Tarleton’s Ultimate Frisbee Club welcomes all who want to learn the sport

BY BRENNA DEMPSEY

Executive Producer

Tarleton State University has a growing ultimate frisbee club that offers something for everyone, no matter what their skill level is.

Ultimate frisbee—not to be confused with frisbee golf—has a similar structure to other sports like soccer, football and basketball, but adds the unique element of a frisbee.

Ultimate frisbee is a non-contact sport with the objective of getting the frisbee to the opposing endzone. Once a player catches the frisbee, they are not allowed to run; they instead have to choose a pivot foot and have 10 seconds to throw the disc to another player. When the offensive team scores, they swap with the other team to go on defense, and the game continues.

This is a great game to play for students who love to get outside and enjoy fun activities.

The club has practice every Tuesday from 9 to 11 p.m., and on Mondays and Wednesdays from 7 to 9 p.m., they play pickup games.

These pickup games offer a more relaxed but still fun ultimate experience, without the more competitive side that comes with tournaments.

Levi Patterson, the ultimate frisbee club president, has always had a passion for the game and wants to share it with others.

“Pick up ultimate frisbee. It's just casual. If you want to come out and have fun, run around, you can. That's it, just come out and have fun,” Patterson said. “You don't have to be good, but you might just be like, ‘Man, I want to get better.' That was us when we first started.”

Getting better comes with practice, which can be full of creativity and experimentation.

Vice President Clayton Parker is one of the people who helps organize the club and work on building ultimate frisbee skills, while still keeping it fresh on the field.

“We'll come out to practice, and it's just kind of working on some basic things. Sometimes we'll try to develop new ideas or stuff we've seen on TikTok or YouTube. We just try to play our game and have a good time,” Parker said.

The game itself is well-loved by the members, but the people they get to share that love with are just as special and help make the club what it is.

“We're a tight-knit community… All of us love each other, we all want to see each other grow,” Parker said.

There is a sense of family and belonging that really brings the club together. The relationships that blossom because of their love of the sport just might last a lifetime.

Mason Deckard has been a part of the ultimate frisbee club for two years and is still going strong.

“It’s 100% a family vibe. These are some of my best friends that I've made and will be lifelong friends,” Deckard said.

While fun and games are a big part of the club, they also love to compete and go to tournaments.

“Last year, we competed at a top-level [tournament], becoming the number three team in Texas and a top 100 team in the nation,” Deckard said.

There is a very active and competitive side to ultimate frisbee, and there is even the Ultimate Frisbee Association (UFA).

“Ultimate is played in many formats around the world at all competitive levels. For many years, there have been middle and high school leagues, D-I and D-III college competitions, as well as Club National and International championships,” UFA provided on its website.

Patterson keeps the future in mind and wants to help drive the team to success.

“My goal for this year is to take us to competition, obviously, to the best of my ability, but also to provide a better foundation for our team, to get more members and also improve our fundraising,” Patterson said.

Over the last few years, the interest in ultimate frisbee has been growing on campus, and the club is getting bigger as time goes by. This means there are lots of people of all experience levels to learn and play with.

This semester has been off to a good start, and Parker is confident in the club's future.

“It's looking really good. Whenever we do pickups, a lot of people come out here… I saw 20 [or] 30 new faces I’ve never seen [at our first club pickup]. So hopefully we get them liking the sport and coming over to the club. I think it'll go really nicely,” Parker said.

The hard work and dedication they put in drive the sport and the team onward.