I’ve played ultimate in a hundred different settings (probably an exaggeration) but nothing compares to college ultimate. I forget that not everyone believes college ultimate should be your number one priority and nothing else matters. Remember those awful shirts in the 90s? Ultimate is Life. The Rest is Just Details.
What makes college ultimate so special?
My dad played football in college at South Carolina. He thinks he’s the expert on all sports. He always comes to my games and gives advice about how we need to throw the disc up field and not back and forth (zone O) or add more trick plays. He lives close by so during the fall we spend a lot of time watching college football together. I love hearing stories about his college days and have recently started asking questions comparing things that relate to my sport. I spent some time finding out about common injuries in football, hearing about the training they did, the places they got to go (all expense paid trip to Hawaii… Rough life) and listening to him talk about his roommates and friends and teammates. Theoretically he was pretty good but an injury his senior year ended his career.
Not long ago we were yet again in front of the TV and I had a new question. “Do you think football players like their college or pro teams better?” Almost without hesitation he answered, “College.” To summarize his reasoning: In pro football they are always being traded and moved around and its all about the money. In college its just about playing. It’s about the guys on your team. You live with them. You are accountable to them. They are your best friends. You spend your entire college career in the same place. It’s a family. Last year he went to a reunion. Decades of South Carolina football players and coaches were present in the room. They were a family, and you can hear it in his voice when he talks about the trip.
I’m not saying melee is anywhere near as intense as any NCAA program. But there are still many parallels.
I love the tradition of my college team. Texans are proud. We are proud of our state. We are proud of our school. We are proud of our team. Everywhere we go we are representing something much bigger than ourselves. The University of Texas.
I think this will be our 10th series appearance, and I’m confident that as long as college ultimate exists Texas will be there. I love that there is a past, a present, and a future. For four(ish) years melee is your community. Your best friends. Your free nights. It’s blood, sweat, and tears. It’s an outlet for all of the stress from homework and projects and tests. It’s focus and dedication. It’s seeing results from hard work. It’s watching the rookies finally figure out and going from utter n00bs to completely unstoppable.
So back to the original question. What makes college ultimate so special?
The fact that it’s college ultimate.