Upon reading some inspirational emails from the captains encouraging us to continue working our asses off during our winter break and what that could yield got me thinking of how I came upon this sport in the first place.
I had the pleasure of growing up in Amherst my entire life (in the U.S. anyways), and was surrounding by Ultimate, I just didn’t know it. Up until freshman year of high school, I thought Ultimate was an altered version of golf or something. So in band, I chatted up with some of the percussion players, and found out one of them was on the Ultimate team. I enquired into the sport, and soon realized that it was actually a full-fledging varsity sport, and our school was one of the premier teams in the nation and I had been ignorant all this time about it. Despite ARHS fielding 3 teams for guys and girls (Varsity, JV, and Freshman), I went out for the baseball team, made it, and then quit after just a week due to conflicts with the coaches.
Anyways, I moved up to the highest level of band in the school in sophomore year and found even more Ultimate players, including Gabe Hart (Carleton), Andrew Hollingsworth (USA Juniors, Tufts), and Sam Kanner (Carleton, Subzero), and more. I became more immersed in the sport, and though again I didn’t’ try out for any of the teams (got to love Asian parents and pressure to excel in standardized exams), I slowly learned the basics, such as pivoting and whatnot from just tossing with them during breaks.
Junior year was probably the first year I got really involved with Ultimate. I joined the school’s intramural Ultimate league, and was drafted onto Team Crimson by the captain Gabe, along with Jeremiah (Wisconsin), Shira (Tufts Women), and others. I had no backhand back then, thus my primary duty on the team was to play the lanes and go deep. Looking back it was sort of funny because we had a Korean-Chinese kid on the team, and several other members who were in Chinese class, so we’d shout plays and stuff in Chinese. Anyways we were one of the better teams, finishing I think 10-1 before the playoffs. I remember one game in particular, we were playing the top team in the league, and it was pouring rain, and the score was 12-12, we were trapped deep in own end, I threw my first completed flick of the season, also took off my receiver’s head though. We ended up losing that game 13-12 on universe point because I was beat to the cone on a hook cut, I laid out but was inches short. I think I was so angry with myself that Gabe (dude’s a great coach) had to hold me out for the first half of the following game so I could regain my calm. When playoffs came we were seeded 3rd I think (top 4 teams make it into the playoffs), and were blessed with good fortune to face the 2nd seed, Purple. Purple was a pretty raw team, and they had a couple guys who eventually made it to Amherst Varsity, they were fast but small. We took advantage of that and shut them down with a 1-3-3.
The finals were under the lights on the soccer field against our rivals Eggplant, and it was one of the single most amazing events I’ve been to for Ultimate. Several hundred people were gathered on the tracks around the field, the lights beaming down from above, that feeling was electric. However one of our go-to guys, Elmo, injured himself during pre-game drills when he went up for a disc and came down awkward, and was more or less useless for the championship game. If I recall correctly, he was our tallest player, and with him out, Eggplant’s deep, who was like 6’3 or 6’4, tore us apart. Gabe, Jeremiah, and Noah (Claremont) handled brilliantly, but we couldn’t overcome our defensive lapses. Don’t quite recall the score, but we lost like by 3 or something. Despite finishing second, the intramural season got me addicted to Ultimate.
I played JV and then senior year I took up Cross Country alongside Ultimate. Cross Country was amazing because like half the Ultimate players were also on the XC team and it was a great way to get in shape (keep in shape for others). Played JV again senior year and there wasn’t many great memories (can’t remember much from senior year Ultimate at all actually), all I know is that we got whipped pretty good, and finished the season with a losing record.
And the rest… history. Well, playing for Umass until this past fall, where I kind of faded in and out of Ultimate. Didn’t make A cause fucked up right knee playing basketball during the summer and couldn’t walk properly until about mid-October, and then got discouraged and stopped attending practice overall. Got out of shape, so trying to work self back into shape, hoping for a better Spring season, and maybe a call-up.
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