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History Of Ultimate |
Early Days
Before Ultimate was developed, the game was freeform, with as many as 20 or 30 players allowed per team. Initially played as Frisbee Football, the rules were slowly modified, eventually eliminating running with the disc and the system of downs, and establishing a set of rules for the defence. As the students graduated from high school, the game spread to the college level.
Joel Silver proposed a school Frisbee team on a whim in the fall of 1968 (four years after the first Frisbee was introduced by Wham-O) and, in collaboration with two school friends, developed the original rules. The following spring, a group of students got together to play what Silver claimed to be the "ultimate sports experience," adapted from the game Frisbee Football. Silver, now a Hollywood film producer (48 Hrs., Weird Science, Lethal Weapon, Die Hard, The Matrix), first played Frisbee Football at a Summer School in Mount Hermon, Massachusetts in the summer of 1968, which he learned from his teacher, Jared Kass. Kass created the game with a group of friends while at Amherst College. The name Ultimate comes directly from Jared Kass, who on impulse when asked by a student, called it the ultimate sport. The students who played at Columbia High School were not the athletes of the school, but an eclectic group of students that represented leaders in academics, student politics, the student newspaper, and school dramatic productions. The sport became identified as a counter culture activity.
Gentlemanly BehaviourA foul was defined as contact "sufficient to arouse the ire of the player fouled." |
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While the rules governing movement and scoring of the disc have not changed, the early Columbia High School games had sidelines that were defined by the parking lot of the school and team sizes based on the number of players that showed up. Gentlemanly behaviour and gracefulness was held high. A foul was defined as contact "sufficient to arouse the ire of the player fouled." No referees were present, which remarkably still holds true today as all Ultimate matches (even at high level events) are self-officiated, although at higher levels of play 'observers' are often utilized. An observer is different from a referee in that typically he does not actively make a call. Observers only make calls when appealed to by one of the players, at which point the result of the decision is binding.
The 70's
The first collegiate Ultimate club was formed by Joel Silver when he arrived at Lafayette College in the fall of 1970.
Rapid GrowthAround 1976, California clubs were sprouting in the LA-Santa Barbara area. In the east, where the game developed at the high school and then college levels, the first college graduates were beginning to found club teams, such as the Philadelphia Frisbee Club, the Washington Area Frisbee Club, the Knights of Nee in NJ, and others. |
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The first intercollegiate competition was held at Rutgers' New Brunswick campus between Rutgers and Princeton on November 6, 1972, the 103rd anniversary of the first intercollegiate game of American football featuring the same schools competing in the same location. By 1975, dozens of colleges had teams. In April of that year, players organized the first ever Ultimate tournament, an eight-team invitational called the "Intercollegiate Ultimate Frisbee Championships" played at Yale. Rutgers beat Rensselaer Polytech 26-23 in the finals. By 1976 teams were popping up in areas outside the Northeast. A 16-team single elimination tournament was set up at Amherst, Massachusetts, to include 13 East Coast teams and 3 Midwest teams. Rutgers again took the title, beating Hampshire College in the finals. Penn State and Princeton were the other semi-finalists. While it was called the "National Ultimate Frisbee Championships", Ultimate was starting to appear in the Los Angeles and Santa Barbara area. Penn State hosted the first five-region National Ultimate Championships in May of 1979. There were five regional representatives: three college and two club teams. They were as follows: Cornell University-(Northeast), Glassboro State-(Middle Atlantic), Michigan State-(Central), Orlando Fling-(South), and Santa Barbara Condors-(West). Each team played the other in a round robin format to produce a Glassboro-Condors final. The Condors had gone undefeated up to this point, however Glassboro prevailed 19-18 to become the 1979 National Champions. They repeated as champions in 1980 as well.
Also in 1976, Ultimate arrived in the United Kingdom, with clubs forming at the University of Warwick, University of Southampton, University of Cambridge, University of Leicester, Purley High School and in Bournemouth.
The 80's
In 1979 and 1980, the Ultimate Players Association (UPA) was formed and held their first Open Division Championships, which was won by Glassboro. The UPA organized regional tournaments and has crowned a national champion every year since 1979. The popularity of the game quickly spread, taking hold as a free-spirited alternative to traditional organized sports. Reference: http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Ultimate_sport/id/2040313
The 90's
In recent years college Ultimate has attracted a greater number of traditional athletes, raising the level of competition and athleticism, and providing a challenge to its laid back, free-spirited roots.
Now played worldwide, Ultimate has become the most popular flying disc sport. At present, UPA Championships are held in nine divisions: College Open and Women; Club Masters, Mixed, Open, and Women; and Youth Mixed, Open, and Girls. UPA State High School Championships, High School Easterns, High School Westerns, and the Youth Club Championships are the marquee events for the UPA Youth Division. Every major city in North America has an Ultimate league, many of which are supported by the UPA. Reference: Leonardo, Tony, Zagoria, Adam (2005). ULTIMATE--The First Four Decades. Ultimate History, Inc.. ISBN 0-9764496-0-9
As the national governing body for the sport in the US (although Canada is a member), the UPA is a member of the World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF). WFDF is a full member of the General Association of International Sport Federations (GAISF) and International World Games Association (IWFA). Ultimate is plays in the World Games, a worldwide multi-sport event under the patronage of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
The WFDF is made up of the National Organisations and Federations that govern their respective flying disc sports: Ultimate, disc golf, freestyle, guts, Double Disc Court (DDC), and field events. These members guide the administration of WFDF through a Board of Directors and an Executive. WFDF is responsible for hosting World Championships and developing the Rules of the Game. The World Ultimate and Guts Championship (2008) in Vancouver, BC, Canada is played under the WFDF rules.
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