Ultimate frisbee has been declining in popularity in America in recent years. On college campuses, frisbee players are the butt of a lot of jokes. Frisbee is often called a fake sport, something that you do in college that is just a phase, a game best played in the backyard. Even here at Brandeis, a place that strives to be welcoming of everybody, and largely succeeds at that worthy goal, frisbee players are subject to frequent teasing. One humanities major, who chose to remain anonymous out of fear of retribution from the men’s club, said “Frankly, Brandeis Tron has always struck me as a little odd, if not outright cult-like. One of their captains, when I asked him what I would be called if I joined, said chair-leg. What kind of a name is chair-leg?? Seriously, no sane person is naming their kid chair-leg. These people are seriously messed up.” But my question is: Why? Why is a sport that requires such a high degree of athleticism, subject to so much ridicule? In this piece, I look to answer these questions and attempt to do the impossible: destigmatize ultimate frisbee.
To do so, I sat down with a man well suited for the task—one of Brandeis Tron’s captains and star players Nathaniel “Atlas” Friedman to hear what he thought:
*Note: This interview has been edited for clarity and length
Richard Grau: How long have you been playing ultimate frisbee and when did you join Brandeis Tron?
Nathaniel ‘Atlas’ Friedman: I started playing ultimate frisbee in my junior year of high school and I joined Tron at the beginning of last year as a freshman.
RG: Would you say there’s a certain stigma that surrounds ultimate frisbee?
Atlas: There is a certain amount of stigma—top athletes on the frisbee team are as good if not better than the Division III athletes here at Brandeis, and yet because of the sport we play, we are not recognized equally.
RG: Does having ultimate in the name of your sports demean your athletic pursuits?
Atlas: It’s unfortunate, but it is something that can’t be changed. At the same time, frisbee requires just as much athleticism as soccer, basketball, baseball. It combines almost all of them to create the ultimate sport of frisbee. So maybe the name does fit.
RG: What is it like being bunched in with other oft-mocked club sports teams, like quadball?
Atlas: Frankly it is insulting. Quadball is just a disgrace to anyone that they “practice on chapels field.” Watch. Put any single player of the frisbee team on the quadball team; they would be the best player on the team. If I played quadball, I’d be the best player by far. Watch professional frisbee versus watching professional quadball, if there even is such a thing, Quadball puts a shame to club sports everywhere.
RG: How do you think cult names like Rock, Ghost, and your own—Atlas, play into that stigma?
Atlas: Personally, I can appreciate the significance of team culture and see the need for it to continue. I can see how it looks from the outside, but receiving a name for us means you’ve made it. It means being part of a team, being part of a family.
RG: Is there anything you’d like to say to aid in this process of destigmatizing ultimate frisbee?
Atlas: We challenge any other team to play us in frisbee and we’ll play them in their sport. We’ll see how close each game is. We are the best athletes on campus.
Recently, new nicknames have been unveiled including Scythe, Tarot, and team favorite Capone. Atlas told me that all these names live in a master spreadsheet, with the unique rationales behind each one to be revealed when a team member graduates and says goodbye to Brandeis Tron. These names seem far from “chair leg” and perhaps do provide a sense of camaraderie and team spirit for the players. Though yes, the “cult” names are funny and “ultimate” makes the sport sound silly, Atlas is right when he says that frisbee players are some of the best athletes on campus. They deserve our respect and admiration, not our scorn and snickering. Maybe ultimate frisbee really is cool?
