Paganello is a beach Ultimate tournament held in Rimini, Italy. It lasts four days, includes three parties, and teams from all over the world. Frankly, I think it's the best Ultimate tournament around, and I treasure playing in the tourney for the last two years.

I will now relate some things from my Paganello 2000 experience so you can see why I feel this way.

Wednesday

Force Elektro, having altered the team name to "Forza Elektro" for our foray into Italia, met for the drive from Delft, Nederland to Rimini. Many teams print up dedicated Paganello shirts, which just goes to show that other people also value this tournament as something special. This was our first chance to get a good look at them.

Also for Paganello, teams try to have a special cheer or "call" to give their opponents after the game. We didn't have anything prepared for 1999, so this year Rogier Brieko and I got together and came up with "Frisbee of Fortune", a miniature game show to do right on the beach. The plan was to be silly and have a few laughs. We even made some props, including the prize box ("You can choose from door number 1, door number 2, or door number 3" but they all opened to the same bag of candy) that Nina was a huge help in making. We also had a fantastic outfit for the host, made by Miranda Kuiper, another Force Elektro teammate. It was a suit, shirt and tie sewed together and cut open in the back. That way you simply slipped your arms in, fastened the velcro tabs on the back, and instant suit!

We tried on the shirts, the suit, and got psyched. Then we hit the road.

Thursday

The alps were pretty (just like the Ricola commercials), the traffic on l'Autostrada sucked, but we got there. Then we hit the beach, threw, drank large quantities of red wine, and set the tone for the weekend.

After a quick stop at the hotel, we returned to the beach for the opening night party. Hanging out on the sand, watching a near full moon rising over the Adriatic Sea, we ate plate after plate of pasta, drank more red wine, and feasted on sardines breaded and char-broiled over hot coals. There were fireworks, too.

Friday

I woke up with a mild hangover. This seemed to get better after breakfast, but I knew I was not full recovered when I threw a pass directly into the sand in our own endzone in the first game against locals Cota. They rolled 11-4 or so. That was fine: we were seeded 3rd in the pool, they were 1st, not exactly unexpected.

Second game was against "The Wiz" from Geneva. This was the first round game we should win, and we got a lead early on. Paganello has an interesting rule, though, called the Paga cap: when time is called, you play to the end of the point. If the leading team is not ahead by 3 goals, you add two to the higher score and play on until one team reaches that total. We gacked at the Paga cap.

All day long I looked for people I might know. In 1999, I ran into some unexpectedly, and also met Jarvis from UPenn Vøid. I thought I saw Josh/Swifty/Stiffy throwing with someone, but the dude had blonde hair so I didn't say anything.

I also saw that Houston Houndz brought a squad, so I wandered over to watch them play. They were rolling, but I hung out anyway. I heard their sidelines yelling "Paco." Last I knew, Paco was in Dallas, but it was possible he made the trip with Houston. And that guy on the field certainly had enough dark stubble going on to be him.

Sure enough, on the field was former Vøid teammate Paco. He came off the field catching his breath (running on the sand is tough, and the weather that weekend was hot). I rocked his word by stepping up to him and saying hello while his brain was still sun-roasted oatmeal. He confirmed that, yes, that was Stiffy I saw with the blonde dye-job - he was there playing with Fuzzy Bunny.

The last game was against the 2nd seed in our pool, Pacta from Sweden. They were looking for a laugher, which pissed me off. We gave them a damn good scare, building a 5-3 lead before they stepped it up and beat us 11-6.

Dinner, ice cream, sleep. I shied away from the red wine.

Saturday

In the second round, teams were regrouped into pools of 6, with one game carrying over from round 1. We lost all three games that day, and all at the cap. We lost three games by a total of 4 points. In all of those games we had the lead (once we were up 4-0) and we lost gas and concentration every time. Clearly, we had skills to win these games, but we needed more than the nine people we had on our sidelines.

Games at Paganello are 5 on 5 on a pretty large field. Being able to rest all players after one point is important. We weren't able to do it, and I think it hurt us.

There were some personal highlights. One game we found ourselves down 10-8 when the time ended. If we lost that point, the game would have ended. But I scooped up an opponent misthrow, swung to Miranda and headed to the cone for a give and go. She broke the mark forehand and I dove to make it 10-9 and force the Paga cap. But, hey, I already told how that ended up.

Also that day, I ran into Vic Buckaroo, another UPenn alump. I never played with Vic, but he played with J Tomes and Paco, and I felt connected. Living in London, he was playing with his girlfriend Liz and the Kiwi side KUPA in the coed division.

Fuzzy Bunny made the semis in '99, but stumbled on Saturday, including a loss to home side Cota. All I know is they had some Paga cap woes. You'll have to ask Stiffy for details.

Party that night. I got on the bus and ran smack into Paco and some other Houndz. Some tool named Shithead was rapping, they were all talking smack, and they started body surfing in the bus. Highly entertaining. The Houndz were just making themselves known. They also walked through their pool play that day, sending notice they were there to challenge for the whole ball of wax, glob of sunscreen, whatever.

The party was ok, there was some dancing. There was also some free-styling. I watched a little, but I can't get too excited about it. To me, free-styling is like Star Trek: Voyager. It's close enough to something I actually like to watch it, but I'm not really interested.

Drinks at the party were expensive. Swifty, coming from Manhattan, thought stuff was cheap, but I strongly disagreed.

There must have been a lot of that kind of talk. A massage tent at the fields started the weekend charging 10,000 lire. I guess they heard one too many Americans say, "Dude! That's like 5 bucks!" because they bumped the price to 20,000 by the end of the weekend. American tourists just can't keep their mouths shut.

Sunday

Early Sunday was the game everyone wanted to see after Saturday's results. Mir San Mir and Houston had both won all 3 games Saturday, and they were scheduled to finish the second round against each other. Mir San Mir of Germany finished runner up the year before, and won the tourney 4 times before. This was a possible finals preview and a good litmus test for Houston.

Was it ever. Houston turned up the defensive pressure, including an awesome two handed diving block from Damien in the endzone early on which left a block of disturbed sand that remained visible the rest of the game. But Houston also seemed a little eager and jumpy at the start, throwing bad passes into the endzone. Emblematic of both defensive intensity and offensive troubles was one point in which Paco made a great play to catch up on a deep pass, dive, and knock it away, only to drop the disc later that point on a tough throw that forced him to lay out awkwardly.

Nevertheless, Mir San Mir could not put Houndz away, and the game went to the Paga Cap. Houston made an impossible grab of a fluttering deflection to force the last point of the game, but could not hold Mir San Mir on the resulting pull. They lost by one point in what was clearly the game of the weekend to that point.

We played our last 2nd round game immediately after that gem. Against Superfly of the UK, we again pushed it to the Paga Cap, but this time we came back, scored three in a row, and closed it out for the win. We were so happy we let them do the cheer in the water, which wasn't all that warm. We had won our first game of the weekend, and thanks to all our close games, we thought we may have even finished 4th in the pool.

Not a chance, baby doll. Looks like everyone spanked the Wiz but us, and so Superfly finished ahead of us. We were in the battle to avoid last place.

At this point I started to panic. Not because of the last place thing (ok, a little because of that) but mostly due to a sudden realization: we were in grave danger of winning the Spirit of the Game award. Our "Frisbee of Fortune" cheer was working out well, and we had been involved in probably the most memorable victory of the tourney for three or four teams. It was far too late to start spiking the disc and calling travel twice in a row from 15 yards behind the play. All we could do was wait it out.

We dodged the last place possibility right away, beating Mohawks soundly for a two game win streak. That was stopped by an Italian team, though. And yes, we lost that game at the Paga cap.

Mir San Mir's semi against Feldrenner was a close one, but Houston's victory over Zamperl was not. Much more interesting was the KUPA versus Poughkeepsie semi one field over. KUPA trailed all game, but somehow forced the cap and rallied to score four in a row and go to the finals. Fantastic.

Sunday night dinner and party. Great food, lots of red wine, and some dancing. There was also a pool. Paco saw people get naked and jump in. Later my teammates saw the same thing. I missed all of it. I tried to convince the priest from "The Church of Funk" that we should baptize people in the pool. He told me, "You're out of line, brother." Whatever.

I got out of line with teammate Ludolf Meester and Vøidøid Vic Buckaroo. We talked shit for over an hour non-stop, teaching Ludolf the circle game and other stupid activities in the process.

Monday

Since we were playing for a low spot, we had to wake up early to play MP Bologna. We jumped out to a huge 8-0 lead, but again ran out of gas. We won, but the 15-11 score wasn't satisfying after that great start. Final place - 43rd of 48 teams. Losing those capped games really sucked.

But we were done playing at 10 am. Enough time to go home, shower, send postcards, change, and get back for the semis. Having been hot and sunny all weekend, the weather changed Monday. Clouds rolled in, the temperature dropped and the wind picked up. I wore long pants to the fields for the first time since I arrived. Later in the day I also put on the sweatshirt I wore for Thursday night's party. It smelled like those grilled fish. Lovely.

Force Elektro settled in to the bleachers early, established ground rules for Fantasy League and got ready to heckle. In the finals, it looked like Huck Finn were set to pull the same comeback on KUPA. They forced the cap, and KUPA's ideas of hucking to end the game were foiled by strong wind. They pulled it out again, though, and won the first ever Coed Paganello title.

Force Elektro played them in '99 in the Open division and they had much the same coed team then. They were a blast to play and beat us in a memorable game. I salute them. (Incidentally, we also played Huck Finn last year and beat them. A rare occasion where the transitive property applies to Ultimate.)

By the way, I took Vic in Fantasy League, and despite ignored pleas to spike the disc and stay in for D that cost me my voice the next day, Vic helped me to win the first round. He was also very quick to remind me upon first reading this that he caught the gamewinner in a two handed layout. It is so noted. May I remind him he would have gotten a +1 bonus for spiking the thing.

After that my fantasy league game went to hell. I hadn't seen much of the women play and I picked a handler by accident. I also picked a guy from Mir San Mir in the finals who got blanked.

Of course, so did most of them. Houston really slapped on the D in that game. Afterwards, Swifty remarked "it looked like you were running on grass." True.

Unfortunately, at one point they acted like they were smoking grass, too. After building an 8-3 lead, they put in Shithead, the rapper from the bus. He got in garbage time in other games, and even scored once that I saw against Searching Woodpeckers. But the finals against Mir San Mir ain't garbage time. Mir San Mir roached him in the endzone and then rattled off two more to close in at 8-6.

Like Swifty said, though, Houston was just too much. They would not be denied and pulled away. It should be noted, though, that Shithead did not get in the game again.

Paco, myself, Vic, Josh

So I got to see Paco and Vic win in their respective divisions, and I had a cool UPenn vibe going all weekend. We even dodged the Spirit of the Game Award (it went to Patatas Bravas). I guess people heard us yelling "SPIKE IT, BEEEYYYAAAAAAATTCCCCHHHH!" at the finals.

Last Updated: 7 May 2000
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