The days of pot-smoking hippies throwing a painted disc for a few laughs are gone. Enter the days of sophisticated offensive schemes, rigorous practice schedules, and a steady stream of new players from high school programs around the country. Welcome to ultimate disc at Ohio State.

Numbers are up for the OSU Ultimate Disc club, a mostly self-funded group that travels to tournaments all over the country, most recently a Nov. 6 trip to Georgia where the team placed 9th among 16 teams. 

“It’s probably the top college tournament in the fall. We played pretty well and we’re just trying to figure things out and see what our team is like,” said Rodger Oakes, team captain. “We lost five guys from the team last year who played a ton and not only played a ton, but they were superstars.”

The road trip to Georgia happened to fall on the same date that the team had already scheduled for its own tournament here at OSU. Rookies and players that could not make the trip to Georgia stayed to play against Northwestern, Ohio University, Ball State, Indiana and others.

Having the correct amount of players to participate in two different tournaments over the same weekend is a relatively new occurrence for the club. The team expects to fill a 24-person main team and have at least 20 members left over to fill a B team, Oakes said.

“It’s my idea that the sport is becoming a little bit more mainstream, where you have a lot of people that are using it now in high school. A lot of cross country runners use it for conditioning,” Oakes said. “I know that Cincinnati and Cleveland have become pretty big as far as having actually ultimate disc high school leagues.”

The difference between pickup games on the Oval and practices held by the ultimate disc club mainly consist of intensity and organization. Offensive and defensive schemes are installed that assign specific roles to each member of the team.

“It just comes down to intensity level,” said Geoff Serednesky, junior captain and president of the club. “I guess pick up games can get pretty intense but with the organization level of the offenses and defenses, you can’t play the same level.”

Because of the nearly continuous motion required at the collegiate level, many of the players on the team come from endurance sport backgrounds. 

“It seems most of our players either ran cross country or played soccer in high school just because of the endurance thing, it’s easy to get in to,” said Ben Meeker, senior captain. “There’s probably a lot more running than soccer because you’re continually making cuts.”

“I’ve seen comparisons to other sports and supposedly if you go to a tournament, it’s compared to a marathon,” Serednesky said. “It’s all starting and stopping sprinting and when you’re not doing that, you’re jogging. You’re going to be running a good amount to get open.”

To fund trips such as the one to Georgia and possibly trips to Raleigh, NC and San Diego, team members have to pay most of the costs out of their own pockets. Sometimes that means cramming as many as 10 people into a hotel room, Meeker said.

“We get a little bit of money from the school but most of the stuff we have to pay for is definitely out of pocket,” Serednesky said. “We do fund raisers at Pizza Hut, but it’s mostly out of pocket.”

Because there are no officials in ultimate disc, spirit of the game is the motto used by ultimate disc players to promote sportsmanship and fair play amongst the teams. 

“When you get guys that are between the ages 18-24 playing sports, they’re going to be competitive,” Oakes said. “We’re moving back to a situation where it’s competitive, but we’re also doing it for the fun and camaraderie of the sport.”