The History of Ultimate Frisbee

By popular demand, I will be doing a post on the history and subculture of Ultimate Frisbee (and by "popular demand" I mean that one person mentioned once that I should do it... I obviously don't need much convincing)

Frisbee's were first conceptualized by college students throwing around upside-down pie tins from their college dining service (that happened to be made by Frisbe Pie Co.). Subsequently, the college students started calling their new toys "Frisbe."

Frank Morrison made a plastic version in 1958 that he sold to Wham-o Toy Company (also makers of the slip-n-slide). He originally wanted it to be called the Flying Saucer... but Wham-o used "Frisbee" instead. Changing the spelling for Copyright reasons. As Frisbees became more popular, it became the sport of choice for hippies in the 60s because of their newness and the chill way they flew through the air.

Ultimate Frisbee was  invented by a charismatic high schooler named Joe Silver in 1968. Ironically, he mostly made it up and popularized it in his school as a spoof for the School news paper to write about in the sports section. He called it "ultimate frisbee" because it was a blend of so many sports, and he made a pamphlet with the rules. As frisbee became popular in Columbia high school they started challenging other schools. As those kids graduated, they brought the sport to their respective colleges. By 1975, the rules of Ultimate were included in every Wham-o frisbee and the game spread like wildfire.


IN 1979, the UPA or Ultimate Players Association was formed. Fun Fact: you are not supposed to call the Sport Ultimate Frisbee anymore, just Ultimate, because of the Copyright that Wham-o has on the word Frisbee. In fact, UPA does not use Wham-o disks for tournaments anymore, they use DisCraft. Serious players will actually pick on you if you bring a Wham-o disk to a tournament. The UPA created an official rulebook and has set up leagues at all different levels in the United States.

What sets Ultimate apart is the "Spirit of the Game" clause of the rules. Ultimate doesn't have any referees, even at the higher levels. Players call their own fouls. Essentially, Spirit of the Game emphasizes Coolness, Camaraderie, and fair play over winning.

Ultimate is now a legitimate sport with alternative roots... resulting in some quirky idiosyncrasies. The best way for me to describe this is to tell a quick tale. My team was once beat at a Halloween tournament by a team from RIT that was playing in old prom dresses, singing songs, and drinking beer like Gatorade on the sideline. They weren't disrespecting us and they were certainly taking the game seriously. They were excellent players, but they came with all the oddities of an Ultimate Team.

Dark Night of the Soul: Wrap Up

In Bristol Hills... Pointing to Hill we were Hiking From

What is the moral of this story? Why did I tell you these depressing stories? There is a point, I promise.
Actually, I have three points:

1. I still love Frisbee and I still love hiking.

• Having a bad experience with something doesn't mean you have to give up on it. In fact, if you do something long enough with enough regularity you are bound to have a couple bad experiences here and there along the journey. If you love traveling and you travel enough you will eventually have a trip where absolutely everything seems to go wrong. If you push through, it will only add to your story and to the adventure. When I had my "dark night of the soul" moment, I some how listened to the voices in my head saying that these moments would permanently ruin my hobbies by shattering my mental ideal that I loved them in all circumstances. It doesn't have to be that way. You can take the good with the bad, learn from the bad, and continue happily along.

2. I ended up loving both Bristol Hills and The Roberts Tournament.

• You're probably wondering how this is possible considering that I spent two posts complaining about these two events. Yet, when I look back at the past semester, they are two of my favorite memories. When you push through those moments, it is possibles to readjust and have a good time. The sun ended up coming up during the tournament and the rain stopped. We bonded so much with each other and with the other teams that stuck around. Christine and I finished our entire adventure. The things I remember most from that trip were how beautiful the woods were with the undisturbed snow, how completely in the middle of no where we were, and how incredible the views were. In both cases I didn't really have any choice but to stick around and see the event through. While hiking, my car was miles away so I had to just keep moving. While playing Frisbee, my loyalty to my team wouldn't allow me to leave. So in both cases I begrudgingly stayed, but eventually that attitude changed to happiness and enthusiasm. An experience I never would have gotten if I had given up at my "dark night of the soul." 

3. This goes for anything you love. 

• You will face moments when everything in you shouts "I DON"T LIKE THIS ANYMORE" and like a little child you just want to walk away and not work for it any more. That will be the moment that you leave "the honeymoon stage." The good news is that there is life after "the honeymoon stage" and its deeper and more meaningful. It could be a relationship, a hobby, a job, or even your spiritual walk. Its not the end; its only the beginning.

My Roberts Frisbee Team... The Faithful that stayed and played

Dark Night of the Soul: Roberts Ultimate Frisbee Tournament

Fast forward three weeks from the Bristol Hills trip.  April was an exciting month for our Frisbee crew at Roberts Wesleyan College. That was going to be the first intercollegiate Tournament we ever hosted at our school. 

My freshman year, we worked hard to make the Ultimate Frisbee team recognized as a club at the school. That was an important milestone because it meant we were recognized by the school and could host events on campus. So our first home tournament was arranged. We had two Roberts Teams, Nazareth, Fredonia, FLCC, a high school team, Brockport, and Hobart. 

We were all going to wake up early and go down to set up the fields and welcome visiting teams. So on that Saturday morning when my alarm went off I jumped up, excited about the prospects of the day, only to look out my window and see that it was pouring rain. My first thought: "This is going to really fun to play in, lots of fun to dive in.... unless its also very cold."

So I packed up my van with my cleats, snacks for the day, and lots of layers of warm dry clothes. We checked in all the teams and tried to stay warm and dry as long as possible. After a short delay due to confusion from the weather, we started our first game.

I feel like I need to give you a more accurate picture of the weather. Picture this: Rain... lots of rain... like the kind of rain where you need the fastest setting for your windshield wipers while driving. Wind... lots of wind... like the kind of wind that makes it very hard to accurately throw a Frisbee. And Cold... very cold.... like the kind of cold where your fingers don't work quite right and even the best Frisbee players can't seem to clamp down and catch the disk with any regularity.

But I also feel like I need to give you a more accurate picture of Frisbee players in general. They are a fun loving bunch, they love Frisbee and play hard... but they don't like taking themselves seriously. They plan on having fun no matter what. This makes sense considering Frisbee's hippie roots. So rain or other bizarre weather conditions are no deterrent to a good tournament... usually.

Two teams ended up leaving because of the cold after two games. Part of our own team decided to bail. We were jumping into the warm cars while we weren't playing to keep warm. Between the wind and the cold fingers we were dropping most of the passes. Drenched through layers of clothes, cold as could be, and not even able to catch the frisbee most of the times.

I rememeber my pivitol moment. My thoughts went like this:

"I just wanna give up. Other people have given up. This isn't even fun. We can't hardly even play in these conditions. We've been waiting all semester for this tournament and now it stinks. I could leave. We would still have enough players. But this is the spirit of Frisbee isn't it? Having carefree fun no matter what? We are all playing in the same conditions... its an even playing field. We have dry clothes to change into soon."


"I love playing Frisbee no matter what... right?"

Dark Night of the Soul: Bristol Hills Branch of the FLT

 My friend Christine and I have made a habit of devoting a Saturday of every semester to some serious hiking, just the two of us. We try to pick a pretty long day hike, start out early in the morning and log close to 15 miles. In March we picked the Bristol Hills Branch of the Finger Lakes Trail. Thanks to CNY Hiking, we had a great trail description and everything went according to plan. In fact, the snow even melted for us. When we woke up at 6 in the morning Rochester NY was basically snow free for the first time since Early December. 

Little did we know, Naples NY was not snow free. Not even close.

When we got out of my van in Ontario County Park to make our sandwiches and put on our final layers at 8:00 that Saturday morning all I remember thinking was... "hey, this is a lot colder than I thought it was going to be." Even as we walked toward the trail entrance with a few inches of snow and lots of heavy wind in our faces, we laughed it off.  We assumed the wind wouldn't be as bitter within the cover of the trees and we had prepared well with layers of warm clothes.

We're both very optimistic people, and we love hiking together. When you are with another optimistic person it's easy to keep your spirits up. Plus, I'm a firm believer in the fact that you can choose to have a positive attitude in any situation. All this added to the fact that I love being out on a new trail enjoying the woods turned the odds in favor of a good day... or so we thought.

So we trudged on. What started out being the best part of the trail, the fact that there was not another human soul around, ended up being the bane of our hike. Three hours in, at the top of one of the hills we were hiking through knee deep snow. Our boots, though tried and true, were not made for hiking through snow. Progress was slow and we we both were learning that GoreTex is great, until snow melts from your ankles down and saturates your socks. 

The Bristol Hills trail goes up and down three hills in Ontario County near Naples. At the tops of the hills in the most untrodden portions of the trail we were laying fresh tracks though knee deep snow. In the valleys we were trudging through mud and puddles. We had wet socks and very cold feet. It was cloudy and windy. And we were only a quarter of the way done with our hike.

I remember distinctly the moment where I faced my "dark night of the soul". I was following Christine (we were taking turns being the leader cause following in someone's tracks was a bit easier) and had just tripped for the hundredth time, falling into the snow. That's when the internal dialogue started.

This is stupid. Why are we doing this? the farther we go the longer it is going to be to get back.  Maybe we should turn around now. Our feet are only going to get wetter. Is this dangerous? No, its not dangerous, just uncomfortable. Are you going to let 'uncomfortable' ruin this day for you? Are you going to give up? I want to give up. But I love hiking. I don't love this. Will we even be able to make our goal with this slow progress? What happened to enjoying everything with a positive attitude? I'd much rather open up the flood gates of complaining. But what good would that do?

I live for this kind of thing... don't I?

Dark Night of the Soul: Intro

I've entitled the next series of posts, "Dark Night of the Soul." Don't worry though, this doesn't mean that they'll be depressing. Actually, the stories I will be sharing are pretty funny.

According to Wikipedia, the Dark night of the Soul is

"A metaphor used to describe a phase in a person's spiritual life, marked by a sense of loneliness and desolation... Typically for a believer in the dark night of the soul, spiritual disciplines... suddenly seem to lose all their experiential value"

Now, I won't be talking about a "Dark night of the Soul" in the spiritual sense, so in a way this is a metaphor for a metaphor. But essentially, I will be sharing two stories of critical moments this past semester when I questioned the joy I was feeling in activities that I normally love.

So before I head into my two stories, there is something you have to know, there are two activities that I love more than anything else in the whole world. I'm not saying I love these like I love God or my family, but as far as stuff you can do, these will top my list every time.

Ultimate Frisbee and Hiking

I could do these two things for hours and hours on end day after day and still love doing them. I have always believed that I could have fun doing these two things no matter what, but this past semester I had two incidences that challenged that thought.

If Hikers Ruled the World

7. Learning what you can live without- When you are hiking and backpacking, you start to learn what things are and are not necessary. Food? Yes. Water? Yes. Internet? Shockingly, No. It shows you what you do and do not need in order to have fun. It lets you enjoy life's simple pleasures. This does two things: First, it helps you simplify your life. I'm no expert at this yet (if you want an expert try this blog) but I do notice some changes in my life. When you experience real simplicity you start to see everything else as superfluous. Second, it makes you more thankful for the extra stuff in your life. Bizarre example: hiking makes me thankful and very aware of indoor plumbing. I don't mind going outside, but I do enjoy the ease of a toilet and a shower.

Into Thin Air

Into Thin Air, by Jon Krakauer

Reasons I love This Book-

• This book expanded my vocabulary, i.e. crampon, crevasse, Sherpa, ect.
• It taught me how insane Mt. Everest is
• It taught me how cool Sir Edmond Hilary is
• It's a great story
• It's a true stroy
• It's a story that makes you think

Go forth, read this book! Its probably at your local library... or its only a quarter plus shipping and handling if you buy it used on Amazon!

Into Thin Air, by Jon Krakauer