Ultimate Frisbee
By Vanessa Cannaday
U
ltimate Frisbee is probably closest to a mix between soccer and football – minus the heavy pads and with faster paced scoring. Like soccer, it involves a lot of running, and you’ll find some similarities in how players might position themselves on defense. Like football, teams advance towards an endzone by throwing and catching – you just can’t run with the disc when you catch it. Unlike either sport though, ultimate is self-refereed – players resolve conflict on their own, abiding by what is called “Spirit of the Game.” I think the most appealing part of ultimate is that the concept of Spirit of the Game develops a certain kind of individual – someone who can be self-reflective enough to resolve conflict in the heat of the moment while continuing to compete at a high level. But also, ultimate is fun, a great way to stay active, and doesn’t take a lot of start-up equipment to play: cleats are ideal, but not required, so really you just need a field and a disc! At higher levels of the sport, there is a specified field size (it’s the same length as a football field, but slightly narrower), but for pick-up, you just need some friends and markers for whatever size field you want. Formal games require seven players on 28
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each team, but there are variations for smaller fields that work for games of 3 v 3. When I moved to Madison, WI, after college, I didn’t know much about Ultimate Frisbee, having only played intramurals in college. I got started by joining a local women’s coached league, and had the fortunate luck to be coached by two phenomenal (and nationally recognized) players – Robyn Fennig and Anna Williams. I had no idea at that point in time their guidance would lead me to join a local women’s club team, and go on to play with and eventually captain a mixed team competing at USA Ultimate’s Club National Championships a few years later. Seven seasons of club and local league later, I’m embarking on a new adventure as a co-founder of a professional women’s ultimate team in Wisconsin – the Milwaukee Monarchs. Playing ultimate can take all different forms: there are local disc organizations across the country that organize leagues - Albuquerque Ultimate and Santa Fe Ultimate organize
leagues in their cities, and around the country there are Facebook groups for pickup games. Frequently high schoolers might be introduced to ultimate in gym class, but there are more and more schools with teams competing in tournaments, and the USA Ultimate Youth Club Championship series. Colleges around the country have club teams (in Madison I have overheard parents talking about their children considering the quality of the ultimate team when choosing their college)! The University of New Mexico has both women’s (the Bombshells) and men’s teams (Hanta Virus). One of the unique features of ultimate is that the club level also features a mixed division, where women and men compete together on teams, which is often found in local leagues as well.
