BERNARDO, Eleina Bea L.

11th Grade – Plato of Athens

HISTORY OF ULTIMATE – FRISBEE

In 1968 Joel Silver introduced his idea of Ultimate Frisbee to the Columbia
High School student council in Maplewood New Jersey, USA. The next year, the
first game was played between two groups of students. They used a Wham-O
Master disc.

In 1969 a team had been formed at the school and they played in a parking
lot. The only lines that existed were the goal lines, usually marked by the telephone
poles or piles of the players' coats.

The first and second set of rules were written in 1970 by Joel Silver, Buzzy
Hellring and Jon Hines. On Nov 7th, CHS played the first interscholastic game.
They won over Millburn High School by a score of 43 to 10.

The first college ultimate game was played between Rutgers and Princeton
on November 6, 1972. Rutgers won the game 29-27. The two universities had
played the first intercollegiate football game on the same ground exactly 103
years earlier. Rutgers also won that game by 2.

The first organized tournament, The National Collegiate Championships, was

played on April 25th in 1975. Eight teams took part in a tournament in Yale.
Rutgers University won the final against Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with 28-
24. In 1976 the Yale tournament was expanded and renamed into the National
Ultimate Frisbee Championship. Rutgers won again.

Ultimate, as with all disc sports, would not exist without the invention of the
flying disc, or "Frisbee," as it is commonly known. The first known contemporary
tossing of a "disc" was by Yale University (USA) undergrads in the early 20th
century. The Yale campus was in close proximity to Connecticut's Frisbie Pie
Company, whose pies while being a popular treat in themselves were sold in metal
tins that would hold flight when thrown over a very short distance. The now-
popular pastime of "tossing the disc" remained in obscurity until the invention of a
plastic flying disc by Fred Morrison in 1948, which was much more durable and
flight-worthy than anything made of wood or metal. This invention led to the first
mass-produced disc, called the "Pluto Platter," made by the Wham-O toy company
beginning in 1951. The year 1954 saw the first recorded competition using a flying
disc when Dartmouth University (USA) students organized a tournament for the
disc sport known as "Guts." A year after the Frisbie Pie Company's closing in 1958,
Wham-O, based in California, USA, registered the name "Frisbee" as a name for its
flying disc products. This trademark was reportedly the result of the predictable
nickname that students at Yale and Harvard had given to the new toys.

EQUIPMENTS:

Cleats
Frisbee Disc (175 g)

Friction Gloves
BASIC SKILLS OF THE GAME:

1. General Throwing

- General throwing is a critical skill to have. If you struggle with throwing

consistently you will be a liability when your team is on offense and you are on the
field.

2. Power Throwing

- Power throwing a disc is one of the most fun skills (in any sport) to acquire. In
Ultimate, power throwing can make you a deadly threat, with the ability to put the
disc anywhere on the field. While developing power throwing, it is critical to
practice with a mark, so you can get good repetitions of how it is to huck in a game.

3. Break Throwing

- Quite simply, having the ability to break the mark opens up an entire half of the
field where downfield defenders aren’t playing defense. Read that again.

It might be daunting to break the mark, but with practice, fakes, shimmy’s and
different release points and angles you can acquire this skill. Take a couple of
teammates out to a field and just work on this one skill over and over until you are
comfortable with it.

4. Speed

- If you have great speed, you can find success on the Ultimate field even if every
other skill on this list is lacking. Without speed, you can still be successful by
mastering other skills, but with enough of it, you can have an instant impact. Speed
on defense leads to blocks and speed on offense leads to downfield receptions.

Acceleration is a very important subset of speed because this is where you can
open a throwing window on offense and limit a throwing window on defense. For
example, if you can create separation with an explosive first step or two, the
defense is now playing catch up. If you can accelerate quickly on defense, you can
mirror the offensive player and even though they have a head start, you can close
that gap and discourage a throw or even get a block!

Sprinting is the other important subset of speed. On offense, avoid running at the
same tempo the entire point. It makes you predictable and easy to guard. Instead,
change up speeds, from 0% to 100%. Your defender will always have to be ready,
and when you truly sprint you become impossible to cover on that move.

5. Reading the Field

- Reading the field is the ability to take in information. When I started playing,
reading the field on offense was identifying where the disc was, and chasing after
it. As I gained more experience, I started to look around more, to see if there was
another cutter who was better suited to cut, and where the space would be for the
continuation cut.

6. Mental Processing Speed + Capacity

- Mental processing speed is the ability to make actionable decisions based on the
information you gather from reading the field. At first, your mental processing
capacity will be taken up with simple tasks such as holding the force, staying on the
force side on defense and figuring out where to cut and where to clear. Once those
tasks become second nature you free up more room to start to free up more
capacity to analyze other pieces of information.

7. Endurance

- Endurance in Ultimate cannot be understated. Our sport requires long runs, cuts,
sprints, jumps and other cardio taxing movement. Not only will an increase in cardio
and endurance help us be better athletes on the field, but endurance, or lack
thereof it, will affect every skill on this list. When you’re tired, heart beating,
gasping for air your throwing is going to suffer. It’s harder to catch a disc and you
are so focused on breathing that you cannot read the field.

8. Defense

- Defense is an art, requiring as much mental discipline as physical ability. Simply,

great defenders are able to control their matchup, versus what I’ve witnessed as
the norm in ultimate, that ‘Offense has it easy’. Sure, the offense gets to choose
where to go and when to do it, but that only works if the defender allows it. By
using anticipation, angles and body positioning, you can really disrupt the flow of an
offensive player.
9. Catching

- Catching every disc that comes your way helps your team win games. The amount
of possessions you can save your team if you catch well adds up. Not only taking
care of every disc that comes right at you, but expanding your catching window is
vital. Catching the disc around your ankles, overhead and using one hand when the
disc is behind you or too far out and front of you.

10. Mental Toughness

- Having a strong mental game allows you to play at your peak talent consistently.
Ultimate is really easy to play when everything is going well. Playing on a warm,
sunny, wind free day when you are healthy and full of energy allows you to execute
all of the tools we have discussed. When you or your team starts to play poorly, the
rain starts, the wind picks up, or other factors like playing in front of certain
people many players alter their game. They might lose confidence in their throwing,
allow stress to slow down their mental processing speed, or drop a disc because
they are distracted.