What Ties Ultimate Together
Fun announcements, HSNI reflection, and exciting projects in the works!
Announcements:
Move over, Ultiworld! Move over, Isaac Saul and Tangle! There is a new top dog in the ultimate/journalist/writer landscape. The Breakside is the #96 rising sports publication on Substack! In all seriousness, even these modest milestones are incredibly exciting and fulfilling. (We are also super close to 500 subscribers!) Thank you to everyone who has helped grow this platform and community from a school project into the growing community it is today. Yes, including everyone who got really mad at me on Reddit a month ago.
Stay tuned for a possible Breakside podcast pilot episode coming in the next month! As well as a story from an interview I did with World Games Team USA Alternate Liv Player, coming soon!
I was the lead writer for the WUL this season. Check out my work from this past season on their website. I am also writing for the Carolina Flyers this UFA season. Check out some of my work here.
I plan to attend and cover club nationals in person again this year. If you’d like to see The Breakside back at USAU Club Nationals in 2025, please consider upgrading your subscription to a paid version. I am also seriously considering going to UFA Championship Weekend in person to cover the WUL vs. PUL All-Star Game. If you want some sideline reporter action, please also consider upgrading!
Overwhelmed, Stressed, Grateful
To be honest, I’ve been pretty overwhelmed. The past month or so, I have been juggling finishing up my high school coaching this season with our final practices of the year and then the High School National Invite, YCC coaching, playing more seriously for the first time in a couple of years, and ultimate-related writing gigs for both the UFA’s Carolina Flyers and the WUL. Oh yeah, and there’s some fun stuff in the works for The Breakside. Not to mention other life-related things, such as working, searching for full-time employment, preparing for a move, and trying to maintain some semblance of a social life beyond this sport and my various jobs.
The biggest personal lesson has simply been internalizing the old adage “you can do anything, but not everything.” There were a couple of instances this spring where a week consisted of four consecutive days of coaching, four different writing deadlines, a full-time work week, and club tryouts on the weekend.
Yes, it was a lot. And it’s still a lot now, even if it’s calmed down a bit. I love this sport. I live and breathe it in many ways, but often it feels like too much. I worry that in doing so much, I cannot give anything the attention and care it deserves. I even have an interview from a month ago that needs to be turned into a new Breakside for you all soon! I’ve already made some personal commitments to tone it down a bit next year, as I am constantly aware of the effects burnout has on me.
And while the sheer number of different projects I have my hands in regarding ultimate is probably an outlier, the energy and time I put into everything I do isn’t.
Throughout my busy spring, I’ve been struck by a much deeper sense of understanding and gratitude to the people who make this sport happen. I’ve been struck by the herculean task that keeping ultimate simply chugging along from one year to the next is, let alone taking the time and energy to innovate on the field, in off-field production, fan experience, organizing, coaching, and everything else that makes up the entirety of the ultimate community.
Going to HSNI really solidified this feeling. It was just my second tournament coaching, and obviously the first national-level (or whatever the equivalent is if it’s not technically USAU-sanctioned) one I’d ever coached at. And only now, a week or so on, have the differences in coaching and playing in a tournament like that begun to settle in. At least for me, when I was younger, while it was very cool to play against kids from wildly different parts of the country, that feeling ended there. It’s not that I wasn’t aware of or didn’t appreciate the wider ultimate community as a whole. I still have vivid memories of watching the US Open while at YCCs, and getting to see the best players in the world play in person for the first time. However, as just a player, my focus was limited to the player community. The extent of my excitement and understanding of the broader community was limited to ‘Wow, I want to play in these national and international tournaments someday.’
Spending so much time coaching and writing, and nearly two years away from playing USAU-sanctioned ultimate, has really broadened that focus and appreciation for ultimate. I had the opportunity to coach alongside Michael Avila, a longtime Jordan High School coach and current coach of the Carolina Flyers, Raleigh Ring of Fire, and North Carolina Kitty Hawks (and my partner in crime for taking on many things at once). That experience has been both amazing and humbling, as I’ve grown as a coach.
I also had the opportunity to coach against players from California, Seattle, Minnesota, Massachusetts, and Utah at HSNI. And all of them did things differently from how we did, through strategy, line calling, motivating their teams, and anything else you can think of. And instead of that heightened cultural awareness turning inward towards myself and my goals, I found myself thinking at times during the weekend about the journeys these other teams had taken to arrive at HSNI with us. I thought about how their practices went, what their coaches spent time discussing between themselves outside practice, working on with their teams, and their travel to and from the Lehigh Valley.
It’s kind of like the feeling of sonder, which is defined as: the feeling one has on realizing that every other individual one sees has a life as full and real as one’s own, in which they are the central character and others, including oneself, have secondary or insignificant roles. And while that certainly reflects the sort of expanded awareness I have been feeling towards the time and energy others put into this sport in different ways, it’s also about all those different teams, too. I’m not sure if there is a word for it.
And that feeling, that appreciation for the energy poured into this community by so many people, has grown. It’s only further compounded by the time I've spent as a writer, content creator, and journalist covering the sport. These past few months have given me a deeper appreciation for my own process, work, and the work other people put into ultimate. Especially other content creators across all platforms. Every new post, reel, Substack, or graphic feels like a huge win that deserves to be celebrated. I try to consume as much ultimate content as I can. I feel like I can almost see through what was actually made and posted, and directly into the hours that went into each project.
There are so many amazing people doing so much good work for this sport. And it was so easy to miss that when all my ultimate-related energy was focused on playing. But the more time I’ve put into this sport outside of playing, the more incredible experiences I have had, the more friends I have made, the more I have been pushed to grow as a person outside the sport, and the more my love for playing and competing has deepened as well.
When I was younger, it was easy to overlook the opportunity to step back and appreciate the special environment I was in. Whether it was a particular moment, group of friends, or team I was on, or something else. It’s a universal sentiment that we don’t always know what we have until it’s gone, or it’s changed. And I guess what I am saying is that I think I can tell I’m in a special moment, the community I’m meant to be in, doing the work I am supposed to be doing, surrounded by people doing the same thing. Even though it’s hard sometimes, and even though it’s overwhelming, I can step back and appreciate this moment while I am still in it. And I am very grateful for that, and I wouldn't change it for the world.
I guess this is also just a very long-winded way of saying I’m very grateful for you all for the support you give me and this platform, as well as for the many, many other people doing incredible work in our community. Stay tuned for some exciting things coming soon!
About The Breakside
This newsletter aims to tackle the gap in present coverage of ultimate as a sport. Commentary, analysis, and community are some of the guiding ideals behind the Breakside.
If you enjoyed my writing, please consider leaving a like or comment, subscribing, or sharing it with a friend. There is now a paid subscription option to support the journalism I do. Please consider helping out in that way too if you are willing and able.
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 or Bluesky (@noamgum/@breaksideulti now too!) or email (noamgumerman@gmail.com).