The first thoughts people have when thinking about typical sports mainly consist of football, basketball, baseball, and a plethora of many others that are popular within fans who enjoy sports.

Although these sports may be fun to watch, those normalities may keep people from exploring, watching, and enjoying other sports that are just as enjoyable to spectate. One sport that isn’t as widely recognized or agreeably considered to be a sport is ultimate frisbee. More recognized as ultimate due to Wham-O toy company classifying frisbee as its registered trademark. Mathematics teacher Joel Ignizio has begun coaching a handful of eager and dedicated athletic students on an unofficial school team.

“The activity goes on from 3:00-5:00 PM every Tuesday and Thursday,” Ignizio said. Once school ends, members of the team congregate in Ignizio’s math room and prepare to dress in proper sports attire before they scramble to the turf field in the front or back of the school at 3:00 to begin the club’s exercises and practice.

Like in many sports, the team begins with a variety of different stretches, warm-ups, and drills to help the players better enhance their body to adapt and move easier once they begin to practice. The first portion of the practice starts off with the players running around the turf field twice to foster their energy and enhance optimal body muscle and endurance.

Once the team sprints around the turf field, Ignizio calls for the team to begin a few other exercises that increase better focus and stability. The popular exercise that the team tends to do frequently are the “Ladders,” which has students throw the disc with a partner repetitively as Ignizio sprints in front of each grouping of partners, in order to accentuate a proper balance between timing and throwing.

When spectated, one could see that students had fun engaging with other students while becoming more physically and mentally healthy.Not only does this sport benefit a student physically, but the sport also helps a lot with cognitive and social skills,” Ignizio said. “The students learn to communicate with their team members and learn to gradually become competitive in healthy quantities.”

Although the team is well constructed and well advised, it is missing a proper classification and/or designation of the team as an official sport. When asked about why the team isn’t an officially accepted club at Wheat Ridge High School, Ignizio responded with, “Since the club has just formulated this semester after talking to Mr. Rock, nothing is official. Once fall comes around, there will be a lot of new changes to occur in the club.” Ignizio looks forward to these changes, and once it is official, it will give students the ability to indulge themselves in more official scrimmages and games.

Like Ignizio, Sophomore-student and team member Sophia Brown, has a loves the club and hopes to see many great and exciting things surface as the club manifests into something bigger. When asked about what the true purpose of the club and the game itself is, Brown replied, “I think winning is great, but that’s not the ultimate goal. I think the purpose is to grow as a team and to be able to connect with your teammates and to be able to build stronger bonds. To be able to better yourself.” And that statement holds true with a lot of the other players who are a part of the ultimate frisbee team; to demonstrate a more complex understanding of the sport and to learn new and advanced concepts.

Sophomore Lewis Peters, stated, “There are no refs. You call your own fouls. That is one of the major keys when it comes to this sport in particular. The rules are based off of whether a team member of the opposing team wants to be a good sport.” Peters further elaborated on how the sport works in combination like football and soccer conjoined, as well as his belief in regards to whether this activity is a real sport.

“It physically challenges you in many ways,” he argued. “Diving, jumping, getting hit by a disc or by a person. That’s just how a game works. There are certain plays, certain moves and techniques on throwing. So for those who don’t believe that ultimate frisbee is not a sport, they are sadly incorrect.”

As one may assert, the ultimate frisbee team has been gaining more recognition from students, teachers, and other individuals that are fascinated by newly transpiring sports. Through several practices and through many team building exercises, one can only hope that the Farmers on the ultimate team in the fall will prosper and learn greater and more important things revolving around the sport, team sportsmanship, and each other.