How to hack selections
Cheat codes for tryout season
October to November is a critical time of year for young players, as they put themselves out there trying to make the leap from casual ultimate to competitive. Tryouts for club teams, and for national U24 teams, can be super daunting and nerve wracking.
However, young players can take advantage of a very uncomfortable truth – most selectors don’t really know what they’re doing.
And through no fault of their own. They are volunteers, and it’s a very, very tough job. They are doing the best they can with the limited experience they have. Which usually amounts to just remembering what happened at the last selections and copying that.
Without adequate training or experience for volunteer selectors, cognitive biases run rampant and have significant effects on decisions. And so, I’m putting the power in the players’ hands – here is how you can take advantage of those biases to put yourself at the top of their list.
Confirmation bias - the tendency to search for, interpret, favour, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one's prior beliefs or values.
Hack – Ask selectors one specific question for feedback
I’ll let you in on a little secret that no one will openly admit – selectors hate being asked: “Have you got any feedback for me?” The prior belief of most selectors is rookies don’t know what they’re doing, and that they will have to teach them everything. So if you demonstrate that you don’t understand what they’re looking for, they’ll instantly categorise you as “rookie that we’ll need to teach everything,” which leaves you fighting uphill for the rest of the selection process.
Go to them with a specific question about either one area of your game (“I’ve been broken on the mark a few times, is there anything you can spot that I can be doing better?”) or the criteria that you definitely read (“Should I be looking for break side options early or later in the stall count?”). Avoid the temptation to ask multiple questions, because the selectors are trying to watch lots of other athletes and don’t want to be weighed down talking to one player for ten minutes. One specific question, then get back to playing. The confirmation moves from “we’ll need to teach them everything” to “we’ll need to teach them, but they’ll learn quickly.”
Affinity bias - the tendency to favour people who share similar interests, backgrounds and experiences with us
Hack – Explicitly tell the selectors you want to play for their team
Ultimate players tend to be very non-committal as a way of mitigating the emotional risk of failure. “Oh I’m just checking things out, see how I’ll go.” That sort of thing. Meanwhile selectors are very emotionally invested in their team or club. After all, they have recently agreed to a very time consuming and difficult job in aid of the team’s success.
If you get a chance to talk to a selector, tell them the truth. That you’ve watched their games, you really like how they play, and that you want to be on the team. Because they also have watched the games, like how they play, and want to be on the team! It doesn’t matter if you’re trying out for multiple teams, tell them all the same thing if you need to. Because of this bias, selectors will talk more positively about someone who has explicitly said they want to play on the team over someone who just wants to “see what happens.”
Contrast effect – the tendency to judge choices by comparing them to each other instead of by assessing them individually
Hack – Be at the front of the line
Selectors have a lot of players to watch in a very short space of time, so their brain will look for whatever shortcut it can to whittle down choices. The first player they see in a drill or activity will become the baseline for the rest.
So this one is simple – be the baseline. If you present yourself as early as you can, all other players at your experience level will then get compared to you. If you complete the first pass in a drill, then anyone who doesn’t will be subconsciously ranked below you. Instant advantage.
Anchoring bias - the common human tendency to rely too heavily on the first piece of information offered
Hack – Slow down! Correct execution defeats fast execution.
Selection events almost always open up with a simple throw-and-catch drill. Just to get things moving, y’know? And it’s always a drill that returning players will be comfortable with. What will happen is that the returning players will absolutely fly through the drill – cutting fast, catching easily, throwing quickly. So, you will naturally assume you also need to go at that pace in order to meet the standard.
Wrong.
The returning players only appear to be doing the drill quickly because of repetition and patterned movement. If you try and match the pace, you will stuff it up. If your first touch of the disc ends in a turnover, selectors are likely to remember that about you more than anything else you did.
So slow down and do it at a pace that you know you can execute properly. Even if that means taking 3-4 extra seconds to stop, get your balance, fix your grip, then throw the disc.
Baader-Meinhof phenomenon - a cognitive bias in which people tend to see a particular thing everywhere after noticing it for the first time
Hack – Practice catching the disc heaps before going to a tryout
Once you reach a competitive enough level of ultimate, catching the disc becomes kind of a given thing. A default mode. So for competitive teams, a “cold drop” (where a player drops a pass that is in line with their torso, without any defensive pressure nearby) is disastrous. And the frustration with each instance of a cold drop increases exponentially. One cold drop, bad enough. Two cold drops, you’re at the bottom of the list. Three cold drops, may as well pack up and go home.
You should be practicing catching the disc as often as you practice throwing. Which makes perfect sense on paper. But players don’t do it enough. Practice clap catches with dominant hand on top, then non-dominant hand on top. Practice grab catches. One handed catches. Leading edge and trailing edge. There’s more variety to it than you think.
(Also general extra advice on catches; reach out and take the disc out of the air rather than waiting for it to arrive in your hands; look at the design of the disc for 3-count after a catch to be absolutely certain you are watching it all the way through)
Expectation bias - an individual's expectations about an outcome influencing perceptions of others' behaviour
Hack – Copy the habits of experienced players
This one seems pretty similar to some other biases already discussed earlier, but it’s a slightly different angle. Selectors will have an idea in their heads of what a player on their team should look like. Guess what that will be based on? Funnily enough, it will be based on the behaviours of players who have already been on the team.
So the hack for this one starts as soon as you arrive at the fields. Mimic what the experienced players are doing. Are they milling about talking with friends? Mill about and talk to others. Are they already cleats on and throwing? Get your bloody cleats on and find a disc ASAP. Get next to them in the warm-up and copy their movements and energy. Copy what they do during down times.
In short, behave like you are already on the team, and that this is training.
Salience - a tendency to fixate on information that is distinctive while ignoring anything that doesn't particularly stand out
Hack – Go for the 50/50 defensive plays, but recover quickly if you miss
Some of the more tragically hilarious selection conversations I have been in have gone along lines like this
“Did you see [rookie] get a layout block on [experienced player] in the end zone? They’re a lock for the D line!”
“Really? They kept forgetting the force, can’t throw a flick, got beaten open under every time, and don’t own a pair of cleats.”
“But the layout block though!”
I’m exaggerating for silliness of course, but it’s not that far removed from what actually happens. You can do daily footwork drills for eighteen months straight and ensure the player you’re guarding never gets open, but that doesn’t matter to a lot of Australian selectors who fixate on “gets blocks”. Unfair, unprofessional, but that’s what happens. But this article isn’t about rectifying that, it’s about how you can use that to stand out.
As a coach I wouldn’t normally recommend this, but tryouts are different. In game play, absolutely send it on the 50/50 defensive plays in a safe manner. You’ll actually get to more than you think if you really commit. And “send it” doesn’t necessarily mean lay out, it just means go at full speed. However, if you miss, you need to recover and get back on the mark quickly. How quickly? There’s no such thing as too quick, look at it that way.
Attribute substitution - the tendency when making a complex, difficult judgment, to unconsciously substitute an easier judgment
Hack – Bring lots of outward positive energy to the tryout
Selectors really only have a couple of hours to assess dozens of candidates, so there’s always going to be significant limitations. And what will tend to happen is they will get down to the final few spots for the team, and a decision can’t be made against selection criteria. The conversation invariably turns to intangibles.
Ultimate is an amateur sport with significant time commitment, including interstate trips spent in close quarters with others. Without financial incentives existing, for a lot of people the intangibles come down to social motivations. Or put simply, “who can we see ourselves hanging out with?”
I have definitely been guilty of making “personality hires” for the 20th place on a 20-person roster. All else being equal on the field among the last few, I’ve chosen the player who everyone else on the team, and me personally, likes talking to and being around.
So how do you be this person? By talking. Talk to other rookies – are they as excited or nervous as you are? Where else do they play? Talk to returning players – what did they do in the off-season? What else do they do other than ultimate? Talk during drills – encouragement, excitement for big efforts. Talk during scrimmages – who’s free, where the force is, where the disc is.
People like people who like people.
If this doesn’t come naturally to you, I’m sorry but you’re just going to have to fake it until you make it. I get it. It’s hard. But you know what else is hard? Doing 100 x 100s. Deadlifts and squats. Kill drills, fartleks, throwing sets with punishments. Being down 13-11 on the third game of the day. It’s all hard! But I’m telling you, the payoff is worth it.
You’ve already come this far outside your comfort zone to take up a sport and come to tryouts. Just take another couple of steps. It’ll be fine.
Good luck. Go get ‘em.
By Simon Talbot