Ultimate Frisbee: Grrrls Welcome

ultimate frisbee olympia
Ultimate Frisbee is truly a game that transcends traditional age and gender rules.
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By Megan Conklin

tagsThe first time I played Ultimate Frisbee on an Olympia Parks and Rec League was about ten years ago. My most distinct memory of the experience is that my entire team, which was comprised of men and women ranging in age from late high school to 50-something year olds, encouraged me to take “nursing breaks” during the games whenever my new baby, who was hanging out on the sidelines with my husband, needed them.

ultimate frisbee olympia
Ultimate Frisbee is truly a game that transcends traditional age and gender rules.

Really? Even in Olympia, what kind of sports team does that? I quickly learned that Ultimate Frisbee was unlike other team sports in more ways than one.

According to the World Flying Disc Association’s official website, Ultimate Frisbee is a seven-a-side team sport played with a flying disc.  The object of each team is to score a goal by having a player catch a pass in the end zone that they are attacking.  Ultimate is self-refereed and non-contact.  The Spirit of the Game guides how players referee the game and conduct themselves on the field.

It was the Spirit of the Game that won me over to the sport of Ultimate Frisbee so many years ago. In a nutshell, the Spirit of the Game refers to the respectful, honest, and mutually arbitrating quality of the sport.  All players on the field are responsible for officiating the game – and over aggressive or dangerous play is prohibited.

And there are cheers – the kind you make up on the spot at the end of the game. The cheers are often set to the tune of a well- known song or nursery rhyme and, in my experience, are usually amusing and sung very off-key.  As a poetry lover and English teacher, I loved the organic creation of a cheer at the end of each game even more that the game itself.

ultimate frisbee olympia
South Sound Ultimate player, Alicia Zagel, and her five week old baby, Linus Zagel, take a short photo break during Potlatch, Washington State’s largest Ultimate Frisbee tournament.

The co-ed nature of the game of Ultimate is also fascinating. At its most advanced and elite levels, co-ed teams compete against one another, in addition to single gender teams.  Here in the South Sound, women excel at Ultimate Frisbee. In fact, one all-female team, Mint, qualified this year to play in the Women’s Masters Division of the National Tournament in Sarasota, Florida. They placed fifth out of ten teams.

Despite the involvement and success of women playing Ultimate Frisbee in our community, it seems to be more challenging to get girls involved. Mike Santana, a long time Olympia Ultimate player and advocate, is working to change that.

Santana maintains that “lots of women in their twenties, thirties, and forties play Ultimate in the South Sound, but it is harder to get young girls and teenage girls to participate.”  He has a variety of theories about why that is, however Santana is more focused on creating opportunities to engage young women in this unique and exciting sport.

To this end, he is teaching The Ultimate Grrrl! Clinic, a series of Ultimate Frisbee classes co-sponsored by Olympia Parks & Recreation and the South Sound Ultimate Players (SSUP).  The focus of the clinic will be on the basics of the game, its culture of fun and fairness, and how to impartially self-officiate the game.

olympia ultimate frisbee
Olympia’s all female team, Mint, dominates at Nationals in Sarasota, Florida (women are ages 44 to 29, L to R).

While Ultimate Frisbee is fast paced and active (think soccer with Frisbees), it is also a great fit for young people who appreciate creative play along with traditional sports. For example, one way in which teams may wrap-up a game of Ultimate is to play “Your Greatest Fan,” a game in which players combine a “rock/paper/scissors” competition with an epic cheer-off until the entire group is cheering for the winner. The “Spirit of the Game” is always evidenced in Ultimate’s quirky, collaborative spin on a normally competitive situation.

Beth Drake, South Sound Ultimate player and member of Mint, will also be helping out with the clinic this fall. She has been playing Ultimate for eleven years and truly believes that both “the spirit of the game and the self-refereeing make the sport incredibly unique and give young players the chance to come to agreement in a competitive environment.”

Sherrie Thissell, South Sound Ultimate player and mother of two, concurs. Thissell played basketball competitively as a young woman, and mourned the lack of opportunities to continue playing past high school. “Ultimate on the other hand is played through college, and after college in both club and recreation leagues,” Thissell notes.  “Often there are co-ed leagues, especially at the community level, which result in more opportunities for young women to continue to play a sport of their youth into adulthood.”

ultimate frisbee
Men and women, girls and boys play together in both pick-up and Parks and Rec Ultimate Frisbee leagues.

That little baby I stopped to nurse throughout my initiation into Ultimate Frisbee years ago, is now ten. Annie is a super active, athletic girl who loves to dance and swim and ride bikes, yet she has never been a big fan of team sports.  When I explained the game of Ultimate Frisbee to her, she agreed to give the Ultimate Grrrl Clinic a try. Personally, I think she will become a life-long Ultimate player, but if all else fails, I know she is going to love those cheers.

Know a 10-14 year old girl interested in Ultimate Frisbee?

The Ultimate Grrrl Clinic will take place at the Olympia Center on Friday evenings at 6:30 p.m. on October 3, 10, 17, and 24. The clinic will cost $15 (total for all four sessions).  Registration information can be found here.  If you have questions, please contact Michael Santana, SSUP board member, at 360-480-4722 or email him at santtheo@hotmail.com.

 

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