Breeze offer to bring organization and professionalism to AUDL referee situation

 A problem that really plagued the AUDL's first year was the referee situation. More involved than observers, the AUDL referees play a larger role in the game than most players were anticipating. Each team was in charge of finding and training their own referees. This led to a lot of inconsistency across the board with calls and signals.

Earlier this year the situation was looking to be the same with teams hiring and training their own officials. Breeze owner Aaron Foreman had contracted FISO (Flag It Sports Officials) a local official training group to provide referees for their home games. He recognized the problem posed by not having uniform referee training and education from his time involved with the NFL, and offered to the league to have FISO train all of the officials.

"A lot of the players are still getting used to playing with on field referees, and having them make different calls and signals would only be creating more frustration for these guys. So, I made my offer to the league," Foreman said.

The league tentatively accepted Foreman's proposal and FISO is in strong consideration for training all AUDL referees for the 2013 season. The original plans were to fly FISO representatives out to each location, but this is likely to change due to logistics.

Coffin Is Confident in Head Coach Position

Cloud Coverage had an interview with Breeze Coach Tom Coffin and all we can tell is, a lot of things are still under wraps and developing.

No players have been given contracts yet, but there are definitely some on Coffin’s shortlist. Contract and signing day is expected to be very, very soon. Once the roster starts to form we can expect to really see what Breezeheads are  going to be getting out of their team. While essentially no players in the DC area have played AUDL ultimate before the tryouts, Coffin is not worried about getting his players familiar with the AUDL experience before opening day.

“We’re not the only first year team in the east, so while I think it will give Rochester a leg up it will not be big,” Coffin said. The Rochester Dragons moved from Buffalo and are the only team out of the AUDL East to have played in the league last year.

When asked about what kind of team he wants to build Coffin said that he does not want to commit to anything right now.

  “We will see how it all pans out, we have got a full hand of things to try. Whatever we come up with will be tailored to our players,” Coffin said.

The one thing Coffin is very sure of is that key to winning in the AUDL is going to be speed. The field is larger than college and club  and leaves so much space for cutters to use. One challenge he foresees the team having is going to be getting stops on defense and producing a high performance offense.

“We are on a great track so far towards our goal of building a championship team. It will take winning some games, that is pretty key but everything just has to come together... The team needs to gel and players need to be in top notch condition with solid skills and of course healthy,” said Coffin.

Another battle Coffin and the Breeze are fighting right now is the battle for the heart of DC Ultimate fans with the MLU’s DC Current. Both teams are drawing out highly experienced players but Keven Moldenhauer’s record and relations with Truck Stop seems to be stealing the spotlight.

“We’ve never been here before, it’s new territory having two professional ultimate teams both in their first year in the same place,” Coffin said. Both the Breeze and Current have opening games on April 20th. It is Cloud Coverage’s prediction that the team that produces the best mix of fan game day experience and overall wins will take over as the ‘official’ professional ultimate team of DC.

Without seeing the full Breeze roster in a full practice it is hard to tell what kind of performance we will get out of Coffin as the head coach. He has a lot of experience with ultimate on many levels and a knack for gauging players’ performance patterns, two things that will grow to possibly define how he will play his team.

The Breeze has not formally announced any information regarding assistant coaches yet.

Review of Try outs Day 2

The DC Breeze held their second open tryout this past weekend. The organization took a lot of what players said after the week before’s tryouts and applied them. Instead of a long four hour tryout featuring only a few drills and tasks the days events were split into two separate two hour tryouts.

While some players were returning for a second chance to showcase their talent, a lot of players were making their first appearance, some traveling all the way from North Carolina for their shot at the Breeze. Approximately 50 players made an appearance increasing the tryout class to size to nearly 80.The weather was just as hard on the players as it was before, however, an improved schedule of events kept the players moving constantly and prevented the chronic warm up and cool down cycle.

The day started with warm ups lead by professional trainers and new arrivals were sent off to record their 80 and 40 yard times. This week featured tight rotations to minimize down time and had players do throwing lines,windshield wiper drill, cutting drills,  break mark drills, and some agility drills with cones and mini hurdles.

This week saw an increased turnout from the club players, which was something missing from the previous tryout. Ring of Fire sent a few players from North Carolina and the Baltimore area’s Medicine Men rolled deeper this week. While no current players from Truck Stop made an appearance, former Truck players did turnout this weekend.  The local colleges and High school still sent their best players and overall the level of play was a lot higher players said.

A new inclusion this week was the AUDL officials making calls during the games. This kept things in check but did create some situations that players were not familiar with; remember none of these players have played AUDL Ultimate before. Aside from some awkward calls though the players liked having the officials to ensure adherence to the rules.

Special guest Robert Bode, producer the Levar and Duke show, made a celebrity appearance along with Isiejah Allen who ran a 4.5 second 40. Allen  is non ultimate athlete that owner, Aaron Foreman, recruited. He is a raw athlete and blew a lot of people away with his athletic talent. Though he was not familiar with the disc he proved he could pick up the game and play.


There were rumors that the Breeze would hold a post tryout meeting to discuss contracts with select players. Breeze VP Tom Johnson confirmed that this was not true and that the Breeze plans on making full use of all the time before the season to decide on what players will be getting contract offers.

With the open tryouts now closed, the Breeze plans on moving towards an invite only tryout schedule for the remainder of the preseason. This will overtime morph into a practice schedule so coach Coffin can his team where it needs to be come April 20. While the events will stay at Woodland Tiger Field for a short while longer the players are expected to start to transition to the Breeze’s home field at Anacostia high school.

“We are always looking for players and won’t stop recruiting. We will have our eyes out for talent that has not revealed itself yet” Johnson said.

With contracts still a few weeks away what can Breezeheads look forward to?
Home tickets go on sale soon,the online store is expected to be running very shortly, and Johnson who was featured on the Lavar and Dukes show two weeks ago has been invited back to talk more Breeze news.

Overall it appears the Breeze are putting more and more of the pieces together as an organization. They are always looking for feedback on how they can improve and strongly encourage input from fans and players.

“Things are better but they are not at their best” Johnson said.

Looking for College Teams to Feature

Open tryouts for the Breeze are closed and the season is still two months away. In the mean time Cloud Coverage is looking to do some features on DC area College Ultimate teams.

We want to highlight your fall season and see how you are preparing for the spring college series to keep DC Ultimate fans in the know about college Ultimate.

Send us an email or message us on Facebook or Twitter if you are interested in being covered!