So, you’ve decided to play ultimate frisbee in the Bay Area? Congratulations! The Bay Area is a place of boundless love for the sport of ultimate, though perhaps too much of a good thing, in time, becomes a bad thing.

The Bay is a glorious place for the casual pickup player. If you so choose, you can fill your days and nights with amazing casual ultimate. There’s at least one regular pickup game for each day of the week, and everywhere you turn someone’s playing.

You’ll get to a point though where pickup isn’t enough. Enter club series. Club season begins sometime in June, but tryout season begins in March. That doesn’t matter to you though, since you love this sport. You tell yourself that this is going to be so much more fun than playing pickup. You go to mixers, dozens of teams telling you how amazing their teams will be, sometimes with megaphones. You’ll scour the net for team interest forms, filling out as many as you can to increase the chances you’ll find a team for you to call home.

At the mixer you’ll hear people speculating about the seasons’ teams — who has what positions open. Nobody really seems to know, since teams typically don’t openly talk about how many positions they have open, perhaps they’re afraid people won’t show up to tryouts if they know they don’t have much of a chance of making the team. Perhaps they know that people will show up whether or not you tell them.

You start to realize — as you continue to fill out interest forms, send emails to team captains, and watch YouTube videos about how to throw the waffle fries (you know, just in case you need it) — you’re probably going to spend more time trying out for these teams then you’ll spend actually playing with them, assuming you make a team. It’s ok though, because you love your sport enough that you’re be willing to pour your heart and soul into getting up early to get into the gym, eating healthy, working at home at night so that you can make evening pods, and sacrificing weekend plans to attend various tryouts at municipal fields scattered about the Bay.

You LOVE this game, and the people you get to play it with.

The Davis Ultimate Invite. A strange early-April tradition where Bay Area teams trek up to Davis, CA for a weekend of cattle-calls. For two days, captains espouse team values as players bounce from field to field, getting in a point or two with each of the teams that they’re interested in. Along the way, you hear complaints about the tournament’s disorganization, about the number of dudes competing for playing time, but it doesn’t matter. You can tell that everyone is absolutely, 100 percent hooked. You play a constant game of attempting to take the game seriously without seeming overly competitive, beating yourself up over every missed defensive opportunity, overthrown disc, and dropped catch. It’s ok though, you still played pretty well. You have a great time comparing college ultimate stories with the folks in the car on the ride home.

You get cut from your first team. It’s ok. You’re trying out for 5 different teams. You didn’t want to play for that team anyways. You just had a bad day at their tryout. They didn’t give you an honest shot. They’re very kind though, in their email they compliment your skill with the disc, they thank you for coming out, and tell you that they hope you’ll show up to their parties or their tryouts next season or something like that. Nobody ever makes that team anyways. You brush it off. After all, you played really well for a couple of teams, and you really liked some of the people you met, teams won’t take too much longer to offer you a spot.

As the month of April goes on, fear might just start to grow in the back of your head. What if I don’t make a team? What if I don’t make the team that I want? You kick it into high gear — you recruit a coworker who played ultimate 8 years ago to throw with you at lunchtime. He’s not that great, but he’ll catch your throws and dish them back to you. You’ve been attending twice weekly pods and practices with various teams since DUI, to show them that you’re serious. You’re feeling fit. Your throws feel sharp. You feel sharp.

Closed tryout invites start to come down the pipe. You’re down to 2 or 3 teams at this point, though you probably know which one you really want to play for. You’ve abandoned the notion that the tryout process is going to make any sense to anyone. Your significant other certainly won’t get it, unless they’re trying out for teams too. The night before closed tryouts is one of mental preparation, stretching, sleep. You look for anything that will give you that mental and physical edge. At the fields, you watch as 39 other people vie for spots on the team. YOUR team. You act friendly enough, but every great play you see just makes you more nervous. It’s ok though, because you grab food with the team afterwards and have a great time.

Once you get home, you start to think. What will I be if I don’t make this team? These people are my friends, but will that still be true if I don’t make the team? You’ve been spending so much of your time thinking about ultimate, watching Youtube videos of ultimate, talking about ultimate. You’ve got 5 different tournament weekends from June through August blocked off, because you know that teams want folks who will be at all the tournaments. Then…

“Thanks for coming out for the team. But…”

Ouch.

You don’t make it past that sentence the first time you read it. Probably not the second time either. After some time passes, you’ll look through the whole thing. You’ll see some kind words about your skills on the field. You’ll also see them say something about difficult decisions, the number of qualified people trying out for the team this year. The things that they’re looking for in their scheme. You wonder what you could have done differently…

What next? The pain is pretty deep. You delete tournaments from your calendar. Don’t worry, you’re not alone. There are scores of other discouraged people to commiserate with. You tell yourself you’re better off without it too, but deep down you know you’re still hooked. You just want to be a part of the machine in whatever way you can. The pain doesn’t matter, and it doesn’t matter that it is literally impossible to explain to anyone how tryout season works or makes sense or is worth your time.

You just love this whole circus too fucking much.