Peter Norby
3 Questions
Not to be confused with disc golf, ultimate is that college-bred, heart-pounding, sweat-inducing, fast-paced disc-based experience that merges football aesthetics with just the sickest discing. In Santa Fe, new players can readily find a place not only on a team, but in a social circle—plus your $45 entry fee comes with access to games, a team uniform T-shirt and your very own disc. Sign up at santafeultimate.com now, and hear from league rep Kat Keener below. (Campbell Lozuaway-McComsey)
Why would anyone want to play in this ultimate Frisbee summer league?
Ultimate Frisbee summer league is something I enjoy for a couple of reasons. First of all, I enjoy the community that ultimate Frisbee has fostered in Santa Fe. I’ve made most of my really close friends playing Frisbee, so to me it is very special because of that. And secondly, it is a really fun way to be active in the summer. I am not a go-to-the-gym person, so playing Frisbee is a fun way to get really good exercise, and you’ll meet a whole bunch of people that you otherwise would not cross paths with. It’s a really interesting and kind of diverse group of people that come from all different kinds of jobs and parts of town. Even if you have never touched a Frisbee before, I would encourage you to come out for summer league because it’s a great way to learn, and there are always people there who are willing and able to teach brand-new players. That is definitely part of our mission as a community—to encourage people who’ve never played to give it a try, because we think it’s such a great sport. Don’t feel like you shouldn’t sign up because you don’t have any experience, as we have brand new people every year, and I think by the end of the summer they have shown so much improvement just from playing consistently and from playing with the same team.
How intense is the league?
We have a very wide range of participants. We have people that have played in national and masters’ tournaments, and we have people for whom it’s their first time ever touching a Frisbee. So in terms of intensity, it really depends on who you are. You can bring the amount of intensity that you want to it. One of the great parts about summer league is there are people who come out and want to win, and then there are people who play because they think it’s fun and they want to hang out with their friends. So in terms of intensity, I think it’s kind of a choose-your-own-adventure situation. And part of the beauty of it is that we have such a wide range of skills so you can easily find someone on your team or on the opposing team who’s matching your intensity.
What is the commitment?
The commitment is one game a week every Thursday from mid-June to mid-August. No practices, since it’s just kind of an intramural league. You show up for one game a week. You can obviously miss games if you need to. We hope that people will be able to be there for most of the games, but we know that people are traveling and that’s totally OK. Every team has somebody missing pretty much every week, so it’s not really a big commitment. We hope you can make it to most of them, but if not, that’s totally fine, too. However, I think the more you come, the more you get out of it, because you really get to know your team. That’s my favorite thing about it: being able to play with the same people week after week because you really start to get some mojo, team mojo, and, obviously, the more you show up, the better your mojo with your team becomes.
