Frisbee Pushes Toward Ultimate Status

Following in the footsteps of thinkers ranging from Plato to Hitler, Ultimate frisbee players have begun attempting to create perfect players by controlling procreation. Some male and female
players have started to marry for the purpose of breeding "Ultimate babies." By passing on the genetics of talented parents and placing a frisbee in a child's hand at an early age, the hope is that such children will become so talented that the natural athleticism and skill involved in the sport will no longer be questioned.

While such tactics have not migrated to the either of Columbia's Ultimate clubs—men's and women's—the same desire for respectability exists.

"There's a prejudice and sort of a stereotype that goes with the game that is slowly being broken," men's senior team captain Tim Pennucci said. "One of my goals and goals of the team here is to continue to raise the level of competition to break the stereotype of a bunch of hippies playing barefoot on the grass and smoking weed. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but it is separate from playing the game [and] sport."

Ultimate frisbee was not created as a sport until 1968 at Columbia High School in Maplewood, New Jersey, but since its creation, it has spread quickly throughout the country and across the globe.

Within two years, the first collegiate team was formed at Pennsylvania's Lafayette College in 1970, and by the end of the decade, the Ultimate Players Association (UPA) had been created.

Today, more than 600 college teams from across North America participate in the UPA's college championship series. Meanwhile professional club leagues have sprung up, as have worldwide competitions.

"The scene of college Ultimate grows exponentially," Pennucci said. "It's been up-and-coming since the '70s and hasn't stopped. Every year, more and more colleges have club teams. Our section has grown, and our region has grown."

However, the sport has struggled to shed the images commonly associated with it.

"Ultimate is definitely much different than any other sport," said Margaret Wang, one of the women's team captains. "It started out being a really casual type game—people, whenever they were relaxing, started throwing a disc around. The game is kind of built on that idea."

"It has grassroots," Pennucci added. "That is the bottom line. People think of hippies barefoot running around on the grass. It's come so far from that."

One element of the game that has kept it from gaining widespread acceptance as a sport is how it is officiated. Though the UPA has added "observers" to negotiate certain arguments over calls, the game is almost entirely self-officiated. This causes problems with players making false calls to their advantage.

"A lot of people feel that if we want to become an official sport and be recognized by the public it's necessary to have referees, especially at higher levels of play," Wang said.

One reason Ultimate uses self-officiating is a policy that stands at the very core of the sport—the "Spirit of the Game."

Trademarked by the UPA, "Spirit of the Game" says that at the core of Ultimate is good sportsmanship and self-officiating. Making matters more difficult, Pennucci noted that officiating an Ultimate game would be just about impossible.

"It has to do with the mechanics of the game," he said. "The frisbee flies very far very quickly, and there are a lot of people to see over a large space."

For Wang, the role of sportsmanship drew her to the sport.

"I feel it would lose a lot of what Ultimate was founded on if we had a referee," she said.

Yet, given the rise in popularity and competitiveness, a debate is now raging within the Ultimate community itself. Some cling to the more grassroots form of the sport while others, such as those creating the Ultimate babies, want the sport to become even more competitive to give it a mainstream audience.

While Wang opposes the idea of a referee, Pennucci said that if push came to shove, he would choose to have officiating at the highest levels but keep lower levels of play self-officiated.

One of the issues at stake for all players is the general lack of respect afforded to the sport. While many view the sport as it was when it was first created, it has evolved in many ways since then.

"To witness high-level Ultimate is really quite a feat," Pennucci said. "I don't know whether people think that because it's a plastic disk there's something not phenomenal about the level of sportsmanship, but the plays that you witness at the top level of Ultimate are like ESPN web gems all the time."

Though no Columbia players would claim to be ready for ESPN, both the men's and women's squads have found success and consistent interest.

The men's team, named Uptown Local, has a regular roster of 10 to 15 players, though a recent surge of freshmen may boost that number. Uptown has struggled in the past few years, failing to make it out of sectionals, but last year, the team was one win away from qualifying for regionals.
The women's team, named NYPD, generally retains around 20 players and has been in a similar position, falling just short of regionals the past two years.

"Since the end of that day, all of our eyes have been on regionals for next year," Pennucci said of the day Uptown was eliminated. "It's time to go back."

The country is broken into regions and sections. Both the men's and women's teams play in the Metro East section and the Mid-Atlantic Region. Top teams in the section include Vassar, NYU, Rutgers (for women), and Princeton (for men). Every year, two or three teams advance from the Metro East to regionals from which one or two teams advance to the national championship, a 16-team tournament. Seedings in all of the playoffs are based on national rankings. Rankings are built up by participating in tournaments that award you ranking points.

Both teams try to participate in four or five tournaments a semester.

Something both Pennucci and Wang dream of is being able to host a Columbia tournament.

"It would definitely boost the morale among the Ultimate club," Pennucci said. "It definitely would bring a little more awareness of the scene at school at large because no one really knows that it's at all a competitive thing unless you're involved or know of someone who is seriously involved."
Yet with Manhattan's space limitations, they see that as nearly impossible. Practice space is already difficult enough, as the teams alternate each day up at the Baker Field Complex.

In addition to problems with space, securing funding is also a challenge. On the women's side, besides the club budget and membership dues, Wang came up with the idea of a raffle last year to bring money in.

While money may be tight, the women's team has enough funds to hire an assistant coach to help head coach Victoria Bower.

"You hire coaches so that we can talk through strategy," Wang said. "You have someone who's been in the game for a lot longer than us and in different divisions—someone able to run us through different offenses and defenses."

Meanwhile, the men's team has decided to go without a coach this season given bad experiences with past coaches. The men have compensated by adding on an additional captain. Traditionally using just a senior and junior captain, the team added sophomore captain Milo Snyder this season. Snyder brings experience that few on the team can rival, as this past summer, he played for the United States' junior national team at the World Championships.

Though many of the rules of the sport besides how to score are still unknown—there are seven players are on the field at a time for each team—both teams believe that continued growth, popularity, and competitiveness is inevitable.

"I don't even know if the game requires that much encouragement," Wang said. "It seems like it's a really growing sport anyway. A lot of people just know how to toss a frisbee because that's kind of a pastime."

However, don't make the mistake of calling the sport "Frisbee": it is Ultimate.