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talentserveblog · 1 year ago

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Quest for Knowledge: Gamifying Education for Enhanced Learning

In recent years, the concept of gamification has gained significant traction in the field of education, promising to revolutionize the way students engage with learning materials. By incorporating game-like elements such as points, badges, leaderboards, and interactive challenges into non-game contexts, educators are harnessing the power of gamification to make learning more engaging, motivating, and effective than ever before

Understanding Gamification:

At its core, gamification is the application of game design principles and mechanics to non-game activities, with the aim of increasing user engagement and participation. In the context of education, gamification involves integrating elements inspired by video games, such as goals, rewards, feedback systems, and progress tracking, into learning experiences.

Engagement Through Immersion:

One of the key benefits of gamification in education is its ability to immerse students in interactive and dynamic learning environments. By introducing elements of challenge, competition, and exploration, gamified activities capture students' attention and motivate them to actively participate in the learning process. Whether it's solving puzzles, completing quests, or earning virtual rewards, students are drawn into the experience, making learning feel more like play than work

Motivation and Progression:

Gamification taps into intrinsic motivators such as achievement, autonomy, and mastery to fuel students' desire to learn and succeed. Through the use of tangible rewards, such as points, badges, and levels, students receive immediate feedback on their progress and achievements, reinforcing positive behaviors and fostering a sense of accomplishment. Additionally, the element of progression inherent in gamified systems provides students with clear goals to strive towards, promoting a sense of purpose and direction in their learning journey.

Personalization and Differentiation:

One of the strengths of gamification lies in its ability to accommodate diverse learning styles and preferences. By offering multiple pathways to success and allowing students to progress at their own pace, gamified learning experiences can be tailored to individual needs and abilities. Adaptive gamification systems can adjust the difficulty level, content delivery, and feedback mechanisms based on students' performance and preferences, ensuring that every learner receives a personalized and engaging experience.

Building Skills and Fostering Collaboration:

Beyond engagement and motivation, gamification also offers opportunities for skill development and collaboration. By simulating real-world scenarios, gamified activities provide students with opportunities to apply and practice essential skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving, decision-making, and collaboration in a safe and supportive environment. Furthermore, multiplayer and cooperative game elements encourage teamwork, communication, and social interaction among students, fostering a sense of community and camaraderie in the classroom.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, gamification holds immense potential to transform education by making learning more engaging, motivating, and effective for students of all ages and backgrounds. By leveraging the principles of game design, educators can create immersive, personalized, and interactive learning experiences that inspire curiosity, drive achievement, and unlock students' full potential. As we continue to explore the possibilities of gamification in education, the journey towards educational excellence promises to be as exciting and rewarding as the games we play.

#TalentServe #techeducation #techtrends

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talabib · 5 years ago

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How To Hold Efficient and Effective Meetings.

Anyone who’s ever worked in an office knows just how terrible meetings can be. They can interrupt work flow, disrupting your whole day, and sometimes they feel like a mere platform for the most extroverted, outspoken colleague to talk at you for an hour. Perhaps even worse, sometimes they feel like no more than a long-winded rehashing of information you’re already familiar with.

It doesn’t have to be like this. Meetings are essential to a smooth-running company; unfortunately, many leaders don’t know how to use them effectively. Lets show you how to remedy that

Minimizing and optimizing time spent by staff in meetings saves money.

They say that time is money, so it wouldn’t be wise to waste the time of your employees, right? Yet this is exactly what’s happening everyday when companies drag their staff into inefficient meetings.

How much money is being wasted? If you take the hourly rate of the people attending and multiply it by the length of the meeting, you’ll start to get a good idea. For executives, it would be in the thousands of dollars; for lower level employees, each person would cost around $50 in lost revenue. Overall, on a yearly basis, meetings cost an average company around $25,000.

So what can be done to reduce this money drain? One of the simplest solutions is to make sure the meeting starts on time, which means getting people to arrive before the scheduled start time.

Imagine if an Olympic runner decided to show up to the race just as the gun went off. They’d never catch up to those who were in position and ready to go.

The same holds true for those who show up right when a meeting begins. These people are actually late, since they keep things from moving forward and make the meeting less effective.

So make sure everyone knows that being on time actually means getting there five minutes early. You can tell employees that being timely is a sign of respect, and being tardy clearly signals disrespect, both of the company and of their coworkers.

Another solution is to allow for opt-outs. People often get called to a meeting even though they have no real business being there. So why not share the agenda a few days in advance and allow people to opt out of attending if there’s no business relevant to them being discussed.

You could also provide a timetable for attendance along with the agenda, which would allow people to schedule their arrival and departure in accordance with relevant portions of the meeting. This way, no one needs to waste an hour of their day to discuss five-minutes worth of business.

Hold regular all-staff or team meetings to boost team spirit.

While there certainly are bad meetings, it’s important not to overlook the positive effects meetings can have, such as boosting employee morale.

If company meetings are only reserved for managers and executives, a company runs the risk of alienating lower-level employees. This is not a good idea. These employees are often the face of the organization; they usually deal with customers, and their work can be stressful, with minimal reward. So why not make sure they receive a regular boost to their energy level?

The toughest times of the day are the mid-shift dips, at 11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m., when energy levels are often at their lowest. This makes them the perfect time to hold team meetings designed to raise morale and make sure employees know that their work is appreciated.

You can also boost morale by having daily, high-energy huddles that bring together the entire company. These huddles needn’t take more than seven minutes or so – just enough time to share positive company news and any forecast data that shows how departments are working together to reach short-term goals. You can also take a moment to address any questions or concerns, and then finish with a group cheer. Ending with a cheer might sound corny, but it’s effective for building team camaraderie – after all, it works for sports teams, right? It can even be as simple as, “Let's go!” Or, “Time to shine!”

Another effective tool can be three-minute adrenaline meetings. All-company huddles aren’t very practical if you have hundreds of employees. And if you’ve grown to a certain size, it would take far too long to try and explain to every employee all the different goals each department is trying to reach.

So sometimes it makes more sense for a single team or department to get together for a few minutes every day. Again, the purpose is to boost everyone’s energy and morale and to keep everyone informed on the current progress being made and how their work is directly helping.

It’s also a chance for people to air frustrations, learn from each other and, most importantly, get inspired.

Assign meeting roles to build teammates’ different skill sets.

Most jobs run the risk of becoming repetitive, which can lead to employees becoming tired and uninspired. Meetings can be a good antidote to the workday doldrums – a refreshing break from the daily routine and a chance for staff to flex some different professional muscles.

Any meeting brings with it the chance to assign a few roles, such as moderator, or chairperson, the person whose job it is to make sure everyone sticks to the agenda and doesn’t go off topic.

Then there’s the time-keeper, who’s in charge of making sure the meeting is running on schedule. There’s also the closer, who keeps track of what transpired during the meeting and closes it out by telling everyone the commitments they’ve made and what deadlines they agreed to.

But no meeting would be complete without the participants, those who arrive on time, prepared with productive input, ready to add and take value from the meeting. All these roles provide an opportunity for people to grow their skill sets.

Different people can be assigned these roles so that a variety of people get the chance to try new things. For instance, someone in customer service might benefit from being a closer, a role that offers the opportunity to sharpen attentiveness and the ability to pick up on the main points of a discussion.

New employees, or the youngest team members, might appreciate the opportunity to take on the moderator role. This will give them a chance to gain some experience in a role of responsibility, by fielding questions from participants and keeping the meeting on track.

Turn office politics on its head to bring out people’s different strengths.

Every successful company strives to have well-functioning, self-reliant teams. But before this can happen the team members must learn the appropriate skills. And this is another benefit of meetings: they provide a useful opportunity to temporarily change the power dynamic in order to enhance skill sets.

When you’re setting up a meeting, you don’t need to have the typical leaders run the show. Even though managers and executives are traditionally in charge of meetings, there’s no rule that says it must be so. In fact, such rigid traditionalism is often a waste of both time and money, since executives are generally a company’s highest paid employees.

So why not let lower-level employees run meetings from time to time? There are a number of ways this can benefit a company, such as encouraging bossy employees to be team players.

It’s common for a staff to have someone who’s bossy and tends to overstep boundaries, but these types can be assigned fact-finding or note-taking roles in meetings to bring them in line. This also encourages them to listen to others and wait their turn to speak, which is a big part of being the kind of productive team player that the best teams have.

Conversely, you can also use meetings to bring quiet personalities out of their shell. Shy employees can be as valuable as anyone else, and they can provide great insight when they do speak. If an employee tends to be quiet, they may just take more time to think before they speak, or are waiting to be asked.

This makes meetings a great place for quiet staff members to speak up for themselves, and you can encourage this by giving them the role of moderator. Not only will this get them into the habit of speaking up; the prestigious role can also provide a confidence boost.

Otherwise, they could be made lead participant of their team and given the task of representing them at the meeting. This will also ensure that they play a role in the decision-making process that determines the direction of their team.

Use meetings among members of all levels to monitor growth and build and sustain a strong network.

If you had to name the number one purpose for meetings, what would you say? Yes, it might be tempting to say, “taking a nap” – but let’s set sarcasm aside. Meetings are all about communication.

By bringing together leadership and team members, meetings are the best way to make sure everyone is on the same page in regards to their goals and how well they’re moving toward them.

Reaching a goal requires strong cooperation across the board, and there’s no way of achieving this without an open flow of communication.

One of the most effective and efficient ways for leadership teams to keep track of their goals is to use meetings for monitoring their quarterly progress.

Quarterly finance meetings should involve the company CEO, the board of advisors and team leaders. Before the meeting, financial statements and any valid data should be prepared and ready for discussion so that everyone can discuss what is working and what isn’t.

Quarterly business meetings should also be used to check in on progress, ensure accountability and see whether changes need to be made. These meetings are especially important in times of rapid growth.

In these meetings, team leaders from every department – marketing, IT, engineering, finance – can take up to 30 minutes to describe their progress. This is a chance to get into the details of metrics and whether or not their quarterly target goals were met. They can then make new goals for the next quarter, make predictions and decide on a course of action.

Weekly action review, or WAR, meetings can then be used to keep employees on track to meet those quarterly goals. Each week, lower-level employees can meet for 60 to 90 minutes to discuss metrics, flag any issues that are preventing goals from being met and brainstorm solutions to these problems.

These meetings are a necessary part of fostering a responsible and transparent workplace. For this to happen, people need to be held accountable for their progress, or lack thereof, during these meetings.

Finally, there should also be one-on-one meetings every week, between a team leader and a relevant member of their staff. This is important for creating a support network that ensures everyone is on the right track, that problems aren’t being sat on and that lower-level employees know that management values their efforts.

Organize retreats for the leadership team to develop your overall strategy.

Obviously, setting goals and staying on the right track is an important part of any successful business. But how does a company decide which track is right for them?

A popular and effective way of developing the perfect company strategy is to send team leaders on a yearly retreat – a sort of corporate vision quest.

The purpose of a retreat is to set the right environment for leadership to form strong bonds and engage in creative “blue sky” thinking.

Through this process, a vivid vision for the company can then be formed. This is a fully formed image of what the company should be like three years from now.

A true vivid vision is crystal clear down to the last detail. So imagine what people are talking about around the water cooler, what company ads will look like, where your revenue sources are coming from and what your customers look like.

After picturing this three-year vision, the clock can then be turned back to reveal the two-year vision of the company – then the one-year vision, and finally the six-month. With these in place, the right path, with all the short-term goals along the way, should reveal itself.

But remember, this isn’t just your vision; everyone on the retreat must agree. Otherwise, there’s little chance that the vision will come true. The retreat is not a paid vacation. It’s one of the most important meetings you can have, giving you the opportunity to bond and align your goals with the other leaders of your company.

Annual retreats can serve other purposes as well, such as developing the company’s core values and new approaches to customer relations.

You might suggest that people take turns sharing different techniques and management styles that they’ve picked up from books and seminars over the past year.

Just keep in mind, a retreat is a time to get away from traditional whiteboard brainstorming sessions and find new ways of thinking by taking advantage of a relaxed environment.

Make the most of technology and be aware of adjustments necessary for virtual meetings.

There’s no avoiding the fact that things change, and that goes for meetings as well. Due to the outsourcing of certain jobs and an increase in remote working, virtual or online meetings are becoming a popular way for coworkers to stay connected. And as long as you’re aware of the possibilities and limitations of this technology, there’s no reason a virtual meeting can’t be a step up from the traditional meeting.

For a virtual meeting to be effective, one of the first things to realize is that you may need to speak differently than usual, especially if your meeting is audio only.

For example, if people can’t see you, it’s important to pause between sentences every once in awhile, so that people can chime in with a response. It’s also wise to provide vocal gestures to let others know that you are engaged in the discussion. A simple “mm-hm” will reassure the speaker that their message is getting across.

One of the benefits of online meetings are the various ways to share documents and give presentations. Gone are the days when email was the only way to share notes, attachments and suggestions for changes. Google offers an array of ways for team members to simultaneously work on and share spreadsheets, documents and presentation slide shows. You can also keep track of all the changes being made and leave virtual sticky notes for people.

Even daily huddles can be performed remotely, so there’s really no excuse not to stay in touch with your team. So even if you’re away from the office, you can use the power of technology, along with the power of a good meeting, to keep your team connected and motivated.

It’s true what they say: time is money, especially in the corporate world. So to make sure you’re not wasting people’s time and throwing money away, meetings need to be both effective and efficient. Holding regularly scheduled meetings is still the best way to communicate and get everyone on the same page. But that’s not all – meetings can also improve employee skill sets, strengthen teams and help build the very foundation of your company’s values and goals.

#How To Hold Efficient and Effective Meetings

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mredwinsmith · 8 years ago

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That Primal Feeling

I played Ultimate for eighteen years, from 1979 when I was a Harvard freshman, through many years in Boston, until the fall of 1996 when I went to Nationals with my Colorado team. The whole time I was also trying to write but I didn’t publish my first book until I quit playing. When that book came out in 1997, I moved from Colorado back to Cape Cod. The book was with a university press, nothing flashy, but it did land me representation with an agent who worked for a big agency called ICM. My ICM agent asked to see all the various projects I was working on so she could strategize about what book to do next. She was looking for a big book, a “break out” book. The projects I sent her included a new novel and a memoir and a book about birds. But she wasn’t interested in those books, but another, a simple proposal that I’d dashed off before mailing her the package.

“I think we should go with the one about Ultimate Frisbee,” she said.

The book proposal suggested that I would return, in George Plimpton fashion, and play with Boston, then both National and World Champs, for a season. Even though I’d played for almost two decades while simultaneously struggling to become a writer, two efforts that proved metaphoric mirrors, I had never really considered writing about Ultimate before. But now that my agent was excited so was I. Maybe I could kill two birds with one stone and both win Nationals and write a big book. The year was 1998 and though I had been out of the sport for a couple of seasons I was a still relatively-young thirty-seven.

The Boston team was receptive, and I travelled with them down to a spring tournament in New Jersey. I went to the tourney as more of a writer than a player, and between games I interviewed as many of the players as I could. And while I was there to take notes and do research, I played okay for someone who had been out of the game for a while. But it wasn’t playing Ultimate that I was really excited about. I couldn’t wait to get back home and start writing.

The night after we won the Jersey tournament, I returned to Cape Cod and went to bed early, excited about getting up the next morning to type up the Ultimate notes I’d been accumulating. But I didn’t make it until morning. At midnight I sat up in bed, wide awake, and since I couldn’t sleep I decided to head to my study and get to work. I started typing and didn’t stop for the next week. I caught snatches of sleep but other than that just wrote and wrote and wrote, an experience unique in my writing life. Up until then the subjects of my writing had been nature, my father’s death, Thoreau, profound stuff. Now I was writing about Ultimate! It was perfect really: I might finally make people understand that Ultimate was not a joke but a real thing, a great thing.

* * *

During my years playing I was driven by a complicated mix of motives that included ambition, whimsy, love, and vanity. But it wouldn’t be until I hung up my cleats that I would start to recognize what I missed most about the game. What I missed most was not just camaraderie but camaraderie with a purpose. I missed all the moments, few and far between, when I lost myself completely in the game, when pestering thought disappeared and was replaced by a joyful thoughtfulness and a sense of being a strong animal.

Over the years I became interested in players who seemed in the throes of what I called “going animal.” More than once I saw a wild glimmer in the eyes of my teammate, Scott “Turbo” Conrad, for instance, and there were times when he could appear practically feral. But Turbo was naturally pretty wild and the story that most intrigued me was one involving a more unlikely Wildman.

It happened in 1997 while Boston’s team DoG (Death or Glory) was playing a North Carolina team, Ring of Fire, in the Semifinals of the National Championships. Boston was a team with immensely talented players, and when they were flowing, their offense was a ballet of nonstop running and jumping, the disc zinging from hand to hand. But now DoG was in disarray, down 6 to 1 in a game to 18, and after winning three championships in a row it looked like their dynasty was over. Their play looking more like comic opera than ballet: players overthrew open receivers, tripped and fell, let out anguished cries after dropping easy passes.

Ring of Fire couldn’t believe their good luck. Ring had always been a solid team, a top ten team, but no one had really given them much of a chance to beat Boston. Now they were playing out of their heads, diving and skying to snatch discs out of the air as the adrenaline pumped through their blood. As with any underdog that suddenly finds themselves way ahead, a part of them wondered when the magic would end, but for now they rode the wave.

Finally, Boston began to show a little life, and it was Jim Parinella who started to lead them back. Of average height with a slightly exotic blur to his eyes and dark curly hair, Parinella was a tireless runner and one of the game’s best players. He was also a self-admitted engineering geek, who could look at his own game as disinterestedly as a computer program that needed debugging. In fact, he worked for Raytheon, where he studied enterprise systems with an eye toward creating efficiency. Earlier in the tournament, after dropping a pass, he’d considered changing his receiving style and actually said, “I will probably adjust my pass-catching algorithm to incorporate this new information.” It wasn’t particularly surprising that Parinella would be a factor in Boston’s comeback. What would surprise everyone is the manner in which he did it.

Down 6-2, sensing the desperation of the situation, the Boston players began laying-out everywhere. Ring of Fire, however, still rode its early confidence; their offensive players dove, too, catching the disc just beyond the reach of the Boston defenders. Near the goal line, just when it looked like Ring would score, Boston’s John Axon anticipated a pass, threw himself through the air, and intercepted the disc with his outstretched hand. Boston now had it—this could have been what swung the game’s momentum—but suddenly there was yelling, confusion, and play stopped.

What had stopped the game is that someone on the North Carolina team had called a foul. Finally, after a long argument, the disc was returned to Ring of Fire, and, soon after, they scored to make it 7-2. But while Ring had won the battle, the argument seemed to have added fire to Boston. When Parinella caught the next goal, he became wildly excited, screaming and exhorting the Boston players.

“Come on, we’re still in it!” he yelled. “We’re not going to lose this thing! Come on!”

Boston’s Death or Glory (1998)

Later, Parinella would recall this as perhaps the most emotional moment of his entire life, and for a second his teammates didn’t know what to make of him. They were shocked. It was like watching the episode of Star Trek where Spock finally finds passion. But as Parinella continued, his face uncharacteristically animated, they got swept up in his emotion. That’s right, we’re not going to lose this thing, we’ve worked too fucking hard! The Boston sideline came alive, players pumping their fists and yelling encouragement.

And suddenly Boston had it. The defense made several spectacular blocks, and the gap in the score gradually tightened. 10-6. 11-6. 11-7. 11-8. 12-8. Soon Boston was in a kind of place where even bad plays turn good. Parinella, perhaps overamped by the endorphins pumping through him, put a little too much mustard on a throw to Chris Corcoran and the Frisbee sailed past him down the field. But Mike Cooper, a long-limbed man who was built to run, anticipated the screwup and caught up to the disc for a 40-yard gain. Jordan Haskell, who was running the team’s offensive substitutions, began to criticize Parinella’s throw, but Parinella uncharacteristically turned on him.

“Don’t even fucking think of pulling me,” Parinella snapped, and Haskell stepped back, slightly amused but also intimidated by this new creature. Parinella, meanwhile, was caught up in whatever it was he was becoming. The feeling surging up in him may be the real reason that people put so much into a sport that seems to give back so little of what’s usually considered important. This wasn’t about money or trophies or reputation, or even about that satisfying afterglow that can come once the game is won. Right then it was about feeling. He could suddenly hear the breathing of the man he was defending and knew where that man would cut before he did. It was a primal sensation: running, skying, diving, hucking. In his normal life he might study enterprise systems, but at that moment he was a strong animal who couldn’t be contained. When he caught a goal to pull Boston closer, he felt something he’d never felt on a Frisbee field before. Tears welled up in his eyes.

“I felt I wasn’t going to let the team lose,” he’d say later. Ring of Fire remained ahead by 2, but Boston would win this game; Parinella was certain of that now. And as great—as absorbing and enlivening—as this feeling was, it was made better because he was part of a team. For Parinella, it wasn’t hard to see a physical manifestation of the feeling that was welling up in his chest. He only had to look at the faces of his teammates, faces that shined with joyous savagery. They moved with one surging purpose, trusting their teammates as they trusted their own muscles and judgement.

It was, as Parinella sensed, a shared thing. They were part of something and they all felt it and it showed more and more in how they played. Steve Mooney, the team’s captain, flew around the field, directing traffic, throwing strikes, giving his teammates an easy target. Lenny Engel, the team’s emotional sparkplug, had been hobbled by a knee injury all year, but now he was suddenly sticking to his man, celebrating wildly after each goal, and breathing fire. At the other extreme was Jeremy Seeger, the man that my Harvard teammate Simon Long had once dubbed “God.” As a god Jeremy was fairly unassuming, certainly not the Old Testament one, closer to a wisp thin Modigliani Jesus with hollowed eyes. But if Jeremy sometimes appeared unassuming off the field, on the field he was set free.

For Ring of Fire, the goals were getting harder and harder to come by. What had been flow was now a trickle. Boston had many spectacular blocks, but the one that really seemed to break Ring’s back was made by a relatively unheralded player, Jeff Yu, also known as “Jethro.” Always quietly intense, Jethro would later admit to being even more fired up by what he’d come to call Parinella’s “primal scream.” He was ready when the man he was defending cut upfield and another Ring player got ready to throw. Jethro baited the thrower by pretending to be a little further off his man than he really was, and when the throw was made, Jethro pounced. He flew through the air, stretched out to his full length, and the disc stuck to his fully extended left hand. The Boston bench exploded.

It was gradually beginning to dawn on Ring of Fire that their little dreamtime was over. When Boston received the disc, up 15-14, they called a set play that involved Moons throwing to Alex de Frondeville who in turn would throw to Parinella who would throw to Chris Corcoran. But when de Frondeville received the disc on his own ten yard line, Parinella sensed that the Ring defender was overplaying him. He faked out, then in, and the defender bit hard. Parinella took off deep and de Frondeville launched the disc up and out. Eighty yards later, Parinella caught it for a goal. 16-14. At that point the game was capped. Ring of Fire scored to make it a one point game, but Boston could put them away by simply scoring one more time.

Then the inexplicable happened. The disc was worked up the field to Jeremy Seeger, who saw Parinella streaking across the end zone. This was it for the game, and when it left Seeger’s hand, it felt good. The man guarding Jeremy practically conceded defeat by saying, “Damn, nice throw, how’d you get that off?” But Parinella somehow didn’t catch the disc and, as there was no game film, the why of it would remain open to debate. To many spectators, it seemed as if the Frisbee could easily have been caught; it was described on the sport’s internet newsgroup as “an inexplicable drop on an easy lay-out catch.” Parinella didn’t see it that way. In his mind, he made a tremendous effort but couldn’t quite make a “best catch of the game” grab. But a mistake could no longer could send Parinella into a funk. He had become a different player, a sloppier player perhaps, but a better one.

Parinella’s miscue was soon rendered moot. A Ring player dropped a difficult blade, and DoG quickly converted for the winning goal. Parinella felt his chest starting to heave. They had won, despite his fucking up, and part of what he felt was relief. But it wasn’t all relief. His emotional high had been tailing off, but now the whole surge of it came back strong again, washing over him. The rest of his teammates raced onto the field, losing themselves in an orgy of high fives, hugs, and victory hoots. After calming down a little, they went through the ritual of shaking hands with the vanquished Ring of Fire players, before setting to the serious business of beer drinking, reliving great plays, and basking.

***

The next day Boston would beat Seattle in the finals and find themselves partying again. In Ultimate, there is no locker room to which players retire, so the celebration occurs right on the field. This tradition, which is known as “the milling period,” or simply “the mill,” can last as long as two or three hours after the finals. Most of the fans are usually players from other teams, and, drinking beer, they try to forget about their team’s losses or their own poor plays, and join in the carnival spirit of the mill. For Boston, it was time for pure revelry, with no need to forget. DoG players sought out friends from other teams who had watched the game, basking in praise (and occasionally fishing for a few more compliments) and beginning the endless process of reliving their greatest plays and gravest errors.

Though more and more games were being filmed, Ultimate was still a sport remembered not by instant replay, but through the oral tradition, through the retelling of great plays and heroic feats, and already today’s tales were being spun. We may live in a country where it’s hard for people to imagine the concept of glory and achievement without national television or magazine coverage, but at that moment you couldn’t convince Jim Parinella that what he had gone through has been anything short of glorious.

“I wish I could describe exactly what was going through my head,” he said, thinking back to that surge during the semifinals comeback . “But I can’t…I can barely remember it. At the time, though, every action looked perfectly clear, every motion was exaggerated. I have never before in my life been in such a heightened state of awareness.”

* * *

I wrote the above pages in approximately the same mood in which Parinella played the semifinals. For a week, in an unwinterized attic room of a house on Cape Cod back in the cold spring 1998, I kept warm by typing around the clock, not just scenes of the DoG team playing but games remembered from my own years playing. I was full or fire and energy and wrote with a fluidity I had never felt before. Could it have been that during my twenty years playing Ultimate I hadn’t been a player so much as a spy, a sponge, a reporter? That my real job had been to take the stories from the game’s oral tradition and put them on the page? Whatever the case, it felt great to get what I remembered down on paper. I sent some sample pages to my agent who was also excited. And sure enough there was interest in the Ultimate book from New York publishers! I drove down to New York to attend meetings, thrilled to think that I would finally be published by a big press. From my journal, I know that my wife and I had less than fifty dollars in our joint bank account at the time.

It was close, my agent told me later, they almost took it. Why didn’t they, I asked. In the end, no publishers would buy the book, mostly because the marketers and publicists were afraid no one would know what Ultimate was. There it was again. Is that the thing you do with the dogs?

That was almost twenty years ago. It hurt, I won’t lie, and it took a while until I moved onto the next subject, the next book. It wouldn’t be until another eighteen years that I would return to writing about ultimate.

But while I remember well the sting of the moment, I also remember the joy of first discovering ultimate as an unexpected muse. Most of all I remember losing myself in the subject, and that is a feeling that I know Jim Parinella understands.

There was one other moment during that long-ago Finals that I took notes on but never wrote about. Sometime during the mill after that ’97 Finals, a player from another team, who himself was eliminated early in the tournament, teased Parinella about having dropped what could have been the final pass of the semis the day before. At first, Parinella felt tempted to rush to his own defense. But, in his state of near blissful calm, he stopped. He could handle the teasing. Let the snickerers snicker, the hecklers heckle, the nitpickers pick nits. The appropriate attitude toward those who had merely watched, Parinella decided as he sipped his beer, was not defensiveness, but pity. Pity the poor observers. After all, they had not been in it. They hadn’t experienced that overwhelming tribal sensation that Parinella would always remember. They had no way to comprehend what it was like to be part of that surging whole.

More info about Ultimate Glory:

Order Ultimate Glory by David Gessner here.

Book website: http://ift.tt/2roxxJL

Book trailer: http://ift.tt/2rD4Ypk

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from Skyd Magazine http://ift.tt/2rUphBT

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talabib · 8 years ago