SAN DIEGO –
In front of a crowd of fewer than a dozen people on a gloomy Sunday morning, Daniel Stein flicked his wrist and sent a flimsy-looking disc spiraling 70 yards. It soared over the heads of several defenders and into the hands of a teammate for a score.
If Stein expected to be congratulated by his coach for a well-designed play, he would have had to make a call to wake him up. “Our coach isn't here yet,” La Jolla Country Day junior Nick Coreia said. “This is sort of the game we are expected to win and he is going to show up later for the other three.”
Winning is important, but not important enough to wait for a coach to start the game.
Ultimate Frisbee, usually played with seven-person teams, is more about respect and having fun.
There are fouls but no referees. Players call infractions on themselves. The object of the sport, often referred to simply as Ultimate, is to score points by passing the disc to a teammate in the opposing end zone.
To Stein, a junior at La Jolla Country Day, it's a chance to compete and help reintroduce Ultimate Frisbee to a region often uninterested in it.
To Coreia, a tall, skinny kid who stands on the sidelines cheering for his friends more often than he plays, it's an opportunity to build camaraderie. Other youths consider the sport a great alternative to PE classes.
With the help of San Diego State University's Ultimate Frisbee club coach Steve Prodan, Stein brought together five Southern California teams for the first Aztec Bowl this month in Point Loma. The event was a round-robin competition featuring local and Orange County high school club teams. High Tech High won the championship.
“We always want to try to foster Ultimate at the high school level,” Prodan said.
Stein helped start the club team at his school and eventually talked the athletic director into recognizing it as a sport, allowing students to receive school credit for participating. “This is a sport that a lot of kids have found,” Stein said. “They weren't football and basketball players, and they're like, 'I want something to do. I want a sport to play.'”
Joe Miller brought a team consisting mainly of members from his Pacifica High band in Garden Grove.
“There are not a lot of Ultimate teams up in our area and definitely not in our school district,” Miller said.
Ultimate has a larger following in Northern California and on the East Coast. So much so that people laughed at Stein when he tried to recruit classmates last year.
“I go into my English class one day and I'm like, 'Hey, I'm trying to start an Ultimate Frisbee team,'” Stein said. “And everyone is like, 'Daniel, are you an idiot? Who plays Ultimate Frisbee? It's something you do at summer camp.'”
Stein eventually talked enough of his friends into coming out to play a game. La Jolla Country Day now has almost 20 players.
Next year, Stein hopes to have at least twice as many teams participate. “I've got one more year,” said Stein, “and then I'm looking forward to leaving this team to somebody else and letting them carry on the legacy of what we have started.”
E-mail Stein at futureprez619@gmail.com for information on fielding an Ultimate team.
