Understanding the sport of Ultimate

A self-refereed sport

There are no referees in Ultimate – Players on the field make their own calls when violations occur. Ultimate relies upon the ‘Spirit of the Game’ that places the responsibility for fair play on every player. If there is disagreement regarding an incident, the play is simply redone without any penalties.

Instead of saying, “Yes, I’m a filthy cheat!” we can say, “Look how clever I am, I got a net benefit out of this! The rules are stupid, man, and I beat them. I win.”

Punishments in Ultimate will allow people to think that way. That’s not rational, but it is human.

A co-ed sport

The non-contact nature of the game makes it co-ed friendly. Women feel equally appreciated for their exploits on the field.

In fact, like one of the players puts it – “The level of athleticism in elite women Ultimate players relative to the general population, or even other sports, is higher than it is with men.”

Check out this amazing play by Maggie Ruden in a women’s division game:

National and international tournaments host a mixed division to encourage not only equivalent participation between the sexes, but actual co-ed play, even at the highest levels. The co-mingling of sexes, on a level playing field, is a huge part of the sport’s appeal.

This video should give you a fair idea about how a game at the highest level looks:

A little bit of history

Ultimate is said to have been founded in the year 1968 at Columbia High School in New Jersey. The credit of co-creating this awesome sport is shared by Jared Kass and Joel Silver (Trivia: He is more popular as the producer of movies such as Die Hard and The Matrix!). Its collegiate roots can be traced back to the first ever game played between Rutgers and Princeton in 1972.

One of the fastest growing sports!

The World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF) serves as the international governing body of all flying disc sports. Since WFDF was founded in 1985, the development of the sport has been quite rapid.

Today, it is one of the fastest growing sports in the world, due to the simplicity of the basic rules, the speed of the game, it’s self-officiation, and appeal with young men and women. It is estimated that more than 7 million players enjoy playing the sport in more than 80 countries!

This year, ultimate frisbee took a big pivot-step forward into the realm of professional sports with the founding of professional leagues in the US, that been featured on ESPN. The sport is already a part of the world games and looking good to be included in the Olympics soon!

Note: Sometimes people refer to the sport as Ultimate Frisbee and other times you hear it just called Ultimate. The name of the sport is slowly changing from ‘Ultimate Frisbee’ to Ultimate because of the registered trademarked Frisbee® that is the name of the disc manufactured by Wham-O. (The reason isn’t simply to abbreviate the name of sport.)

Sources: The amazing WFDF rules site and USA Ultimate page.