This past fall, I was honored to be inducted into my college Ultimate team’s Hall of Fame. It is a small group- there are only five of us. The HoF started a few years ago and the first few choices were easy. This year the existing HoF’ers added two more of us, and I was surprised to get my number called.
I figured I would make it there one day, but I’m still young since the team is entering its twenty-fifth year. I’ve been on the alumni side for five years now, after a five-year stint on the team. I had become the equivalent of an assistant captain my Sophomore season. After that season, not only did one of the best players in the world transfer off of our team (and out of our dorm suite), a number of huge main-stays graduated: a few baller five-year players (who I thought were old at 23), as well as a large class of seniors I had become super close to. My captain transitioned to coach, and as a junior, I became the sole captain. It was the first year we didn’t make regionals in a long time, and the only year we fell short during my five. We had lost a lot of talent. It was a tough year.
I really struggled as a leader. For a few semesters, I wanted everyone to be working as hard as me. I wanted to see the team succeed- even if that meant driving away players I thought weren’t devoted enough. I kicked people out of parties after they hadn’t shown up to practice. Actually, I stand by that. You shouldn’t skip practice and show up to the party. But I definitely could have handled it MUCH better than I did. There was a noticeable age gap in our team that directly correlated to the recruitment semesters that I was an absolute dick. I didn’t feel like life was going my way, and I was looking for success on the Ultimate field to validate the hours of work I put in to be a good player. With some help, I changed my throwing mechanics, went to the gym regularly, and ran practices hard. And at the end of the season, we embarrassingly fell short of regionals.
During that summer I played with a competitive club team. I practiced regularly (with players much better than myself) and got to see how other people played the game. Everyone worked hard, and everyone wanted success. We traveled to big tournaments and my Ultimate game improved dramatically, more than it ever had, or has since. Somewhere during the year, my mindset changed. I accepted that my college team wasn’t one of the best teams in the country. I chilled out a lot. I credit a lot of my closest friends and teammates for challenging me to be a better person. I can point directly to some off-field personal growth, but needless to say I came back as a much better leader: more confident, less angry, forgiving easier, and practicing my patience.
I had signed up for a five-year bachelor’s degree when I was eighteen, so I knew my senior year wouldn’t be my last. Going into the season, we knew something needed to change. I asked my good friend and roommate to captain with me. We had different styles and didn’t always agree. We managed a very healthy balance of challenging each other respectfully. I think the team that year was the best I played on in college. We had talent, we worked hard, we didn’t take it too seriously, and we hung out off the field constantly. We won tournaments that year and enjoyed success that we hadn’t since we were much younger.
We lost some serious talent after that. I soaked it all in my fifth year and deferred captainship to some deserving younger guys. I called myself club president and tried to act like a player-coach. I let the captains do their thing and tried not to step on toes. We got a different coach after ours moved away, with a real salary and training. I had a huge hand in making it happen, we interviewed several. After they were hired, I felt I could walk away from the team after graduating, and that the team would be in good hands. There was no way in hell I was sticking around to coach. I had put in my time.
We fell very flat at the end of that season. The energy wasn’t there and I finished my college career quite annoyed that a lot of my teammates didn’t bring much energy to my final day of playing. I sat with our new coach discouraged. I had come to Wentworth and joined a scrappy D3 team, and not much had changed- I didn’t have much to show for it. We had won a few meaningless tournaments, sure. But I wasn’t even close to being one of the best in our division. I felt the game had let me down. There was no glory that I dreamt about, I went out quietly. The late nights, the layout D’s in games we didn’t win, the bomb throws that weren’t enough. My ankles now rolled whenever the ground wasn’t perfectly flat. I had jammed my big toe repeatedly and resigned myself to the inevitable arthroscopic surgery I will need in my forties.
I continued to play summer league and picked up with a party club team occasionally. But I quickly fell out of love with Ultimate. Seacoast summer league is right up my alley: every few games I make a sweet play that keeps me coming back. The competition is friendly and generally well-spirited, and while I’m nowhere near the best in the league, I’m not near the bottom either. I thought COVID might have ended my Ultimate career, but I found myself missing the game. I joined the summer league when it came back; I even considered captaining a team.
Every year, inevitably, there are a few players in the league that rub me the wrong way. None of us will ever go anywhere with Ultimate- we all show up because we love to play. Everyone needs to get their competitive rocks off, I am definitely a better person when I can exercise my competitive nature. But there’s no need to take it very seriously.
For years I held resentment toward the sport. I had put in so many hours and felt I never got a big win. When I sat down to complete the Novel November writing challenge, my choice of potential novel was clear to me: I had to write about a group of college Ultimate players that found themselves tied up in a more meaningful battle. It was an idea I had been kicking around for a while and would give me a chance to put Ultimate on display. Why do people love throwing, chasing, and catching a plastic disc?
As I started the novel, I was quickly reminded of why I fell in love with Ultimate. All these years I had been ignoring the most obvious thing Ultimate had given me: community. I might not have made it through a challenging engineering program without Ultimate. The friends I made are lifelong; my closest friends are those I made through Ultimate. The largest, most supportive community in my life came together with only one thing in common: a 175-gram plastic disc.
I was shocked at the byproduct of writing this book: realizing how much I still love Ultimate. I’ve always put effort into our alumni events because it was for my friends. It’s bigger than me, a community that has accepted me and provided me so much support. Being named to our Hall of Fame is an incredible honor I take very seriously. I will forever represent Wentworth Ultimate- whether they call themselves Concrete Jungle or not. The tree will forever be part of me.