Rockin’ Robyn
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My exposure to competitive Ultimate, a D3 tournament in Beloit, WI, vaulted me down a fast-track of learning, loving, and living at levels rarely experienced previously. In 10 months I transformed from a bare-foot pick-up player, running around aimlessly with his high-school band friends, to a college regionals competitor who spent most all of his free time watching game footage and highlight reels, writing blog posts, and reading Win the Fields every morning with my coffee [thanks, Zak!]
Within those several months were particular events that will stick with me forever: winning the game-to-go to Regionals, my first tournament experience, countless interactions with new teammates and friends. There was one day, though, where I witnessed something that turned my sports world upside down. It came on the weekend of my college’s [Northern Illinois University] indoor tournament.
A cold, snowy, blowing weekend in November 2013 found me and my teammates in our school’s recreation center, with the entire gym to ourselves and to our guests. Canaan, one of those teammates and a practice player for Chicago’s Beachfront open club team, had been hyping up the tournament for a couple weeks, because there were some amazing players picking up to play from Chicago and the suburbs.
The best player, according to Canaan, was a male player with the name “Goose”. Quite the strange name for me in my competitive ultimate infancy. “He’s got a 40″ vertical! He’s amazing!” Canaan would exclaim. Canaan had acted as my guide to the Illinois club scene, so I had no choice but to believe his claims.
Lo and behold, several hours later, I saw this grown-ass man who looked like he was born in a gym throwing around, warming up and preparing to play on my school’s alumni team (a team that has rarely consisted of just actual alumni). He was trowing flat-footed flicks across the length of the gym, launching effortlessly into the sky to grab the return throws at their highest point. Color me impressed.
But Goose did not come alone.
Thanks to my new-found hobby of scouring the internet for highlight videos, I recognized a tall friend of Goose’s throwing just as far and impressively. I’d seen his Callahan video, and Dave Wiseman was surely the player the video made him out to be.
So these two club all-stars, who would later be professional all-stars and Machine teammates for a year, are flying around my gym, and I have to take the field against them after just two and a half months of competitive experience. What I had failed notice, however, was another companion of Dave’s, maybe tying her shoes on the sideline or getting something from the car. I went myself to grab the last of my tournament items from my own car, and I remember that fact well, because when I came back, I saw the most awe-inspiring player I had ever seen.
She wasn’t shredded like a body-builder or tall enough to warrant an assumption of “elite athlete”, but this girl could flat out play. I walked back into the gym, and the first thing I see is probably the cleanest flick huck I’ve ever seen, pushing Dave Wiseman back on his haunches, needing to flail his arms up high in order to reach the height and distance and pace of the throw.
“Who is that?” I asked.
“I have no idea” teammates responded.
Minutes later, when we took the “field”, she would make full-extension bids (ON A DAMN HARD-COURT SURFACE) to secure D’s on these dudes that I thought were pretty great themselves. Literally no one else in the gym was making plays like that.
I had seen women play before, obviously. I had girl friends who would play pickup with us in the previous years, and we had a couple women on the college team. Some of those women were really solid players. However, there had always been something setting them back: the experienced players I had played with seemed to have chronic lower body injuries; most others were brand new to the sport, and despite being athletic or fast or talented or all, being new restricts you.
This women in front of me now was destroying everything I thought I knew about elite ultimate (as well as the competition on the field). Sure, my views on the sport were remarkably narrow at the time, but even watching her today I find myself making couch-noises in response to the plays she makes.
Her name was Robyn, and on top of being an elite Ultimate player, she is an ambassador, a leader, and a role model.
It wasn’t until several months later that I learned about all Robyn does for her sport and her community in Madison, Wisconsin: she coaches women’s teams, she helps organize events in the area, and she records insane stats at the highest level of club ultimate with her team Heist.
Most importantly, to me, she responded to my request.
It was maybe three weeks after the tournament; the semester was over, and I was bursting with a desire to see more women play with my college team. Again, my naivety was impossible to overcome alone, and my new teammates weren’t a particularly wealthy source of knowledge when it came to recruiting, teaching, and introducing girls to the sport.
So, I reached out to the only women I knew in the sport: Robyn.
Like the introverted college kid I was, I sent her a Facebook message out of the blue. In short, it was something along the lines of “Hi! You played at my school’s tournament a few weeks ago. Can you tell me how to get more girls on my team?”
In what is now one of the least surprising events ever, she responded with the following:
Bobby- Great to hear from you! Of course! I would love to help you guys get more women interested. I am constantly trying to do that, and have been since I started playing. My college team started with 7 girls. Now I am the Womens chair in Madison trying to do the same thing!
Let me know if you want to chat on the phone or exchange some emails.
Have a good one! Robyn
What is this? This isn’t the response I usually get from my college peers. Emailing and phone calling? Enthusiasm to help me with what I saw as a daunting, near impossible task? Is this how women in the sport act when posed with such inquires?
Turns out it is.
I am endlessly sorry to say I didn’t follow through to have Robyn help me and my team grow our female involvement. I am endlessly sorry to say that our team still struggles with female players to this day.
But I am endlessly thankful that I was exposed so early in my ultimate career to a player like Robyn. I’m glad she showed me what the sport can look like for women and men, especially when playing together. I’m glad I looked into the women’s club scene after seeing Robyn play, and I’m glad that I became madly intrigued by it, which I still am today.
I have met many more bad-ass women players, and it’s remarkable how willing and able all of them are to help, just like Robyn was. I’m not so surprised now to see Kelly Johnson and Octavia Payne making mind-blowing plays in the recent Manilla Spirits All-Star Series, because there are elite women athletes all over the country, all over the world doing similar things.
But this weekend, as my team hosts another edition of the indoor tournament [that I sadly cannot attend], I find myself thinking about those of the past. And as I sit here in this Starbucks, typing away on my keyboard, I am still shaking my head in disbelief as images of Robyn playing that weekend run through my head.
Not A Handler 