The weekend and today.

We didn't have any tournaments or practice this weekend. Sunday was my birthday, though, and Jesse invited a bunch of people over here Saturday night for a surprise party. It was a pretty good time, and really special that so many of my teammates managed to come out to wish me a happy birthday.

Sunday afternoon a bunch of us got together to decide who should make the cut for the A team. It went pretty well - a few arguments, but we were eventually able to come to a pretty reasonable consensus. Henry didn't come, which was weird, but I think we were able to put together a pretty solid team without his input and I don't think he's too put off by it all. We decided to go with a 26 man roster this year, which is a gigantic team. However, with a couple players not here for the fall and a few other players who are hurt, a big team is good for making sure that we'll have adequate practice numbers. There were also a good number of promising, athletic freshmen who are all around the same skill level, so it was difficult to differentiate them enough to cut some and keep others. So (drumroll please) the 2008-2009 Zoodisc A Team goes as follows:
1. Matt Babbitt
2. Henry Brescher
3. Dave Barker
4. John Barker
5. Ryan Holmes
6. Jeff Kelly
7. Chase McCann
8. Steve Oleski
9. Josh Patulak
10. Jon Schneyer
11. Zach Smith
12. Robin Stewart
13. Steve Taylor
14. Mitch Weiss
15. Micah
16. Alden Gassert
17. Sam Gaddes
18. Branden Steinberg
19. Jeff Steeves
20. Tall Nick (George Bryant)
21. Rob Brazile
22. Alan Stebbins
23. Ashton
24. Keenan Kelly
25. Chris2
26. Tim McSweeney

I'm very excited about this team. A lot of youthful excitement tempered with veteran experience. I honestly expect our team to be very successful this year. It is going to be a Lot of fun.

Anyway, Sunday night I was sitting in my living room with Jesse, Robin, and Babbitt. Babbitt mentioned that he was writing an email to Henry, letting him know which players we had decided to place on the A team. Suddenly, Babbitt started swearing. In his attempt to write the email to Henry, he had responded to an email that Henry had sent the day before, not realizing that hitting "reply" for this email would send it out to the entire Google group. Luckily, Babbitt had decided just to copy/paste the list of players into the body of the email, rather than include the Microsoft Word file that included all of the disparaging comments that Babbitt had made about each of the players under consideration. Though this wasn't the way that he wanted to break the news about cuts, at least he didn't alienate thirty or so people by sending them vicious critiques of their playing abilities.

Yesterday afternoon I went to the gym with Jesse. She hadn't seemed into the idea of working out in the morning, and after class I hoped that her attitude would not have changed. I went to bed for a nap, hoping she would call me to say "Uh, well... I hope you don't mind but I'm really not feeling the gym today...." No dice. She was pumped about exercising, and it really wasn't so bad after all. We did chest, shoulders, and some arms, and then I hammered abs. I did leg-lifts while benching just the bar, which my abs really weren't ready for. I plan to build them up, though, so that they can eventually withstand some significant weight.

Today I didn't lift before practice, mainly because I have a big Spanish exam tomorrow and almost no understanding of the Spanish language. I'm going to cram like crazy tonight and hope to pull off a mediocre grade. Practice was fun, though. With the A list already sent out, there was no reason not to split for practice today. The D line is really young and inexperienced, but these guys all seem ready to run (even if they don't always know Where to run). We got some good plays put together at some points, and some not so good plays at others. I'm excited that the youth of our A team really opens up the opportunity for me to play a big role controlling the situation on offense after we get the turn. I think that I did try to play too big of a role today, though, thinking about it too much and suffering as a result. I had a couple drops, which is really uncharacteristic of my usually sure (but slow) hands. The mark also got a good peice of my throws twice in a rather short period of time, which really isn't good, because I was fixating too much on the downfield cutters and not faking or pivoting. But I also threw a couple very pretty throws, cut pretty well for the dump, and played alright defense, so I guess my performance wasn't a total wash.

Either way, though, I'm really looking forward to practice tomorrow. D line, baby!