The Coach
June 05, 2020 10:56 AM
Quidditch Tryouts! by The Coach
"Hello, everyone!" the coach said, greeting the gathered students with a grin. It was always exciting to see who signed up for the team - there were repeat players, new players, and everything in between. Some people had played once before but not for years since. Some people clearly didn't want to be here and stood nervously near their friends, hoping for some amount of social approval by coming. Some students were bouncing on their feet, eagerly waiting to give this their best shot. "As most of you already know, Sonora has a school team rather than house teams, and we play against other schools in the area. That means the team will be traveling! It also means this is a big commitment. That being said, there are enough of you that I have high hopes we will be able to do something a little different this year." The coach grinned again, excited about this bit.Taking a moment to savor the excitement - and the sunshine - the coach paced a little in front of the students. It helped with thinking through all throw words in the right order, too. "My hope is that we will have enough players to have a full team and a full reserve team, and we will be able to host recreational games here with mixed teams. That'll give your classmates a chance to get involved and be excited by watching, and you can all have more chances to really improve your skills by playing with different teams together." Pulling out a clipboard with the list of students who had put down their interest for tryouts and for which positions, the coach nodded, satisfied. "We should have enough for a regular and reserve player for most positions!"
This was so exciting! "All that to bring us to tryouts! Welcome, students. If anyone needs a refresher on any of the positions, please feel free to take a look at the poster I've put up on the wall over there," the coach said, pointing to a large, colorful poster near the entrance to the pitch. Moving animations showed little figures of what each position sort of did, next to more detailed descriptions. "Anyone who is trying out for more than one position may need more time than we have here today, so please follow up with me afterwards if you don't get a chance to try for all of the ones you want to.
We'll start with some warm ups, stretches, and laps to get our blood pumping, and then the tryouts will begin. I expect everyone to be limbered up properly. I know many of you are nervous, but injuring yourself because you were too important to get through a proper warm up won't do anyone any good, and I won't be impressed by that sort of behavior." The coach looked warningly at the students, although still with kindness. It wouldn't be the first time someone hurt themselves and it really was very frustrating to seek happen. "When that's done, I want you all to take a couple warm up laps on your brooms. I've set up some obstacles, so I want you to take your time getting through those. Over or under posts, through rings, around poles, things like that. I want to see that you can handle yourself, not see how fast you can manage it, so be careful. Finally, we'll begin the tryouts for individual positions."
The coach looked at the clipboard again and pointed out various spots on the field for each group to go as they were read off. "Those of you trying out for seeker will be over there. The contraption over there is charmed to fire off different color balls about the size of a snitch. First, you'll take turns--" the coach paused to assign each perspective seeker a color "--trying to catch balls of your color alone. Then, you'll all be up there, trying to only catch balls of your own color and not each others'. It's important that a seeker can be lithe, quick, and aware of their surroundings so as not to get run into or run into anyone else.
Those of you trying out for Keeper will be over by the goal posts with a similar contraption, except you won't be going at it at the same time at all. This will be a bit shorter because perspective Chasers," the coach pointed to another spot on the field, near the goal posts, "will be practicing some passing and catching activities together and then showing me what you can do for making goals. You'll do that without a keeper first and then I'll have the keeper tryouts get in there and give it a go. Missing a goal because the keeper gets there doesn't mean you did badly, and getting a goal because a keeper missed it doesn't mean you did well. Just do your best. I can absolutely see when you are playing skillfully, whether or not you get a goal out of it."
The coach paused to check for questions and then moved on to the final position. There were fewer people signed up for this one, particularly considering that they needed at least two, but that didn't mean they wouldn't be expected to tryout just like anyone else. "Prospective beaters, you're going to first take a bat and be working with a contraption much like the others I've mentioned. It'll shoot off Bludger-sized balls at you and I want you to hit them back at the targets that are set up where I've pointed. When that's done, you'll pair up and pass balls back and forth with your bats. If we have enough people, I want you to switch partners; I need to see how all of you work together."
Double checking the clipboard, pausing for questions and answers, and taking a deep breath, the coach grinned one more time. "I'm really glad you're all here. Let's play Quidditch!" The coach blew a whistle and the students began.
OOC - Welcome to Quidditch tryouts! This will function essentially like classes, although there won't be points award for this. I am trying something new and setting up specific groupings for subthreads for each position and general threads. We'll see how well that works. Feel free to tag the coach if you need, or god mod the coach slightly as necessary.
The team will be determined both by IC factors - experience and skill, things that the school would logically take into consideration - and OOC factors - essentially, contribution to tryouts. If you have any questions, shoot a message my way (Evelyn Stones') way in chatzy, or in an OOC. If you signed up for tryouts, it is assumed that you came to tryouts. However, if you don't actually post at tryouts, your chances of being on the team are significantly reduced. You'll have two weeks to post here and get your tryout in, and then I'll start building a roster to be posted in three weeks.
Happy flying!
Subthreads:Chasers
Playing the odds this time. by Valentine Duell with Heinrich Hexenmeister , Morgan Garrett
The odds are good, but the goods are odd. by Parker Fitzgerald with Evelyn Stones
Speaking of odd by Ness McLeod
General (before & after; warmups; etc.)
Seekers
Keepers
Beaters
22
The Coach
Quidditch Tryouts!
0
The Coach
1
5
Valentine Duell
June 06, 2020 5:49 PM
Playing the odds this time. by Valentine Duell
Valentine was excited! It was finally time to start on her road toward destiny! Quidditch try-outs! Equipped with her broom and a bottle of water, she made her way out towards the Quidditch pitch. It was a beautiful day out. Perfect for flying. She took a deep breath of the fresh air and hurried over to where the coach was waiting and other students were beginning to gather.She stood and listened to the coach and huge smile broke out on her face. Two teams! That would be great! Any by mixing up the teams the stupid petty rivalries should be avoided! The coach was a genius! That did get her thinking about what she was actually going to try out for though. Seeker had been her first choice, especially after Ness thought it would be good for the Jeremy guy if she did win it. However with two teams now, they needed six chasers and only two Seekers. Realistically, as a first year with no actual team experience, getting one of the six Chaser positions was probably a better chance than getting one of the two Seeker positions. Granted that did mean she was competing against Ness, but s/he'd get a position well before Val did.
The warm up was completed and she hopped on her broom and looked over the obstacles with a grin. She just had to remember that the coach said that speed wasn't important, completing the course was. So as she kicked off and headed into the course she kept that in mind. Precision first, speed second. A very close second. Val weaved her way through the course unerringly, and absolutely not at top speed, but maybe close. Still she couldn't help unleashing a call of exhilaration as she dodged and swung around the obstacles.
Once she joined the Chasers, it was fun to toss the ball back and forth. But there were more people in the air tossing the balls than she was used to and on occasion she lost track of where the balls were as they were passed back and forth with rapidity. Her practice with Ness had been great, but still hadn't really prepared her for this. It was a bit of a relief when they switched over to shooting goals. That was a bit more along the lines of things she was used to doing. Hopefully she was doing well enough to make the team.
2
Valentine Duell
Playing the odds this time.
1490
0
5
Heinrich Hexenmeister
June 17, 2020 2:26 PM
It is important to know how probability works. Good job. by Heinrich Hexenmeister
Heinrich had agreed to play Quidditch again, mostly because of the people involved rather than the sport itself. Truthfully, he could take or leave playing Quidditch, but Hilda wanted him there, and he'd had fun being part of the Evelyn, Ness, and Heinrich Chasing Team. It was fine, but it wasn't the highlight of his calendar the way it was for Hilda. He was a decent player, but he wasn't an amazing one. With the large number of people signed up for Chaser this year, he was by no means taking it for granted that he'd make the first string team.He was half tempted to tell the Coach that he didn't need to be on the front lines and to give it to someone else who wanted it more, but then that would leave Hilda without a translator when they went on the road, so he didn't. She was getting better at English, especially with Quidditch related vocabulary, and had even worked out a set of hand signals with Nathaniel last year for Beater related communications, and she could probably manage on her own if she had to, but she'd made no secret of the fact that she wanted him on the team this year with her again. So he was going to try out, and he wasn't going to self-sabotage his chances, but he had no illusions that this was going to be easy.
The warm-ups were easy enough. He just did standard warm-ups like for a normal practice, nothing too fancy. The flying course was a bit more challenging. He did not pass through it completely without mistake. He'd attempted a few maneuvers just a hair too close and brushed against a few poles and hoops. No serious fails, but not a flawless run.
Once that was complete, he moved to the corner where the Chasers were having their try-outs. Passing back and forth was fairly straight forward, and with Evelyn and Ness, he made a couple of imperfect tosses so they could show off how they could recover from a less than ideal pass, knowing they were perfectly capable of doing so. They'd played together well enough that they should be able to read from his body language that he was going to toss wide and be prepared for it.
That stage completed without any egregious errors on his part, and they set to flying against a keeper. He took one turn where he failed to make a goal because Tatiana had made a good save, then waited for his next run. As he saw one of the first years come back from her own try, he gave her an encouraging smile - if he wasn't sure he'd make the team, it had to be intimidating to be trying out as a first year - and said, "Good job. Tatiana is a good Keeper."
1
Heinrich Hexenmeister
It is important to know how probability works. Good job.
1414
0
5
Morgan Garrett
June 18, 2020 7:21 PM
Yes, it's pretty helpful out here. by Morgan Garrett
Morgan knew when she looked at the sign-up sheet that she was probably going straight to the second team, and accepted this stoically. She was, after all, part of a...well, it wasn't long, really, with Morgan just the second member of it...short, prou...well, 'proud' was probably a strong word, one that pushed a little too far...a short, extant tradition of people who mostly occupied such a position. Not for nothing was she the daughter of the only Aladren captain within memory, and possibly within the history of the school, to to go straight from spare to captain. There were morals to some of the stories of Dad's life when he had been younger and more interesting, and one of them was that it could pay off to be patient and wait.(Of course, Dad himself assigned that particular story a different moral - that one shouldn't assume too much competence or expertise from someone just because that person happened to occupy a position of authority, because a lot of things just happened on the bases of tradition and seniority, which were "objectively worthless even compared to me." This was one of the things that would make Sage 'Dav-vid' him, though, so Morgan suspected she should not share this moral with others. At least not when they were doing Quidditch, or until after prefect selections, and then not even after prefect selections if Mara or Josie became the Chosen One. So probably just not a moral she should share in general, really.)
She wasn't sure how politically advisable it was, given that this was the school-wise team instead of a House team, but she had adorned her dark brown ponytail with big black and blue bows. They were stiff enough to not have fluttery bits that could be hazardous, but still big enough to be kind of festive. She grinned at all the other people gathered, both to those who she knew from last year - most of whom were also her gaming buddies - and to the new people. The first years looked smaller, somehow, out here than they did in classes; she assumed they would return to their normal scale soon, once she got used to seeing them in this context, especially since the difference between their sizes and Morgan's was not significant.
Injury was undesirable, especially when it wasn't even part of the game, so Morgan went through her ground-based warm-ups diligently, eagerly looking forward to getting back in the air. With Dad and Sage, she didn't have to worry about what the adults around her thought if she said or did something wizardish, but she still didn't get to fly much because they lived too close to other people. When she was in Kentucky for the other half of her summer, she had more space, and could do some interesting maneuvering practice around the spindly, tall, closely-packed trees surrounding her grandparents' house, but she had the feeling that everyone there was still not all that comfortable with what she was. That meant she could only feel comfortable sneaking out to fly a bit on rare occasions when everyone else had gone out of the house, and since they never left her alone much more than an hour....
Taking to the air again, she made a few loop-the-loops, disappointed but not surprised to find that she no longer did so quite as smoothly as she had at the end of last year. Her tree-avoiding practice proved handy enough, though, with the dexterity challenge; her speed was not impressive, but she did way better than she had on her first day last year. Improvement - one of those wins one had to take when nothing else was readily available and there was no real way to con a better win out of anyone.
"She is," she agreed with Heinrich when he told one of the first years, a pretty girl with brown hair and big blue eyes, that Tatiana was a good Keeper. "I'm Morgan," she introduced herself, "and...it's my turn I guess. Wish me luck!"
Heinrich, at least, probably did not wish her too much luck, but she didn't mind much. Keeping in mind that she was a bit rusty, she tucked the Quaffle under her arm and kept one hand firmly on her broom as she approached and began trying to fire on the goals. Tatiana was wearing her hair differently, she noticed; funny, that. She had always worn it the same way for as long as Morgan had known her, so it looked almost funny, seeing it even slightly different...she tried to focus on the goal hoops, evaluating Tatiana's position and how fast Morgan reckoned each of them could move. She was guessing, from watching the others, that Tatiana could move faster than she could, so to score, she would have to use mostly throwing force, she thought: draw Tatiana to one side, and then try to shoot as hard as she could at the center hoop. For her, that would involve throwing with her back as much as her arms, though, which would risk losing her balance a lot more than most moves did....
It wasn't good odds, but she did her best, and was proud that she only wobbled a little when she threw toward the middle hoop as hard as she could. She didn't make the shot, but she got decently close, she thought. Improvement. It was definitely a win compared to total failure or regression.
16
Morgan Garrett
Yes, it's pretty helpful out here.
1470
Morgan Garrett
0
5