Interview With Gabe Colton (part one of two)
Leadership, TRON, DiG, Scoop, and a brief aside about the history of the Philadelphia open ultimate scene
I am beyond delighted to share part one of an interview I conducted with my former coach on TRON and current DiG captain Gabe Colton! One half of the most dynamic coaching duo in the college game, we had a great conversation about leadership and program construction and cohesion and we only went off topic once. Maybe twice. I’m testing out releasing interviews in multiple parts to help with a steadier stream of content and make each edition more readable. Please let me know what you think about that format. Enjoy.
Thank you so much for joining me. Since I know who you are, and maybe the people reading this do not, would you mind introducing yourself to get started?Â
Sure. My name is Gabe Colton. I started playing frisbee officially in the fall of 2009. I played pick-up at camp, but I got started at the one and only Brandeis University. I'd been a soccer player before I found frisbee and really loved the team, the sport, and everything about it.Â
During my freshman and sophomore years, I played a few summers on various club teams in the Milwaukee area, where I'm from. I captained Brandeis TRON during my junior and senior years. In my senior year, we made it to D3 Nationals for the first time. It was sweet.
The summer after that, I played for Boston Wildcard. We finished fourth at Nationals, which meant I could go to Worlds the next year, which was great. I moved to Philly, played with AMP for one year, then Patrol (now called Phantom) for three years, captained one of those years, and then moved up to Boston.
I also played some pro with the Spinners of the MLU–rest in peace. When I moved back to Boston in the summer of 2017, I was still playing with Patrol. So, I was commuting back and forth. Thinking about trying to do that now is wild. Then I started playing DiG 2018 and have been captaining since 2020. Technically, that was the year that didn't happen, but I was a captain, and we still did a decent amount of stuff as a team. Some stuff on Zoom, outdoor workouts, and other things. I played on Glory last year and this year, too.Â
When I moved back to Boston, I started coaching TRON. I think that started probably in the fall of 2018. So I've been coaching TRON for six years, including through the pandemic, which you know. That was tough, but we made it through, and not all programs did. So I’m grateful for that. And that’s a little bit of my history.
Now, before we get into things about you, since this is my publication and I get to do what I want, I will make this about me for a second. So with that being said, what do you think the ceiling and floor were for the TRON teams most impacted by the pandemic? (2020 and 2021)
I guess it's hard to tell what the rest of the field looked like back then. You can kind of look at how many D3 teams had graduates that came back for that fall nationals. Obviously, Oklahoma Christian and Middlebury were very good. They were in that final. I know Oklahoma Christian was gearing up earlier, too. I think the two Air Force guys, Alan (Alan Villanueva) and Noa (Kainoa Chun-Moy), were some of the first recruits who didn't get to play because their fifth year was 2020-21. What would it have been…your sophomore year?Â
My freshman and sophomore years.
I think your freshman year we would have made nationals. I bet we would have gotten to quarters. I think we could have won your sophomore year.Â
I agree! This is what I'm saying!Â
And I think we could have done really well had we put more pressure on Brandeis to allow graduates to play and convince those graduates to play in that fall.Â
Oh, we would have been so good.Â
The year before [spring 2020], we had two seniors and a big, skilled junior class. Your [then-freshmen] class was really big. And the year above year was pretty big, too. So I think we would have done really well. We would have been deep. It would have been, you know, get some nationals experience in spring 2020. Get to know what those big games feel like. And then I think we would have done really well the next year.Â
[P.S. If you want your humble author/interviewer’s honest opinion on how that makes him feel, click here! I also don’t normally share what I do and don’t cut parts of these interviews because most of the time it’s just streamlining things, but I will share that I cut about 90 seconds of audio of me right here ranting about the pandemic and other related things.]
Going back to you, I would love to hear more about your experience captaining DiG and then follow up from there.Â
Yeah. Anything specific?Â
What made you want to take on that responsibility? And if you want to share any specific insights about how managing pandemic stuff for DiG went, that’d be great to hear too. I'm sure we could also talk about TRON pandemic stuff for a long time, but I don't know if that's what everyone wants to read about.
Absolutely. I think people who eventually become captains have different trajectories. The year that I was a captain on Patrol was kind of like, ‘Let's get this young guy involved,’ but I remember very little of it I don't even think I could tell you who the other captains were. I don't know if that speaks more to the state that I was in or how the leadership structure existed, or just that it was eight years ago.
But on DiG, I definitely remember having some discussions with Jay Clark. We used to run the Harvard Stadiums close to weekly from April through June. We would talk about captaining, and he was kind of like, it can take away a little bit from your individual development. If you think of your time as zero-sum, then arguably, the time you're spending on logistics and leadership meetings and whatever is potentially time that you could be spending on throwing, watching game films, and stuff like that.Â
It is very enriching. And I think he was like, ‘Once you have a really good year individually, then you can be captain.’Â
I don't know if that's exactly what happened to me, but that's how I remember thinking about it. I think 2019 nationals–we lost in pre-quarters to Rhino [Slam!], but then won a couple of games and ended up in the Pro Flight or something like that. And I remember having a pretty good individual performance at nationals. Then I had that thought process—I’d had my good nationals personally and then wanted to captain.
That was the surface-level way I was thinking about it. But it was also knowing–you know from having captained TRON–I really like going all in on something. And I'm very much a the more you put in, the more you get out person. This might be too corny, but have you read “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow?
It sounds vaguely familiar. But I don’t think so.Â
It's a good book. I like it. And it's about these two friends who like to build video games together. One's a man, and one's a woman. There are not a lot of books that have that kind of non-romantic relationship at the center of it. And so that was really cool. But one of the characters talks at one point, or somebody kind of playfully accuses him of like going in too deep on stuff and being all consumed by it and he says, ‘I rather like being consumed.’ I feel like that is how I think about ultimate in general or captaining specifically. Team sports are such a special thing, and the more I can be a part of it to help create a fun and easy environment for other people, the better. That was part of [my desire to captain], too. I had a couple of great years where I was just playing and didn't really have to worry about all the shit that goes on in the background of logistics and strategy and stuff like that. I took that in from the coaches or captains on the teams I played on and then realized I wanted to give that to other players.
Initially, I put that energy into ‘I'm going to do it all, I'm going to do as much as I can so [my team] can just play.’ That leadership mindset has developed a little bit to like to realize that not only is that not that sustainable because I can't do everything, but it also doesn’t allow players to have ownership. If I'm doing stuff somebody else could do better or differently, or just with their own spin then that can help them have a more enriching experience on the team. A parallel to how I coach, too, is that I used to give a lot more answers when people asked, ‘What do I do in this scenario?’ Or ‘What can I improve on?’ And now I find myself answering with a lot more questions. ‘What do you think you should do in that scenario?’ Or ‘What did you see? What do you think you're doing well? What do you think you can improve on?’Â
Sometimes, that's just to give myself more time to come up with an answer, but a lot of times, it's about allowing them to be their own coaches and figure out stuff for themselves and for me to be able to validate or push back on that stuff, but not necessarily just to spoon-feed.Â
Leading a team like DiG is one of the things I'm most interested in because last year, you guys rolled out the two-team, one-program model. To my knowledge, at least on the men's side, you are doing something somewhat unique with a true developmental program for a top-level club team. I would love to hear the process and the thinking that went into developing that and then how the first year of that experiment went.Â
Totally. Obviously, each case is unique, but there have been two team systems before. There was Ironside and Garuda, Sockeye and Voodoo, where two teams existed, but there was an unspoken relationship where if you’re not quite good enough to make Ironside, maybe you’d play Garuda. Some players would then use that as a jumping point, but Ironside wasn't necessarily involved in Garuda at all.Â
But speaking about a program I know more about than those two here’s a hopefully brief history of like open scene in Philly. Not to go too far back, but there's this team called Southpaw, which kind of spawned from other teams as the life cycle of teams goes. I think their top finish was fifth in 2012. I don't know if they existed in 2013, I wasn't in Philly yet. By 2014, they’re definitely done. Then, there was a de facto top men's team in Philly, which was Citywide Special, which still exists, but there wasn't an elite, open team to fill the Southpaw void.Â
Patrol’s first year was 2014. They existed in 2014 as a ‘Hey, can we build something good?’ kind of program. Charles Weinberg was on that team as a young Delaware college student, Charlie McCutcheon (of current Truck Stop fame) was on that team as well, I believe, and Charlie Hoppes was involved with that team as well.Â
Southpaw’s top men's players played AMP that year in 2014. I played on that team, too, and then I think there was kind of a swing back to the open division after that year. A lot of those top men, those top open players, played Patrol again in 2015 after seeing some progress in 2013 and 2014. We (Patrol) made nationals that year.
We beat Temper in the game to go, which is always great. That was a stacked Temper team, too, with Trent [Dillon], the Thornes (Alex and Max), Pat Earles, Ty D[eGirolamo], basically the championship Pitt teams. That was sweet.
But it must have started between 2013 and 2015 when Patrol and Citywide were like, ‘Hey, like let's work together.’ I don't remember the exact history of that. I know Darryl Stanley–legend–was coaching Citywide and coaching Penn. Maybe he and Charlie started talking. I know that Dave Baer, Colin McIntyre, Patrick Lindsey, and David Brandolph were involved in many of those discussions, too. So that became a two-team system.
We would have joint tryouts. Leadership communicated regarding specific players and what we thought was best for each player's development. For example, should they be more of the guy, get more reps on this team, or maybe get fewer game reps but more challenging practice reps on that team. I forget what year, but they added a third team, Adelphos, which skews even younger. That was almost entirely college-aged guys. There was movement between teams across years as you want and expect. a lot of the Patrol guys also said, ‘Hey, when I'm done playing at the elite level for whatever reason, life reasons, body reasons, whichever, I'll play a year or two Citywide’ to give back and to help lead that team. That kind of helped create bonds between the teams too, which is really cool.Â
[This concludes our interlude into the history of the Open Club scene in Philly]
That was definitely an inspiration for wanting to set up DiG with what ended up becoming Scoop. There was also a lot of discussion about the men's scene and the ultimate scene in general in Boston. There was this recognition that top teams in Boston haven't had to do any recruitment or retention work historically.Â
Think about the developmental ladder in Boston because the youth scene is so good. In YCC, Amherst is a dominant area. Needham and Newton and other schools in the area have really good high school teams. YCCs have been very good for years. And then on the next level up, there are tons of colleges in the Boston area, D1 and D3, many of which have extremely successful teams.
Then, at the adult level, Boston is kind of a destination city, right? People move here for med school, grad school, tech jobs, biotech, etc. So the top players will come to the teams. We'll just make a team from the top players and–I'm not saying people like thought this or like, you know, actually held these beliefs– but effectively, it was kind of like whatever happens below us, whatever. The top talent will bubble up eventually.
We recognized that as a gap and an opportunity. One of our values on DiG is legacy, recognizing the privileges and benefits we've received as players and coaches from other people and giving back. Some of it is through coaching youth teams and high school teams, some older players being mentors, etc. But also, there’s the recognition that each year at tryouts, we can only take 26 or 27 rostered players. Maybe you can take up to 33 if you include practice players. But everyone 34 to 50 at tryouts is still really good because there's such a high concentration of good players here. Our thinking centered around trying to incorporate the next tier of players. Maybe they make DiG figuring it out on their own in five years, but maybe they make DiG in two years or three years if they're part of the program. They're getting reps against DiG players, they're getting face time with the coaches so that they're more of a known entity than just like these small sample sizes you get at tryouts.
We want to develop a sustainable team whose focus is on Building up these players individually, giving back to the community, and creating this sustainable structure. It's not just about sitting up at the top and waiting for the top whenever players come up.Â
That’s a very interesting perspective. Especially because in my (admittedly smaller) club experience, you aren’t guaranteed a player for four years like you are in college. Development can take a backseat. It takes a more intentional decision-making process to focus on development at the club level. How did year one go for DiG and Scoop?
It was a success. The success overall will be in its sustainability, how well the teams do, and where the players on those teams go in the future whether to DiG or to other elite teams. And if things go well, then maybe there are players who played on other teams who didn’t know if Scoop would work out that come play, and Scoop continues to get better year after year.
But last year was a success. I forget where they finished at regionals. I think it was seventh, maybe higher than that. I know they're close to being eligible for some of the Triple Crown Tour tournaments this year. It was a fun time. There was some worry that like, having joint practices or partially joint practices would dilute the reps of DiG. I don't think it really did. The practices weren't fully mixed, but we would kind of play warm-up games together, maybe do one drill and then split, or play mini and then split or something like that. We're getting the social exposure between the two teams, they're getting reps against those players in practice, and we'd have midweek mini and stuff that everyone was invited to.
I think sustainability is an interesting question because that's always the white whale of Club Ultimate. As we know in the Boston club scene, it is a known entity that things are always in flux, and there are a million different things happening—
Always a new mixed team.Â
–yeah. Always a new mixed team. Typically, teams one or two steps below that top level are fighting each other for their survival and recruitment. And it is like that in a lot of places as well. So I was wondering what you think the keys to having a sustainable program, especially with a developmental feeder team are.
Well, part of it is having dedicated coaches and good coaches. So last year, Sam Lehman and Jake Smart were the DiG coaches, and we had Nathan Wicks, a former DoG player and former DiG coach; John Stout, who coached Northeastern B and now coaches Brownian Motion with Jake; and Tim Bobrowski, who coaches at Northeastern all for Scoop. Stout and Wicks are returning this year. Tim is not, but I think having coaches like that helps create structure and continuity year to year.Â
There are not that many people willing to coach, and not that many good coaches out there. It's hard if you have a developmental team that doesn't have coaches. Then the only continuity is if there are captains who stick around. And even then either the captains know they're not going to make that next level and they commit to that team and help create the culture of that team, or they are trying to make that next level, or move to a different scene and then they leave and you lose the continuity. So, I think coaches are definitely a big part of it.
And that’s part one of the interview. Keep an eye on your inboxes later this week for part two coming soon! Is there anyone you’d like to see appear on Breakside? Let me know via comment, email, tweet, or however you want.
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About the Author
My name is Noam Gumerman (he/him). I am from Chapel Hill, NC, and studied Journalism and American Studies at Brandeis University. I am a journalist by trade and have been playing ultimate for over half my life. I love nothing more than combining those two interests. Contact me for discussions, feedback, story suggestions, and more on Twitter (@noamgum) or email (noamgumerman@gmail.com).
appreciate the new approach (two parts) to the Interview.