Frisbee is a casual activity, shouldn’t be considered a sport: Madelyn Dewey
Ultimate frisbee is big at Geneseo. Maybe you’ve seen players around campus throwing frisbees—you probably couldn’t tell if they were just warming up or playing a full-fledged game. Maybe you’ve heard of frisbee, the casual pastime, but you’re not familiar with the “sport” itself. Maybe you’re actually an ultimate frisbee player and you’ve just started plotting how best to murder me.
Whatever the case, here’s a refresher on the strange world of ultimate frisbee. According to the World Flying Disc Federation’s “Rules of Ultimate,” “two teams of seven players compete on a playing field about the same length as a football field … at each end of the playing field there is an end zone,” and “each team defends one endzone. They score a goal if one of their players catches the disc in the opposite end zone.”
So, that’s the gist of ultimate frisbee. It seems like a sport, right? What if I told you that ultimate frisbee has no referees?
It’s true. According to The New York Times, “the spirit of the game is embodied most prominently in the [game’s] lack of referees … in most ultimate competitions, players make their own calls.”
Without referees, the game seems more like fun and less like a competition. Why consider something a sport if it fosters friendship instead of animosity? But seriously, sports are usually competitive enough to require a few no-nonsense judgement calls. That doesn’t happen in Ultimate.
And another thing: ultimate frisbee has been around since the 1960s but wasn’t recognized by the Olympic International Committee as a sport until 2015, according to BBC News. Even chess was recognized as a sport in 1999, according to Reuters.
According to question-and-answer website Quora user Harsh Lala, frisbee scholarships aren’t really a thing. Most sports are gateways for students to earn money toward a college education, but frisbee doesn’t seem to work that way. “The closest thing to a scholarship that you can get is the love and support of a future team,” Lala said.
The most money you are likely to earn for frisbee is “a $200 scholarship,” according to Lala. That’ll probably pay for … a single college textbook.
Plus, I’m not the only one that thinks Ultimate isn’t a real sport. Reddit users [Deleted] and Colonelfudgenustard agree with me.
“What makes it as ‘legitimate’ as anything else?” [Deleted] asked. “I don’t think most high schools have teams, they don’t give college scholarships for it, they don’t have a professional league for it. It seems like more of a ‘casual sport’ to me than a ‘serious sport.’”
“I’d compare it to bocce ball or frisbee golf or paintball or laser tag or beer pong or a score of other things that are casual sports,” [Deleted] continued. “You can play them for fun, and there may be some people who take them really seriously, but most people don’t consider being good at them to require the same level of commitment or skill as being good at football, soccer or basketball, for example.”
Reddit user Colonelfudgenustard also brought up an excellent point about the name of the game.
“The name is a bit irritating,” Colonelfudgenustard said. “It seems to claim too much, to be too boastful. And the Frisbee seems to be more light-hearted, somehow. I know nothing of the sport itself, but to slap the word ‘ultimate’ on it sounds a bit goofy. It’s like they’re trying to add some gravity to this whimsical, almost weightless thing.”
To be fair, the Geneseo frisbee team’s Escargot mascot is pretty cute, and this frisbee thing seems kind of fun. But that doesn’t change the cold, hard truth of the matter: ultimate frisbee should not be considered a sport. Sorry, World Flying Disc Federation.
Madelyn Dewey is an English and political science major junior who thinks Dros is wrong.
Ultimate frisbee meets qualifications required to be a sport: Alexandros Anton
What makes something a sport? Many people have had the discussion, or some might call it a heated argument, about what constitutes a sport. This, of course, is incredibly subjective as individuals have different standards for what a sport is. That said, ultimate frisbee is absolutely a sport.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the word “sport” as “a physical activity engaged in for pleasure,” or “a particular activity (such as an athletic game) so engaged in.” They also define the word “athletic” as something “done vigorously or actively.” By these definitions, you can make a case for just about any activity being a sport.
In our society, some people use this loophole and try to classify activities like chess as sports. While chess is certainly something you must actively participate in, it isn’t very physically vigorous. Ah ha! We come to the next requirement for something to be considered a sport—it must be physically vigorous. While some may argue this and cite esports or competitive video games as examples, for most people a sport must be physically vigorous.
Ultimate, as its athletes tend to call it, is a relatively young team-sport that emerged out of a New Jersey high school in the late 1960s. The game is played on a field similar in size to a football field, but longer and narrower. The objective is to work the disc up the field toward the defender’s endzone by passing it between teammates. Once you catch the disc, you must establish a pivot foot, like in basketball, and complete a pass to a teammate before ten seconds have elapsed. Once the disc is caught in the endzone, your team scores a point. If at any point a team doesn’t complete a pass or fails to throw the disc within the ten seconds, it is a turnover.
Interspersed between each “point” is continuous play until one of the teams catches a pass in the endzone that they are attacking. Because of this, if both teams are unable to produce anything offensively, they will remain on the field for as long as it takes. In subpar weather conditions such as strong winds, scoring can be quite the challenge. Being on the field for five minutes or more is physically exhausting because of how the game is played.
During play, players are taught to sprint with every intended cut, like how basketball players make cuts along the baseline for a pass or soccer players gain separation. It can even be compared to wide receivers in football, who are running as fast as they can to get open. Even when a player is clearing out of the way for another one of their teammates, they should be doing so with as much speed as they can muster. As mentioned before, it’s possible that players can be on the field for what seems like an eternity because they are sprinting up, down and across the field.
Also, catching a disc can sometimes be very challenging. Suppose you decided to make your cut in the downfield direction, so you’re effectively “going deep.” If your thrower isn’t right on the money, you would have to jump high to catch the disc if it’s above you, or even make a full-extension dive and drag your toes to keep yourself in bounds. Only the most elite level players have mastered the body control necessary to catch some poorly thrown passes.
There are so many reasons why ultimate frisbee is and should continue to be considered a sport. Many people who have never truly played it don’t fully grasp what it requires physically from players. Although ultimate frisbee may not be incredibly popular, if bowling is considered a sport then ultimate sure is, too.
Alexandros Anton is a communication major senior who thinks Maddy is 110% wrong.