RFO – interview of a youth team

The 3 interviewed with their physical trainer Jérôme, club’s mascot Freza & frisbees (yay!)

RFO’s logo

Here is the motivating story of a team of young ultimate Frisbee players. Encouraging for the future!

The first time I met one of those players, I was at the WUGC. He asked me if I was looking for future high level athletes to sponsor. Amused, I told him to send me an email with more details, and… I have been stunned…

“I’d like to have a shoes sponsor, I’ve been playing since I was 8 at RFO, with whom I won as captain 5 France championship titles and 2 titles U15 in Maximum Air Time and accuracy. I will apply to the U17 French selections.”

Nothing more, but it made me want to know more… So here I am, 3 months later, with Kaïs, Mathéo, Arthur and Raph, their coach:

Hi guys, please introduce yourself, for how long have you been playing?

Hi, we are Kaïs, Matheo and Arthur, We are 13 and we’ve been playing in the club for 4 years. At the beginning only Kaïs was playing, he told us about ultimate Frisbee at school, so we came, and we liked it!

Tell me more about your club…

The club has existed since 2002, and the youth section was created on 2006. We train once a week, but we also go throwing in the evenings, or weekends (to be clear: as often as our homework allow us!). The youth section already trained some players that are playing at a high level now (French teams U17, U20 and more…), they often come back to the club, it’s motivating!

We live in a small town (3 000 people), so there are few kids, and we have to mix the ages (from 7 to 14 yo) and levels, but the good part is that everybody knows each other.

This year we will also start training in our school and with adults.

How do you train?

We do a bit of everything, but mainly games, so everybody can touch the disc. There is a big gap of level because of the age gaps.

Last year we also had a 2nd coach, which made stuff with scales and things to jump…

How could you explain the success of our team?

We are very competitive, that’s why we often win the direct elimination games, and paradoxically it’s the qualifying games that can go wrong.

But well, above all, we are all friends, super-motivated, and WE ARE WARRIORS!

Did you have some hard times into the team?

… Yes during the 2014 indoor championship, we finished 4th… We were leading but they came back… A good lesson…

And what’s the coach’s point of view?

They always train outdoor, and since we live near from the sea, there is often wind or rain. That’s why they can throw in any weather; it helped them during a few games.

I teach them some tactics, but I don’t want to lock them into schemes. I want them to be able to feel the game. It worked well last year, there was a lot of wind, and we set up a zone D. They had tried it only once before, and if proved very efficient.

I also often set the stall to 5, to teach them to play fast.

And what are your goals for this season ?

We had quite a lot of victories last year, so this year we will focus on the next steps: the selections for the French U17 teams.

They will also do some training to be “Young officials” during WCBU in Royans next year.

A last question, how do you see your sport in the future ?

Later we do not imagine our sport as ultra-publicized, but we hope ultimate Frisbee will be at Olympics games!

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