In the cold rainy winter days when all other sports teams have long since retired or moved inside, one band of lonely warriors strives onwards, bringing only the necessities: water, cleats, a warm hat, and a Frisbee. They come to play with pride and honor, saying, as they enter the field, “Did you know that three beers fit in a Frisbee?”Ultimate Frisbee is a mixture of football and soccer. Like football it has endzones and like soccer it has nonstop game play. A game of Ultimate is played to 15 points, with seven players on each team. Every time the Frisbee is caught in the end zone, that team gets one point. The Frisbee is turned over whenever it is dropped or intercepted. The game is high speed and demands that the players are in good shape and love having fun.
Biohazard, Guilford College’s Ultimate Frisbee team, is a year-round club team whose players come out no matter what the conditions. The team practices on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 3:30; anybody and everybody is invited to play. The team has a very exciting semester lined up, with two big tournaments in the forecast.
The first tournament is Beastern, held annually at Wilmington, NC, March 16-17. Beastern’s is geared for all the B teams on the East Coast, so it pulls a large and varied crowd of players. It is an open tournament, which means there are no gender requirements. This will be a challenge for the Guilford team as they are a highly integrated team with almost as many females as males. Yet the team does not seem scared about this and is expecting to have a great time playing their usual game.
The second tournament of the semester is the Small College Shootout in Asheville, NC, April 6-7. This will be the first time this tournament has been held. It was created to encourage small college ultimate teams to come out and play on an even playing field, without any of the large state schools that have money and people to throw at their teams. Playing here gives teams like Guilford a chance to come out and play with other colleges that are also just in it for fun. Look for the team to really shine at this tournament, as it is a fairly well established team with good understanding of the game.
The team, which consists mostly of underclassmen, is looking forward to this semester and is hoping to continue to improve their game. “It’s hard to see the improvement at this point but I think this semester is going to be good because we have a lot of returning players from last semester.” said sophomore Eric Shultz.
The team only has four or five seniors, a handful of juniors, and a bunch of, at least nine or 10 depending on the day, sophomores. Jay Gregory, senior and the current president of the team, said, “I like the fact there is a lot of comrademanship on the team and a chance to hang out with people you do not normally get to see in everyday social situations.”
The Ultimate team is looking to have a great semester and come rain or shine, they will be out there throwing the disc around having a great time. Aliene Howell, a sophomore, said that playing on the Ultimate team has been the “zenith of [her] college experience.” So if you are ever lacking for something to do, or looking to meet new people, or want to get outside and run around and have fun, come out and see what Guilford College Ultimate is all about.