Debaters and Frisbee: It's Ultimate- Michael Sheetz

(Michael's written a guest post before, which was pretty awesome, and for some reason he wanted to write one again! Give him a round of applause, because this post is hilarious.)

Harken back to the long-gone days when Russian foreign policy had just become the resolution for the team policy season and you may discover an alumni and a student, slaving away at a case into which they wished to breathe their sports enthusiasm and knowledge. 

Kyle Helmick and I may have been crazy, but if it was any kind of crazy, it was a genius crazy. We had nearly finished a 1AC that mandated the US send aid to Russia. Not just any boring aid, the 10-million-frisbees kind-of-aid. Statistics of child obesity in Russia were staggering, and proving that Ultimate Frisbee would significantly decrease this problem were easy (Did you know that the only sport that burns more calories on average in the same amount of time as an Ultimate Frisbee game is water polo? Yup, didn't think so. You learn something new everyday.)

Of course, that was until we ran the idea by some parents. First question: "What judge do you think will vote on this?". 

Ok, so we didn't know. But that doesn't refute the fact of how awesome Ultimate Frisbee is. 

If any of you are wondering, Ultimate Frisbee is a sport. A sport where the objective is to pass a disc into an endzone that is on the opposite end of the field. Whenever you have the disc, you can't move, but anyone else on your team may. If that doesn't make sense, just find a homeschool debater and ask them to show you. 

The appeal to debaters, I believe, is the amount of fun you can have by simply throwing around a frisbee. In-between rounds, it's a fantastic way to pass the time, socialize/meet new kids, and talk. Of course, that is until someone gets clocked in the head (which I've seen before. It's really not that bad unless it hits someone's nose)

Back when I started playing UF, I got to play in a group that was in its glory days. Rad people like Amy Van Vlear (The-girl-who-keeps-beating-you-on-fast-breaks-into-the-endzone), Matt Mitt (Am I supposed to even try to defend him?), Sean Hansen (Did he just throw it under my leg?), Cree McCook (With a name like Cree, he's fast. Not fast. fast), Kyle Helmick (Either I'm going crazy or I just saw his arm telescope into the lower stratosphere to grab that), Trevor Scholten (What other fiery ginger can cause so much chaos with just one throw?), and the like were dominant. Being a novice at UF was like being a novice in debate: You kept doing a lot of things but you didn't know why you were doing them or how it could look so easy for everyone else. After about a year though, I picked up on the ropes of UF strategy and people started passing to me. Imagine that!

Three years later, I'm amazed I had never heard of UF before being involved in SAD. 

So whether you've only recently seen frisbees flying around at tournaments or you've been a part of the scene for years, Ultimate Frisbee will always be the second passion in a debater's heart. 

You're homeschooled and you know how to throw both a flick and a hammer.