(PICTURE: Members of the Vietnam Ultimate Frisbee Team)
Some of you might recall that I tied Peter Cullen for "senior athlete" in the senior superlatives. Yes, it's still as shocking today as it was in '97 that people actually thought I was as good of an athlete as Pete.
Last weekend I joined the Hanoi Ultimate Frisbee Club (http://www.hanoi-ultimate.com/). I played pretty well despite my $15 knock-off Adidas cleats coming apart in the first ten minutes of the game and having a pretty hard collusion on the first play of the game. After the practice I was told that the following Saturday (yesterday) there would be a tournament. Sign me up!
All week long I was psyched to show my fellow Hanoians what I got. The only thing worrying me was I was unbelievably sore all week. Not having done any exercise since leaving NJ, I was in, well pretty bad shape. And apparently I was in worse shape then I thought since I pulled my hamstring in warm-ups yesterday. Yes, warm-ups. I was gimpy all day running up and down the field yet still managed to hold my own on the pitch. In fact, I scored the first touchdown of the tournament and immediately went down on the ground and asked someone to stretch me. This guy David (apparently "one of the top ultimate players in southeast Asia") came up to me and said, "you can't get hurt on your first catch.
Anyway, long story short --and I have to run to my first day of class-- my team ended up winning the whole tournament. I've got a fancy new hat to prove it...although the hat is clearly made for Vietnamese people since it doesn't come close to fitting on my head.
