The American Ultimate Disc League (AUDL) is one of the two mens’ professional ultimate leagues up and running right now (the other is Major League Ultimate). There are some differences in the rules used in AUDL and the MLU—double team coverage is allowed and the fields are bigger.
No one is getting rich playing ultimate yet (most pro players have their travel expenses covered and receive a small per-game stipend), but it’s a start!
The NexGen Tour featured a team of all-stars pulled from various top club teams playing all over the country. This game pits NexGen against Revolver, one of the best men’s club teams in the country. Beau Kittredge played on Revolver and is in this game, as are tons of other ultimate stars like Jimmy Mickle, Josh Wiseman, and Dylan Freechild.
I like this game because it’s cold, raining, and windy. Sometimes the weather is like that and it’s good to see how these top college players handle it.
A close game with a thrilling finish!
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Though ultimate is a new sport to many of our players, it’s been around since the 1960s, when it was invented by a bunch of rowdy high school kids in New Jersey (including movie producer Joel Silver, seen in the photo above with sunglasses on, far left).
USA Ultimate dug up some great old game footage from as far back as 1980 (an eternity ago to our players; I was two years old that year). Though the shorts are a lot shorter, the game style isn’t too far from how it looks today.
Some perspective: We didn’t even hold our first practice last year until April 28th, eight days from now. By the time April 28th of this year clicks over, we’ll be having our eighth practice of the season! All of that extra gym time, throws, and catches are really going to show once we get a chance to run around on the grass. The gym felt a little cramped at times, but it was awesome having the inside air to build confidence with our throws.
A reminder—the next practice is this Thursday and will be held in the Falmouth High School gym. This is OUR LAST INDOOR PRACTICE!!! While we might end up inside sometime due to rain, all of our regularly scheduled practices are outside on the grass. Full field games. Long hucks. Wind! It’s going to be great.
Parents and players—it can be cold and rainy this time of year. Please make sure to dress properly once we get outside. Cold hands cannot catch the disc.
Jerseys are ordered! We’ll be rocking FIVE Ultimate shirts. That’s the brand, not the number of shirts we’ll be wearing. That would be ridiculous.
I’ll leave you with this high level game between San Francisco’s Revolver and Japan’s top club team the Buzz Bullets. Players—check out Beau Kittredge on Revolver.
Roll Falmouth!
Chloë Rowse, the Falmouth Alum who is running an ultimate frisbee camp this summer through the Falmouth Rec. Dept., is playing with the U23 Women’s Nationals team this year. I thought it’d be cool to share a U23 game, though Chloë is not in this one (we’ll share her games as soon as they start popping up on the net).
We watched this video today in practice and I thought some of the players might want to share. This is Beau Kittredge, one of the best players in the history of ultimate frisbee, jumping over an opponent. Please note: this is not a regular occurrence in ultimate and speaks more to Beau’s killer athleticism more than anything else.
I also showed this picture of a summer league team that I captained when I lived in Boulder, Colorado back in 2002. If you look, you’ll noticed Beau standing on the left side of the image (second from the left). I’m standing in the middle holding up the disc and the number 1 symbol. It was Beau’s first summer in Boulder, no one knew who he was, and I ended up drafted him because he was tall (since I was also new and didn’t know anyone in the draft, I just picked the tallest available choice every round). Of course we won the tournament that year.
The players have been given some ultimate homework this week—they all need to go for a 20 minute jog and they need to spend at least 20 minutes watching this game of professional-level ultimate frisbee (you’re invited to join them in watching).
The first pull is around the five minutes mark, which you can skip to if you want to jump over the standard pre-game production.
FMS Ultimate 