What is Ultimate?
What is Ultimate?
Ultimate is a fast-paced, non-contact team sport played on a field similar to a football field. The offensive team attempts to pass the disc until it is caught in the defending team's endzone, which constitutes a goal. Running with the disc is not allowed; upon catching the disc the player must stop, establish a pivot foot and attempt to pass the disc to a teammate. Incomplete passes and interceptions are turnovers and play immediately reverses direction. All players act as throwers, receivers and defenders. Games are to a set number of points (usually between 11-21), each goal counts for a single point.
Ultimate is packed with exciting action; players diving horizontally (going ho) to catch or block a pass; opponents leaping high in the air in a contest of jumping and timing; rapid-fire short passes; 70 yard throws (hucks) to a player streaking to a back corner of the endzone; and defenders doing everything short of bodily contact to prevent completion of the passes.
Ultimate can be compared to many sports; it uses a football type field; you use a pivot foot as in basketball; it has the non-stop movement, of soccer or hockey... but more importantly it has several features which make it unique:
Spirit of the Game
An extremely large emphasis is placed on sportsmanship. This is called 'Spirit of the Game' and is so much a part of Ultimate that it appears in the preface to the rules:
"Ultimate has traditionally relied upon a spirit of sportsmanship which places the responsibility for fair play on the individual player himself. Highly competitive play is encouraged but never at the expense of mutual respect between players, adherence to the agreed-upon rules of the game or the basic joy of play. It is assumed that no ultimate player will intentionally violate the rules; there are no harsh penalties for inadvertant infractions but, rather, a method for resuming play in a manner which simulates what would most likely have occurred had there been no infraction.The purpose of the rules of Ultimate is to provide a guideline which describes the way the game is played." (WFDF Rules: Article IV - Ultimate ©1994)
No Referees
Since it is assumed that players will not intentionally break the rules, it is not considered necessary to have officials. If players feel that they have been fouled or that they have committed a foul they simply call 'FOUL'. The same is true for violations such as travelling, and picks. If the player who is deemed to have committed the foul or violation disagrees with the call, they simply say 'CONTEST'. There are various mechanisms for resuming play depending on what the calls are. Certainly when the game is close and the adrenaline is pumping the calls are not always quite so simple, or polite. But the system works.
It is played with a disc.
Balls travel in easily predicted paths and behave in easily predicted ways. A raw beginner can make a disc do things that Nolan Ryan couldn't dream of doing with a baseball on his best day. Discs will float, rise, curve, you can hit a disc in flight and it'll rise, they can also tilt on edge and plummet to the ground or suddenly rise three feet pass over the intended receiver and drop just as suddenly to the ground, in a strong wind they can come to a complete stop and reverse direction, but I don't want to get into what they can do in a strong wind. What all of this means is that there is the added element of 'reading the disc' (the art of knowing where and when you can earliest hope to catch the disc. I find few moments more entertaining than a disc sailing over the fingertips of a leaping 6'+ defender and then floating into the hands of a 'vertically challenged' receiver.
At the beginning...
Today...
