Ultimate frisbee is like no other sport. Similarly to soccer, it is played on a field. The passes look a little like American football and soccer, but if you spend a little more time watching, another side of the team becomes apparent.
You don’t need years of athletic experience to pick up a disc and join the Ultimate Frisbee Club here at USF. For some members, their first practice was their first time playing the sport. Others arrived with years of experience. Yet both groups found themselves learning the same game, running the same drills and working toward the same goal: keep the disc moving.
Sophomore global studies major and vice-president Viviana Wagner has been playing ultimate frisbee since her freshman year of high school. Through years of practices and games, she has found a sense of commitment through the sport. “It’s nice to have a thing outside of classes that you choose to spend time committing yourself to and trying to get better at,” Wagner said. Sophomore kinesiology major and safety officer Michael Dayrit, who joined the team last year, said it has been the community that has kept him coming back for another season. “The team is very welcoming and nice, and they push you to do your best all the time. It is really easy to make connections with [the people on the team],” Dayrit said. Sophomore economics major and treasurer Valentini Zhang, who also started last year, found something else in ultimate frisbee: a chance to strengthen his communication skills. On the field, players have to trust their teammates, make decisions together and “be able to communicate what [they] want to get better at or what [they] can see in others.”
Those different experiences reflect what makes USF Ultimate Frisbee Club more than just a sports team. Members may have different reasons for playing, but they share a commitment to the people around them and to the sport itself.
Throughout practice, teamwork was impossible to miss. When a teammate participated in a drill, others celebrated their efforts — creating a sense of camaraderie and excitement that quickly spread across the field. Students took turns leading drills while coaches joined in on scrimmages, blurring the line between players and coaches. It did not feel like a group of students simply showing up to play frisbee. It felt like a group of people who genuinely cared about one another and loved the sport they were playing. The energy on the field came not only from the game, but from the people playing it.
When a player first starts playing ultimate frisbee, a lot of their growth comes from consistency. Junior nursing major and president Elijah Ramirez said that much of his growth came from coming to practice and working on skills with others. Ramirez said that even when mistakes are made, “the team is still super supportive.” For Coach TJ Carter, teaching new players starts with “meeting them where they’re at.” Rather than expecting everyone to come in with the same level of experience, Carter focuses on helping players develop from where they begin. His main goal for the team is for them to “get more playtime against other colleges [or] other club teams.” As the team continues to grow, Carter hopes that players will have more opportunities to take what they have learned in practice onto the field against other teams.
At the end of practice, the disc keeps moving — so do the players, learning from mistakes, encouraging one another and getting a little better with every practice. For USF Ultimate Frisbee Club, it doesn’t matter where a player starts. There is always another pass to make, another skill to learn and another teammate ready to help them along the way.
To anyone considering joining but feeling nervous, Zhang encourages you to “just join.” When Zhang first joined, he knew those nerves all too well. Now, he is a part of a community that is so “inviting and non-judgemental.” For sophomore data science major Yano Leechiu, the same sense of openness is what makes the team worth joining. Leechiu says that “if you show up, if you give [the team] a chance, you will have fun. No matter what.” Teammate Devin Karschnik agrees, saying, “We want you to be there.”
The rules may make ultimate frisbee different from other sports, but it is the people on the field who make USF Ultimate Frisbee Club what it is. They compete, they make mistakes, they laugh between drills and they push each other to improve. Most importantly, they keep showing up — and they want others to do the same.
