Ultimate Frisbee finally recognized by the IOC..

Columbia High School's contribution to the world!


Ahem, actually, Ultimate Frisbee goes back well before CHS ever flung a disk. For example, at Hampshire College, my proud Alma Mater:

"Hampshire College's Ultimate frisbee tradition goes far past its current incarnation as The Red Scare. After the collegiate expansion of Ultimate Frisbee during the first half of the 1970s, Hampshire hosted the first ever 16 team "National Ultimate Frisbee Championships" tournament in 1976. Hampshire College came in second in that tournament, losing in the final game to a veteran Rutgers University team[Leonardo, Tony; Zagoria, Adam (2005). ULTIMATE: The First Four Decades. Ultimate History, Inc.]. Rutgers University is the largest institution for higher education in New Jersey (located in the armpit of the Northeast Corridor of the United States [of America]). It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States and one of the nine Colonial colleges founded before the American Revolution. Since then, Hampshire has been active in the Ultimate community, even purportedly helping Amherst Regional High School create its now highly successful high school Ultimate team."




CHS Ultimate pre-dates that. Joel Silver invented it in '68.


From Wikipedia:

Invention and early history[edit]
Team flying disc games using pie tins and cake pan lids were part of Amherst College student culture for decades before plastic discs were available. A similar two-hand touch football-based game was played at Kenyon College in Ohio starting in 1942.[5]
From 1965 or 1966 Jared Kass and fellow Amherst students Bob Fein, Richard Jacobson, Robert Marblestone, Steve Ward, Fred Hoxie, Gordon Murray, and others evolved a team frisbee game based on concepts from American football, basketball, and soccer. This game had some of the basics of modern ultimate including scoring by passing over a goal line, advancing the disc by passing, no travelling with the disc, and turnovers on interception or incomplete pass. Jared, an instructor and dorm advisor, taught this game to high school student Joel Silver during the summer of 1967 or 1968 at Mount Hermon Prep school summer camp.[5][6]
Joel Silver, along with fellow students Jonny Hines, Buzzy Hellring, and others, developed ultimate beginning in 1968 at Columbia High School, Maplewood, New Jersey, USA(CHS). The first sanctioned game was played at CHS in 1968 between the student council and the student newspaper staff. Beginning the following year evening games were played in the glow of mercury-vapor lights on the school's parking lot. Initially players of ultimate frisbee (as it was known at the time) used a "Master" disc marketed by Wham-O, based on Fred Morrison's inspired "Pluto Platter" design. Hellring, Silver, and Hines developed the first and second edition of "Rules of Ultimate Frisbee". In 1970 CHS defeated Milburn High 43-10 in the first interscholastic ultimate game. CHS, Milburn, and three other New Jersey high schools made up the first conference of Ultimate teams beginning in 1971.[5][6][7][8][9][10]


Note:Amherst COllege is right down the street from Hampshire COllege.



dave said:
CHS Ultimate pre-dates that. Joel Silver invented it in '68.

Yep. 1968. Ultimate is a Columbia High School thing.


I'm still reacting to the discription of Rutgers as being situated in'the armpit' of the Northeast Corrider'...

Not gonna take anything else they said seriously either



Here's my story of how Ultimate was invented at CHS, spread to Connecticut and then to College Campuses, and then internationally: (I wrote it up once to share with a pen pal....)

"When I was at Staples High School in Westport, CT -- in the early '70s -- we had a VERY young Math teacher named Mr. Jolley. He went back to his family home one weekend to visit and watched his sister playing a game that had been invented at the high school both she and he attended.

He came back to Westport with the rules in hand, and immediately signed up the kids in the Math Club to become the first Ultimate Frisbee team in Connecticut.Turned out the only thing everyone liked to play & cheer for almost as much as soccer at Staples was Ultimate.

These were the days of "Title IX": if a school didn't have a "girls" team in every sport they had a "boys" team, they either had to create a parallel girls team, or make the team they had co-ed. So Ultimate was the first ever CO-ED sport (which added to its "coolness").

Eventually, the neighboring town of Weston formed a team, and when we played them, a girlfriend of mine scored the first ever goal by a woman in a co-ed sport in the history of CT intramural high school sports! (I was not on the team, but I was their most devoted fan.)

Turns out the town Mr. Jolley had gone back to was Maplewood, NJ, and that high school was Columbia HS, which just so happens to be ... (wait for it ...) ... the SAME high school my kids ended up going to!

After Weston, they took on the team that INVENTED the sport. The whole school was buzzing when the Columbia team came up to CT to play our club. We ended up trouncing them. BUT, several of their starters were in the disabled list. When our team went to NJ to play them, WE got whalloped!

It can be a pretty dangerous sport, and HS's don't usually sponsor their teams. Too much liability. Even the Columbia team still has to practice in the town park and not on school grounds (I think. Please correct me if I'm wrong about that.) Not considered a "school sport", but a "club". But way back then, guys from our team came down here to South Orange/Maplewood many times and worked with the Columbia team on revising the game rules to make it at least a bit safer.

Then they all went off to college where they started clubs (Brown, UCONN, UPENN, Princeton, Hampshire), and then off to international jobs where they also started clubs.

I have a friend who was on our original team who lives in Shanghai . He owns a company that makes frisbees!

When we had our 35th Reunion in 2009, we called it "The Ultimate 35th Reunion". My friend in Shanghai made frisbees for all of us that had that title and the visual from the front of our yearbook on them! He even made the trip from Shanghai back to CT, and members of our original team squared off against kids on the current Staples team. Even Mr. Jolley (who was STILL teaching Math at Staples!) -- AND the Original Frisbee Pie Company pie plate -- made appearances there! SO much fun!

And now there are benches in the park in the town I ended up living in that have been donated over the years by the Ultimate clubs. I just think it's so funny that I end up having one foot in two "hotbeds" of Ultimate Frisbee!"

I am THRILLED that it's finally becoming an Olympic sport! I'll have to make sure my HS chums have heard!!


Nobody can stop a thread dead in its tracks like I can!

...but here's a little more detail about when we may actually see it played in the Olympics.

Did any of our MOL posters actually play with the club while at Columbia? Do they still have a co-ed team? or is it Boys and Girls teams now?

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/05/sports/olympics/ultimate-frisbee-and-other-niche-sports-wait-for-olympic-moment.html



All of this and Kabaddi is left on the sidelines by the IOC...they are missing a high opportunity.




rowerg said:
All of this and Kabaddi is left on the sidelines by the IOC...they are missing a high opportunity.


Yes, and I thought that Pole Dancing was going to be included, as well.


I played a pretty mean Kabaddi growing up in the shadow of the Qutab Minar.


But, I gave it up for the Ulty which I now have the honor and pleasure of playing with two of the games Pioneers - Papa Joe Barbanel and Ed Zoop Summers - CHS grads enshrined in the Ultimate Hall of Fame!



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