After learning a new set up, the women try it out and have some fun at practice.
GCM photo by Nicole BlankenshipUltimate Frisbee is a sport that is growing rapidly around the nation. The fast-paced mix of soccer and football has caught on here at CMU, too. The fairly new CMU women’s club Ultimate Frisbee team is looking to attract even more new members. Nick Conklin takes a deeper look into the new sport on campus, Ultimate Frisbee.

Combine the non-stop action and movement of soccer, with the sharp cutting and quick passes found in football, and you have ultimate Frisbee. Two teams, made up of seven players each, attempt to work the plastic disc down a football-sized field to score points. A typical game is made up of 15 points. The fast-paced mix of soccer and football requires quick thinking, agility and endurance.

Ultimate Frisbee is governed by the Spirit of the Game, an honors system that places the responsibility for fair play on the players rather than referees, according to the Ultimate Players Association.

The Spirit of the Game states that, highly competitive play is encouraged, but never at the expense of mutual respect among competitors, adherence to the agreed upon rules, or the basic joy of play.

The sport is played in more than 42 countries by hundreds of thousands of people.

Ultimate Frisbee is a growing sport in Michigan. The newly-founded women’s ultimate Frisbee club team of CMU competes against other college leagues in Michigan, including ones based at U of M and Michigan State.

Rachel Weingartz felt that women also deserved a team.

“I founded the women’s club team because I felt that girls that wanted to play were too intimidated to play with the boys’ team,” said Weingartz, president and captain of the women’s team.

Because there is no contact allowed in ultimate Frisbee, the game depends more on skill than size, so no one should be too intimidated to join.

Despite being fairly new to CMU, the team has been bringing in new players regularly, and is hoping to expand their numbers.

As Molly McCormick looks for a team player to throw the frisbee, Kendra Welling tries to block.

GCM photo by Nicole Blankenship

“Right now we have a decent number for the beginning of the school year, which is roughly about 10-12 women, give or take. We only hope to get more in the near future,” said Melanie Maltese, who has been on the team since the spring semester of 2007, when the first team was assembled.

With the club team being so new, their main focus is to get some attention in hopes of attracting new players.

“We are really focused on getting more people involved. We would like the team to grow this year because many of our team (members) will be graduating soon,” Weingartz said.

The team hosted their first tournament this September at the IM fields. Although the teams had to endure a cold and rainy day, most enjoyed playing a home tournament.

“It went great. Everyone played hard and it was nice to meet new people at the same time,” Maltese said. “I think the weather more or less added to the event, being that it rained all day long. It was pretty fun and funny at the same time, and I think we were all used to the rain by the middle of the tournament.”