When people think of sports that require a great amount of skill, athletic ability and endurance and are difficult to play, basketball comes to mind. 
Track and field events would fit under that classification too. What about playing Frisbee? That’s not the first thing to come to mind. 

Anybody can throw a disc, right?

Appalachian State Frisbee player Andrew Greenberg claims otherwise. He doesn’t just throw a Frisbee around with some friends, though. He plays what is known as Ultimate Frisbee.

Ultimate Frisbee is a fairly new sport that gained popularity in the 1970s. Two teams pit seven players against each other on a rectangular field with goals on each end, similar to a football end zone. An official field is 70 yards from end zone to end zone.

The seven-player teams are broken down into three positions. Three handlers are in charge of moving the disc down field. Two players stay in the middle of the field as a link between the handlers and the third group of players, the two long players. The positions are self-explanatory; the long players stay long near the end zone in order to catch the long passes for a score.

According to Greenberg, “You can only advance the goal by passing.” Any contact is considered a foul. When a player throws the disc and it hits the ground, the opposing team gains possession.

Most games are played until the first team reaches 15 points. Greenberg said that some games can last up to an hour and a half.

ASU’s Ultimate Frisbee team is hosting a tournament on Saturday, April lO at State Farm Field, which consists of all of the sectional teams from North Carolina and South Carolina. According to Greenberg, the top three or four teams from sectionals advance to regionals. Some of the teams in the same section as ASU include North Carolina State, East Carolina and the University of North Carolina. Regional winners move on to the national level, and those winners go to the Ultimate Frisbee world tournament.

According to Greenberg, ASU’s team is very young, with most players having two to three years of experience. He encourages anyone that has Ultimate Frisbee experience to join the team and to come out to the tournament on Saturday. “We need people. We’ll put you on the team if you 
can play.” He also invited students to come and support the team.

The team is coed, so everybody is invited to play. The team plays five games to 13 points on a tournament day. It is very helpful to have substitutes to relieve the players. Greenberg described how the team had to go through tournament days using a “savage seven.” That is when there are only seven players that play all day. Sometimes tournament days can last eight hours.

Because of the great endurance and skill involved, Greenberg described Ultimate Frisbee as “clearly the most difficult sport to play and win; 
you’re not going to be really good until you play for a few years.”

Greenberg said that Ultimate Frisbee is different from other sports because of what he describes as “the spirit of the game.” “It’s just sportsmanship and not cheating. We discourage the win-at-all-costs attitude,” he said.

While they play to win, it is not the primary goal of playing. They play for the enjoyment of the game. One example of the sportsmanship involved comes around tournament time. “If two teams agree, they can change the rules, the disc, the scoring or anything else,” said Greenberg.

If anybody is interested in playing and can’t make it out this Saturday, they can contact team captain Clayton Coltman. His phone number is available in the Intramural sports office. “We need to have 30 people,” said Greenberg. “Women and men are encouraged.”