Cacace at the Bat: Ultimate and the Red Line Have Proven Me Wrong

Things are dull in Harvard sports right now.

Not to slight our rowers and sailors, nor the cream of our track and field crop competing at ECACs, but things are getting to the point where I’m ready to stop following the Crimson.

Our baseball team fell short of an Ivy League title, softball couldn’t get to NCAAs, and women’s outdoor track failed to take Heps again.

We have no announcement about a new Athletic Director.

We have finals and papers.

We have nothing.

We are wrong.

We have Ultimate Frisbee.

Harvard’s own Red Line will be competing in the 16-team National Championship Tournament next weekend.

The tournament will be held in Devens, Mass., and carries the hefty burden of brightening up my view of the Harvard sports world.

The seven-on-seven game has done nothing but irk me over the last two years, as frisbees whizzed by my head while I tried to traverse the MAC Quad.

I never really saw the point, and wrote it off as an activity, and certainly not a sport.

The Red Line has thankfully proved me wrong. Better than some 175 schools in the country, the team has demonstrated the intense dedication and passion for competition that I would have thought laughable.

The players are actually running the steps of Harvard Stadium in preparation. My scoffing days are generally over when such stamina enters the equation.

If that doesn’t convince you, the rules of the game ought to be appealing to any sports fan on campus.

The games are unofficiated, allowing the players to make the calls. It’s called “spirit of the game”, and it would turn any competition in Lavietes into a melee shortly after the jump.

The ultimate players see it as a chance to just appreciate the game, without the cutthroat competition of most athletic contests.

Don’t misunderstand this, the Red Line wants to win, or at least take out hated rival Tufts. But it’ll be all good once the teams leave the field.

“Spirit of the game” is the hallmark of their sport, and an aspect of the game that they feel distinguishes it from most sports.

They are, of course, right.

The athletes’ desire to compete, and compete fairly in camaraderie with others who share the same passion for the sport, cannot be doubted.

As such, the “spirit of the game” rule ventures near the essence of sports. That’s something rare.

The sport’s outlook is refreshing, and worthy of the admiration of any Harvard sports fan.

But ultimate is hardly unique as a Harvard sport that mixes intense dedication with anonymity.

Most club and junior varsity sports don’t have the following they should, and that’s a shame.

Consider ultimate my personal metanoia. The chance to have national champions here on campus, despite the sport and its fan following, is something that inherently spices up the world of Harvard athletics.

It makes it less dull.

If that doesn’t get you out barbecuing in Devens to celebrate the end of finals, consider the single most impressive fact about the team.

All 21 members of the Red Line, as proud members of a national organization of Frisbee players, carry an “Ultimate Player” card.

Jay-Z would be proud.