In major college sports like basketball and football, the atmosphere consisting of fans in the stadium and tailgating beforehand is what draws many to watch MSU athletics.
For the players, the draw is the atmosphere within the locker room and battling with alongside teammates against the opponent.
For the athletes of the men’s and women’s MSU Ultimate Frisbee teams, the friendly atmosphere on the field between both teams is what separates the sport from the rest of the pack.
“I do like that aspect of, ‘Hey, we hate these guys’ guts (so) let’s tear them up,’” supply chain management senior Charles Robertson said. “But at the same time, it’s nice to have that spirit of the game ... where if someone fouls me and I don’t call it ... they go like, ‘Hey dude call that foul, I fouled you.’ You’re not going to get that someplace else.”
The spirit of the game of Ultimate Frisbee has been a center point of the men’s team since 1971, while the women’s team has been around since the 1990s, women’s captain Lindy Torvinen said.
Psychology junior Daniel Brown said he first heard of the men’s team at MSU when he was on his high school’s Ultimate Frisbee team.
“It’s just really fun,” Brown said. “Because it was so much fun, I wanted to play it because I played it so much I got good.”
The two teams play in separate divisions in the U.S. Ultimate College Division: the men’s division and the women’s division.
Torvinen said even with the teams separated by gender, the two play together during spring break at a co-ed tournament in Myrtle Beach, S.C.
Torvinen said playing co-ed was different than playing all-female Ultimate Frisbee.
“It’s really cool because there’s not that many sports that are competitive at a high level that are co-ed,” Torvinen, a psychology senior, said. “There’s the whole thing of men learning how to throw to women because they’re not quite as fast, but women are also incredibly valuable on a mixed team.”
Torvinen said women are valuable on a mixed team because when a team has strong women, it usually means the “team is stronger.”
“Women usually win the game,” Torvinen said.
Robertson avoids playing in co-ed because of the speed of the game in co-ed is slower, and Robertson prefers a more high-paced game which he said, “You don’t get that with the women’s.”
“It’s not as physical,” Robertson said. “I generally avoid that and I go with just the men’s because I can play physical, I can play fast and that’s a lot of fun to do.”
But no matter what league players choose or what their preferred style of play is, there is still a lot to learn, Torvinen said. She has been playing Ultimate Frisbee for four years.
“You’re not only thinking of what you’re suppose to be doing, but you’re thinking of how everybody else is moving on the field and there’s so many different strategies and layers to it,” Torvinen said. “You learn so many things your freshman year because most people haven’t played before they started here, and you just keep learning.”
