Lame Sports

Ultimate Frisbee

By Nick Hulstine

We all knew them. The high school sports hero’s who were the talk of the town and were constantly talked about in the papers and on small-hick radio. When the really big players left high school, some were immortalized through monument. Lake Travis High School in Austin, TX recently dedicated a life-size bronze statue of one of their Quarterbacks who graduated just last year. I would love to see what happens to that poor football player if he doesn’t make it very far in college and has to come back to Texas, only to be reminded that he once was on a path to sport super stardom, but now runs the car wash.

Coming from the Midwest it’s almost required to at least try and play a sport, and when I was that age I was highly interested in fitting in for some reason, so I played a sport to keep up appearances. Don’t worry I know how shallow that sounds. Because remember, that some high schools are hinged on athletics mainly football, which I now know is pretty pathetic. For instance if high schools started ridding their campuses of football programs instead of art and music programs, the people would riot and it would be the end of Midwestern civilization as we currently know it. Which when you think about it, makes the public school system seem barbaric. Instead of furthering education and the minds of our youth, they would rather spend your tax dollars on a sport where it is highly possible for someone to die on the field or become paralyzed from the neck down.

So it is apparent I was not the bronze statued Quarterback in high school. In fact far from it, but Gods knows I tried. I was cut from the Basketball team…twice. I played varsity soccer, but “played” is a generous word. I remember one game; I took a whole weekend off to go to a tournament only to sit the bench and read the newspaper. I was and still am a legitimate sports fan, but with no sport to excel in…until I discovered disc golf my senior year of high school.

Golf isn’t a sport, so naturally I don’t really think disc golf is one either. Its fun, but I consider it a recreational past time for the motivationally challenged and old hippies who now have way to much time on their hands. And out of all the sports I tried in my life, after my many game losing at bats in little league (I was the winning out for at least 3 teams in my short baseball career), after all this athletic failure, I found that I can a throw a Frisbee like it’s the only reason I’m on this earth. I once threw a Frisbee 155 yards. (That’s a rough estimate, considering it was me and a friend using step-measure). I had finally found my athletic ability and I was damn good at it.

But like I said above, disc golf isn’t a sport, I excelled at it, but I needed a sport where I could spread my athletic wings and “rock the house” so to speak. I found it at intramurals in college during the Ultimate Frisbee season my freshman year. With my few acquired skills from basketball and soccer I was a spinning disk god in a sea of fellow fat, drunk, and stoned college “students”. I’m never one for self-glorification, but I like to secretly talk up my ultimate Frisbee skills. It’s the only sport I’m good at so why not brag. I never got the chance to riding pine in high school.

I feel there are more of you out there who share my same dilemma, and I plan on helping every one find their true inner sport, whether it be Ultimate Frisbee, lawn darts, or shuffle board. We can all excel in a sport. So, I’ll do a really quick run down of the rules so that others unathletics can bask in their own athletic glory.

What’s needed:

-Obviously two teams, as long as you have a big field the teams can be as big as 8, but I recommend teams of 5.

-There are end zones like football but without the use of yards, there is also a kick-off like football, but of course your throw it, not kick it.

-The object is to get someone to catch the Frisbee in the end zone to score. The first team to 21 and is up by two, wins.

-When moving the disk up the field you can’t run if you catch it, you have three steps in which to stop, and then you pivot like in basketball and get it to another player.

-You can slap the Frisbee out of someone’s procession, but can’t make contact with their hands, and you call your own fouls. Just don’t be a poor sport and “World-cup-soccer-it” by throwing yourself on the ground and grabbing your injured limb in a grimacing, game stopping fake injury.

It’s pretty basic, because usually people are drunk/hung-over so the rules are minimal. Most colleges have Frisbee leagues in their intramural department so I encourage people that are still in school to form teams and give them ridiculous names. Just please don’t be a college cliché and name your team “The Crew” or after your frat/street address, those names have been way over used. If your school doesn’t have a Frisbee league then I encourage people to start teams and play. If you happen to be in New York City in the summer on a Sunday come to the eastside of Sheep’s Meadow in Central Park with a five person team and you can play in our weekly game. Heavy drinking the night before is highly encouraged if you want to have an even match-up.

Now with all that said don’t take this sport too seriously. When you start treating it like the state champions it loses its edge as a Slacker Sport, so please don’t argue over calls or throw a sore loser hissy fit when you don’t win. Also don’t take what I said in the above paragraph as a challenge, I’ll probably verbally thrash you if you walk up to our game talking shit.

Ultimate Frisbee can be enjoyed anywhere with any group of people, no matter the level of athleticism. Best enjoyed at Sunday BBQ’s, family reunions or of course an intramural setting. I recently found that some high schools are trying to make it a full sanctioned sport, and I started to think of what it would’ve been like if they had done that when I was in high school. I can only imagine my bronze statue dedication ceremony.

“Here stands a 10 foot solid bronze statue of Nick Hulstine, the greatest Frisbee player in the county…he now works at the quicky lube.”

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