Guest Post from Athletic Director Rich Bird: The Ultimate Discovery

My goal is to provide an opportunity for each and every one of our students to fall in love with an athletic activity, with the hope that they will stay involved in it for the rest of their lives. As such, we offer a wide variety of athletic activities—ranging from competitive sports to Pilates, and from Ping-Pong to mod break Wilderness Trips.

Many students try a new sport or athletic activity for the first time at CSW and quickly realize how much they were missing. My son Matt is a great example of that. In his younger years Matt played a number of different sports, but primarily focused on soccer, playing fall, winter, and spring. Matt continued to play soccer when he enrolled at CSW but in the Spring of his 9th grade year decided to give Ultimate a try, since many of his classmates were signed up to play this sport. And from there the love affair began.

 

For those of you unfamiliar with Ultimate, it is a game played with what was formerly known as a “Frisbee” but is now known as a disc. A team of seven players passes the disc to one another, with the intention of moving the disc forward on the field and eventually catching it in the “end zone,” scoring a point for the team. You can only pass the disc to one another. You cannot hand off or run with the disc. Another team of seven plays defense and tries to prevent the advancing team from catching a pass. A dropped or batted down pass or interception results in a turnover, and the teams change roles.

 

It took me a while to understand the fundamentals of the game, and I’m still learning, but in my opinion it is the best competitive sport out there. Teams play to win, but the “Spirit of the Game” is equally, if not more important, to all involved. And the perhaps best thing of all—there are no officials. The game is self-adjudicated and most disputes are resolved in a matter of seconds. Amazing! (and a bonus for the Director of Athletics who no longer has to hear complaints about the officials!)

 

Matt is now in his first year at the University of Miami (Florida) and I could not be more thrilled that he is playing Ultimate for their club team. The team practices 4-5 times per week as their academic schedules allow and has traveled to tournaments in Tampa, Central Florida, and Georgia already, with tournaments in South Carolina and Northern Florida coming up soon, ending the season in Las Vegas in late March. Matt is getting plenty of playing time and has already formed some great friendships from this experience.

 

We often talk about how CSW is life-changing… and that applies to our athletics program as well. Matt is so fortunate to have received this gift of a lifelong athletic passion from CSW. And he’s just one example of the many kids who continue to engage in the athletic activity they discovered here at CSW.

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