Ultimate Frisbee-Pies to Power
Chances are, if you grew up in the midwest you’ve probably heard about ultimate frisbee. Its title alone begs for challenges of validity, and the sport continues to be a catch-all for strong opinions and controversy. Typically labeled as the sport for stoners and nerds alike, ultimate frisbee now sits at an international level, yet the world seems hesitant to accept it still. An insight into the development and culture of the sport may provide a better representation to those unfamiliar, while subsequently tearing down traditional misconceptions.
While painfully obvious, ultimate frisbee started first with the conception of the frisbee. The birth of “Tossing the disc,” comes from Yale University, and similar to other primitive sports beginnings, students used leftover metal pie tins for a makeshift disc. The tins were from nowhere else but Connecticut’s Frisbie Pie Company (Hint Hint), which was situated close to Yale’s campus. In college fashion the concept began to grow, and led to the 1948 invention of the first plastic flying-disc from Fred Morrison. Morrison would go on to produce his second, more popular model the “Pluto Platter,” in 1951. This popular disc led to the first recorded competition with a flying disc, and in 1954 Dartmouth University organized their own play of a game called “Guts,” a simpler predecessor to ultimate frisbee. Prompted by the acclaimed platter, Wham-O sought out Morrison and began mass production of the disc in 1955.
Fast forward to 1959, a year after the closing of Frisbie Pie Company, the almighty frisbee was born. As Wham-O cofounder Rich Knerr toured the Ivy league colleges, he was enlightened by the fact that students threw around the pie tins regularly, calling it “Frisbie-ing,” coined after the pie company. Knerr, unfamiliar with the history of the term, went on to change the name of the original “Pluto Platter” to the infamous “Wham-O Frisbee.”
Joel Silver is the name you will hear most prominently in the history of ultimate frisbee. Almost a decade after the frisbee’s conception in 1967, Silver stood before the student council of Columbia High School in Maplewood, New Jersey. This would be Silver’s introduction of the idea of an “Ultimate” frisbee game. Following the proposition, the first known game of ultimate frisbee was played the following year, with the school newspaper staff handing a loss to the student council. The next decades would see immense achievements for the sport, most notably the first intercollegiate game in 1972, the first world ultimate championship in 1982, and by 2012, over 100,000 players worldwide.
Past the creation of the game itself, ultimate frisbee was brought up in a climate of civil and political unrest. The 1970s saw increased alternative lifestyle choices, stemming from the resentment of traditional systems and the ‘Mainstream.’ Often referred to as “Counter Culture,” the central values were based on communal sharing and interaction, self expression, personal growth, among other things like a relaxed attitude. While Joel Silver may not have directly considered these values in high school, ultimate frisbee represented that dramatic action against the mainstream system highlighted in the culture. It was sudden, and the new sport manifested many of these cultural values at the time.
The counterculture of the past has long been replaced with current progressive values. Aided by an ongoing pandemic, 2020 and 2021 have been historic in social change and attitudes. Democratic values that were central to the conception of ultimate frisbee have resurfaced in political unrest and public resentment of the system. Yet so, even as the philosophical stars have aligned in the last decade, ultimate continues to be alienated from other sports. It raises the question of why a sport tailored to current generational desires has not gone mainstream. The next time that ultimate frisbee appears in your life, remember the rich cultural significance behind the sports outlier.
Works Cited
Griggs, Gerald. “The Origins and Development of Ultimate Frisbee.” The Sport Journal, 10 July 2009, pp. 1–9.
Lacovella, Michael E. “History of Ultimate.” World Flying Disc Federation, 17 Nov. 2020, wfdf.sport/history/history-of-ultimate/.
“Ultimate’s History.” Ultimate Frisbee HQ, The Ultimate HQ, 6 Mar. 2018, ultimatefrisbeehq.com/ultimate-frisbee-history/.
