Name: Russ Taylor
High School Team: Fieldston (NYC)
College: McGill University / W&M College
Currently Living in: NYC
Years Playing: 5
Ultimate Accomplishments: Getting our HS team fully funded as a legit varsity team, getting into Easterns.
Favorite Tournament: Canadian Nationals in Vancouver this past year was a great tournament. Not to mention the Sushi was fantastic.
We were instantly hooked. This is the first time we saw the true current form (for better or for worse) of HS ultimate, that competition is based in tournament form. Junior year we worked hard and ended up third in States.
However, the #1 team in the state lost a lot of players, and in a tournament that we co-hosted in the Fall, we crushed our in State competition. These results combined with a damn good application essay (written by yours truly) got us into States my Senior year. As President, I fought, along with our new temporary coach and a few key parents to get our school to fund us as a full varsity program.
I graduated high school in the Spring haven taken my team from our first tournament to States in 3 years. This past season Fieldston suffered from a large graduating class, and much team drama, but Fieldston attended more tournaments than ever (5), all fully or mostly funded by our athletics department.
There's my HS career for you. I plan on starting a U-23 team next year with old HS friends and rivals, but for now I have just finished my freshman year playing on the A-Team at McGill. As far as blogging goes, I look forward to covering NY State Youth Ultimate, in its many forms, and a few other projects that'll be appearing on this website as soon as I get started on my research ;-)
