Delbarton and the Sport Formerly Known as Ultimate Frisbee

You may have heard of "Ultimate Frisbee," but the official name of the sport has been changed to just "Ultimate," dropping the trademarked name belonging to the Wham-O Toy company.

On Saturday, April 2, the Delbarton Ultimate team launched its season with a spirited game on Ryan Field against Columbia High School, the place where Ultimate Frisbee was born. Countless hours of throwing a disc behind Trinity Hall -- otherwise known as “Mom, I’m staying after school to do my physics homework…” -- have apparently paid off, as Green Wave Ultimate defeated Columbia’s B Team 15-10.

For those unfamiliar with Ultimate, the first team to accrue 15 points wins the match. The game was invented by students at Columbia High School in 1968, and it is still wildly popular there, so beating even their B team was an accomplishment for Delbarton, where tossing the disk is usually relegated to a casual game among seniors in the Garden.

The rules are as simple as the equipment: Players may not run with the disc, and may only move one foot while holding the disc (i.e. pivoting). In 2008, there were 4.9 million Ultimate players in the US, but given the fleet-footed nature of the game we bet they were hard to count.

Thanks to faculty moderators David Blazier and Mike Miklius, the Delbarton Ultimate Club is now a fully operational organization filled with guys who work collectively to launch a plastic disk into the hands of a teammate in the end zone. In yet another salute to the Greener Wave's recycling initiative, for their first game Delbarton Ultimate athletes wore their Homecoming T-shirts as team jerseys. Later this week they receive official team jerseys which are destined to be the hot new Delbarton collectible (memo to Ultimate: re-order now) . Rumor has it they may be lining up a match against Columbia’s A team next weekend. Clearly our Ultimate athletes are smart enough to know that you only get better by competing against the best.