Madison's professional ultimate frisbee team, the Radicals, are a few weeks into their second season, and the team is using new recruits and new strategies to show increased depth and diversity in the team.
After a successful first season, one in which they advanced to league championship game before falling to Toronto, the Radicals are looking to hone intangible but crucial skill sets. Tim DeByl, the team's coach and captain, put a keen eye to the combine in order to draft a cohesive set of players.
“Field sense is big. It's hard to describe what that means, but understanding when you should be cutting and when you should be clearing is something you can't teach very easily,” DeByl said. “It's the hardest thing as a coach to teach, so if you find guys who are natural at that, you can teach them everything else.”
The early returns have been positive. The Radicals have won three of their first four games this season, and play their home opener on Saturday against Indianapolis at Breese-Stevens Field. The game starts at 5 p.m.
Tom Annen, another of the Radicals' captains, believes that the increased attention to the sport and the high number of players at the combine will lead to improved team quality and performance.
“We had an excellent finish last year, and I think everyone was happy,” Annen said. “We had a deeper team than most, but I think considering...what we can build on from last year, I think we can make a deeper team, so the bottom five to seven guys in your team are going to be better than the five to seven bottom guys from last year.”
The Radicals' 2014 combine brought around 100 players from all over the Midwest, including men from Missouri, Illinois and Minnesota.
“We're always looking to get better. We're looking to upgrade our d-line throwing,” DeByl said. “Really I just look for the 27 guys who will make the best team. It's hard to figure out what exactly that means.”
The most important aspect of any ultimate frisbee team, according to DeByl, is team-wide coordination and understanding.
“Ultimate is a team sport in a way that a lot of sports aren't,” DeByl says. “You can't just have a star. Pretty much everyone has to touch the disc a lot.”
Coordination is becoming a resounding theme for not only the teams but for the entire AUDL, or American Ultimate Disc League, as professional play expands to the West Coast during the 2014 season.
“There's going to be an influx of talent in the league, so I think that makes everybody more excited overall,” DeByl said.
Annen believes that expansion is one more way to exhibit the sport, and aims to share his passion for Ultimate Frisbee with a broader audience by playing with the Madison Radicals.
“I think [we're] showcasing the sport by kind of putting it out there and letting people see [ultimate frisbee],” Annen said. “Before, it wasn't as well known, but I think professional ultimate or club ultimate is just exploding.”
DeByl will be glad to be in front of the home crowd again.
“I was really excited last year about how Madison came out and supported us. It just blew our expectations out of the water, so that was awesome,” DeByl said. “We're really excited, and we hope that we can get that kind of fan support again this year. I think we made a lot of fans, and so it'll be interesting to see if they come back out this year.”
Madison Radicals 2014 Home Schedule
May 3 vs. Indianapolis 5 p.m.
May 9 vs. Minnesota, 5:30 p.m.
May 24 vs. Chicago, 5 p.m.
June 8 vs. Cincinnati, 3 p.m.
June 14 vs. Minnesota, 7 p.m.
June 20 vs. Chicago, 7 p.m.
June 28 vs. Detroit, 7 p.m.
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