On playing B team

with the spring season coming up, the team will once again return to dividing practice time for the B team and the A team. For those of you who have enough interest in ultimate to read the blogs, and are playing on a B team this spring, here are my thoughts.
When i started playing ultimate my freshman fall, my previous disc experience involved tossing with my brother in my front yard. It didn't take me long to realize that I was not ready to be playing at the most competitive level. So I played with the Bness my freshman year.
After my experience on the B team my freshman year, I feel the need to speak up against anyone who feels like playing on the B team is some kind of second rate team. It's not; the only thing that will be different is the skill level. Aside from that, playing on a Bteam has one key advantage that makes it unique-
it's your team. yours. you decide what you want to work on, how hard you want to work, what your cheers will be.... The team is yours, and the responsibility is something to take advantage of. Last year, mackey and I had our bness practice zone and marker drill constantly. the result- a class of 08s who can run a great zone, but need work on their man d. was this a good idea? maybe, maybe not. personally i have my own opinions, but either way we had the opportunity to shape the team, to develop skills, and to develop a core of tightly knit players who will have the skills to play at a more competitive level in the future.
and it's not just the captains. in fact, as many bness players probably realized last year, i had less knowledge about the game than alot of the other guys out there- so i drew on the experience of guys like fischer, watson, grinch, and dorner to identify and improve our problem areas. if you have experience, you can improve the team by sharing it; if you don't have experience, the energy and interest that you put into learning will keep the team fresh and vibrant.
i suppose this is especially for those of you who went through the try-out process. a try-out is to try your skills, to see where they fit in better. I am afraid that alot of people got caught up in the 'try-out mentality,' considering it all-or-nothing , and accepting the bteam as a half-hearted second prize. make the team your own.
this spring, whatever place your skills are at, it doesn't matter. just get out there and play some disc, and do it because there's something in it that you love.