The nickname Tea Party was coined by Robert "Barney" Barnicle in 1992. The four members had played together on Earth, and banded with several other Earth guys to form a new team (supposedly) with the members of Big Brother. The former Soviet Union was falling apart at the time, and the name evolved from the Unified Team into Boston Commonwealth or just the Commies. Anyway, several (if not many) Big Brother players, including Barney, resented the Tea Party or didn't like them or didn't like their attitudes or something like that, and hence gave them shit as much as possible. The four seemed to enjoy each other's company far too much, and actually seemed to enjoy playing the game as well. Additionally they didn't seem like typical frisbee players, from their fairly formal wardrobes to their right of center political philosophies (some of them). So, in the process of trying to instigate something or other, Barney said, "We gotta break that f*$&ing Tea Party up," and a nickname was begun. What started as a pejorative quickly became a badge of honor, and the loquaciousness of this reporter has added to their renown.
The Tea Party played at two summer tournaments last year, and will probably become one of those regular summer teams like Moscow State or CRUD or Jason and the Argonauts. We picked up a couple friends from Boston and some friends of Alex from Westchester County. We lost in the finals at Albany , and won at Hingham, although it wasn't as entertaining as it was predicted to be. We've also played together at a few local hot box tournaments, one at which two of us were carrying a few extra winter tea bags, and the other at which we were rooked.
Our crowning achievement came in making Death or Glory win Nationals. Along with Cork (Chris Corcoran), Coop (Mike Cooper), Jordan Haskell, Scott Goodrich, and a part-time Steve Mooney, we decided to take matters into our own hands this spring and play the game the way we wanted to. For years we had listened to the philosophy of "if you run faster than the other team all the time, you'll win no matter how many mistakes you make", and decided that we would return to the ways of Earth Atomizer. Earth made a couple ideas popular. On offense, we took away the stigma of the dump, so on a high stall count, we could take an easy pass and reset instead of forcing it upfield. After releasing a pass, the thrower wouldn't sprint upfield and get in the way of comeback cuts and instead would move downfield slowly, so that if nothing continued, he would be in position for the dump and reset the offense. This opened up the whole field and made the O move incredibly fast at times. Defensively, our claim to fame was the switching man-to-man, also known as the Clam. It's been written up a lot, and some people are trying to steal credit on this one. We didn't invent it, but we were the ones who developed it and added to it. The endzone version of it was so successful that it caused both Titanic and NY to rework their endzone offenses to counter it.
Anyway, the eight above (with some friends who played elsewhere in the fall) formed the core of Death or Glory this spring, leaving the other 18 members of 1993 Big Brother to fend for themselves. That 18, by the way, included almost all of the names you would have recognized a year ago and associated with the team. Well, we started winning, while the others barely made Easterns. Sure enough, when the fall came, everyone jumped on the bandwagon or at least pretended to, and buoyed by the new covenant, finally took it all.
And now you have the rest of the story. Good day.