Tuesday, May 15th, 2007
Paideia’s grueling season
Chain Lightning currently has two members who, remarkably, are still awaiting their high school diplomas: Grant Lindsley and George Stubbs. While playing at the open men’s level versus athletes who were often 10-15 (or more) years older than they, the Paideia School seniors more than held their own during last fall’s season, and played significant roles in helping Chain to its highest-ever finish.
As an encore, they returned to the juniors level this spring to help lead Paideia’s Gruel to an undefeated season as likely the country’s premier team (although the school’s graduation falls on the weekend of the official Easterns tourney). Over the course of the season, the team went 18-0 against high school competition and 15-1 against college (!) teams. Along the way, coach Mike Baccarini’s squad won all 5 tournaments they entered, including the prestigious Amherst Invitational. The juggernaut surrendered double-digit goals only once, in their contest with Georgia Tech. A screenshot from the UPA score reporter shows their high school results, with the green representing victories - and there’s a lot of green:
In addition to helping hold up, and elevate, the now proud and storied tradition of Paideia ultimate, the pair, along with coach Baccarini and fellow classmate Oliver Honderd, won international gold as members of Team USA at last summer’s Junior World Ultimate Championships. At last report, budding scholars were heading to Carleton (Lindsley) and Harvard (Stubbs) to continue their education in the fall; Chain has its collective fingers crossed that the youngsters will still be representing the ATL this coming club season.
In an effort to keep the kids down to earth, here are shots of each at last year’s national championship being unsuccessful:
