Is Ultimate Frisbee the ultimate sport?
Maybe you’ve seen them in the mall, made your way through a frisbee circle getting to the cafe after class, or maybe you’re curious about their giant stuffed animal whale. Everyone has seen the frisbee club hanging out on the mall and tossing around the disk. University of Dallas Ultimate Club (UDU) is a co-ed frisbee group right here on campus. They practice twice a week and play local colleges in tournaments.
With their high academic achievement, community involvement, and quest for physical excellence and competition, UDU’s team members embody the University of Dallas spirit. They believe that UD provides an excellent environment for intellectual and spiritual formation, but the missing piece is the camaraderie and physical formation that comes with ultimate frisbee.
Despite UD being a small school with only around 1,600 undergraduates, the team competes against larger schools with tens of thousands of students, often holding their own. In a recent tournament their competitors were local schools including UTD, UNT and TCU.
When discussing the benefits of club sports, Thomas Waterman, junior physics major and member of UDU, said “club is the way you go, because its student motivated and student led. You know the coach, you can’t be behind the coach’s back and complain.” The community aspect of the team allows for a democratic and supportive environment.
The style of the club sports also allows for a sports and life balance for the players. “We acknowledge that you have a life outside of it, and it’s like, we’re only calling it a part of your life,” said Waterman. When not on the field, several UDU run their own clubs. Martha Depew runs the Crusaders for Life, Keira Devlin runs the Hippocratic Society, Theo Irlbeck runs philosophy club, Tyler Duback runs the Humanality Project, and John Dougherty runs the bridge club.
Like many Lit Trad IV students, the team has an obsession with giant (stuffed) whales. Their mascot simply called “whale” is traditionally given each year to a female freshman team member and is passed on to another freshman when that student becomes a sophomore. Another mini tradition the club has is to gather on the mall outside Braniff for the Bread club on wednesdays at noon, but there is rarely a time when the UDU players aren’t on the mall mingling with the community.
Interviewing the players about what they like about UDU, Vinny Pavese said “We’re just a bunch of people who love to throw a frisbee.” John Dougherty said “frisbee is not only one of the most elegant and fantastic sports, but people on UDU are 30 of the most fabulous people on campus.” Thomas Waterman said “I personally think we’re like, we’re an awesome club. Everyone should come out and come to practice at least once” Keira Devlin said “It’s really easy to just sit and study all the time, but it’s also really hard to commit to a full NCAA sport. Frisbee is in between, where it can both be competitive and also a little lax. It’s also just a really great community that supports you. That’s what I love about frisbee.”
If you are thinking of joining them for a practice it is a very welcoming community. Practice is Monday and Wednesday from 6:30-8pm on the rugby pitch.