Imagine this: After a hard-fought, back-and-forth National Football League game, the losing team huddles for a few minutes, then walks over to the opposition, kneels, and serenades them with a song of appreciation. Anyone watching would be shocked by such a display. But in the world of Ultimate Frisbee (just called “Ultimate” in tournaments due to a trademark conflict), it is expected.
“When we were younger and so desperate just to play.”
sang the Ultimate team Gratuitous —to the tune of The Beatles’ “Help”—to team Slow White after a 15 to 3 loss.
“We didn’t stop for any team in our way.
But now those days are gone-Slow White tore up the pitch.
Now we find, we’ve changed our minds, and just want to bitch.
But it’s just so lousy feeling down.
And we’ve got to stop running around like clowns.
Help me get my cleats back on the ground.
It is a beautiful, if windy, October weekend, and over 1,000 players have gathered on the parade grounds of a former Army base in Devens, Mass. to play the Ultimate Northeast Regional Club Tournament. Framed by a ghost town of large, empty barracks, the massive turf is divided into 27 regulation fields. A total of 53 teams in five divisions—three men’s, one women’s and one mixed—are competing for the right to advance to the national championships in Sarasota, Fla., at the end of the month.At first glance, this tournament might appear not to be very serious. Many team have funny names like “Kung Fu Grip,” “Enough Monkeys,” and “Grim Beaver.” Players are having fun with their appearance, too.
Man in skirt, man with dyed hair.
“We don’t have (uniforms),” says Hilary Walker of the Middlebury Pranksters. “We wear ‘flair’ to show our spirit.”
Her team’s “flair” is an explosion of brightly colored, mismatched floral skirts, striped shirts and pants, and silly accessories instead of the team logo uniforms most of the other athletes have. One player wears a single knee-high wide-striped sock. Another sports a red sequined dress.The Middlebury Pranksters
But despite the fun, this tournament is serious competition. All of the teams here have already fought their way through an earlier round of sectional playoffs to get here, and the top few teams will move on to the nationals. “We give up every weekend pretty much from May until November,” says Erin Kelleher, who plays on the team Slow White. “There’s a lot you give up. We spend a lot of money traveling to tournaments. We’ve gone to Seattle, Chicago, Philadelphia, Florida, Maryland…”
Slow White in action against Bashing Pinatas--Pictures courtesy of Burt Granofsky and BUDA
Ultimate is played on a grass field about the same size as a football field. Each team has seven players on the field. Players are not allowed to run with the disc, it can only be advanced by throwing. So, usually the only time a player isn’t running is when he or she has the disc. The team keeps possession of the disc until they score or fail to complete a pass. Getting a disc into the other team’s end zone scores a point. The game is won when a team reaches 15 points, or by the high score after 110 minutes.
One thing that separates Ultimate from almost all other sports is the absence of referees. “In” or “out” of bounds, “foul,” and all other calls are made by the players. If there is a difference of opinion between the teams, the players have to work it out. This exemplifies a guiding principle of Ultimate called “The Spirit of the Game,” which, say its organizers, values mutual respect over competition.
“I have no idea how you can have a child participating in a sport where they do not shake each other’s hand afterwards,” says Tournament Director Geoff Doerre. “We have some pretty hot New York-Boston rivalries that go back to when the sport was founded.
To see those guys go at it really hard and then give each other a hug after, it’s like, there’s hope.”
Many of the players refer to “The Spirit of the Game” when asked about what makes Ultimate different from other sports, saying that it teaches valuable conflict-resolution skills.
photo courtesy of Chris Chapman
photo courtesy of Chris Chapman “I hope this is a game that will get picked up by youth leagues because it has the potential to teach character lessons,” says Toronto Ultimate Player Chris Chapman.
As an example, he cites the successful Ultimate programs in schools in Colombia. In this two soccer-mad country, he says, the governments are using field space for Ultimate “largely based on the social things it can do for the people who learn the game. They are using these programs to teach these kids a new way of thinking and being.” Mexico is looking into doing this also.
Doerre’s “hope” may be especially precious to people in nations where corruption and conflict can be a way of life. The sport has taken sufficient hold in Colombia that it is slated to host the 2013 Ultimate World Games.
Back in the U.S., there has been increasing seriousness of competition as the sport has grown and become more organized. Because the game is attracting more traditional athletes, the players have gotten younger and more athletic.
As a result, the sport is changing. Now many of the big games use “observers,” who have a semi-official role. If asked, they can provide an objective perspective when two players can’t decide on a foul call. Sometimes the observer will make out-of-bounds calls to keep the flow of play from being interrupted by players discussing whether or not someone stepped over the line.
“The observer system is still in its infancy. There’s a huge debate raging about how we enforce the rules.” says Doerre. “In terms of sponsorship, and getting the sport shown on TV, getting in the Olympics—(not having referees) is one of the big things standing in the way. But, there are certainly die hard camps that don’t want to see any observers.”
However, if Ultimate players want the game to grow more accepted, perhaps reaching the prominence of an Olympic sport, it won’t be able to stay self-officiated, he worries.
The NFL isn’t likely to adopt the Spirit of the Game guidelines anytime soon. But in Ultimate, the practice of teams giving tributes to each other remains one of the most charming manifestations of the Spirit of the Game.
After losing to MONSTER, the Gratuitous team serenaded them to the tune of “Monster Mash.” MONSTER’s Peyton Leung responded by thanking them, calling it “a privilege” to play with them and giving “MONSTER Awards” to two of Gratuitous’s players. He then invited them “duel to the death” in a new version of the children’s conflict-resolution game commonly known as rock-paper-scissors, called ninja-cowboy-bear in which participants act out those roles.
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