A brief history of Ultimate Frisbee

Today was the DiscNW Youth Summit and I will talk more on that later but now I think there needs to be a breif history of the sport as it pertains to me. I began playing Ultimate when I was 15 at Garfield High School here in Seattle. I have played every year since and continue to play still. I went to the University of Washington and played for 5 years there including playing in College Nationals my final year. Now let's not get to thinking I'm any better than I am. I've wasted a lot of time not being in shape and letting great training oppurtunities pass me by, but I am hoping to make a change. I want to make a change and I think that is where it should begin, but will I change?

Anyhow, I played in youth leagues and Adult leagues here in Seattle since High School. Now I play coed frisbee most of the year on Tsunami (a team comprised mainly of aquaintences and college friends) as well as run a club men's team called Downpour. I'm starting to play Microsoft pickup once a week with my friend Dylan and attempting to rehab a shoulder injury I suffered this past summer.

I do a lot of Youth organization work, hence the Youth Summit. I serve as the State Youth Coordinator to the UPA (Ultimate Players Association) and I work on the Youth Committee for DiscNW. I use to coach for the Northwest School as a boys ultimate coach but I was recently asked to resign my position. I won't sugar coat things I was dissappointed but I can see my ideals and training beliefs differing from the school as a whole and I am ok with that. I've been encouraged to go start running my own program and I've flirted with the idea of returning to Garfield to work there as a coach but we shall see where my "feelers" will land me.

The Youth Summit was the first time a large body of people came together to discuss the future of youth ultimate in our region and where it should go. Ok so we just blew a breaker in the house and the computer reset. Hooray for auto-saving. Anyhow, the summit was a good thing I think. It gave some structure to where Youth should go and how the Director of Youth Operations, a job I applied for but did not get, can see it getting there.

Anyways I think that is enough on the topic of Ultimate for now and perhaps enough blogging for tonight but we shall see.