1999 U.S. Club Nationals Short Article written for ESPN Magazine 1999 College Preseason Rankings 1999 College Nationals 2000 Stanford Invite 2000 College Nationals 2000 National Champions Brown University Interview with TK (Tom Kennedy)
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Hey the Albany squad dropped the ball this year so this traditional tournament moved up to The August Place To Be, or in this case, The Summer Place To Be in Saratoga Springs,a delightful small town with an established dilettante populace. There were 18 teams from all over New York state and a handful from Boston and such. Albany, Binghampton, New Paltz, Bellport, Saratoga, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Rochester etc etc etc. But the Boston combo teams, I believe, pulled out the jams as Neo (bunch of college kids from Boston area) probably defeated Blend (boston area w/ Johanna) in the A-pool finals. I left with Neo up by 5 and it was still raining. B pool was SUNY Albany reunion over Chowdah i believe. I was on a team last year in NY City that was sort of the No.2 in the area to WSL. That team has since dissipated but everyone who was on it came and played in this tournament for some team or another so it was pretty cool seeing everyone and playing against them. Much thanks to the Sartoga boys N girls who sprang together to get this tournament all swell. They made discs and t-shirts and this fellow Ari, I am told, spent a lot of time and money getting it organzied. It ran without a hitch and everyone had a good time. Very enjoyable. Boffo party too in downtown Saratoga. Much thanks to Ari. There was s'posed to be an All-Star Game, featuring the 2 best players from each team. but the rain and subsequent lack of attendance prevented that from coming together. Still, All-Stars received some pretty dope t-shirts. I like the idea though and wished I could have seen it come to fruition. Such a game would promise much enjoyable heckling, hucking, and fantasy-picking. A-bracket quarters was Suspicious Package over Gunks (the New Paltz team I played for that had a bunch of talent) 11-10, Neo over Bingo (Binghampton), CCC over Musth (the local boys wh earned the A bracket matchup) and Blend over LoG, I believe. In semis, Package picked up a pair of ringers to add to their depleted numbers and managed to stay with a hard-running, 18-man squad of focused college kids that is Neo. neither team made many mistakes but Neo made a few less and won 15-11. Blend, I heard, was down by three in the second half and won by three. So they really came out and schooled CCC in the second half. Uh..what else? Oh yeah, it was refreshing to see many, many people enjoy of the herb. This seems to be becoming a rarity these days. but the tournament was so chill, with so little pressure from local forces and so many people who knew each other that it was just all one big groovy time. Looking forward to next year
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