Alameda Ultimate Team Fights Hard in State Championship

Alameda’s own “Dark Meat” (varsity-level Ultimate Frisbee team), was just inches away from winning their 10th state championship in the USA Ultimate 2016 California Division I High School State Tournament held May 7-8, 2016, in Santa Cruz. But, after a hard-fought game against Berkeley, they took 2nd-place on a “universe” (tie-breaker) point.

“We fought hard and almost made it again this year,” said Dark Meat player and ACLC senior, Gavin Maxwell. “Berkeley is a great team, and to lose on a universe point meant it couldn’t have been any closer,” Maxwell said.

Over the past decade, Alameda’s “Dark Meat” Ultimate team has won nine State Championships, so this year’s squeaker loss was especially hard to take. The Alameda Ultimate program was founded by former Alameda Community Learning Center (ACLC) teacher, Mike De Sousa, in the early 2000’s. The program includes “Dark Meat” (high school mixed gender team) and “Junior Meat” (middle school mixed gender team). The teams call ACLC home, but also welcome players from other Alameda schools and home-schooled kids.

Though played nationally and internationally by thousands of adult club and college teams (there are more colleges with Ultimate teams than football teams), Ultimate is still considered an “emerging” sport in the U.S. California is one of only 27 states that holds state tournaments at the high-school level.

It’s a high bar when a sport is called “Ultimate,” but fans say it combines the best features of soccer, basketball, football and netball into an elegant, yet demanding game. Ultimate is unique because it is self-refereed by the players, even at the World Championship level.

According to a code of conduct known as the “Spirit of the Game,” players take personal responsibility for playing fair. The conduct code grew out of the game’s counter-culture roots on college campuses in the late 1960’s and truly distinguishes it from other sports.