This is the official forum thread for team "Esprit de Corps". The name is pronounced "EH-SPREE DAY CORE". Just so I can satisfy my ego, here's the wikipedia entry about it:
Morale, also known as "esprit de corps" when discussing the morale of a group, is an intangible term used for the capacity of people to maintain belief in an institution or a goal, or even in oneself and others. The second term applies particularly to military personnel and to members of sports teams, but is also applicable in business and in any other organizational context, particularly in times of stress or controversy.
According to Alexander H. Leighton, "morale is the capacity of a group of people to pull together persistently and consistently in pursuit of a common purpose".[1]
I will use this thread primarily for scheduling management and announcements. I will supplement all major announcements made here with messages on Xbox Live that will either say the same thing or direct you to look here. Ideally, it would be good to do most of our weekly communicating here to cut down on Live message hassles. Strategy and other team matters are welcome to be discussed here as well, although I think it is wise to limit such discussion to Live as much as possible.
Opposing team captains are welcome to use this thread to schedule an official game with us or a scrimmage round.
If you happen to be looking for any new members I am not new to Grifball but need a new team seeing as my other team's leader cancelled his XBL and the others just gave up on it. Gamertag: Duhpapa Current rank on Halo 3: Major, Grade 2 If you would like any other information please message me on RT as I am currently not signed into my gamertag.
I do not want to cut any player, and I hope I will not have to.
But, as team captain, I reserve the right to do so.
There are two things which will compel me to remove you from the team:
1) Chronic non-participation
By signing up for the team, you are saying that you are willing to commit to playing in this league.
If you're having a schedule issue which is preventing you from playing, let me know. If it is something that we can work around, I will work with you. If not, no harm or foul. I will not be mortally offended or hold it against you forever. But, I will need your roster spot. It is only fair to the rest of the team.
2) Trash-talking
Do not do it.
We all know the difference between friendly ribbing, and pissing people off.
Don't do the latter.
Don't piss off your teammates. Don't go out of your way to piss off opposing players.
If the other side is full of dickheads, that's one thing. Let 'em have it all you want.
But don't insult opposing players for no good reason.
I want us to be a great team. I want us to win all our games.
But if nothing else is said about our team, I want it said that we practiced good sportsmanship, win or lose.
As far as how we deal with each other, just don't be an ass. We're a team, and we need to work together. If a player keeps doing something the same way and you've told them that there's a better way to do it, don't cuss them out or call them names. We all are working towards the same goal. And, as motivational poster cliche' as it is, we all need to work together.
I don't expect either of these two things to be a problem. But I wanted it known how seriously I take them.
We've obviously got more interested players (thank you), but no vacant spots to give.
For any other players looking for a team, we're currently full. But you have my sincere thanks for your interest. (A spot could open up if someone leaves the team, 'tis possible, but bear in mind I have had quite a few people express interest, so I might not put out a recruiting call right away if a spot opens up. I'll likely go to those who've already shown interest..)
Yo, SpiritOfReagan I've got some decent photoshop skills so if you had anything i mind for the logo just go ahead and tell me and i could wip it up for you
Thank you to MoralesBrothers and Madklowndisease for coming to the first practice. Thank you also to BRAVOSTYLE for participating.
BRAVO has left the team, so we now have a roster spot open.
I will invite the first player who asked me to sign on in case of a drop, and we will take it from there. (It was a message on Xbox Live, so my apologies to those of you who asked in this thread.)
Speaking of leaving the team, here's my official blurb about it:
Leaving the team
It's rather obvious, but if anyone wants to leave the team for any reason, inform me ASAP, and you will be released from your roster spot.
Remember that once you play an official game with any team in the season, the league will not allow you to change to another one. So, you can still leave this team, but you will not be able to play on a new team until the season ends.
So, if anyone is having serious doubts about their availability or desire to play on this team, better to let me know now before the league starts, so I can fill your roster spot, AND so you can still play with another team.
After much consideration, I have decided to state officially that open practice may be called for by any member of the team.
Open practice is what it sounds like. It's an open session for team members (and even non-team members to even the teams out and be practice buddies) to come together and play.
Obviously, I want to hold at least one open practice time each week. But, because there are some weeks (like this one) where I may be having difficulty deciding on a chunk of two to three hours to officially set a practice time, I am going to open it up to you guys to do so as well. I want this team practicing as much as possible, even if I can't always be there.
Please note the following: Your participation in practices will directly have an effect on your playing time. I will strive to be fair in deciding who plays in what game (and the scheduling will probably help decide that often as well). But the more you play, and the more game stats I have for you, the more confident I will be in selecting you to play.
When you want to call an open practice, state the date and time in this forum. You, of course, might also want to send a message to the other team members as well (easily done at xbox.com).
With regards to my own open practice call, it will likely be for this coming Monday evening, after 5 P.M. Pacific time. I have a school assignment due the next day, so my progress on it will determine how long I can officially designate myself as online and available.
Scrimmages
These are unofficial games scheduled between our team and opposing teams. Much like we will with official games, we will settle on preset times to play that work for all of us each week, and inform the other team of those times. If none of those options work for them, then we will enter negotiations to get an official time set.
I will look at asking other team captains to play us once we have had more time to play together, i.e. ALL of us together.
Correcting my previous statement, I will be online this Sunday, March 2nd, from 5:00-7:30 P.M. Pacific (possibly longer depending on the status of the schoolwork I want to get done that day).
Please be there at some point in that timeframe unless it is impossible for you to do so.
Sounds good Michael. I'll be there Sunday. And if anyone wants to practice tonight, I'm open from 8pm EST to about 10pm EST. That time range will probably also be for Friday also. So if you can't make it tonight, I'll see you tomorrow night. Thank you.
I couldn't get on because my internet was down. We had to call and get someone to come out and fix it. I am now back online and can play again. Sorry for the mistake.
Thank you to MoralesBrothers, Kron of Aviwun, Madklowndisease, and Duhpapa for attending practice on Sunday.
The four man alignment of myself, MoralesBrothers, Madklowndisease, and Duhpapa got its first test against a very solid opponent.
There is no question that we got beat. Our opponents were able to pull off the "launch" move (which doesn't seem to have a set nickname yet), whereby the ball carrier stands behind one or more blockers. The ball carrier then times their jump to coincide with the blockers' hammer swing, so that they are launched into the air. It's damn near impossible, it seems, to stop the carrier one this happens. They drop down right onto the goal, and any swings of the swords or hammer are too late to stop the score.
This move may be old news to you, but I had yet to see it carried off so precisely and repeated so often.
Certainly, I am going to look at this game film, see how the move is pulled off, and work so that we can do it too. I welcome assistance in learning how to do it properly.
I look at every loss as an opportunity to study how we can improve.
The game stats for the three completed games are here, here, and here.
Interestingly enough, neither team had a positive K/D ratio, and we actually beat them in K/D for two of the games.
I'm always up for open forum on these things, so if anyone has any thoughts, feel free.
I don't at all enjoy this part of my role as captain, but it has to be done.
I am opening up one spot for sure for recruitment. Vaxam had issues outside of his control which are preventing him from signing on to Xbox Live for the foreseeable future.
For me to feel good about signing this team up on the "Create a Team" tool, I need to have at least four other Gamertags besides myself that I feel are fully committed to be a part of this.
Right now, I have two.
For each of you that I have question marks about, I will send you a message about it, and ask you to confirm by a set day and time if you still have the desire/availability to be on this team.
If you don't, no hard feelings, and I am not taking this personally. But for me to field a team, I cannot afford question marks.
Just so everyone understands where I am coming from, let me say this:
I do not want to cancel fielding a team in the next league. But I will if I deem it to be necessary.
I would rather sit out the league, and still have the opportunity to participate in the future, than field a team against my better judgment, and be banned from Grifball permanently because I had too many players drop out on me.
Based on the grifball.com postings, we may have a week, or two, before they start the next season. The fact that they are holding the mini-tournaments buys us some time to get the roster squared away. But the fact remains that Grifball team sign-ups are now open.
And I cannot say that I am ready yet to sign this team up.
Remember, it's not skill that's concerning me. Just availability.
If any of you who receive messages are offended, that is not my intention, but this is the only way I know how to resolve this. Time is of the essence.
