February 13, 2008

OWU’s Ultimate Frisbee Team Hosts Multi-State Tournament

The Firedogs team at D3 Nationals last year.

“The [tournament name] is a joke,” says Willy Yoder ’09, captain of this year’s team.  Evan Reas, who graduated in 2007, is very much alive and attending graduate school at Stanford. The Firedogs simply wanted to honor Reas’s contributions to the team during his OWU career.

Reas finds it “odd” that the tournament “memorializes” him and was shocked to see his picture on the tournament Web site. Nonetheless, the four-year veteran of the team says, “I learned more about leadership, teamwork, and perseverance with [the team] than through anything else at OWU.”

The tournament, which will take place at Smith Park, is the first of its kind for the team since “back in the day,” says Yoder. None of the 15 current members of the team have participated in a tournament here.

On Day One of the Evan Reas Memorial Tournament, each team will play four games. Based on their performance Saturday, the teams will move on to the championships on Sunday.

Yoder, along with Jake Barnett ’09, and William Kenny ’08, organized this tournament with three goals in mind. “We want everybody on campus to know what we do,” Yoder says. “We want to get our name out there to expand the program. We want to raise money for the team.”

Many people are not aware that Frisbee is a sport. But it is—and a demanding one at that. Ultimate Frisbee, Yoder says, combines the passing of football, the footwork of basketball, the constant running of soccer, and the diving and catching of baseball. “That’s why it’s called ‘ultimate’ Frisbee,” he says. “It’s the ultimate sport. It’s [also] a very simple sport. Once you watch someone play for two minutes, you’ll understand it forever.

“A lot about Ultimate Frisbee is gaining respect from other teams,” Yoder continues. “We aren’t a varsity team, but we work pretty hard.”

This exciting, unique event is free and open to the public.

– Shade Fakunle ’10