Frisbee
From The Extended Group
Ultimate Frisbee The magical sport of ultimate involves seven players, three handlers, two mids, and two longs. The goal of the game is to throw a frisbee between players on your team to your respective end zone. Taking elements of football, soccer, and basketball, the sport is generally played during spring and summer on a 70 yard by 40 yard field.
Contents |
High School Years
Conception
A form of unruly "lunch frisbee" begins during the fall of freshmen year in H.S. as means of passing the time during lunch. During this era, an aerobie disc would be played instead of the regulation 175 gram disc as it incurred too much pain. Eventually, the change to the official disc would come about upon the inception that playing competitively was as fun as messing around.
Melvin starts official SW team in 2001, though only seniors during this time join, with no one worth mentioning aside from Andrew Carson and possibly Dora Hendricksen, as a mildly attractive frisbee player. Jamie and Lukas show mild interest, but immediately quit after first practice. Jamie's grey sweater from this practice is still M.I.A. to this day. It was not until 2003, when the Shorewood team was in severe dissarray, losing 90% of its former roster to college, did the group enter official ultimate play. (Although it should be noted that less than two years later, Shorewood Ultimate would win the city championships)
Players of Note
- Terry
- Melvin
- Lilian
- Jamie
- Lukas
- Stuart
- Jordan
- Griffin Pulliam
- Liz
- Gavin
- Claire Whittle
- John Teske
- Jason Kim
Regular Season & Tournament Play
The team did not fare as well as any had hoped, especially with Sukol as head coach. Inexperienced, and lacking true direction, the team sadly lost all of its regular season games to a much younger, yet more experienced teams like Nathan Hale, Overlake, SAS, and Edmonds Woodway. Woodway, one should note, had the fairly precocious and cute Emma, who instantly stole Jamie's heart with her cutting abilities.
It was not until tournament play did things truly change for the better. Everyone was fairly excited to play and hopefully win a game, a feat not yet accomplished in the whole 8 week conception of ultimate frisbee for the group. The two girls who had been on the team were replaced by Maria Ardisonno and Gavin's sister, who were much better players that essentially amounted to having a full team at long last. Luckily, the team won their very first game against bitter rivals Overlake, whom they incurred an embarassing lost to during the regular season. The key to their win, it seemed was to use a tactic not yet seen by these younger players, the "Tri-monator" Consisting of three of the fastest players, each one would throw a small pass to one another in an octect fashion, thereby confusing and out-maneuvering the opposing team in the process. This lead to eight easy points upon its initiation during the first game.
Euphoric and bustling with excitement from the win, SW went on to continue this winning streak by eliminating another Seattle team in the semi-finals, making it to the finals against the toughest team yet in the B pool, SAS. SAS, a fairly rich and private school, consisted nothing but tall arian playes, of whom clearly played ultimate for quite some time. It was during this game that many saw, for the first time, air bounces and long-range hucks, a term used to describe a forehand throw taht spans most of the field. Though the game was close, the team, tired from two back-to-back games, lost. Though most don't blame one person for this, as they all enjoyed themselves in the process, Melvin feels John was the cause of the lost.
Despite this loss, SW, actually did win the "Spirit of the Game" award and each received a frisbee with a holographic insignia of Disc NW's logo, the organization sponsoring the tournament. It was a great day for all.
Injuries Incured by the Team
- Claire broke her thumb upon colliding with Jamie for a disc, thereby ending Claire's social and academic life as she had to wear a cast during Prom and take multiple AP tests with it. She has vowed to kill Jamie, to which Jamie merely responds with, "I'm so so sorry"
- Terry Lee "Falcon Kneeing" someone to the face. The kid went down hard, as for Terry's knees, they felt nothing.
- Seven strained ankles for Jamie, on both ankles forcing him to wear a brace for a whole year whenever he played. Also, one injury to his right wrist from a fall when going for a disc against Jason Kim.
- Melvin making Sara (That blonde guff girl) cry after yelling at her to guard Alex Koons better during exhibition play. It was hilarious as she merely wanted to attract attention from Brett. Brett did nothing.
College Play
IMA Robot: Year 1
With college rolling around, and many players still willing to play more ultimate frisbee as a result from H.S. play, Jamie and Terry decide to make an intramural team the likes of which no one has ever seen. A team composed entirely of freshmen, with very few, if any experience in playing frisbee. A majority of the team consisted of those from the Mercer dorm, including Calvin, Hyung, Hieu, Jason Wong, Yanis, and Mark Perry, with very few, if any girls, much to their dismay. The team was placed in open play, which had no gender restrctions. Unfortunately, this meant the team would play against all guys who were of higher caliber in fitness and height. The team lost all their games in regular play, and soon lost interest in further play. Only Yanis was the only one to even show up for their first tournament game. It was a sad day for all, and an even sadder one for ultimate as a whole.
IMA Robot: Year 2
- April 7th, 2006 -- Against the "Rehab Rebels," the latest incarnation of IMA Robot (now consisting of enough people to conquer most of Mongolia) beat their opponents so thoroughly that it made a young child cry. Not at the field...but somewhere there had to be a kid crying, and IMA Robot takes credit for that. Hyung Kim continues to lobby for more playing time, but the team resists (seeing as Hyung already plays 97% of all of the points and whines everytime someone tells him to leave the field).
- April 14th, 2006 -- Despite a mass disappearance of girls, IMA Robot was able to pull out an relatively easy 10-4 (ish) victory over Ceteris Ultimus. The game started out fairly evenly but the sheer power of the Robots' skills (which are occasionally called on to pay the bills) was able to overpower their opponents. Andy hurt himself and had to be carried off the field, where many sweatshirts were utilized to create makeshift pants in order to warm up his cramping leg.
- April 21st, 2006 -- The Robots faced their roughest challenge yet as they took on "Bad Medicine." The team in itself was not so difficult, but they were very physical (stemming from their game the week before where they were lied to about the rules), and threw many elbows and forearms at Robots playing defense. In the end, though, the Robots were too strong and continued their march to the play-offs with a 12-6ish win. Also, apparently Erika quit the team. No one is really sure why.
Roster
- Jamie
- Andy
- Izak Elvrum
- Calvin
- Jim Clithero
- Griffin Pulliam
- Tony Doan
- John Teske
- Hyung
- Jason Wong
- Melvin...
- Claire
- Mari
- Erika
- Ruth
- Natalie
- Allyson
- Andrea Leung (for five minutes)
Hoping to be considered a lot more competitive team this year, Jamie takes it upon himself to command the team and begins a massive recruiting process to introduce more girls to hopefully play co-rec, a much easier league than "open". With a larger network of friends, and aid form previous members, the team as a whole is able to recruit many more girls than last year, the likes of whom were fairly athletic and actually had experienced play. Those of note would be Mari Obara, Claire Muerdter, Natalie Holroyd, Erika, and Ruth Siew. Of note, Erika would be later used as means of distracting opposing players as she was, as Jamie once quoted, "The hottest girl that has probably ever played frisbee" 
Erika in a less distracting pose
Season play, unlike last year, went extremely well. The team, now officially known as IMA Robot for the second year, crushed all opponents with the aid of Melvin and Izak Elvrum, a B-pool player for UW's team. IMA Robot went undefeated, beating all graduate teams who were clearly of more experience, even almost shutting out the very last team they faced in a 13-2 victory. Though very unsportsmanlike, IMA Robot began to mock the other team by taking off their shirts and having a "naked point" as well as other themed points. Like an "all hammer point" or, "lay-out at end-zone point"
The team celebrating their last regular season point. Jamie is unphased by the cold. Courtesy of Hazel Lozano, when she was more generous and helpful
However, due to sweeping the entire season during regular play, the tournament organizers felt that the team was dominating far too easily and bumped up IMA Robot from the co-rec B pool league, to the A-pool one. The team had no troubles eliminating the first team, despite the massive downpour that ensued during gameplay. It was not until the semi-finals did the team known as IMA Robot finally fell. They faced the best team in the entire league, "Thunder Stats" Composed of all grad students with reliable forehands and extensive knowledge of the game, the team fell under their "Zone defense", halting many of their plays which relied on fast and quick offense.
The only solace they acquired from this defeat was that they got to see a hot mom on the field, who was later celebrated in the final cheer of IMA Robot with the shout of "Hot Moms!" at the end of play. It was a good run while it lasted, nonetheless, and was undeniably the most fun many have had.
Prognostics
- IMA Robot with official team shirts
- The return of Terry to the game
- Intentionally losing two, if not three, games to stay in lower league play - we really want those IMA shirts.
- HL cameo, time permitting (she's ALWAYS generous and helpful!)
