Club sports don’t typically get much attention.
Some members of the Vandal community are not aware of the club sports offered on campus, let alone how many of them there are.
The ultimate frisbee team is one of the many club sports that are offered at the University of Idaho campus. Both the men and women’s teams compete in tournaments year-round.
The men and women’s ultimate frisbee team both practice on the same field at the same time. Captain Rennie Scott said when both teams practice together, they help each other grow. There are some occasions when they will actually play games together as a mix. When the competitive season comes in the spring, however, they do separate for their games.
Practices then become about what each team can work on for improvements.
The ultimate frisbee team here is a part of the Big Sky division. They play a lot of the big, main schools around the Pacific Northwest.
The women’s ultimate frisbee team went to a tournament in Missoula, Montana, a month ago and got a third-place finish.
“To have enough ladies come and be able to play with us to where we can compete as a team and score and rank is really relieving and fun,” team member Alicia Watson said.
“Splinters in Winter” is an indoor tournament the team hosts at the UI in the spring season. Spring semester is when the team has their competitive season.
It’s their biggest tournament, as well as their biggest fundraiser.
Teams from Washington, Utah, Oregon, Idaho and Montana make the trip to Moscow.
“It’s a bit more casual of a tournament since we can’t play full field and outside, but we still have a lot of fun and get competitive,” third-year member Trevor Griffin said. “Nice opportunity to meet people from all around and alumni play in that one too. It’s a good way to bring all the community back together.”
You don’t have to be experienced to be part of this team. The team is always welcoming everyone and anyone at any time the moment one wants to join.
“It’s been a really cool process just watching people learn and watching myself improve.” first-year member Aaron Crockett said.
There are some members that join as freshmen and some that join as first-timers. Either way, both don’t know about the sport. Returners that were once those people, are satisfied with playing each and every opportunity they get.
“It’s cool that each team is different every year, like the personalities that have come together make this all different each time,” Coach Jess Stitt said. “To see them gel at the beginning of like having people who have never played before, learning skills, not very confident and see those same people at the end of the spring,” Stitt said.
Stitt is a Ph.D student who is currently in her fifth year as the ultimate frisbee team coach. She played the sport when she was in college. She began coaching when she went to Columbia University for her masters.
“My highlight is always when I can step back and when I coach, I’m like, ‘I have no comments for you, you guys are doing awesome,’” Stitt said.
Scott and Griffin both said this is the biggest team they have ever been a part of in the three years they have been on this team.
“I love the frisbee team. We hang out all the time, almost every weekend, every Friday night or every other Friday night we have a movie night,” Scott said. “We do a white elephant party, we have a Friendsgiving, we do pumpkin carving, whenever we’re not playing frisbee, we’re hanging out with frisbee people.”
Multiple team players have said it doesn’t matter where you come from, who you are, or what you do in life. When it comes to ultimate frisbee, it’s all about having fun. The tight knit community this team has is one of a kind, and is definitely what keeps these strong friendships going.
“As someone who, it’s like my first time is on the team, it’s been really cool to being able to come into such an open community,” Crockett said. “We all accept each other for who we are; all of our little weird quirks and sorts of things that we bring to the table.”
Elizabeth Carbajal can be reached at [email protected]