Miracle #3 for Q1 2024: Competitive Ultimate Frisbee

Jasper has been on a club middle school ultimate frisbee team for about a year. In January, Adam Koren told us to check out a local one-day ultimate “Hat Tournament.” This is a tournament where they form teams for the day from whoever shows up in the morning. The range was from competitive high school to professionals from the Oakland Spiders, Oakland’s pro ultimate team. They took the three kids from middle school and lumped them with all the players from the Oakland Spiders.

It was Jasper’s first taste of competitive ultimate. Standing next to me at the 50-yard line was an older gentleman who turned out to be the dad of one of the Spiders. This gave me great hope that I, too, could still be watching Jasper play a sport for many years to come. Jasper played himself to exhaustion, something I rarely witness. That day connected us with Oak, the non-profit competitive youth Ultimate organization. That led to tryouts, and Jasper was placed on the U17 (17-year-old and younger) team. He is 14.

We are now on a trajectory for the U17 Oak team to play in YCC this summer, the national youth tournament in Colorado. The U17 team’s first practice was a two-day tournament this past weekend at UC Davis. The U17 team played eight games over two days in a college and adult tournament. We were the youngest competitors by a whole lot. We went 0-4 on the first day and 3-1 the following day. Bonding and trust were cultivated, both on the team and with the parents.

This sport has it all: running, jumping, juking, throwing, catching, strategy, very dynamic gameplay, and intensity. There are no refs or umps! Some kids play in PJ bottoms. I have put my 10,000 hours into watching my son play sports. I have never experienced a sports culture like this before. It most definitely speaks to me.

We’ve officially begun our journey in travel sports. I did not see this coming, and I couldn’t be happier.