Frisbees Fly at Park High

A new Ultimate Frisbee club, the Orange Crush, has started at . It has taken flight this spring thanks entirely to sophomore leadership.  Noah Betz-Richman and Jonah Resnick talked in detail about the prospect of bringing a team to the high school and a plan was hatched. Many details and hurdles needed to be overcome.

They designed very creative fliers and promoted an informational meeting to share their idea for a new club and to determine interest in March. Educating the 18 attendees was a large part of the meeting. It went well, as 15 signed up to participate. Now the real work had begun. Resnick and Betz-Richman took it upon themselves to find a coach in Charlie Landis who played in high school and college, and would be willing to take the reigns. 

Then they needed to design a uniform logo with sophomore Carter Green. They worked with the city's parks and recreation board to reserve a home field for practices and games. Finally, they secured a sponsor and completed the necessary paperwork with Minnesota High School Ultimate and USA Ultimate, the governing body for ultimate leagues at every level around the country. Keeping school brass informed during the process was another requirement.

Coach Landis credits Resnick and Betz-Richman for all of their hard work and effort in making this a very smooth season.  Ann Betz (mother of Noah Betz-Richman) commented, “I am so impressed with the boys taking on this whole thing by themselves.”

Dana Pepper (mother of Ari Pepper) had a son who played at Hopkins and now one on the Park team, “I love the good sportsmanship and creative cheers the teams give one another at the end of each game.”

Ultimate is a fast paced game and scoring happens quickly. The game is played to 15 points, or a two hour time limit, and you must win by two points. The game starts with a captain from each team flipping a disk (Frisbee) and one team calls odd or even to determine who starts with the disk. You are not able to run with the disk; you can only pivot and throw it. 

Defensively, you can play a man-to-man or zone, but usually defense is played full length of the field (like a full court press in basketball). A score happens when a player throws to a teammate in the end zone. A score is worth one point. There are no officials or referees—the players are on an honor system of calling their own fouls, points or drops.

The St. Louis Park Orange Crush has a record of 2-4 and will participate in two more regular season games and the state tourney in June. This year’s team is very young, consisting of one senior and 14 sophomores. They will be more experienced and improve their play next year. The team is dedicated and practices four days a week, and plays games on Thursday nights.