{image1}Someone once said that when a ball dreams, it dreams of being a Frisbee. Although it seems unlikely that recreational equipment experiences rapid-eye-movement sleep, the thousands of Ultimate Frisbee players in the world would probably disagree.
Ultimate Frisbee was first invented in 1967 by a group of college students in New Jersey. Today, it is played all over the world, from New Zealand to Milwaukee.
The Milwaukee Ultimate Club recently began its spring league and currently has 40 members, but club president Scott "Scooter" Severson hopes to recruit many more in the near future.
"The Milwaukee Ultimate Club is an umbrella organization," says Severson. "Within the club, individual teams form ... the club will support their efforts since we're all working towards the greater good of the sport."
One of those teams under the MUC umbrella is Cooler By The Lake. Mike and Claudia Koch, a Brewer's Hill couple who met at an Ultimate game in Germany, are core members.
"I am so convinced that Ultimate is the coolest game in the world," says Mike Koch, who has been playing the sport for 20 years.
Ultimate is played by opposing seven-member squads with a high-tech plastic disc (available at Milwaukee's Art Smart's Dart Mart ... and Juggling Emporium) on a field that's similar to a football field. The objective of the game is to catch the disc in the opponent's end zone.
A player cannot run when holding the disc, but can pivot to throw it. Like basketball, players move from offense to defense when there's a dropped pass, an interception, an out-of-bounds pass or when a player holds the disc for longer than 10 seconds.
Typically, the game is played for an hour and a half and for 15 points, one point per score.
Most interesting is the lack of a referee. Instead, the game is completely self-officiated, something that attracts many players to the sport.
"Ultimate is truly a sport of sportsmanship," says Severson. "It's what all other sports are supposed to be: You play by the rules, you try not to break them and you don't cheat. You are bound by your honor."
Ultimate is an intensely aerobic game that includes a lot of running, yet many players weren't the jock from high school. According to Severson, the teams include a lot of people who never played organized sports, as well as those, like himself, who have always been physically active.
But one thing all Ultimate players have in common: A penchant for partying after games. Socializing and celebrating is an important aspect of Ultimate culture, and Cooler By The Lake often enjoyed cool ones away from the lake, at sponsoring bar Steve's On Bluemound.
"We're like a softball team in that way," says Koch.
Ultimate Frisbee is broken down into a variety of divisions. The "open" division features both men and women, but typically has more men than women. The "mixed" division requires at least three players of each sex to be on the seven-person team. Other divisions include Women's, Juniors, College, and Master's -- for those "old timers" who are at least 34. Severson says the Milwaukee teams for this season are still in flux.
This summer, Milwaukee will host the 16th Cooler Classic that will feature 64 teams from around the world, including Winnipeg, New Zealand and Finland. The Cooler Classic, set for August 28-29, is the second largest Ultimate tournament in the Midwest, but most likely the only one that awards cheesecows (yes, one word) instead of trophies.
"Upon presenting cheesecows, the heads were sacrificially bitten off, and they saw that it was not so good. They should have peeled the wax coating off before eating them," reads the Milwaukee Ultimate Club's Web site. "So be warned, all who partake in the sacrificial cheesecow eating, take off the wax before you bite the head."
The Milwaukee Ultimate Club's Web site is milwaukeeultimate.com.
Molly Snyder started writing and publishing her work at the age 10, when her community newspaper printed her poem, "The Unicorn.” Since then, she's expanded beyond the subject of mythical creatures and written in many different mediums but, nearest and dearest to her heart, thousands of articles for OnMilwaukee.
Molly is a regular contributor to FOX6 News and numerous radio stations as well as the co-host of "Dandelions: A Podcast For Women.” She's received five Milwaukee Press Club Awards, served as the Pfister Narrator and is the Wisconsin State Fair’s Celebrity Cream Puff Eating Champion of 2019.
