U-Point

Growing up, my brothers and I never handed each other anything. We threw things. Keys, the remote, grapes. They’d even throw me when I was younger and more aerodynamic. When we threw something, we trusted the other person to catch it. You should have seen us unload the dishwasher.

There’s very few things in life I love more than throwing and catching things. Maybe it’s the comfort of going through the loose motions of it all. Maybe I’m just easy to please. When I really think about it, that’s probably why I’ve played ultimate frisbee for the last ten years of my life — it’s the perfect competitive translation of throw, catch, repeat. 

Before you ask, no. Ultimate frisbee is not the sport where you try and throw a disc into one of those standing chain baskets (that’s disc golf), and it’s not the game with dogs you could play in Wii Sports Resort. Since it’s safe for me to assume the majority of you don’t know what ultimate really is, I’ll hit you with the basics.

Ultimate is a non-contact team sport, with seven players on each team allowed on the field at a time. When you have the disc in your hands, you aren’t allowed to run and you have ten seconds to throw it to a teammate. You score when one player catches the disc in one of the two end zones that bookend the field, similar to football. If there is a turnover, you immediately have to turn and play defense, like soccer or hockey. Many levels of the sport are self-official. 

Now that you know more about ultimate frisbee than most of the world, let’s get back to business. 

I’ve been throwing frisbees with my family for as long as I can remember. I started playing ultimate when I was twelve. Today I’m twenty-two. I’ve spent the majority of my cognisant existence playing this niche, emotionally brutal, beautiful game which seems to exist in a world of its own.

With that said, I think it’s time for me to step away from ultimate frisbee. I graduate college in a week, and I’m desperate for change. The kind of changes I want to make require a time investment I can’t make if I want to continue playing ultimate at a high level. Yes, I could theoretically play casually, but there’s no way I could endure that mentally. That sounds extreme, so I think I should explain why this is the case. Let’s start at the beginning.

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The song “I.Crawl” by Childish Gambino does odd things to my brain. When the first notes trickle through me, I can feel the bumpy vinyl of the school bus bench I’d slide into twice a week after school in seventh and eighth grade. I always preferred to sit alone those days. When I’d put my headphones on, the ones that were just a little too big for my head, I could sink into the music and begin trying to clear my head. 

Being in school drained me. I was pretty seriously bullied back then, so walking through the halls between classes made me feel emotionally claustrophobic; heart racing, breath shortening, hands shaking. Sometimes I’d have panic attacks in class. You know, normal middle school stuff. 

That building made me unavoidably anxious, but none of that mattered when I’d sink into that seat and allow the first notes of that song hit me. Those thick, eerie synths put me in a space where I could breathe, gave me time to calm down. Time to focus. Those two days a week, I’d have ultimate practice at an elementary school soccer field down the road. The music and those ten minutes I had to myself on the bus shut the world out and helped me steady myself enough to walk onto the field. 

I’d start to feel centered enough once I stepped off the bus and dragged my feet through the wood chips spread out in clumps underneath the play structures next to the field. 

After I sat down on the grass and began to lace up my cleats, it didn’t matter how I had been treated that day. It didn’t matter if some of those same kids on the field made me feel like an outsider in school. Ultimate was my outlet to expel every ounce of pent-up energy back into the world. Sometimes it felt like my way to prove my worth, but, to this day, I’m not sure if I was proving it to myself or everyone else.

Most schools have at best one ultimate frisbee team, but I got lucky. From sixth to twelfth grade I went to school in Amherst, Massachusetts, where ultimate is a religion. Amherst has one of the oldest ultimate frisbee programs in the country, and the Amherst public schools have become an institution. Our middle school has a travel team that competes in the spring and has rec leagues in the fall and spring. In high school we had similar leagues along with a student-run indoor league so we could play year round. By my senior year my high school had six separate ultimate frisbee teams. Some people may dismiss ultimate as a nonchalant stoner sport, but the nonchalant stoners in Amherst don’t play around. They’re pretty “chalant” when it comes to ultimate.

I first tried out for our middle school travel team in eighth grade, about two and a half years into my ultimate career. To some degree it was a last-ditch effort to stay in school, to still feel like I could exist in a somewhat normal world. At least as normal a world can be if it heavily involves ultimate frisbee. 

Even though I was a student in the Amherst school system, I was a school-choice student that didn’t live in the district. That meant if I left the school to start homeschooling or enroll in another school, which my parents begged me to do that year, I wouldn’t be able to play frisbee. The kids who bullied me took most of my friends and my emotional stability. I wasn’t willing to let them take this game, too.

Thankfully, I made the team. From that point on, everything shifted a little bit. Nothing was fixed, but that season got me through one of the hardest years of my life. Being a part of that team gave me a reason to go to school every day, and on that field I actually felt like a part of a community for the first time in a long time. I felt like I belonged somewhere, like my presence was valued and wanted by people my own age. 

That team also made me fall in love with the game in a whole new way. Playing in rec leagues was one thing, but playing for my team against other schools with real stakes? That made me feel like I was playing for a bigger purpose and I wanted that desperately. We weren’t bad either — we were beating high school teams. 

The feeling of being on that field was addictive, and I wanted to be trusted enough to be out there when it mattered. I started staying after our practices to run extra sprints. I’d practice every throw I’d need on the field in the front yard with my dad on the weekends and after school. I always tried to ask the coaches questions, but I’d ask when I could get them alone, so I didn’t have to speak up in front of the whole group. If I wasn’t the tallest, the most skilled or the most athletic, I was going to be the hardest working. 

That summer I went to the National Ultimate Training Camp, or NUTC, for the first time. I could write a whole separate essay on how important NUTC is to me, so I’ll try to be brief. When I first went to NUTC, I was the youngest, smallest and most intimidated kid at camp. It didn’t help that I hurt my throwing wrist on day two and had to learn to throw lefty. We stayed in the dorms of a local college and played frisbee for at least six hours a day. Some of the best players in the world were coaching us, and some of my teammates and opponents have joined those ranks. It was fair to be intimidated. 

Despite all that, everyone was so kind. On the field, you were expected to compete and play to the best of your ability. Off the field, you were expected to be an active and positive member of the community. I went to NUTC every summer after that, and I eventually worked there once I graduated from high school. I’m forever grateful to the camp, the people who made it happen and the players who made it a safe space for players like me.

After that first year at NUTC, I never really questioned why I was so bought into the sport. Ultimate was something I did now, and to think it wouldn’t be an important part of my life never crossed my mind. It was my anchor, and it kept me steady as I transitioned into high school.

While high school was easier for me socially and emotionally, the game was still my reason to get out of bed and go to school every day. It’s not like everything was easy all of a sudden. I still had panic attacks, with one particularly bad one happening on the field during ultimate tryouts my freshman year. I can still remember the bitter March air stinging my lungs as I collapsed on the astroturf, gasping for air. By then I knew the payoff of pushing through moments like that would be worth it, though. I’ve been through this before, and I knew it wasn’t going to break me.

By the time I made varsity my junior year, I really did feel like I had a place in that community. I still didn’t have a ton of friends, but I had enough. I was getting solid playing time each year because my work was really starting to pay off. It was finally my chance to compete at the highest level, and I was going to make the most of it.

Then the pandemic happened. In the big picture, losing two seasons on a varsity ultimate frisbee team is a pretty ideal thing to lose. Most people had more important issues. Sure, we couldn’t play any tournaments, ones where we were sure to hold our own and probably play in the finals; but for the most part we were safe and healthy. More than that, being a part of the team kept us connected to the real world. Even if we couldn’t compete, we could do workouts and hold each other accountable. We could throw from a distance. It got us through.

We got lucky and could play a few one-off games with other schools, so I got a taste of what it’s like to play at the level I’d always wanted to. To this day, it’s some of the best frisbee I’ve played. Everything had a natural flow, everyone played their role and the mission was clear. We all wanted to be the best version of ourselves for the team. Even if I didn’t fully feel like I belonged in school, I knew I belonged between the lines of the field. 

Our varsity coaches had us meditate before games, a practice I carried with me into college. When I started applying to schools, I only had three requirements: I wanted to be in a city where I could happily live for at least four years, I wanted there to be a good journalism program and I wanted the school to have an ultimate frisbee team. I ended up at DePaul. 

The DePaul Ultimate Club, or DUC, shaped my college experience more than anything else. I met some of my best friends through the team. Class schedules were built around practice times, and I’d rush to the Quad after those classes to toss. Weekends were spent at DUC events, practices or tournaments. I limited how much student media I participated in, so I could be as committed to the team as I possibly could. 

Our team as a whole committed more than anyone outside of the sport could understand. We’d wake up at 5 a.m. twice a week in the winters for indoor practice, pushing headfirst through harsh winter winds on our trek to the gym and play on the basketball courts. We’d fight through Saturday morning nausea after a messier night on our way to weekend practices. We helped each other train for club tryouts after our seasons ended. This might seem crazy to someone outside the cultish culture of ultimate, but the work paid off. 

DUC made regionals for the first time in program history my freshman year. We ran it back the next year when I was a junior captain. We were already making history, and my class of players were just hitting our stride as a unit. The style of ultimate we were playing wasn’t as high level as I had played in the past, but we were still competing with good teams. There was a different energy in college ultimate compared to high school. DUC isn’t as prestigious as the teams I’d played for previously, but we were fighting to build that kind of culture. We had something to prove.

Junior year is when things started to really change between me and the game I love. Life outside of frisbee was better than it had ever been. I had great friends and was doing fulfilling work in my classes. I didn’t realize it then, but my priorities had started to shift. 

That year I was captain and president. When our two coaches left the team a month into our fall season, I was then the interim coach. Then our only other captain quit the team. On top of that I was dealing with a nagging leg injury all season. I felt like the team was on my shoulders for months, and for the first time ultimate was the thing that made me feel like I was drowning. Trying to keep myself and the team afloat was exhausting. My new position made me become a kind of authority figure that no one wanted me to be. I had no idea what I was doing and felt like an absolute failure when we didn’t make regionals. 

There was a noticeable weight lifted off my chest when the season came to an end, so I took a break from ultimate for the summer. I was getting ready to study abroad in Ireland in the fall, and I was focused on spending time with my friends and bettering myself for that experience. Ultimate had consumed me, and I needed space. 

When I got back to Chicago, my fire for the game had diminished significantly. I still loved to play, but it was harder to get out of bed for winter practices, and I dreaded going to the gym. I didn’t want to be at practice at all if we weren’t working hard, and it felt like that was happening more and more. I felt disconnected from the process more than I ever had, so much so that I started to resent the game. But I had made a commitment. I was going to will myself through this season, if not for me than for the teammates that had been there with me every step of the way. 

All our work was put to the test at sectionals where a bid to regionals was on the line. Seniors on the team were especially eager to end our season by bringing the team we love back to the level we had reached in our first season. We had a gauntlet to get through if we wanted to make that happen though.

On day one, we had played three close games, but we lost them all. We still had a chance, but we needed to play better. We needed to demand more from ourselves and from each other.

Day two was a grey, windy Sunday. The air felt heavy in a way that forced our words to hang in the space between us for a few seconds longer than normal. The one thing I know for sure is that we understood the gravity of the day.

Our first game against Illinois State University went to universe point, or u-point, meaning that we were tied at the end of the time cap and had to play one winner-take-all point. We were going against the wind, making it harder to keep our throws steady. I dropped an easy pass and turned it over near our own endzone, shifting quickly to play defense. I glued myself to their best player’s hip, but he scored on me a few throws later. 

I was livid. I had played great defense on him all game, but he got around me when it mattered most. What’s worse is that this loss meant we had to win our next game. If we lost, our season would be over, my college career would be over and my ten-year frisbee career finished. 

We were matched up against Loyola for game two. They’d beaten us the day before, and we were itching for revenge. The game was back and forth for ninety minutes until we yet again found ourselves in a u-point game. We worked the disc up the field but turned it about fifteen yards away from their endzone. It only took them about five throws to break through our defense and score. 

While some of my teammates started crying and hugging each other, I stood in silence. I took a deep breath and sat with it all for a moment. It was all over just like that. Time didn’t stop but instantly everything had changed. 

I bawled my eyes out in our team circle at the end of the game. As our captains and coaches made speeches and our team gave shoutouts to each other, I sat there with my head in my hands. For everyone else the season was over. Most would return next year. But unlike my teammates, I knew at that moment I was done with ultimate frisbee. Ten years of love, sacrifice, salvation and joy ended there on that field with one throw and one catch. The worst part is I wasn’t the one doing the throwing or catching. 

I am who I am for many reasons, but my time playing ultimate frisbee is one of the most important guides to my life’s trajectory. Now that time is over, and I feel at peace. My story as an ultimate frisbee player, at least for the foreseeable future, has reached its conclusion. Thankfully, I like endings.

Endings are an essential part of life. Donald Glover talks a lot about the importance of endings when he decided to retire his alter ego Childish Gambino, and I think it’s serendipitous that he released his final album the summer before my final season. His music helped me play my best, and his mindful approach to a work’s lifecycle helped me navigate my approach to retirement.

No story, no career, no life is complete without an ending. While my time playing ultimate didn’t end how I had hoped, I couldn’t ask for much more. I got to play my final tournament in my chosen home of Chicago with some of the best friends I will ever have. This essay itself has been essential to my grieving process, giving me time to reflect on the countless teammates, coaches and mentors I’ve found through this game. To say I’m grateful to them would be a gross understatement. 

Ultimate frisbee deserves my best, and I’m no longer able to offer that. It’s time to see what’s next.

Header by DePaul Ultimate Club