The following is the e-mail I sent to all my friends and family about this tournament. It's pretty lengthy. I have added a complete list of everyone's name that attended at the end.
Well, the 19th annual Jeff Warrick Poultry Days Ultimate Classic is over, and more memories and stories were generated, like every year. This was the biggest PD ever: 27 fields and 65 teams! This year, there were no women's teams. I believe they have had women's teams for the last 4 years, but this year all 65 teams were "open". That's in quotes, because most teams play PD as a co-ed team. We had far more men than women, so the women got GOBBS of playing time. But, let's start from the beginning.
Susan, Barney and I made it to Piqua, OH, just 20 miles from Versailles around 6:45pm. We stopped for dinner at the El Sombrero, a Mexican restaurant inside the Howard Johnson hotel. Great burritos and margaritas! I had one marg and Susan had 2, so I drove on in to Versailles, and we made the parking lot before dark. Waiting for us was our California "pickups": Nils and Lewis. We set up camp near field 6, where we played some of our games on Saturday. People we knew and people we did not know streamed in all night long. Thank god for beer, or I might not have gotten any sleep that night. As it was, I think I fell asleep around 3am.
Back up at 7:15am (sorry I didn't wake you up, Lewis!), and ready to get breakfast at the pavilion. At some point in the morning, we knew we would be playing with Lance and 3 of his New York buddies, all form New York (or at least New England). Enter Jay Watson, Dave Hollander, and Scott Runkel. These guys have nationals experience and great attitudes, so we were glad to have them.
The captains meeting took a little time: calling off 65 names is time consuming. Oh yea, enter another "pickup", old-timer John Fisher. After Bruce wrote all the names down, we counted 28 people! Wow! How was this going to work out? I'll refrain trying to name everyone from memory, as I will surely leave someone out. I'll get back to the names issue later in the e-mail.
Well, in the first game against top seeded Hoosierchicken, things didn't work out. We lost that game. So, we decided a new subbing strategy might help. Our Poultry Days team name was Voodoo Chicken Blood. We divided our 28 people into 3 groups: "Voodoo", which was based on the old-school Knoxville folks, "Chicken", based on the UT folks, and "Blood", based on Lance and his buddies. There was overlap, of course, but it seemed to be a good idea to have folks in the game at the same time that were used to playing together.
This strategy seemed to work well, as we ended up 2-2 on Saturday, probably one of our best first days at PD. Might I mention Lance laying it out at 12-12 to stop the advance of some team (I can't remember these details!), and we won 13-12. Sweet D!
The evening was a bit different than any other PD, as all teams that went 2-2 or better sent one player to an "all-star" game at the high school. What a huck fest! Huck, huck, huck! Hammer hucks and blade hucks! In fact, the crowd booed someone for tossing a routine short backhand for a score. It was very entertaining, but not the highest level of Ultimate. Some of the townspeople were in the grandstands, and seemed to enjoy it.
Otherwise, it was a typical PD Saturday evening: Italian sausage sandwiches, keg beer, chuck-a-luck (look it up on the internet, it's not something they made up!), and watching people try to ring the bell at the Mr. Sluggo booth. They stopped selling beer at 11:15pm, so we were back at our campsite in the park by midnight. A bit more beer drinking, and eating the last of Susan's burrito was in order. Again, 3am is probably when my head hit the pillow. Thanks to God, once again, for beer, as I slept like a baby.
Light rain at 7:15am brought movement by many, including myself. Since we went 2-2, we were placed in the "B" bracket. In most tournaments, that's the bottom half of all teams there, but the A bracket was the top 16, the B was the next 16, the C was the next 16, and the D was the last 16. I know the math does not work out... there were really 63 teams or so. Anyway, it was off to the farm to play our first game.
In the past, losing the first game on Sunday has meant being able to see the kiddy tractor pulls while eating a chicken dinner. As cute as it is, I DON'T want to see them, as it means an early loss. We won that game, and as luck would have it, I looked ahead to see, if we won, where we would play. Our next game was also on the farm fields, and we won that one as well. That put us in the semi-finals of the B bracket, and back to the park.
This game was close, and as it was getting closer to being over, someone approached me to say that they were about to win their B semi-final game. He said some of their players had to leave for the airport soon, and was wondering if we could play a short game, or if they could pick up people. I told him it was not up to me, but all of my team, and, if we won our semi-final game, we would see what we could do. Well, although Poultry Days is supposed to be a "fun" tournament, John, one of the tourney directors, pulled me aside on Sunday and showed me the trophy. It was large, and beautiful. When we're talking about a trophy, things are different.
I'm not used to being anything but accommodating in these sorts of situations, and I was very thankful for Jay Watson's presence at this point. He recalled that we were down at half for most of the games we won (and lost), and we should not agree to play a short game. The tourney director, at Sunday's captains meeting, said the captains should work out what the final game would be to. So, we suggested 17, and they said there was no way they would have enough players to play that long of a game. We agreed to play the game, but that if they could not finish it, they would forfeit. They were up 4-1, and their airport guys and gals had to leave. At this point, they asked me again if they could pick up 4 players (I recognized at least one of them as a very good player). Thanks again to Jay, as I called him over to discuss things. They forfeited, and we took home the B bracket trophy! The captain of Yale, our opponent, was very understanding: I think it was a "it can't hurt to ask" sort of thing, and they almost took advantage of my "whatever" attitude. Some of their players had less than understanding attitudes, and their captain apologized for their behavior. Playing for 20 years when almost every game you play has nothing on the line has made me "soft", and I'm so glad we had Jay there to stand up for what was right.
So, that's it. A trophy from Poultry Days! As Larry Garrett can tell you, Knoxville has been to every Poultry Days since 1985, and never walked away with anything except a sunburn and maybe a chicken dinner to take home. Thanks to everyone that participated. And, thanks to everyone that plays Ultimate in Knoxville: that trophy belongs to all of us, as our practices make us all better. For sure, we could not have done it without Lance and his buddies. But, we could not have done it at all had it not been for 15 years of trips to the park in Versailles, OH.
I'll post pictures of the trophy on our trophy web page soon, and include this letter with it. Bruce has the complete list of who went, and I'll get that from him and add that to the trophy page I post. And, if you want to spend some time with the trophy in your house, I'll be glad to hand it over for any length of time. I'll even ship it. It's the Chicken Cup (like the Stanley Cup), and we all should have it in our home for some period of time. The good thing is, we don't ever have to give it back. Let's do it again next year.
Charlie Cwiek
The players.
First, Voodoo: Charlie Cwiek, Lewis Mauk, Larry Garrett, Ajoy Prasad, Bruce Tucker, Tedd Pennoyer, Chip Pennoyer, Mark Thurman
Next, Chicken: Tim Halt, Sam Xayarath, Drew Crosby, Mark Stuewe, Dave Harless, Kevin Gross, Jon Fischer
Next, Blood: Lance Snead, Jay Watson, Dave Hollander, Scott Runkel, Pete Jackson, Matt Hale, Nils Lassiter
Last, but certaintly not least, the women, who played on all 3 of the above teams: Sylvia Smith, Anne Van Patter, Maria Mandojana, Susan Cwiek, Joanna Pennoyer, Jenny Thurman