I got back from Adelaide late Saturday night after a resoundingly successful week of Australian University Games. (Unfortunately, I am facing a truly frightening mountain of work and have to keep this short). I am suffering, quite badly, from the common frisbee player sickness known as PTD - post tournament depression, but other than fighting off that and the remnants of a chest cold, I'm alright.
University level sport is handled very differently over here than in the US. It's neither a source of scholarships nor handled with the pseudo-professional rigor that you expect to see even at with the Division III men's golf team. The level of elite play - be it soccer, Aussie rules, rugby, etc. - tends to be concentrated within independent club teams, not university teams (though there is some overlap). As a result, uni-level sport tends to be much more open, collegial, and more closely resembling the standard of club teams at university rather than varsity level athletics. Also, somewhat bizarrely for a frisbee player, we are actually included at Uni Games as a "real sport" - even if we still do get the occasional question about whether we play with dogs or not. (We don't - but I'd hope you know this by now - otherwise, we shouldn't be friends.)
I'll save the full writeup of the week - including the "social" scene (we, and most of the other 5000 participants from 40 universities, took full advantage of the sporting spectacle...to enjoy Adelaide's late night charm) - but the short version is....
-Melbourne University, whose previous highest finish was 6th place, won the bronze medal in 3rd place...
-in addition, I was named to the "Green and Gold" team - basically, an all-star team for the tournament. Since I'm still in the process of getting to know everybody in the frisbee community over here, it felt pretty nice to be recognized in such a way.
Lots of pictures to follow - I know I keep saying that, but I REALLY mean it this time - but that'll have to do right now as I have a class to teach in a few minutes. This week's topic is "American Power and Great Power Rivalry in the 21st Century" - should be interesting...
(One of my better pictures from the week, IMHO. Blue team is Univ of Queensland, who we lost to 11-10 and won silver; white team is Newcastle Uni, who we beat twice - including the bronze medal match.)
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