Lina For Callahan

Written by Miranda Roth
I am proud to announce that Melina Coogan is UW Element’s Callahan award nominee for 2007. She is deserving of this award in all the right ways.
The Callahan Award is given in honor of Henry Callahan who played for the University of Oregon with all his heart. The award has come to be something of a college ultimate MVP in recent years. However, this award is different from the heisman trophy in football and other MVP awards in that nominations are given from players on individual teams, not given by the coaches or the media. Also, all players across the country choose the winner. In this way, the award is truly an award given by the players of our sport based on talent, good sportsmanship, leadership and general contribution to our sport.

Lina is an excellent teammate – I had the pleasure of being her teammate for a year and she was always there for me, on and off the field. She plays with a tremendous amount of heart, not for herself but for the good of the team. She never questions her role on the team – she only does her best to play her role and help others play theirs.

Lina has very good sportsmanship – in a sport without referees at a level where not everyone knows the rules and not everyone has the best intentions, Lina always rises above and plays good, fair ultimate. I have never seen her be angry or condescending to an opponent. She often sucks it up and even when the opponent lays out into her with questionable intent, she simply stands up and calls a foul, typically with a genuinely friendly smile on her face. Other teams love us and want to party with us; high school girls want to come to UW. Lina embodies what Element should represent to the greater ultimate community – agreeable, welcoming and fair.

Lina is a fantastic leader – Lina has captained the team and has been an on- and off-field leader her entire career. She helps run practices when coaches and captains are absent, she welcomes rookies with open arms, she takes extra time from her busy schedule to work with people on what she and they need to take their game to the next level. She leads by example from representing Element at fall tournament parties to coming home early when the next day matters most. Lina makes good decisions and others follow her direction.

Lastly, and mostly, Lina has made an incredible contribution to our sport and the UW program in particular. Lina is the beloved coach of the Nathan Hale girls’ high school team, the Seattle YCC girls’ team and a regular coach of Seattle Moho. Before Lina took an active role in the Washington Element program, the team was lucky to qualify for regionals. Since then, the team has been 2-time sectional champions, national finalists, Seattle ultimate carnival team competition champions and competitive at tournaments across the country. In looking back on the three years I’ve spent with the program, I realize that this improvement is due, in no small part, to Lina. She has made this team what it is and will leave it a better team for those already here and those yet to come. She gets tattoos. She gets layout blocks. She makes gifts for her teammates. She is the all around Element girl and more than deserving of our 2007 Callahan nomination.

-- Miranda Roth

UW Element Coach

Element Teammate 2004-2005

2004 Callahan Award Winner

This Was eLeMEnT Winter 2007: HIGHLIGHTS and supEr-highs, low lights and SUPER lows and all thE strangE things in betwEEn

We stayed Classy

Not all of us

Did any of us stay Classy

Any One?

No One?

Really?

I'm sure SOMEONE on this team stayed classy...

There we go....

We Sun-Dodged

SHANNON GOT BETTER

We Won A Lot

We stayed alive on the sideline

Washington Ultimate was represented in hostile territory

We stayed Hydrated

Heather Ann Survived. And we made sure of that.

We got Media

We got older and all that

Nora Went Nuts

Nora Joined Team S




Mir Got Bit by Hawaii






Sarah Got Engaged

We Got SweatShirts.

And then we Beat stanford.

Jaquie Sarah.....stayed

Stuff was VideoTaped.....

We Beat Stanford (twice) (in one game)

AMY WENT OFF

the Silverdale Injuries....

we kicked stanford out of their own tournament...

Vegas Was Nate Robbed

Rookies were initiated

After the Deep-Freeze...

Our try-outs this year were made extra-grueling do to the insane weather. We tried to keep our throws low in record high winds, struggled to come to the disc hard with numb hands, and did conditioning in a snowstorm that left our hands feeling like this:



Yet we all survived and once more we all made the team...here are some of the things we do to revive after cold, snowy/windy/icy late night practices:

Strip off our wet clothes, watch sensless TV, eat the first thing we can find in the kitchen....more than 4 of us do all this while defrosting in a hot bath. Lisa watches the west wing, Nora watches south park, Lina watches whatever show ABC.com puts up for free. The girls in the Club house ( I like to call it the "VA"...you know, vetrans something or other...since it's mostly vetrans...?) discuss practice. The coaches soak it up in a hot bubble bath while playing hand held yahtzee and thinking over what worked and what didn't work at practice.

Sarah has a similar routine which she expresses as "strip down, hot shower, hot man, and hot food."

And Katie's boyfriend better buy her lots of expensive dinners out, because she doesn't even strip out of her wet clothes before calling him right after practice.

Out of everyone who answered this poll, no one said anything involving the root word 'study.'

Featured Element of the Week

Amy chose her library school based on three things: Ultimate, good music,
and good food.Lots of cities have the second two, but Amy's best friend
grew up in Shoreline and she suggested Amy apply to UW. So, she checked out
the Ultimate websites to see what was up. When I saw how high UW was on
the UPA standings, her application was ready to go. And, of course, it
cinched the deal when Element took 2nd at Nationals. Plus, Lina e-mailed
her back right away when Amy e-mailed from Iowa expressing interest.
"So, whether you wanted me or not, I'm here!" And she's loving it. As it turns
out, UW is the 4th best library and information science program in the
country (ahe also got into the top ranked, but for the reasons stated
above, it wasn't even an option :))





Like many previous E.O.T.Ws, Amy ran cross-country all four years of high school as her main sport. Also all four years, in the off-seasons, she was on the bowling team, did track (tried high jump, the 200m, triple jump, and the 400m before settling
down with the 800m), and swam (backstroke is her specialty, it seems
rather appropriate that she sucks at breast stroke **her words...he he he**). She also has been horseback riding for years. After one season of cross country
at college, she switched to her first ever team sport and she's never looked
back! "Hurrah ultimate, and sigh for my last year of college eligibility."




She was team captain for the Grinnell Sticky Tongues for a year and half
and helped build it from 7 dedicated girls and one librarian (her
inspiration, Jen Green) to probably a core of 15 girls with 20 coming out
for pick-up. The scene was way different than UW, though. :)



I asked Amy why she decided to be the world's youngest, hottest librarian. A major reason is that she didn't want to go to grad school for math or Russian (her double major at Grinnell). So, after working at library circ desks and various other brief library things for 3 years and her inspiration from the previously mentioned Jen, she decided that was the way for her. She started reading blogs like www.lipsticklibrarian.com andlibrarian.net and again, never looked back. The hardest thing for her is being so young. She's the only person in my program (in her year, '07) that she knows of to come to the School straight out of undergrad. It's kind of scary, and sometimes she worries that gray hair is contagious. So, Element is her keeping young. :) And hott, actually. Amy adds, "Feel free to ask me any questions about being a librarian! Or to ask me for help with your research. :)"

Amy's favorite off the field moment are car trips. Talking with Megan for the 5 hours non-stop to Eugene about everything and Niki's mom (Niki's Indian food
virginity!), riding with Hannah while Lina ate whole cucumbers and ate
half of Hannah's grilled cheese sandwich from In & Out, Kara (or was that
Lisa?) peeing outside of the van (IT WAS JENNY!! AUTHORS NOTE) Sarah's patience with her getting her (our captain!) to the fields late at OFUK and driving around looking for coffee (you can totally walk through those drive-in things).




When it comes to on field play, Amy had a few side-line d's by talking to the dump, which were hella sweet. She also loved being in the cup. This year at OFUK, pretty much every time Claire picked up the disc (and that one time Nora did) and she just ran it down.
:)
~best tournament memory (if it's different from above)

Her best tournament memory occured at Grinnell. They went to the Mardi
Gras tournament outside of New Orleans every year. She went for 2 of
those. She writes, "The last year we played our last game in ridiculous wind, fairly
cold weather, on fields that were used as corn fields (think lots of
ruts), against a Texas school (I can't remember which one). Both teams
agreed to take off articles of clothing for turn-overs or pretty much
anything we wanted (hot plays, for instance). Myself and the other
captain (Lexi Abel-Lina, you met her when you played with us, I think,
she's also a Seattle native) ended up pretty much naked...no, entirely
naked except for cleats. Yeah, we won. :)"

I asked Amy to tell us what is it like to be ENGAGED!!! and how She decided
to pop the question herself. In her own words:
It's pretty awesome. :) I think I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with Jason within 2 months of dating him. But I was 18 and we went through some crazy, not so good times, and I kind of forgot about that. Then I realized that 5 years was coming up and that he had supported me through so much stuff, including moving out here (although he was also down with the good food and good music). And he's
my real best friend and so much fun to hang out with, and that feeling that I wanted to spend my life with him never really went away, and was stronger than ever. So I decided, why shouldn't I ask him first? I get my mother's engagement ring, so I can get him a ring and screw tradition. I didn't want to wait for him to get the courage, anyway. :) Man, love rules. Too mushy?

And of course, the most important question was saved for last. I asked Amy what HER reasons were for deciding to sign on for another year of element,
despite the $$ and time commitment, excruciating workouts and
demands on top of her hectic class schedule!?

"How could I not???? What kind of a question is this? :) That's what credit cards are for, and the best way I know to get great thighs, buns, and abs. And I have a really personal reason for needing you guys that some of you already know and that will probably come out with lots of tears at one of our team meetings. Seriously, I need you ladies. You're amazing. Including all the newbies. :)"

Amy, we're glad you gave up your side carreer in super modeling to be our teammate. We love you!