Like OGL, Like Juniors

i remember hearing this phrase when i was a freshie entering my own orientation camp: like OGL, like juniors. Perhaps there is some truth in this saying afterall..

I was OGL for my year 1 freshies recently (just recovered from losing my voice from the camp) and we absolutely crushed the inter-ogl competitions. Not to say i'm the perfect OGL, i'm pretty sure i saw some that made sure the entire OG had fun. But I was so bent on winning i neglected the weakest players; i did utilise the fringe players though (rotation in true football coach style). But i still stick by my motto: hey, no matter how you do it, winning is fun! My competitive fire must have lighted up my freshies, and we torched all our opponents to a crisp.

First things first, score cards.
My OG ended the camp losing only a single station game. We became the OG that other OGs dreaded seeing; i heard barbed comments from other OGLs directed my way.
Our score was 73 points.
The next highest team scored 49. The rest were all in the 30-50 range, although one team got 18 or something. It was a landslide, it wasn't even close. and i loved it.

My team was already a strong team with strong players; in sports terms, there were at least 10 strong players, and 3-4 of them were superstars. And a perfect combination too; there was one who was a camp-expert; a master at all the games. Another who was also a basketball player, but the perfect foil to my speed-style play; he was the power style. In one of the games, dodgeball, he blocked the opponent's ball consecutively and sent it far away for them to pick up, buying our team alot of time. If it was me, i could probably have blocked it also, but it was highly unlikely i could have bought our team so much time with my power (or lack thereof, rofl). And halfway through the games, we managed to sign another superstar player, a south korean guy that was pretty much a singaporean already. (he actually woke up late lol) This was a guy just after my style; win at all costs, with any methods mentality. A tendency to bend the rules combined with a coach who would argue with the officials to ensure we didn't get disqualified won at least 2-3 games i think.
And i utilised all of them perfectly. Even though i neglected the weakest players, 80% of the players were used frequently (the only station game we lost was when every single player in the team had to play. AKA i can coach a club team but probably not an international team. or at least its harder)
Even with such a strong team, i'd like to think i was a big factor. In all honesty, i probably was, although probably not as big a factor as i would think, in my own self-obsessed mind lol. But after drilling the mentality of champions into the team for the first half of the camp, for the 2nd half it was pretty much auto pilot; i could see their fire burning in their eyes already, and it didn't take as much effort to keep it up, which came at the perfect time as i was rapidly losing my voice. I know in one game i definitely was a huge factor; dodgeball with a twist, by far my favourite game that day. I've always liked ball games, and dodgeball was pretty much my highlight of all orientation games whenever i was a participant. As a pretty big guy, i couldn't even try to dodge; but it was always easy to catch the balls unless they were thrown by someone who was also a ball player like me; its never possible to catch rockets thrown by those guys. And the beauty of orientation is that 90% of those players weren't superstars like that, unlike competitive sports where all the weak were already weeded out. I still remember in my last dodgeball game i managed to spot the monster on the other team and stayed right in front of him. Counterproductive? I caught all the balls my opponents threw so he couldn't get any. But being a monster himself, he outplayed me easily in the same way i would have done; he switched places and got the ball; when i realised, it was too late. game over. And when attacking, my method of looking one way and throwing the other was a sure kill; it wasn't even anything but a no look pass in basketball, but it was absolutely deadly in orientation games.
But this version the committee introduced was far better, i'm impressed. A small space, so you couldn't run around and dodge, but the enemy could only throw from one direction and you don't need to catch the ball, you just need to block them. So basically imagine a sparta 300 scenario, with the enemy throwing spears and our team just having shields; our hands. Therefore, the legs were the obvious parts to aim at; any team could see that. I already looked at the game beforehand and thought of a strategy which my team carried out to perfection; our survival time was double of the others. Taking true inspiration from the spartans, i told the first row to squat down and just cover their legs with their arms. Yes, you spotted it, their bodies are completely unguarded! Not to worry, the second row (standing up) is in charge of defending their bodies. But this leaves the second row's bodies unguarded! (their legs are defended by the first row's bodies). My last and final 3rd row defended the bodies of the 2nd row. And the 3rd row was already defended by the bodies of the 2nd row. It was literally an impenetrable wall of solid defence. While every team before us was just an every man for themselves style, every team after ours used our method also, although none as effective as us, showing the power of my group also. The coach can only come up with the tactics and teach it, but performing the tactics is up to the players, and they did it to perfection.

However, i didnt command them with authority and an iron grip of power. Looking back, i clearly remember my strategy. I didn't plan it; it just came out naturally. I utilised a morale boosting tactic while fostering their competitiveness; basically i constantly drilled a must-win mentality into my OG by keeping the mood hyper and high after our first win (probably the most important win of all, in which i realised how effective the manipulation of "fergie time" could be. It just means i spent all game whispering to the official; we owned. It was only from the first game onwards then i started utilising my squad and calling out tactics as i wasn't sure of their strengths in the first game yet.) In short, win at all costs, but enjoy doing it. Its more a mood/morale thing rather than a strategy thing; afterall they could just 100% put their faith in their coach who didn't let them down with his tactics (althou i admit that i blanked for that one station game we lost; drinking from a cup with only the use of your mouth. Its harder than it seems; if i wanted to find a method i'd probably get a paper cup on my own and test it out. but i didnt; and so i wasn't prepared and i had to use a method i saw the other groups use, which was a shit method; just suicide and let the drink pour all over ur face and body. I'm pretty sure gripping it with ur teeth would have worked though hmm.. but it doesnt matter; it was a retarded game anyway lol)
I'm glad my style has become more people-friendly over the years; it wasn't like that when i was group leader in the past, or monitor for my class in jc during our own orientation.

My co-OGL for the day, signed from another club (NTU) was perhaps the perfect foil for my authority. I'm pretty sure that with just me alone, it wouldn't have been such a crushing victory. It might still have been a win, but without him, i couldn't even be sure. One of my top espada of all time, he showed his ability in the first time i saw him in a position of power. He sized up his co-ogl (me) perfectly and modeled his play to combine with mine perfectly. My competitive fire was so strong it might have burnt my OG except for those who were game devils just like me in the first place; but not many people are game devils. If i wasn't controlled, i might have demanded so much my team was crushed from the pressure (probably some exaggeration here, but lets keep it interesting.) My co-ogl offered exactly what i lacked; gentle encouragement as well as important words i can never bring myself to say. Phrases like "i'm proud of you guys" are words i could never utter, even though i know how powerful and effective they are. By saying that before our final, most important station game, my co-ogl definitely increased the team's desire by a push. Probably the perfect board member for my company in future; maybe the perfect vice-chairman there.