Senior Kenny Nam sprinted across the field and lunged for the Frisbee with a purpose; if he caught the disc, the red team would be winners of the week. He managed to grasp onto the edge of the Frisbee, clinching the victory for his team.
Run by Brian Hall, the Ultimate Frisbee Club is a super-sized club of 27 students from grades 9-12 who have one thing in common with Kenny: a passion for aggressive Frisbee.
“Before, I always thought Ultimate Frisbee was just another sport that involved throwing a disc to other people,” sophomore Ryan Ha said. “I was wrong because all the kids take each game really seriously and are all super competitive.”
The competitiveness stems from the mini-tournament that the Ultimate Frisbee Club holds weekly. Team captains, usually upperclassmen, divide members into three teams: red, yellow, and green. Using round-Robin rules, each team plays a game against the other two and the total score is added up at the end to determine the winner. A normal game averages 10 minutes with members of each team running across the field constantly vying for the best position to catch the Frisbee.
“The students made up all the rules that we use during the tournaments,” club advisor Dr. Hall said. “The team captains seem to know what they are doing in terms of how the tournament is played.”
The same mentality is translated to other activities in the Ultimate Frisbee Club. In poor weather conditions, the members all play ping pong in Dr. Hall’s classroom.
“As competitive as Ultimate Frisbee gets, I believe there’s more passion involved in ping pong,” senior Colin Chiang stated. “Our pride is on the line but really, everything is all for good fun.”
The formula behind the Ultimate Frisbee Club’s success is not found only through the sport of Frisbee or the game of ping pong alone. Rather, it is the sense of family and community it offers, that makes the Ultimate Frisbee Club what it is today.
“What’s great about our club is that there’s a great sense of family among all of us, between all grades,” Kenny said.
Whether it is to leap and catch a flying Frisbee or to outlast an upper classman opponent in a ping pong rally, the Ultimate Frisbee Club has no shortage of customers.