2008: Our First Coach

The Small Fryz had just competed in it’s first adult tournament called Spawnfest. We had won 1 game and were quite satisfied with ourselves being only 7th and 8th graders and beating an adult team.  At the time, my wife, Elana, said to me, “ You know, if we had a real coach, we probably would have won more games”.

Two months later, it was about 8 o’clock on an early October weekend.  I had read on a website about an ultimate Frisbee practice called MOHO for high school players. My son, Justin, was now a 9th grade freshman so he was eligible to play at this event. It was dark and and it was raining ever so slightly.  We drove up on a lit field surrounded by tall trees which made the change in light even more dramatic. Nobody was there so we slowly drove around and came back and parked the car.  We noticed one person was now in the middle of the field with a disc.  I told Justin to go out there and see who it was.  As I sat in the car watching these two, I was amazed by what I saw.  I had to keep turning my windshield wipers on because the mist would hinder my view. The angelic lights glowed on the small silhouetted players.  They were dwarfed by the open field and trees.  I watched as they played catch. I watched as they ran up and down the field.  Justin was being coached how to throw a forehand correctly and how to catch the disc by going to it aggressively, one hand...two handed. As I sat there, I started calling parents to tell them what I was witnessing and if they’d be interested in hiring a “real” coach. The hour passed and I was mesmerized. As they finished up their practice, I got out and introduced myself mentioning that I could have more players there the following week but they would be middle school players.  Of the 8 players at practice the following week, 7 were Small Fryz.  I mentioned that I had a team of 20 passionate players, all about the same age, all friends who just wanted to play ultimate Frisbee and without hesitation, Miranda Roth Knowles agreed to become our first coach.


Randy Lim

Spawnfest 2008