Players wanting to practice and field an Ultimate Frisbee Club have battled with administration, whose concerns were over field use and liability for the past two years.

Threats of arrest from grounds keepers for trespassing and a three-way bureaucratic nightmare between the Office of Student Programs and Leadership Development (OSLPD), Risk Management and the chancellor’s office did not stop these determined players.

“The original issue was field space,” Frisbee disc player and cinema major Brandon Doo said. “We could never get it. Something always took precedence over us, so we tossed Frisbees around in the quad, and that didn’t work. We have to work really hard just to leisurely throw around a Frisbee.”

Ultimate Frisbee is a mix of many different sports. Seven players on each team attempt to score by passing a Frisbee disc into the in-zone during a game that promotes sportsmanship and mutual respect.

“It’s a combination of everything,” Doo said. “It is a little football, but at a soccer game’s pace. It is played man-to-man more like basketball. There is almost always great camaraderie between opposing players and parties afterwards.”

The Ultimate Frisbee Club has finally achieved club status, which allows them to compete against other schools under a governing body, the Ultimate Players Association.

SF State’s Ultimate Frisbee Club is documented as a club sport but is referred to as a team, by the players. The team has begun practice to finally open its season.

In September of last year, all non-collegiate sports were placed under the umbrella of the kinesiology department. Ajani M. Byrd was hired in a new position as the coordinator of club sports.

Byrd was instrumental in cooling down the issue, developing relationships with both players and administration and making things run smoother.

“I just tried to point them in the right direction...open up the lines of communication,” Byrd said.

He cited the lack of field space on campus as the club’s biggest challenge.

“All clubs are impacted with field space. There are not enough facilities or rec. hours to all live harmoniously,” he said.

Club sports are fifth in priority for field use behind academics, athletics, recreational sports programs and faculty use, according to Paula Moran, the director of recreational sports and intramurals.

Despite the club’s low-priority rank, they could be allotted field-use time within a week. Informal practices have been held at Golden Gate Park thus far.

The players are excited for a landmark semester, carrying momentum from a new level of peaking interest in the sport.

“We are the strongest we’ve ever been,” said Ultimate Frisbee Club President Andrew Peterson. “There are tons more interest than seen before. There are far more people making time for Frisbee, and people have really started to look us up."

The team will spend the weekend of Oct. 21 and 22 in Humboldt for the season’s first tournament and SF State’s second major tournament ever. Last spring, the club competed at Grassburn, a tournament sponsored by the Ultimate Players Association, in Grass Valley where they lost in the quarterfinals.

According to players, the club already planned four local competitions, including one in Humboldt. More are in the works for this season with dreams of a tournament to be held in Hawaii.

"We’re hoping they are recognizing that we are actually serious,” Peterson said. “We’d like to be as competitive as our basketball and soccer teams.”

One common misconception is that Ultimate Frisbee is a small sport, not to be taken seriously. More than 50 countries field teams each year and the Bay Area is becoming a hot spot as well. Many local area high schools have teams, and Stanford, UC Santa Cruz, UC Berkeley and Chico have all competed for years – in Stanford's case, since 1980.

The Ultimate Frisbee Club’s events coordinator, John Lindsay, has noticed far more interest from players eager to join than ever before.

“We will recruit people as long as they want to play," he said.

Recent recruits include three potential members after an informal Wednesday afternoon Frisbee disc-tossing session took place on the quad. Players often meet between classes there to toss the discs around as a form of stress release, or just to be social.

“As a transfer student, it’s a perfect way to meet people,” said junior Kate Crouthamel, a psychology major who has never played.

Lindsay could not be happier with the turnout, but explained that the team has not adjusted objectives for the season.

"We do have the potential to be really competitive, to be on par with the other college teams,” Lindsay said. “Our goal is to get to as many tournaments as possible.”