Everyone has seen this die hard bunch with their multicolored flying saucers in hand, practicing "hammer" tosses and long cuts come rain or shine on the Green.
But who has seen the rag tag bunch of ultimate Frisbee players actually compete?
For those who don't know, the Dartmouth ultimate Frisbee team, a club sport supported by only a $500 per year stipend from the athletic department, wrapped up its best season in 10 years this spring ranked 30th nationally -- quite an improvement from 95th last year.
This year's team is heavily manned by '99s who have been working hard to learn the tools of the trade. Since most freshmen leave high school with little knowledge of the existence of ultimate frisbee, the team relies heavily on former high school athletes who still want to remain competitive.
"We get a lot of people that still want to play a hard-core sport," Pat DeLeon '99 said.
Tradition weighs heavily in Dartmouth disc lore. In the old days, the team would be clad in homemade skirts for all its games. Lately, this tradition has lost some of luster, and only two upperclassmen consistently uphold the ritual.
"It's an older tradition," DeLeon said, adding that most of the hard-core '99 players have adopted the more practical attire of Adidas shorts and knee high socks.
"Skirts are optional," co-Captain Sean Cushing '96 said. "There seems to be more social pressure now not to wear the skirt. Skirts in the past reflected the mellow heritage of the game."
There is nothing mellow about this year's disc team, however. This year's returning core of players set its sights early on, for the first time conducting conditioning practices over the winter, and the work paid off.
"As a team we've traditionally been more mellow than other schools. But ultimate is a sport that has been evolving lately, and at the beginning of the fall we made a conscience decision to work hard," Cushing said.
The ultimate team opened its spring season with a surprising showing at the Ivy League tournament on April 13 at Yale, coming in second despite a next-to-last seed going in. The team kept its momentum the following weekend at Princeton, finishing in third place out of a 20-team pool.
At the sectional championships at Williams, Dartmouth went in ranked second but only managed to finish fifth. The team redeemed itself in its season finale at Regional's in early May with a sixth place finish, Dartmouth's best showing in 10 years. Not too shabby after a 14th seed start.
With the competitive part of the 1996 season over, the team is already eyeing a promising future. Dartmouth will lose three strong seniors from this year's club, including co-Captains Cushing and Alex Brunner '96, and one of the top players in the region, the team's main "handler," Jason Brady '96.
"He is our most inspiring, a fireball of a player," Cushing said of Brady.
"He's psychotic," DeLeon said. "There's no one else ... with more energy and commitment to the team than him. No one gets in the other team's face and sticks up for the team like he does."
With a diehard following of '98s and a strong new core of '99s to take them into seasons to come, the future looks bright for the disc team.
"The '98s and '99s are all committed and skilled," Cushing said. "The '99s in particular are all great athletes. They just have to get the skills down. I had a great time playing the sport and I'm glad I've met the people I have through it, and I'm pretty excited to see what the team can do in the future."
