Miss Congeniality

Well, Boston ironside brought home the Miss Congeniality Award, otherwise known as the Team Spirit Award, at the U.S. Ultimate Frisbee National Open Championships in Sarasota, Fla., this past weekend. Dan’s team, Ironside, lost its only game of the tournament in the finals to Revolver from San Francisco.

Ironside had been seeded number one, with high expectations considering it had not lost any tournaments this season and had twice defeated Revolver in Seattle. But at this level of post-college club competition, there’s only a slight degree of difference between elite teams. Ironside did not bring its A game to the playing field Sunday. Revolver did. Ironside literally threw away too many opportunities while Revolver seemed to run faster, jump higher and focus more. Revolver won 15-10.

Gilda and I made the trip down to Nationals to cheer Dan and his team on and help Allison with Finley, who, like his one-year-old girlfriend Eliot, showed up for the finals with a temporary tattoo of Old Ironsides across his tummy.

I’m not ashamed to say, I was nervous and anxious throughout the tournament. Gilda doesn’t quite get how a fan, and in this case a proud father, sweats out every point, engages in superstitious, patterned behavior and gets that queasy feeling in the stomach before every game. I get the same way before any of Ellie’s singing performances. But those are usually one shot affairs. This was a four day ordeal, eight matches in all.

Watching these young men compete, I was struck by the realization that players of a similar age are currently engaged in the World Series. Ultimate players get no financial reward. They mostly play a self-policed game (“observers” monitor the contests, adjudicating controversies that cannot be resolved by the teams). They travel the country on their own dime. They are part of a fraternity that is now international (fyi—Revolver won the world title last July in Prague; Ironside came in fifth).

Sunday’s final was the first time two undefeated teams met for the title. Revolver played like giants. For the second time in three years, Ironside came up short in the championship game.

You never stop being a parent. You never stop wanting your child to succeed, to attain whatever pinnacle he or she strives to mount. But you’re unable to help beyond being supportive, before, during and after the event. It’s disappointment different than the participant’s, but no less palpable. It’s an ache inside you because your child is hurting and nothing you could have done could have prevented that hurt. He’s a grown man, with a wife and child of his own. But he’s still my son, and I see him through the years, learning to throw, catch, kick and hit a ball, ride a bike, swim a lap, throw a frisbee.

Frisbee is a young man’s sport (though there is a Masters division for those 33 and older). Dan will turn 33 just before next year’s Nationals. Age, competition from younger legs trying out for the team, and the pull from his own family obligations are working against him. Yet I know his willpower is strong, his determination unbent, his commitment unyielding. Just as Revolver won its third matchup with Ironside, perhaps a third visit to the championship game next year will be the ultimate finale for Ironside and for Dan.