the frisbee to. It was the last point before the end of the game and both teams were giving their all. We been chasing the frisbee disc up and down the field but no progress has been made. It was 5 minutes in the point, the longest point we had. My body already felt restless, legs heavy as bricks, my stomach growling, and my mouth dry begging for a drip water. My team always had a problem when it came to communicating with each other. We have always been unorganized, all over the place, no rules or positions had been in place.Our clueless faces on the field show that we did not even know what to do. We would always lose the games and it would be pure luck if we score a point. My coach would be on the side lines shaking his head in disappointment and I could see it was his turning point to make a change.

At our last practice, our coach wanted to talk about a essentiel concept called communication.

“It is one of the most key things when working as a team, not only for ultimate frisbee, but also with school work and other sports,” as he said putting emphasis to each word.

We spent that whole practice learning how to communicate with each other. We learn the commands and what each command means. We also learn how important eye contact and hand signals where useful in communicating with each other too. At the end of the practice, we were playing like a real team, a real ultimate frisbee game for once. We shouted commands at each other, made solid eye contact, and most importantly, work as a team. Just in time for the next game.

“Alright,” I said to my teammate.

We raise our fist and our opponent throw the frisbee out to the end of the field. We all ran down the field to get to our position’s.

“STACK ON ME,” as one of my teammates shouted out loud as I breathlessly ran down second to last in the stack.

The handler had picked up the disc. The defenders were all lined up to each one of us.  

“DISC IN,” shouted the handler. The first cutter sprinted off to the open side. He was able to outrun his defender. The handler fake his defender (trick his defender by going in one direction then rapidly change to the other direction) and pass the frisbee to the first cutter.

“NEXT CUTTER WHO SECOND,” scream the first cutter.

I already ran down field so I sharply turn back towards where the first cutter was. Clap-clap-clap as I repeatedly clapped my hands to signal him that I was open. He threw the disc to me. I clap the disc with both hands and caught it. I look for an open person but my mind was under pressure and there was only confusion. The defender started to stall count me beginning from 10 as my sweat drip down my face.

Then from the corner of my eye, the handler waved his hand at me outrunning his defender. I turn around, eyes locked on him, and throw the frisbee at him. He caught the frisbee and signal the next cutter to go deep into the end zone. The deep cutter ran down and the handler huck the disc (Threw the disc far down the field). It travel far and fast down field. The deep cutter sprinted quickly down the field as his defender and others around him try to desperately catch up to him. The disc dip lower and lower and everyone ran faster and faster to the disc. The body of everyone from my team and the opponents team obscure my vision of the disc. There was a moment of tension to see if he caught it. A scream of joyness came out from my team. The deep cutter caught the disc! We won! We line up and shook hands with our opponents said, “good game good game.”

As I travel home, I realize how important communication is when it comes to teamwork. You can have a group of people no matter how many people are in, ranging from intelligence, backgrounds, if they like dogs or cats, etc. What most crucial out from teamwork is communication. When you communicate to your peers, you and your peers will understand what is the next step and who is playing what role. With that, you have organize the certain task to certain people to complete one objective. I had never taken that into consideration before and thought to myself, “I should try to apply that with other things in life,” as I approach to my front step, ready to begin a new day.