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Going Long with AUDL Star Stefan Samu
141 Plays2 years ago
Graeme sits down with professional Ultimate Frisbee player Stefan Samu of The San Diego Growlers, to talk all things ultimate. Stefan talks about his introduction to the sport in Berkeley, his rise to Callahan nominee while at UCSD, and what it is like to play at the highest level in The AUDL. Graeme and Stefan also discuss what makes the AUDL a great sport to watch on TV, and why throwing a BBQ backhand is always a bad choice.
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Transcript
Introduction & Podcast Popularity
00:00:07
Speaker
I used to
00:00:28
Speaker
And welcome to the Crawling Around My Brain podcast. I'm your host, Graham Brown. Really happy to have you with us this week. I appreciate all the support, as usual, and we continue to maintain our top 50 podcast status in Australia.
Discovering Ultimate Frisbee
00:00:41
Speaker
So big ups to my Australian fans. The sounds you heard at the beginning of this podcast were in-game sounds from my new favorite sport, Ultimate Frisbee.
00:00:51
Speaker
That's right, you heard me, Ultimate Frisbee. Specifically, the AUDL, which is the American Ultimate Disc League, which you can learn more about at theaudl.com or audl.tv. I stumbled upon it on Fox Sports and couldn't believe how much fun it was to watch. It translates great to
Meet Stefan Samu
00:01:12
Speaker
TV.
00:01:12
Speaker
i then went into a deep dive on youtube got into the socials and started watching some of the highlights and it is like a combination of all these great sports that i love and i just couldn't believe that i hadn't really invested myself in the sport before so this week i'm really excited
00:01:30
Speaker
to have one of the stars of the AUDL on the podcast, Mr. Stefan Samu. He plays with the SD Growlers, so make sure to go check out the SD Growlers on socials or through the AUDL.com. For those that know nothing about Ultimate Frisbee, like me, this is a great podcast for you because we cover a lot of the basics. For those that maybe have been Ultimate fans for a long time or even played, this is really cool because Stefan has been
00:01:56
Speaker
excelling in the sport for many, many years. And he talks about some of the intricacies of playing the sport at a professional level and what it takes to maintain his status as a professional ultimate player. So I was really excited to have this conversation. I know I had been promising a big guest for the last couple of weeks. This is that big guest. I really hope you enjoy this as much as I do. And I would tell you to just put aside whatever preconceptions you have about Ultimate Frisbee.
Why Try Ultimate Frisbee?
00:02:24
Speaker
Go onto YouTube, watch some of the AUDL highlights, go to AUDL TV, sign up for the pass, watch the games. I really think that you will be very happy and you can thank me later. So with that being said, let's get right into it. My interview with Stefan Samu. Stefan, welcome to the program. Thanks for having me, Graham. Excited to get into this.
00:02:49
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Uh, as I mentioned in our pre-chat, um, I am a little concerned that your voice is too deep. Uh, and I feel like there's a little competition, so I might have to do some editing afterward just to bump that up a little bit. I just wanted to acknowledge that up front. Okay.
00:03:06
Speaker
No, but really, I appreciate you being here. Just so you know, I've been teasing that I have this big guest coming on the program, and so no pressure, but it's been a couple weeks here. I even had to do a story reading of something that I wrote, and so it's been a big buildup to get you. And for the folks who may not know you, first of all, shame on them, but you are a professional
00:03:29
Speaker
ultimate player.
Stefan's Sports Journey
00:03:31
Speaker
Now you can correct me if I get some of the nomenclature wrong here, but you play for the San Diego Growlers. You're a defender. Number 66, which I think is what we might have to get into that a little bit. But yeah, I just am really pumped that you were able and willing to come on the program. So thank you. Yeah, of course. It's great to have like an opportunity to talk on a platform about like a sport that is growing and could use all of the publicity possible, you know,
00:03:59
Speaker
Yeah, 100%. So I know I didn't give a super robust bio there, but anything else that you wanted to let folks know about yourself, maybe, I mean, you don't necessarily have to go through the whole resume, but anything in addition to your status as a pro ultimate player that you wanted to share.
00:04:17
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I guess I grew up in the Bay Area, quite a hub for the sport. And then I moved down here to San Diego for college and have been here ever since. And Ultimate has kind of followed me ever since the end of high school. So been in it for like eight years now.
00:04:34
Speaker
So I got to tell you, I am a huge sports fan, but I'm brand new to the world of
Understanding Ultimate Frisbee Mechanics
00:04:42
Speaker
ultimate. And I have so many questions that I'm going to fire at you. I also have a little game later calling stump the Samu. So that will get to that later. But, you know, I wasn't really exposed to the sport at all growing up. And then recently I was
00:05:00
Speaker
just watching tv and i'm like fox sports or fox sports west or something like that a game came on and i was like god this is awesome like people are flying around there are these like i mean every other pass there's like some pretty incredible athletic
00:05:17
Speaker
play, where it's like kind of a combination of a bunch of sports, like, it has some of the layout of like a soccer maybe, but then it has some of the physicality and the athleticism of a football. So like, I that's how I got into it. And I found myself continuing to watch it, then I started going down a rabbit hole on YouTube and Instagram. And like, obviously, that's how I found you. But how would you describe the sport for people that like me aren't really aware or weren't aware of it?
00:05:45
Speaker
That's funny that you
College to Professional Transition
00:05:46
Speaker
kind of discovered it that way because I had a very similar experience to getting into the sport in the first place. I had grown up playing soccer really young and then went into basketball and football pretty competitively in high school. And then got a couple injuries and couldn't get cleared to play those sports.
00:06:05
Speaker
And then I saw some people playing ultimate and I was like, wait a second, that looks like a mix of all the sports that I love. I should probably go give that a try since you don't need a waiver for that one in high school at the time. So that was like my only sport possible to play at the time. And I was like, let's give it a shot. They're all freshmen. I'm a senior, but I got no other options and I need some competitive outlet.
00:06:25
Speaker
And so yeah, I would describe it similarly to you, to what you said. It's, it's got like this continuous flow in a way, kind of like soccer, like in, in like the passing slash pass move, pass move. You can't dribble like soccer. So once you catch it, you got to stand still. So this kind of does create like a forced teamwork aspect, which I find like.
00:06:48
Speaker
At first, it's a little jarring when you start playing because it's like, I can't make things happen when I have the ball, Frisbee, whatever you want. The object. When you have it, you can't do much. But it becomes really interesting. A lot of strategic elements come in because you have to trust each other. Other people got to make plays for you. You have to make them together type of thing. But it feels like football when you're playing it. It feels like you're playing wide receiver and cornerback all the time. That's the best way to describe it, I'd say.
00:07:17
Speaker
I think that's exactly right. I would actually say, and I wanna come back to that football piece and the route, kind of the route
Challenges of Ultimate Frisbee
00:07:24
Speaker
running that it looks like. But again, for folks, I mean, I would absolutely check it out. You can watch it on Fox Sports like I did. You can subscribe, I think, on udl.com and you can pay a monthly pass essentially to watch the games. But I actually think that's interesting how you can, you catch the,
00:07:44
Speaker
disc or the frisbee i know that there's some reason why it's not ultimate frisbee because i was like a trademark name or something but i'm so bad with this technical stuff too so it's like yeah i disc i always call it a ball still because i'm just like in my head all i think about is sports like sports and all i've ever played with is right football basketball so i'm just so used to just calling it a ball but yes a disc
00:08:04
Speaker
And it's kind of like, it's kind of like basketball in the sense, if you stop, you know, you can't, you can only take a couple steps, right? I think it's, was it three steps in the ultimate that you can take or something like that? I mean, slow down with, with, with, slow down with like respect to your speed. So like you can't get extra yards, but don't blow out a knee, you know, like just a reasonable amount of steps is given type of thing.
00:08:23
Speaker
Okay and what you just said I think there's a real interesting piece again for those that don't know the sport about like sportsmanship right so can you and you so what you just described is what I thought I'm like it almost appears as if there's a rule but really that people are almost like policing themselves and I know like in the history of the sport
00:08:47
Speaker
I know a little bit of the history about that, but that's what it appeared to me. It's like, maybe it's two steps, maybe it's three, but it's basically like, don't take advantage of the situation. If you're running super fast and you catch a pass, you know, take a couple steps, but don't, if you go too many, then basically it's going
Growth Potential of Ultimate
00:09:04
Speaker
to be a problem. But can you describe like what that
00:09:06
Speaker
And I know we're coming in hot. We're only six minutes in and we're diving into the core fundamentals of the sport, but I think it's great. I think it's great. What's, what is it like? What's the ethos in general about sportsmanship that is at the core of ultimate? Cause I think that's super fascinating.
00:09:20
Speaker
That's a great point. I think that's a really great point. That's another thing that's very shocking when you come from other sports. So the ethos is like, it's really just, and like you said, don't take advantage of things, but also let's not hurt each other while trying to be as athletic and as competitive as possible. Let's not try to like,
00:09:40
Speaker
destroy each other's bodies, go through someone's back and someone's knee. These type of things are, for the most part, people try to avoid. I will say though that as the sports gets more legitimacy and becomes professional now for longer and longer, these things do kind of erode a little bit. The sense of it is all still there. People still
00:10:01
Speaker
are very respectful, I would say, is a good way of putting it. But there's a little more competitive edge and a little less priority on that. And honestly, it was a bit much when I started for me. People would tell me I'm not even allowed to go for that disc because the other guy has such good position that it's not like I can't even try to make a play because there's a possibility to make contact, which was really, really hard to get into my normal football basketball brain. That seems insane. I can't even try.
00:10:28
Speaker
I think that that's gone away a little bit. And we're at like a happy medium now where it's like people will protect each other, but there's still an understanding that we're
Professional Aspects of Ultimate
00:10:35
Speaker
going to be competitive. We're going to, there's going to be some little bits of contact, but yeah, don't take advantage of the rules. I guess is a great way to putting it while keeping each other safe.
00:10:43
Speaker
Yeah, so that's exactly what you see too. So again, for those that don't know the sport really, you are playing offense, you're playing defense, you're covering people tightly to try to prevent them from making throws and things like that, but you can't really foul them. And there are referees, I know they're not called referees, but there are like referees on the field, right? But they're not really involved necessarily unless they have to be. Is that kind of how you would,
00:11:11
Speaker
This is true at lower levels. So this is true at like in your club level or in your college level or any level below the pro league. They have what we call observers. So they don't get involved unless a player makes a call themselves. So nothing will be called. But if a player makes a call and the other player doesn't agree with the call, then they make the ruling basically. Then the ref will step in and make a ruling on it.
00:11:38
Speaker
And it kind of keeps the flow of the game going. You don't have to stop as often. There's not like, there's not issues with that, but at the pro level, you need it.
Ultimate on TV
00:11:47
Speaker
Yeah. So you're in the highest stakes and I should have led with that and definitely we'll make sure that I include that in the intro, but you know, the AUDL is the highest professional league in our country, right? And is it, would you say worldwide as well? Yeah. We have the best players and overall in terms of like probably highest level on average. And there's the most players that play probably are all in the US.
00:12:13
Speaker
Yeah, and that's kind of verified and validated by what I'm watching on TV because, again, the athleticism is really impressive. And this other piece that we're talking about with the kind of the referees or the observers, of course, the stakes are high. You know, there's championship on the line ultimately, so you have to have people that are paying attention, making sure everyone's doing what's right.
00:12:31
Speaker
But it's not a sport where it's overtaken by the ump or the ref. So I played baseball a lot and sometimes umpires get too involved, right? Or you especially see this in basketball, where people complain about it all the time. It's like one of the most popular things, like is the game almost rigged because there's so much interaction from some of the referees.
Roles and Strategies in Ultimate
00:12:50
Speaker
You don't get that here. It's like there's very rarely a stoppage of play, which is cool. It's just like continuously happening. Is that what it feels like on the field too?
00:12:58
Speaker
Yeah, it's definitely a let it like let players play unless something is pretty extremely dangerous and or completely violating the rules. But it's it for the most part, it's just let the people play and and let the disc lie where it lies type of thing. And I definitely prefer that than the than the over involvement of refs, like you said, in a lot of other sports. So it is it is refreshing in that way.
00:13:24
Speaker
Yeah, totally. It's very refreshing to watch, I can tell you that. So I know I've gotten a bit ahead of myself here because we haven't even really dived into your origin story and we don't have to go super deep, but I know we were talking about
00:13:36
Speaker
how you began, you know, playing in high school, and then you went on to playing college. So is that something where before you went to college, you were like, I want to find a college that offers this at a pretty high level, because I think I'm pretty good at this, and there's a chance? Or was it I just want to go to this college, and if they have, you know, a team, that's great? Like, was it did it factor into your decision making? Were you recruited to play?
00:14:00
Speaker
So I think I have, again, I'm not the poster boy for what a frizzy player is, honestly. And so I might've had a little bit of an unconventional route to getting there. And so all my high school career, my main focus was basketball. And I got lucky to be on a really, really talented team. I was probably
00:14:20
Speaker
arguably one of the worst players on that team. Like if I'm being realistic, like a lot of those guys are playing pro now in overseas. So like a really, really good team. And so we would travel during this season and everything and all my focus is there. And I think I mentioned it, but yeah, I had like a couple injuries my junior year. I got like three concussions in like six months. And so the doctors wouldn't sign the waiver for my senior year of basketball to start the season. So like they were just like, you can't play. It's not reasonable. And so then I ended up playing Frisbee for like
00:14:51
Speaker
four months that year in my senior year, and then finally got a waiver signed and hopped back to basketball. But in those four months, I met, there's like a, there's a, in the Bay area, there's like enough high schools that have teams that they have like a whole league that's going on. Berkeley high school like wins national championships for high school Frisbee. Like they're, they have a whole program. They have like 90 kids in high school playing. It's like super developed. And so like, I met enough people and they're like, Hey,
00:15:19
Speaker
You seem to be figuring this sport out. You should come out to a California state team tryout for a state championship where all the states end up playing each other in the summer.
Training and Coaching
00:15:29
Speaker
So they fly out to Minnesota. Minnesota plays California. California plays New York. See which state has the best team type of thing. And I went out, and I really couldn't throw a Frisbee if I'm being honest. I was just relying purely on my ability to run a wide receiver route and catch a Frisbee type of thing.
00:15:46
Speaker
And make sure I can get it to someone else's hands type of thing. Because once you catch it, you do have to pass it to someone eventually. But I was definitely going for as short a pass as possible. And so I ended up making that team somehow. And had a wonderful experience playing at that tournament. Did really well.
00:16:06
Speaker
at the national tournament. And so then I ended up going to UC San Diego, not knowing I was going to play Frisbee at all. And I happened to be one of my teammates from that state team just ended up being in UC San Diego too. And I ran into him. He's like, Hey, there's a Frisbee team here. Do you want to play?
00:16:23
Speaker
And I wasn't super eager, but then when I went out, I saw like they had a really well-developed program too. It was like 120 kids that are all playing Frisbee. And I was like, that's a great way to get to meet people. And kind of the rest is history. The coach is a really, really long standing coach at this school. So like 17 years he was there. And so he had set up this whole thing, similar personality to me, just wants to compete. And, uh,
00:16:47
Speaker
I played there for as long as I could. And he ended up being the professional coach here in San Diego as well. So he coaches the college team and the professional team. And so the transition was pretty seamless for me in terms of I had connections again and find my way into the team after college. That's really interesting. Yeah, that's super interesting because a couple things you said I want to touch on. The first is
00:17:13
Speaker
I can't throw a frisbee
Game Strategies and Tactics
00:17:15
Speaker
and I imagine I'm not alone with this, right? I'm terrible. And the throws that people are making in your league are like incredible. They're, you know, the hammer throws, we're talking like 60 yard curving it around two defenders to a guy leaping in the end zone, making like a wide receiver type touchdown catch.
00:17:36
Speaker
with the disc that's like two inches off the ground. It's like insane. And I keep thinking like I'm immediately disqualified from this sport. Like you said you played basketball. I imagine maybe you had some natural ability there. Like baseball, I felt like I had some natural ability. I definitely don't have that with throwing a Frisbee. So that's incredible that you kind of overcame that yourself a little bit.
00:17:59
Speaker
Yeah, I think you described a play perfectly in what makes me like the sport so much in the end, because I was the person that was like, this is a silly sport. This is silly. I don't know why I would play Frisbee. I like basketball. I like football. This is what I want to do. And then I started getting into it, and you're like, wait a second. The skill cap on throwing is incredible. I've been playing for eight years now, and I would consider myself a very, very, very capable thrower at this point.
00:18:24
Speaker
And there's still people that are like so much better. And like the fact that there's such a massive skill cap, but then also the aspect of athleticism, like you mentioned, where like you have a disc that you can curve around people, but in the end, the disc is kind of at the mercy of the wind and there's going to be some carry to a Frisbee when you throw it. And so if there's two athletes out there in this sense, like I would call them that the people cutting for the Frisbee.
00:18:49
Speaker
so you can call on the wide receiver and run and and cornerback in this sense if you to give it an analogy if you have two massively athletic guys out there it's gonna be a play in the air like the white the the offensive player might have the better line to it might have the better
00:19:04
Speaker
a chance of getting the Frisbee if you have a good thrower, but that defensive player, because the way the Frisbee interacts with the air, it's not like a football. It's not pinpoint. Like you can't, you can be accurate. You can give space to throw out too, but it's going to be at some mercy to that wind. There's going to be a chance that the defender can go make a huge play, like you mentioned.
00:19:21
Speaker
jump four feet in the air go get a block and so this kind of brings me to like I don't want to get too far away from the topic but like the room for growth because of both of those attributes to the sport where you have like incredibly high skill cap in throwing and incredibly high like displays of athleticism quite often because of the floaty nature of a frisbee I think lends itself to like this sport if you could get guys
00:19:47
Speaker
If you could put Russell Westbrook and LeBron out there and you throw a Frisbee up, it would be spectacular. As the athletes get better and better even, I think the sport has potential to be amazingly interesting to watch and amazingly, just a visual sport that you would really want to watch.
00:20:04
Speaker
I totally agree. That's, that's kind of why I wanted to talk to you about this. Cause I totally agree. It's like, I have some questions around that specifically, but if you had to say, so that's the first thing I thought of is I'm like, first of all, I can never play the sports. I can't throw frisbee. Number two is I am not great at running distance or running a lot. Yeah.
00:20:23
Speaker
It's tough. I mean, you guys are flying around up and down, up and down. And then and I'm sure there are plays and it does. It doesn't look like disorganized. It looks very organized. It looks like maybe there's route trees that people have and maybe there's indicators. But, you know, you had a connection with with gentlemen, I'm not going to come up with his name right now.
Team Dynamics and Contracts
00:20:41
Speaker
Actually, I might have written it down. But like, and it was a couple of times almost like a similar plan. I'm like, they must have either known that they were looking for a certain matchup or, you know, whatever. And then there's a play. And
00:20:51
Speaker
It appeared to me, it's like, you need to be able to throw the Frisbee. You need to be able to catch. You need to be aggressive to look up for it. It's almost like a deep pass in football, as we're talking about it, right? And it's like, it's Randy Moss versus whomever going up for the ball. So then I was like, gotta help if you're tall and you're pretty tall, right? You're 6'2", if the bio is accurate. I don't know if you add or subtract based on that.
00:21:13
Speaker
So if you had to put together the top skills, the top three that would make someone successful in this sport, what would it be?
00:21:23
Speaker
That's a great question. And I guess you would want to split the sport into two main roles, I guess. You'd be at cutters and handlers. A cutter being the person going down the field, catching most receiving yards. And then a handler being the one that's probably touching the disc the most often. You could compare a handler more to a quarterback. They're probably not catching many yards, but they're making a lot of throws. They're throwing a lot of yards.
00:21:47
Speaker
And so these two roles don't have specific attributes. And of course, like as the sport grows and grows and grows, I think maybe they would end up having specific attributes as, as you more fine tune, like what makes a great player, like you said. But I would say like you often find that really, really quick players are great handlers. So like quick, small.
00:22:11
Speaker
players like where you can't like in small spaces where you want to just make like a four or five yard throw to space. It's really hard to stop to guard someone it's like super super quick. And so that guy is super quick and can make huge throws. That's a great handler.
00:22:25
Speaker
people to come to mind is like, maybe you'd want someone, a
Team Culture and Traditions
00:22:29
Speaker
really quick point guard in my brain. So like, if I had to pick the perfect handler, you're talking someone like, I don't know if you watch a lot of basketball, De'Aaron Fox for the Kings comes to mind, someone with just too much.
00:22:40
Speaker
Elite quickness Like and springiness so like if if if you need it you can use it But just like speed quickness and then you can honestly like you said you can't throw frisbee You give me like one hour I can turn you into a great throw at least a decent thrower Like it's something you can really learn on to like to get to like of course eventually you get to a place where you plateau quite a bit most people like it's harder to get like really great and
00:23:03
Speaker
But it is something that you can teach everyone to quite a decent level. So I'd probably just start with a really quick and fast guy if I was going to pick a best handler, for example. If I was going to go to Cutter, and we're talking Randy Moss, I mean, you wouldn't have to do much, like, like, Megatron. Like, if you put one of those... Yeah, I was thinking, like, Yannis.
00:23:22
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, obviously these like I would, I would say like you would just take elite wide receivers in the NFL. Like that's, I mean, basketball players would be great, but I mean, it's, it's exactly what a wide receiver does. Like there's some players, even at the professional level that are so good at that part of the game that they aren't great throwers.
00:23:41
Speaker
And they're obviously not the best players on these professional teams, but they have their uses already. Just being such a great receiver, you can make a couple of basic throws and you can get it back into a handler's hands and go do your job again. And that's a great player. But like, if you could teach Randy Moss how to throw a Frisbee and we're talking game over, probably like that's, that's your elite, like that's the elite of the elite you could get. That's what I would want, at least as a coach.
Ultimate Frisbee Quiz
00:24:05
Speaker
Yeah, there's a couple and I, you know, and again, I don't know, there's a bunch of teams I've only seen a handful of games so I'm not an expert at all. I know there's a couple guys on the New York team that are like pretty tall that are up in that front line like yacht and
00:24:23
Speaker
Who's the other guy? Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, cause he looks like a tight end coming through the middle. I'm like, who's going to stop this guy? Yeah. So, and that's, again, you're not a small person. So like, I could see the sport as it evolves. You're getting more specialized and just having like, you know, I mean, maybe like a Tony Gonzalez out there or something to your point. What are those people like?
00:24:45
Speaker
It's a natural progression. But that aside, it already is super impressive. And the highlight reels, like, I just have been sending my friends clips on Instagram and stuff just to be like, you got to check this stuff out. But I wanted to, you know, ask you a couple of specific questions too, from your own kind of
00:25:06
Speaker
history playing the sport. It's certainly we can talk about more about the games. But so you in college, as we were touching on your origin story, you played in a team named the squids. Is that correct? Okay. Yeah. All right. And they nominated you air squids, you would say. Oh, the air squids got it. Okay. And they nominated you for the Callahan Award in 2021. Which is that that's the is that the best player in college, ultimate, basically?
Misconceptions about Ultimate
00:25:35
Speaker
Yeah. That's, that's the best player in college ultimate. That was quite an honor. I didn't expect that honestly, but it was nice to, to, to be nominated by them. Um, yeah, very cool. Very aggressive.
00:25:47
Speaker
some very aggressive music on that highlight track, if you want to check that out on YouTube. But it's really it's pretty cool. I was happy to see a guy from Brown one of that year. So shout out shout out to him. But we just beat him. We just beat him this weekend. So we got. Nice. They were playoff bound, but they are no longer playoff bound because of us. So I saw that there was a close. It was a close game.
00:26:13
Speaker
I'm sorry with the team. You remind me of the team again. We were playing the Oakland team. Right. Got it. And they had a chance to go to the playoffs, right? And you guys were kind of playing spoilers, if you will, because is that correct? Tell me, correct me about it. Yeah. So I mean, I don't know. I don't want to get too much into this, but it's one of this. I don't. It's hard to see a sadder situation than what they went from. So starting on Thursday night,
00:26:35
Speaker
They were, they needed one win to go to playoffs. And if they had two wins this weekend, they would have had a home playoff game. So they would have got, they got, they would have got home field advantage. And they went from this situation to losing to LA by a single point with two seconds left where they led for 47 minutes and
00:26:56
Speaker
47 minutes and 58 seconds and they only were losing for two seconds of that game and lost by one. And then they came to San Diego and all they had to do was beat us,
Future of Ultimate and Community
00:27:05
Speaker
which we're having a rough season. We were two and nine at the time. All they had to do was beat us to go to playoffs at this point.
00:27:10
Speaker
And they lost to us on a buzzer beater with two seconds left again by one point. And so they went from in the playoffs with home deal advantage with just one win to out of the playoffs completely and going home. So it was brutal for them, for sure. But that's rough. But I will say, you guys made it interesting at the end. At some point, I feel like you're up at like four with like two minutes left. And all of a sudden, they started scoring. And I was like, oh my god, are these guys going to blow it here at the end? It felt like you were hanging on for dear life at the end there.
00:27:41
Speaker
That's fair. I think that's very fair. Some time, some timely throws. Uh, and that was in front of your home crowd too. So the people are pretty fired up. I was going to ask you about that as well. Like, so again, I had, I had some experience playing like minor league baseball and we would travel around to different towns. Now you're playing in much bigger cities actually than we were playing for the most part. But what's the, obviously besides San Diego, which I'm sure is the best. What's the best crowd or the best place to play when you're on the road?
00:28:10
Speaker
I mean, Salt Lake city is rocking. I don't know what they have a community. They don't have a lot of sports in that town. There's not a lot of distractions of other things to do, I guess at night, but I mean, they get out. I mean, they travel insane. Like their whole family's come out to San Diego for games. I mean, they're there. That's the best crowd. I would say Salt Lake Colorado is great, but Salt Lake is.
00:28:35
Speaker
is next level in terms of the West Coast, that is. So that's the place. That's awesome. So every weekend during season, you're hitting, you're doing two games. Is that right, basically? It's like one to two games. So if we're doing an away trip, we normally pair the trips. So for example, we'll play Seattle and Portland on the same weekend because it just makes sense. You're already up there just making a double header type thing.
00:29:01
Speaker
And then we'll often, we'll often do the same thing with Salt Lake and Colorado. So we'll, we'll make Salt Lake and Colorado, even though they're not that close. It's still like a trip. That's very, it's doable. It's the hardest trip because they're both really good teams and you're playing up at elevation. It's brutal, but yeah, we make it a two game weekend. Yeah, it's tough. Yeah. Your lungs have got to be on fire. That's funny. So I've seen a couple of Salt Lake games, I think, and it's interesting watching on TV because.
00:29:27
Speaker
You know, again, you've, you've seen it for a much longer time period. I'm just checking in right now. So the TV experience, I actually think it's a sport that does well on TV. I think, I think there's a lot of like innovation that could help. You know, things that are being used in other sports that could kind of help with maybe some of the statistics, the length of the throws, the speed, all that kind of velocity, all that kind of stuff that could like give fans more of a view. And then even just, you know, being totally.
00:29:53
Speaker
you know, maybe critical, but fair, I think is like some of the camera angles and stuff like that. It's not as you don't have like the Super Bowl where there's like 48 cameras on everything. So exactly. But still, it still feels like it's great on TV. And then it's kind of fun to see what the environment is like at the stadiums, I will say. And there's live commentary. The first time I saw a game, I was like, are the commentators there?
00:30:21
Speaker
Or did they just record this game and then add the commentary in afterward, like with a recorded track? But no, they're there sitting up in the booth, right? Like calling a live play-by-play the game. It's either usually like a two-man or a three-man booth.
00:30:35
Speaker
So it's I don't know. It's really cool. I don't know. I'm not sure that I have your points. I really do like your points of like the context type of stuff like the distance, the throw speed, the even like it would be really interesting to see like, I think like if you put up like how often certain throws get completed, certain types of throws where you just give like the viewer like understanding like what's a just understanding more about the sport and what makes it though amazing or what makes it throw hard and
00:31:02
Speaker
Just all this context, and then like you said, angles. I do think the actual sport is already great to view, but adding these would be wonderful in terms of getting new viewers, making it more watchable for a new person, for example.
00:31:15
Speaker
That was my, that was my number one thing. The second one would be some of the stadiums are more like designed, it feels like for the sport itself. I'm sure it's borrowing from football or soccer in many cases, but some feel more like, Hey, this is our field. And then some feel like we're sharing. I mean, that's the same.
00:31:32
Speaker
you know, major league baseball, right? I mean, I mean, there's there's some like Oakland, for instance, comes to mind. But you know, as as I've gotten older, those sports have really narrowed and creating this awesome stadium experience for the fans. I think there's definitely an opportunity for that just to enhance the kind of aesthetic watching it on TV.
00:31:51
Speaker
That will come with time though, for sure. Like that's, that's one of those things. It's hard to do because it's, we're going to have to go to sport quite a bit to get those points. But like, like I said, I'm, I'm very hopeful just based on the sports design overall. Yeah, totally agree. Totally agree. Okay.
00:32:05
Speaker
A couple things, circling back, it was you to purdy for two goals. And that chemistry, you saw it the first time and then you did it again. And so like in a play like that, this is the most recent game, I think. Is that something that you're talking to him on the sideline being like, Hey, I've noticed
00:32:22
Speaker
whoever the guy is guarding you, he's cheating in a little bit, like, I'm going to send you deep? Or is that more just like you look up? Because it's hard to imagine that you can see down that far. But maybe it's just, you know, one of those things, right? So so I have my progression.
00:32:38
Speaker
So like in my, when I catch a Frisbee, I have my like basic progression. I'm going to look for, um, in terms of targets. So I'm probably gonna look for the guy going deep first. I don't want to get too much in details, but you have someone standing in front of you. That's marking me. We would say marking and he's based. His job is to cut off half the field.
00:32:56
Speaker
And so the idea of this is if he can cut off half the field, the defender's downfield only have to guard the other half. So that makes it easier. He's forcing you one way. Exactly. He's forcing me to throw one way. Ideally, I'm looking upfield first for that deep shot. I'm probably then looking for a split second to see someone coming underneath. So a shorter shot underneath to that side that's free for me. And then I'm looking to go around the guy that's trying to block me. So for example, if he's blocking the left side of the field, I want to throw to the left side of the field.
00:33:25
Speaker
Got it. I see. Hard to do, but. He's doing that because he's trying to play you into their defensive strengths. So you can get around him. You kind of offset whatever's happening down the field, basically. You got it. Yeah. You, you basically, it's, it's terrible. When that happens, your coach is not happy when it goes, when it goes around the guy, it's, it causes cascading effects of, of, of, of, of bad results, I guess. But when I was looking for Purdy there, I know Purdy six, seven. I don't know if you noticed Purdy. Oh, wow. I did not know there was, okay. Got it. All right.
00:33:53
Speaker
Purdy's big guy, six, six, six, seven, close to that. And so I know what he's looking for. And honestly, every thrower has their strengths. That's probably my strength is kind of like a lofty, curvy throw to a specific spot where I can throw it ahead of someone and I can have enough touch on that throw where I'm gonna land it in there right where I want it with a good amount of loft. And so a six, six, six, seven guy is perfect for that situation.
00:34:20
Speaker
For example, like if I'm throwing to smaller guys, I struggle a little more with that throw because it's just, it's not ideal. A big defender can come from behind and get a block on something like that. You kind of want to put it like quicker and out in front and let that quick, fast, smaller receiver run onto it type of thing. Um, but yeah, Purdy is perfect for me. I love to catch it. Look up, see Purdy, put a little air underneath that Frisbee and just let Purdy go to work is kind of how I let him go get it. Yeah, that's great. Utilize his strengths.
00:34:47
Speaker
Everyone's got a, not everyone, there are some like signature celebrations that people do, which I like. You can see occasional trash talk happening between the defender. If the guy's maybe hanging on them or doing something where he's probably not supposed to be doing it. And then it's just like other sports, but I like that. That's, um, but there's also good sportsmanship as well. Like, yeah, there's a little tenacity though. And I like, I like the emphasis after
00:35:13
Speaker
after the scores. A couple, I'm kind of surprised to be honest, more people don't run into each other. There's like a lot of people running around at pretty high speeds. I'm just like, how are dudes just not like getting knocked to the ground left and right? I don't know if that does happen. I just haven't seen it. It does happen quite a bit. Does it? Okay. Yeah. It's funny. It's like the sport gets this non-contact rep because that's what it's advertised as a non-contact sport. The higher and higher levels you get, the more contact, of course, the higher the competition gets.
00:35:41
Speaker
And I found that, I mean, it is, it's one of those sports you go into because you think you're going to avoid injuries, but it's like, it's, it's, you got to keep your body right because the sport is, is high impact. I like to describe it as like, imagine if football didn't stop every seven seconds.
00:35:59
Speaker
And you had to run 100% and throw your knee into the ground and cut underneath and cut deep and cut and cut and cut and cut and cut over and over again on the same ankles, the same knees, like a hundred times more per game than you would as a wider receiver, for example.
00:36:15
Speaker
And so it's just a lot of impact. And so I think that like those areas, specifically your knees, your ankles, like you need to take well, good care of strength. And I, I mean, at this point I'm wearing braces already. I'm only 26. So like, it's just, it's a high impact sport with like full speed into cuts. And so it's a really unique type of like, yeah, like you said, you run into a lot of people and you're also, you're doing a lot of high speed stopping and going.
00:36:41
Speaker
I thought about that because I was wondering again with some of my comparisons to other sports about like you know what the staff is like you know because you were saying there's a coach and he was your college coach and that's awesome so obviously there's I know there's there's obviously
00:36:57
Speaker
Playbook and and there's practices and there's all that kind of stuff and then I'm like, I'm sure there's a trainer That's probably helping out but I bet I imagine at this point, you know You probably need to be very disciplined yourself to make sure you're like doing all the working out and the stretching and all that stuff I'm sure it's probably encouraged and I'm maybe there is someone on staff, but I imagine you have to really Take your own kind of the onus on yourself to like make sure that you're game ready. Is that is that the case? I
00:37:22
Speaker
There's a little bit of both. Yeah. I mean, we're lucky enough at the growler. So we have the player. Um, his name is goose Helton. Um, and he, he won two MVPs in the past. He's kinda, I always think of him as like the great, the grandfather of Frisbee. He's not that old, but, um, he's, he's kind of like searching for you. Got it. Okay.
00:37:41
Speaker
So he's taken it to the next level where he took the sport and he's kind of like a physical trainer and he does it for Frisbee at this point. He has a whole training program that like all the top colleges, they use his program. He designs the programs for them. He sends it to them. You do it type of thing. And we use that on our pro team as well, cause he plays for us. Um, and his, his wife is our coach as well. So we have two head coach, two like split head coaches and his wife is, is one of the coaches and, um,
00:38:07
Speaker
Yeah. So he's, he's keeping us all where we need to be. Um, and it's a lot of stuff focused on, it's specifically focused on Frisbee and what you need for the sport, like lots of pliability, lots of strengthening around those joints. Like I said, yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I could see that. I could see that. Um, that totally makes sense. Yes. That's how I found him because there was an interview with his wife and, and it, and it said co, co-head coach.
00:38:30
Speaker
So that's kind of how I got down the rabbit hole of, of, of reading about her husband, her husband a little bit goose. It sounds like there you go. So yes, I did read about that. Um, that's pretty cool to have him in your backyard. Then at least you're, you're getting that kind of top of the level. I found often even, you know, in, it was minor leagues, but the minor league professional baseball is kind of like, Hey, did you do your routine? And they're like, you're pitching tonight. There wasn't a lot of oversight. So I think, um, it's good. Cause that'll extend your career for sure. Okay.
00:38:58
Speaker
I want to get to stump the Samu, but I wanted to, I wanted to ask what is, in your opinion, the hardest throw to make? Because I'm kind of impressed. I'm impressed by the long kind of bombs that you were talking about, like where you're curving it into someone's hands. The hammer throw from like sideline to sideline is pretty incredible. When someone pulls that off, I feel like what's the hardest throw in your opinion?
00:39:26
Speaker
It's funny because it's a weird sport where context is everything. And I say that because of the floating nature of a Frisbee and the way the wind interacts with it again. So like certain conditions will make certain throws much harder and make you need to throw Frisbees very differently. And this is kind of where that like really high skill cap comes in. I can't throw a Frisbee a normal way if I go play in Seattle because they're going to be gushing, gusting wins. And I'm going to have to release the Frisbee
00:39:56
Speaker
10 inches lower and I'm not going to let that, I can't let that frisbee rise any higher than a certain amount or I'm going to lose it. It's going to, it's not going anywhere near where I want it to go. Is that just something you learned from experience playing? Like, do you, or, or so like when you get on the field or is that like part of your pregame prep where you're like, Hey, it's, it's 15 mile an hour winds or it's 20 mile an hour winds from West. Like, is that part of your pregame kind of thought process or how does that work?
00:40:23
Speaker
Yeah, so everyone has their own process, so it's not like everyone does the exact same thing, but I am big on that. So when I get to a field, I get there a little earlier than everyone normally, and I am going to throw at minimum probably 15 throws each direction, each type of throw, just to see how the wind's interacting with it, because I know how to adjust for the most part, but the context, again, is different every single game, and so you get there,
00:40:52
Speaker
And even though you know the wind's coming from the west at a certain speed, is it gusty? Is it not gusty? Is it consistent? Is the air thick? It's all these weird things affect your throws, and you can really only dial it in, or I would say calibrate is the best way to say it, by doing it. And so you have to get there, and I will make sure I throw, specifically the throws I struggle with, I will throw extra of, because I know this is one, it's hard for me. And so I'm gonna throw this one,
00:41:19
Speaker
an extra 10 times and really feel out the wind and see like what's going to work for me today. Like where's my release point today? What height is that at? What speed am I going for? Because like spinning speed makes a big difference, but also arm speed. And so you got to, you're not like overthinking it, but like eventually you get that muscle memory and you know how to tweak each one. But those are kind of like the elements I'm thinking about when I get there.
00:41:41
Speaker
to the field, for example. But hardest throw, if it's windy, I am not throwing a hammer into the wind. I would say for me, in my head, that's the hardest throw because if there's wind coming at you and you're throwing a hammer into it, a great defender's almost always gonna have the time to break on that frisbee and maybe could play on it.
00:42:02
Speaker
versus like you're losing the advantage of a hammer which in my mind is I can get a quick transit throw over the top of the person guarding me trying to stop me from throwing and I can make it a quick transit throw if it's not quick I'm losing like all of the of what I get from that hammer really and so and so I would never throw that but any of those deep shots in wind are is just
00:42:24
Speaker
I mean, you're adding so much more variability the farther the Frisbee goes and the higher the Frisbee goes and the deeper the shot, the higher you often have to throw it. And so any deep shot in any windy condition is, is, is definitely a skill. And you'll find that each pro team only has certain number of people that are willing to make that throw. So I would say you're not having more, very, very few rosters have more than six guys that feel really confident throwing into the wind straight into the wind deep. It's just, it's hard. It's just really hard. Yeah.
00:42:52
Speaker
That's so interesting. Yeah. I mean, again, there are sports that are outdoors and there's variables. And so that's not unique, but it is unique that the distance that the object is traveling and like a football is this kind of heavy leather thing, right? So not to say it's easy to throw it in the rain or something like that, but obviously it kind of cuts through a little bit easier than this, than this very thin piece of, um, I want to say it's plastic, but I might, yeah, it's plastic. Yeah. Plastic that gets batted down.
00:43:22
Speaker
So it's a little harder to do that. So I imagine that's part of the game planning, right? The coach is gonna say, hey, look, it's really windy. Let's work on our short passes. Let's work for these opportunities, things like that. So that totally makes sense.
00:43:33
Speaker
Defensive schemes change massively. Defensive teams change massively based on condition. I mean, you'll run completely different sets. You might run completely different zone options, completely different types of poaches and weird, I don't want to get too technical, but yeah, you'll run completely different sets and you're looking for completely different, you want to force, basically the idea of defense is to force bad throws. You want to force completely different set of throws is how you think about it, kind of.
00:43:56
Speaker
Okay. Makes sense. Okay. I want to ask. So you're the growlers team. As you said, it was kind of a, like a rebuilding year, if you will. Uh, I had an exciting win when you're on a team in ultimate like that. Is that something we're at the beginning of the season? You kind of already know like, Hey, we've got some talent here, but we need to improve. Like, is it, are you aware of it or is it more not really until the games start going that you have any understanding of, of.
00:44:25
Speaker
where you think you'll get to. Well, I mean, I think it's like every sport. You'll have the the people that want to be blindly optimistic and keep it positive, which I respect. Right. But like in reality, you should have some like if you know your teammates, you should have some context and be like, this is a likely outcome for us. And of course, people can improve, but it takes time like it's and especially with a young roster, you just need game time.
00:44:50
Speaker
Like the level up from college to pro, even if your skills are there, there's the strategy level, like what throws are considered okay, or like you should be throwing, change is huge. I mean, the conversion rates go up so much at this level, like in terms of like, if I'm on offense, what's the conversion rate? That like, you have to change your whole mindset of like, what throws should I be looking for? Like what percentage type throws should I be looking for?
00:45:14
Speaker
Um, and so it's going to, there's going to be growing pain. So you, you should have some expectations is my answer, but like any sport, like you want to be, you want to be optimistic. And of course you're a certain level of optimism is there, but yet, you know, you know, the context in most cases of, of, of your team, I guess. And are you signing, you know, on the business side of this, are you signing like multi-year contracts? Is it like one year contract? So do you expect to have most of the players back next year? Like, how does that work?
00:45:43
Speaker
Yeah. So that's, that is a really interesting, like when we're at this level of sport at the moment, like you have really competitive players, but you don't have the capital in the sport to make it. So you can like lock someone down, like I have a job in my, in like my, I have a regular day job. Right. So like, if my job changes and I have to move, like I'm not going to play for the growlers. So it is, is essentially one year contracts unless, for example, I think, um, LA got one of the best handlers in the league. So one of the best throwers in the league from Chicago.
00:46:12
Speaker
who I believe is doing a PhD now in LA somewhere. And so he is signed like a four or five year contract cause he's like, he knows he's going to be there and LA definitely wants him cause he's one of the best throwers in the league. And so they, they did sign them to like a four. So some players will do things like that, but the average contract is one year and New York is, I mean, New York's New York. I mean, New York's probably got
00:46:34
Speaker
I don't know, 20 of the top 40 players, 20 of the top 50 players in the league all on one team. And so they're probably paying differently than we do. But our contracts are really just, we're going to cover your expenses and make it very possible for you to play this sport at a high level. And we'll give you a little something on the side of that, but we're all playing mostly because we love it, you know, at the moment, that is. Right. As it grows.
00:46:57
Speaker
That's cool. I mean, that's that's where that's where it is. And I mean, look, this is, again, Major League Baseball, you know, back in the 60s and even in the 70s, people had secondary jobs. So this is not unheard of for a sport that's maybe been around for a decent amount of time, but is still in its infancy as a professional sport. So that's that's totally understandable. And again, even in minor leagues, no one was making any money and playing for the love of it, even though the odds were stacked against us. So I appreciate that.
00:47:27
Speaker
Okay, my last question around not my last question, but my last question about kind of the the sport itself is, what's the camaraderie like post match? Is it like rugby, where everyone goes to a bar and it's like, hey, man, that was awesome. And it's like, we're drinking out of a frisbee. Or is it more like, hey, we're professionals, we have dropped, we have jobs. We're just going back to the hotel and everyone goes their own way or somewhere in between those things.
00:47:55
Speaker
I think I think it's probably like every team is very different. But I like to think of it as like, I take I take when I'm playing the sport, I'm trying to play the best is my ability. And I'm really trying to, like, I'm really working on things. And I care a lot about the results. So if I lose in a bad way on a weight trip, like, I just want to sit at home and watch the film. So like, I'll probably throw the film on the TV and just
00:48:19
Speaker
watch like how did this happen because I get I get very frustrated personally that's like my my type so but we have other teammates that of course are going to go to the bar and get over it that way you know everyone's got their unique ways I'm probably going to sit in like yeah put my legs against the wall and try to drain them but everyone's got their way of right but I I think when you get a win on a weight chip for example you're going to go out
00:48:41
Speaker
You're not going to party very hard because you got to get in the car or get in the plane to the next trip. You're probably not going to go after the first game, honestly. If it's a two-game trip, first game, you're going back to the hotel. You're getting ready for the next game. The next one, you win. You're in a different city. Why not go out with your friends? Go explore a little bit. So there's definitely a little bit of that.
00:49:02
Speaker
It's a little mix, I guess. Yeah, it's a little mix. Okay. Yeah. I just, I didn't play rugby, but I know like in college that was like almost part of it was like at the end, they just, no matter what the result was, they all got together and party. So this, this sounds more like a professional, like just like a professional sport. Like if it's a, it's a weekend series. Yeah. You're going home. You're relaxing for the first one. If you get a win on the second one, maybe you go out and explore the town and do that kind of stuff. So that's cool. I just was curious as I was watching, it did crawl into my brain.
00:49:30
Speaker
Okay, I wanna play, and you've been very generous with your time here, so I don't wanna keep you too much longer, but I've got a couple more questions for you, and I'm calling this Stump the Samu. These are terms.
00:49:45
Speaker
in order of increasing difficulties, three questions. You don't win anything, unfortunately, but you can demonstrate your knowledge of ultimate. So the first one is, I'm telling you, the first one's a gimme just to get you warmed up. What's a Callahan?
00:50:07
Speaker
Okay, Callahan, probably some play you'll never forget if you're a frisbee player and you make it any high level of anything. But basically the offensive player is throwing the frisbee and it goes into the end zone. And as a defensive player, you intercept it and catch it in the end zone. So it's an immediate point for the defense, which the only way to do this is with a Callahan. In this sport normally when you catch it on defense, now you have to become the offense and throw it in the end zone yourself. But if you catch it in the end zone immediately,
00:50:35
Speaker
You got a point. Callahan. Got it. OK, cool. Listen, that's this is for the listener so they can, you know, understand a little more. And yeah, yeah, totally. Now you're good. The second one is what's a barbecue backhand?
00:50:49
Speaker
Oh God, don't get me started on this. When someone when I was one of these on my team, I'm not happy. Um, so there's two main throws in Frisbee. You got the backhand, which is your typical throw. If you're imagining throwing a Frisbee where the person has it in their right hand, they reach across their left side of their body and they use like the torque from your legs slash hips and in your back.
00:51:11
Speaker
And you're going to bring that arm across your hand and your body and throw it. The flick or the forehand would be like, you would hold it. I say you make like a pistol shape. I guess it doesn't, doesn't really help. I can't show people right now, but a pistol shape in your hand, you put your two fingers underneath the rim of the frisbee and hold it with your thumb and you throw your like.
00:51:31
Speaker
You're, you can think about putting your forearm out forearm out to the right, and then flinging the disk forward with like that that that's like kind of like a fulcrum motion. A barbecue backhand would be you supposed to throw a flick, so the situation calls for you to throw a flick.
00:51:49
Speaker
But instead, you reach across with your backhand, and you throw a backhand instead. And the higher the level gets, the barbecue backhand is often harder to throw to complete, with a way worse angle the frisbee is going to fly at, so easier to block, and easier to block by the guy that's guarding the thrower. So it's bad. Don't do it. Get away from your barbecue backhand if you're throwing it.
00:52:14
Speaker
What I liked about the barbecue backhand and thank you for giving us the details on that is that the synonymous terms that it has is dad backhand, which I thought was appropriate. Cause that feels like that's something I'd be doing. Yeah. It's the thing everyone does at the start cause no one wants to throw a flick. And so they just throw backhands only. And so if you build that habit, then you start keep, you keep doing it forever. And we still got players that do it. So you just gotta, you gotta keep working on it type of thing.
00:52:40
Speaker
Do you make them run sprints if they do a barbecue backhand? Is there like a kangaroo court in the locker room where someone has to pay a fine? I'll probably tell them about it. We'll yell at them at practice. They'll hear it. They'll hear it.
00:52:53
Speaker
They'll hear about it. Nice. Okay. All right. This is the final question, uh, in terms for the stump, the same way you're two for two. So let's see if you can close out here. What does the term conservation of greatness mean? Yeah, that's sad. This is all about regression. If you're a stats person, you know what regression means. You can think about it as like regressing back to the mean.
00:53:15
Speaker
So you go out, someone throws you a beautiful, maybe not a beautiful bass, maybe a pretty bad deep shot. But you go out there, you make an unbelievable catch, you lay out, you dive for it, you catch it with one hand, you tap a toe in, and you fall out of bounds. You come in, you plant your pivot foot, and you immediately throw a terrible Frisbee, like 40 yards on the Frisbee, because you're feeling so good about yourself.
00:53:39
Speaker
And we always say, it's the conservation of greatness. You made a great play and it was all back to the mean, conserved it by throwing it away. And so it's, it's, it's taking that, uh, and using it for negative impact in the game, but it happens to the best of us type of thing, you know, it's hard to avoid, honestly.
00:53:58
Speaker
Oh man, three for three in your initial. And I say initial because at some point we're going to have to get you back on, but three for three. I love that term conservation. It's so true. It's like in any sport, it could be applicable, but I've never heard that before. It's like you make some amazing play and then the next play you just totally doff it. It's like, okay, there you go. You're back to your back. So it's great. Cause you can, you can kid someone a compliment, but also be like, why did you do the second thing?
00:54:24
Speaker
It's like, ah, you did a great one. So it's like, it's all in one, you know, you got one term for it. That's great. Okay. I'm sure there's some others. I guess before I ask my final question, are there other terms that you, that stand out to you or that, that I should have included in my initial stumped the Samu terminology? Oh, honestly, I mean, those are great.
00:54:47
Speaker
I mean, you picked really good ones, because I did not think that's what I was expecting. And that's that was great. I thought I was gonna have to do like facts. And I was like, historical facts, I'm not gonna be able to do this. We'll save those for part two. Okay, my last question for you was around. I know we talked about the announcing.
00:55:04
Speaker
So I think your primary broadcaster is Evan Lepler, who does the AUDL broadcast. Now, he's not the only one. There are multiple games. There's other broadcasters. But when Lepler does your games, is that the equivalent of like the Aikman Buck crew calling a game? Is that right? Like Al Michaels?
00:55:24
Speaker
Oh yeah, you feel it. You feel it a little bit. You get there, leper's walking around the field making sure he's got everyone's... Oh yeah, he's making sure everyone's got their names right. He's like, hey, how do I pronounce your name? All the new players are getting the questions because he doesn't know yet. And you can feel it because leper's out there scouting. He's trying to get some intel on how to start the broadcast. He's like, oh, they look good in the warm-ups.
00:55:44
Speaker
you can feel it lepers walk around like a little shark and you can feel it so it's but it's always a nice feeling it gives you a little extra steak you feel oh man it gets it definitely feels good definitely some gravitas to the proceedings he's like talk to samu ahead of time said he's got a little discomfort in his left shoulder i mean he didn't actually say that i'm just saying he has those little anecdotes that you'd hear like you know he's like
00:56:06
Speaker
he's like al michaels but also like the sideline reporter with the information he's getting from the teams and i was like it must feel a certain way now i don't know if he specifically goes to games based upon like the ranking of the teams or like what's at stake or not but
00:56:22
Speaker
I think they said, yeah, I'm not certain. I know the answer, but, um, I do believe that the league sends him to the big games, like often the game of the week or like, like, because like each week they designate like a game of the week. I'm pretty sure he goes to most of those, like all the big game and they try to make them entertaining games. Of course they try to make them the good ones. They want to use Lepler on the best games if possible. Of course.
00:56:42
Speaker
Okay, awesome. I've, I've picked your brain. You've spent nearly an hour answering my questions and I really appreciate it. What questions did I not ask that if you as a professional AUDL player feel like the people should know about the sport? Anything that we didn't touch on that you think that we should have?
00:57:05
Speaker
I guess I just want to harp again on that. I think Frisbee struggles a little bit with connotation because everyone associates a Frisbee with the little game they play on a beach and or this golf a lot of people associate it with. But give it a shot. There's like an ultimate game or if you got like a high school that's got a good ultimate program
00:57:26
Speaker
give it a shot you might really like it and honestly it's got one of those things where it's like you all you need is a soccer ball and a goal to play soccer all you need to play frisbee is some shoes to make some end zones out of or some anything honestly to make an end zone out of and then a frisbee and it's so it's easy to play
00:57:43
Speaker
It's fun. You're going to be tired. You keep you fit for sure. That's never been fitter than playing this sport. That's for sure with me, but it's a blast and it's something everyone should really give a try. If you would ask me eight years ago, if I would ever say something like that, I would have said, there's no way. It slowly grabs you. It slowly grabs you, especially if you meet the right people playing at the right level type of thing.
00:58:07
Speaker
I can't or I cannot express that any better than you have. I mean, the same thing when I told a couple people I was like, I'm going to interview this professional player, they were like, what? And I was like, you got to check it out. And as I've sent people clips, they're responding like, wow, that's, that's incredible. You know, like, the plays are really impressive. It's fun to watch on TV. I would definitely recommend checking it out on again, Fox Sports, if you can, or just go
00:58:33
Speaker
to the AUDL website and sign up for the pass. And then there's a ton of stuff on YouTube too, like the game recaps after the fact, which are cool. You can watch like a very, like a 12 minute version of the game if you don't have time to watch the whole thing. So yeah, I think it's great. Highly suggest that. That's the way to intake it.
00:58:51
Speaker
Go watch some recaps. That's a great way to get a sense of the game. And then you might want to watch more. But yeah, get on those. Follow the AUDL for sure at AUDL. It would be a great way to just get some clips on your feed. And I think you'll be surprised. You'll love it.
00:59:05
Speaker
100%. I couldn't agree more. So I encourage everyone again, check it out, check the website, check the Instagram, and then find some teams in your local area and support it because it's a great sport. So Stefan, I really appreciate it. Thank you for coming on. Thanks for spending time with us. And we definitely have to have you back on again another time. I loved it. Thanks for having me, Green.
00:59:53
Speaker
We would walk on the beach and not bare feet We were both eighteen and it felt so right Sleepin' all day stayin' apart
00:59:57
Speaker
We were both 16 and it felt so right, sleepin' all day