My First Exposure to Ultimate

Way back in the year nineteen hundred and eighty-two, in the tiny state of Connecticut, in high school gym class, I was first exposed to a unique and compelling little game. I was a junior in high school, gym was a pleasant diversion from relatively intense studies. I was a competent athlete earning multiple letters in soccer, baseball, and diving. Sports were easy and fun, but I knew that my college future was centered on academics and not athletics.

Then I played this game in gym. Frisbee football, but no tackling. Pretty cool. I could throw a frisbee (backhand) reasonably well, I could run fast, and cut quickly, I could even jump a little. This game seemed to be tailor-made for me. “Too bad,” I thought, “It’s not a real sport.” I was under the impression that my gym teacher had made it up or found it in some dusty PE tome on how to pass the time.

In the second or third class of “Ultimate Frisbee” I had already sustained my first major injury - a concussion while going up for a catch against a much taller defender (my best friend). Both the injury and the size differential was to be a common theme for decades to come, although I had no idea at the time.

I talked about this “Ultimate” game with my friends in school. They agreed that it was pretty cool, “Maybe we should start playing on our own,” one of my friends suggested. We were a group of semi-jocks at the top of our class. Although among us there were multiple captains of the schools sports, they were the “secondary sports” - track, cross-country, swimming, tennis. We were all concentrating more on the upcoming SATs than on sports, but we realized it might be a fun way to blow off steam. We started playing during lunch at school. When we didn’t get enough people, we played a game we called “R-rated frisbee.” One or two people throwing high floaters to a scrambling pack of aggressive receivers. No rules besides: whoever caught the throw had waggle and bragging rights ... until the next throw. Great preparation for boxing out, learning timing, and reading the flight of the disc. Also, not a bad way to quickly learn the ebb and flow of winning and losing with dignity or baseness

We thought we were doing something new, something innovative. An older acquaintance that had graduated a couple years before us (for historian’s record, his name was Peter Craig) mentioned that this “Ultimate Frisbee” game was being played at the University of Connecticut. It barely registered with me except to spur us to one last push for glory.

During our throwing sessions before and after school, it became apparent that there was one group that could possibly challenge us for the “Ultimate Frisbee Champions of the Universe” title. They were the “burn-out” pot smokers that skipped classes and spent their afternoons in the pursuit of the zen throwing sessions and the cool tricks with a disc. I had watched them throw and noticed that some of them threw the “regular” (backhand) throw and also this weird cross-body “forehand” type throw. We started practicing it, but only a couple of us would try to use it in a tight spot. I was not one of them.

My senior year, 1983, there was a school-wide intramural competition in various sports. To my surprise, Ultimate Frisbee was on the program. My group of friends eagerly organized our team of nerdly-jocks, confident that we could take on all comers. We trounced the competition until the finals. Our opponents would be the “burn-outs”. We actually - miraculously - got permission to play the final game in the high school stadium, with a small crowd of maybe 100 non-Ultimate players in attendance. Little did I know that it would be the best venue and largest crowd that I would experience until another 10 years had elapsed.

Our team went down early, their skill with the disc was trumping our enthusiasm and aggressiveness. We were daunted but not defeated. The second half of the game witnessed our superior conditioning and athleticism slowly gaining on them. I believe we won by a few points. I distinctly remember running up and down the field thinking, “they can’t guard me any more.” The thrill of victory was ours. I still have that blue ribbon with “Conard High School Intramurals” emblazoned on the front and the little white card, hand lettered on the back with “Ultimate Frisbee Champions.” I will always cherish it as a talisman of my life that was to come.

We played through that summer after high school more as a way of having fun and saying good-bye to our youthful years. We knew that college would demand so much from us that we would not be able to play games and have fun. No more games at the colleges we were going to: MIT, Harvard, Syracuse, Dartmouth, Bucknell, and for me Washington University in St. Louis. We were soon to start “growing up.” At the end of our last summer of youth, there was one final, spectacular game played on the golf course across from Chris Berry’s house. They had closed the course: “One month of renovations and repairs.” We played Ultimate in the middle of the fairway of the fourth hole ... in a warm, torrential down-pour for about 3 hours. When we were finished, the demolition crew didn’t have much additional work to do. I am not sure I have ever had as much fun playing. I have a distinct snapshot in my mind of young Bob Berry making a 4 foot high diving block to save the winning point for us. I remember thinking, “No game will ever be this fun again.”

I may have been wrong ... but I am not completely sure of that.