The Frisbee was given its brand name in the late 1950s and its uses have since evolved into much more than a casual game of toss on a perfect summer day.

 

The flying discs are the center of attention in the exciting, fast-paced game of Ultimate, a game that has caught the interest of Mike Lee, who will be a senior at Pickerington North High School.

 

Ultimate — originally called Ultimate Frisbee until the “Frisbee” was dropped due to trademark issues — has steadily grown in the past few decades with the first collegiate Ultimate club formed at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania in 1970. In 1979, the Ultimate Players Association was formed and now hosts tournaments across the country for teams at all levels. 

 

Ultimate is played with two teams of seven.  The goal is to catch the Frisbee in the end zone for a point. There are two halves to the game, and the first half automatically ends when one team scores eight points. The game is over when the first team gets 15 points

 

Lee first started wondering about an Ultimate team when he and some of his cross-country teammates would occasionally play during varsity practice his freshman year. 

 

Last summer, he took that informal play a step further and created a Facebook group to recruit people to gather and play more consistently.  It was through this page that Lee was contacted by Bryan Gordon, a junior at the Ohio State University and member of Columbus Ultimate Disc Association (CUDA). 

 

Gordon, who is also a member of the OSU Ultimate Club team, had an interest to form a high school Ultimate league in Columbus, to spread the word around about the sport to younger players.

 

Gordon originally contacted Lee in January. By February, Lee and his friend Grant Crawford, a junior at Pickerington Central, went to a meeting held by Gordon for all those interested and to outline a season. From there, everything started to fall in place, and the Columbus High School Ultimate League (CHSUL) had been formed.  The league received a tremendous response as 11 area high schools joined, including one from Pickerington, which combines students from North and Central high schools.

 

“ Ultimate continues to grow all over the country, and Columbus has seen a very large increase over the last five years. With so many people involved, it was inevitable that CUDA would eventually start a high school league. Cincinnati and Cleveland have both had leagues for the past few years,” says Rodger Oakes, Pickerington Ultimate head coach.

 

The CHSUL season spans from March to May for a total of eight weeks. The inaugural season concluded with a two-day tournament in early May.  

 

While none of the teams in the CHSUL is officially school sanctioned, they function formally with a coach and a teacher or parent to do administrative work.  Oakes, a math teacher at Pickerington Central and an Ultimate player for the past nine years, was excited to help.

 

“As a teacher in the district, and an avid player, it was an easy combination,” says Oakes. “My wife gave her blessing, and away we went. The students recruited me. Somehow they found out I knew how to play.”  

 

However, not being an official school team meant everything Oakes did was on a volunteer basis. 

 

“ A coach is actually required in order to play games. We were fortunate enough to have Rodger Oakes and Heather Waugh (who is a member of the Ultimate Players Association) volunteer their time to teach us the sport,” says Lee.  “They both have played at the college and national level. I owe both of them big thanks for all the time they spent.” 

 

As co-captains of the team, Lee and Crawford are responsible for notifying everyone of practice and game schedules.  To do that efficiently, they update their Facebook page, called “ Pickerington Ultimate Frisbee Team Official Page,” with any news and information they can. 

 

Although Ultimate is more than just throwing a Frisbee around a park, anyone is welcome to join the team.

 

“ Anyone can sign up. No experience is required. A number of our players showed up never having played before at the beginning of the season, and they became some of our best. We are especially encouraging underclassmen to join next year who can keep the team going,” Lee says.  

 

This year’s team held practices four times a week, usually later in the evening to avoid conflict with other sports practice schedules. This openness helped with Ultimate’s unspoken objective – to bring together people from all backgrounds to have fun.

 

“The whole idea behind Ultimate is something called the ‘Spirit of the Game .’ This simply states that sportsmanship and the joy of playing are not to be sacrificed for a win-at-all-costs attitude,” Lee explains. 

 

For more information about the local club, search for the “Pickerington Ultimate Frisbee Team Official Page” on Facebook.

 

Wendy Cai is a contributing writer for Pickerington Magazine.