University of Chicago Men's Ultimate: JUNK

Junk Ultimate: Origins
By Bryan King, former University of Chicago player and captain

This is all stream of consciousness, and from memory, so some of the facts and names may be off by a year. And some spelling will be wrong. It's also very short on women's team history. Because I don't remember a lot of it. I checked some of it with Whitney. It was fun enough that I may get in touch with some more people and come up with a more comprehensive history. Read it if you have time.

This is a very brief history of ultimate at the U of C. It actually dates back quite a bit before I got here, so we'll pick it up sometime after ultimate actually arrived an campus.

I played a little with the U of C mens team in the 92-93 school year. No tournaments, just some of the pickup games the team would have to try to recruit players. At the time, the captain was a 3rd year from BJ named Pete Burgiss. The team had been around since the mid-80's. There was also a women's team, captained by Liz Schmidt. Both teams were called the DiscMonsters of the Midway. Hearkening back to the powerhouse U of Chicago varsity football team that won a bunch of Big 10 titles and never lost to Notre Dame back in the (very) early 1900s. They were known as the Monsters of the Midway, because the Midway was nationally famous from the Columbian World Exposition that was held in the 1890's, and the team was unstoppable. Sometime later the Bears stole the nickname, after it became obvious that the U of C would never need it again. The ultimate team decided to use the modified name as an acknowledgment of the history of sports at our school.

Plus, the name lent itself well to various designs. First of all, the midway was consistently rather swampy. It came to symbolize a sort of primordial ooze that might produce a powerful creature such as the discmonster. Some early shirts, which I have not seen in fabric and have only seen in pencil drawings on paper, had a large godzilla like creature holding a disc stepping over the south wall if the quads. Very cool. A later design had a front with a bunch of T-rex heads, and a back with a laying out dragon-type monster. Some of you may have seen this design, as there were probably about 1500-2000 discs printed up over the years with it. It was bad-ass.

So, back to recent history. 93-94. I joined the team. Not a big deal from the team's standpoint, but a big deal for me, because it would keep me sane over the seemingly endless years of college I was to undertake. Pete Burgiss was once again the captain, although he did mainly administrative stuff, the sub-caller and strategy master was Mark Abney, a physics Ph.D. student at the time who is now a Genetics prof here at the U of C. Pete and Mark were definitely starters. Great players. Along with them, Lloyd Knox, Dan Sage, Mike Bronfin, and Adeesh Sathay (badly mispelled, I'm sure) formed the core of the team. My first tournament that year was Big 10s, then a large college and club tournament held in Madison. I played 3 points the first day, but it was awesome. Played a little more the second day. I don't remember our win-loss record very well. But it was fun. Also making his first appearance at that tournament was a first year named Jay Boehmler. Nice guy. Very athletic. Easily one of the most promising rookies that year, along with an M.D./Ph.D. student from yale named Jim dowling. Jim was a varsity track star at yale. Sprinter. Fast guy. We went on to sectionals in Champaign that year. I don't remember what place we finished, but it was easily well enough to make it to regionals. Unfortunately, this was before the college regions were redrawn and regionals were in Iowa. So we couldn't get enough people to go (too far).

This was also the last year for the women's team for a few years. Liz graduated and she kind of kept enough women coming out by force of will. One other interesting thing about this year is that our winter indoor space allotment was one 3 hour slot in Bartlett (the gym) at night during the week, and one 2 hour slot in Henry Crown. It was Sundays after closing. We'd show up at 10, they'd clear the building, and we'd have the entire upper level to ourselves. We'd have a game going on the length of the building (including the track, wall-to wall), which was almost full length. And we'd play the width not including the track. They'd pull up all of the curtains and screens for us. While the game was going on, other people would run sprints on the long sides of the track, and run stairs on the various stairs we had available. Not a bad deal, huh? This was the last year that the team wore the classic DiscMonster shirts. And they were optional.

The next year, 94-95 school year, we lost HCFH. But we got 2 additional Bartlett slots, so that wasn't so bad. I was elected co-captain of the team. Most of the core from the previous year remained. A first year showed up to our first practice. Ready to play. He had played in high school at Choate. His name was Whitney Asher. Other notable rookies that year were Chris Kang, Kevin Thompson, Jacobe Caditz, and Craig Tennenhouse. Chris played at Andover before coming here, and Kevin was a soccer goalie from Evanston who became a defensive machine. His first game of his first tournament he got 5 layout D's. Goalie training, you know. Rachel McCarthy was a first year. Very good player. But with no women's team, she didn't play much. A guy named Mike Alfaro, phd student, came out that year, too. He had played college somewhere in California. He didn't play any college tournaments with us, but came out to every practice and became unofficial coach. He and Mark Abney went on to found Godzilla, a south side club team that made some waves in Chicago ultimate circles a couple of years later.

Our first tournament again that year was Big 10s in Madison. It was insanely cold. Freezing rain and snow the whole time. Lots of standing water. We had fun. Went to sectionals that year, I think at Purdue. Played a 3 hour game in the wind and rain against Ball State, eventually prevailing. I also remember beating Notre Dame that year. We made it to regionals, where we were eventually knocked out by Kansas, who was ranking no. 1 in the country going into regionals. Then they got knocked out of regionals by someone else, perhaps Indiana. Big upset, them not making nationals. That was before most teams travelled a long ways to play teams outside their region, so the rankings were a little less predictive. Also to note, this was before regional redrawing, so teams like Madison and Carleton were in our region. This year nationals was at the U of Illinois, so a few of us went to watch one day of pool play. Saw Carleton play. Saw Yale play. Yale that year had the undisputed best single college player in the country. Nickname was Pepper, I don't know what his real name was. This was before the Callahan MVP award was developed. Watched ECU, the team that everyone hated, play a game on their road to winning the whole thing. They were good. Ran simple offense, played hard defense. Spiked a lot. People hated them. They were fun to watch.

This year marked the debut of a new disc design. kind of a recursive thing, featuring 3 monsters eating each other in a circle. Was supposed to look cool and medieval. Turned out not to be a favorite design, although it sold okay. Came to be known as the ass-biting monster disc.

The next year (95-96) we lost a lot of people. Pete Burgis, Abney, Dan Sage, Adeesh, Mike Bronfin, Lloyd Knox. Picked up a rookie named Akira Yamaguchi. He hadn't played before, but developed an addiction of sorts for the game, perhaps due to his RA dragging all of the first years out to play whenever he could. Also picked up a grad student who had played a little bit before, Steve Glazerman. Picked up an M.D./Ph.D. student who had played with Yale the year before at nationals, Leo Wang. Wore rec specs, but a good player nonetheless. Also a new first year undergrad started playing, Paul Wollan. Tall guy. Lots of fun.

This marked the start of the team going on spring break trips. We went to a tournament in Colorado the last weekend of the break. 9 of us drove in a rented 15 passenger van, and met with 2 more people in Fort Collins. The first day was beautiful. mid 70's. Sunny. We only had 3 games scheduled the first day. So we played to 17 or 19 or something. Lost the first two games. Then came up against the U of Utah. By this time the temperature had dropped and a stiff wind had come in, making it an upwind-downwind zone game. Obviously that was our main strength, so we won that game by one or two points. We went back to the hotels, showered, and went to the party. At the party, the blizzard started. We drove the van back to the hotel in strong winds and lots of snow. By morning over a foot had fallen. The sunday of the tourney was cancelled. We started to head back to chicago. The snow kept falling. by the time we hit Nebraska that night, we were wihtewashed, and they close the highway. We had to pull off at the NASTIEST hotel you've ever seen in the middle of nowhere in Nebraska. The next day we made it back without further incident. The 9 of us in the van were: Jim Dowling, Steve Glazerman, Noah Schusterman, Whitney Asher, Chris Kang, Akira Yamaguchi, Craig Tennenhouse, Paul Wollan, and Bryan King. Leo Wang and Pete Dubois met us there. This year we once again had mandatory uniforms. We took the layout out monster disc design and stuck it over the left side of the chest, and had an artist draw a dragon claw coming out of a pool of slime for the back. Also on the back we put our cheer, "Rising from the Primal Slime."

We didn't make regionals that year. I think we were knocked out by Illinois in a close game, but we won the tourney spirit award.

96-97, the next year, I took a year off from school, so was ineligible to play. Whitney was the captain, I helped coach and provide a body at practice. This year marked the triumphant return of a U of C women's team. I think they decided to call themselves Kali that year. They were led by Rachel McCarthy and Elinor Lee.

The men's team picked up a fantastic player that year, Tom Pearl. 2 years before that he had captained Carleton to a Nationals berth. He graduated that year, came to Chicago for grad school, and played one season with Z, the dominant Chicago club team at the time (I believe they made semis at nationals that year). In this, his 2nd year of grad school, he played out his final year of eligibility with the DiscMonsters. Forming a core with Tom were Akira, Whitney, Jim Dowling, and Paul Wollan. There were a few good roll players, too. Mike (something). He was known as Drippy. Ben (something) a decent player who was very into the social aspects of the game. And Hans (something). Great athlete. Fun guy. Dug up dinosaur bones with Paul Seranno for a living.

The team went to Big 10s again, and Whitesmoke at Notre Dame. made regionals that year, which was in Northfield, MN, home of Carleton and St. Olaf. Didn't make nationals.

97-98. I was back to play my final year of eligibility. Didn't have the same core as the previous year. We printed new discs, this time with the original laying out monster design. A much better seller. Went on a spring break trip again, this time to WUFF Spring Training camp, put on by the most successful college ultimate player ever, Mike Gerics. Mike G, still active in ultimate today, was notorious for intense play, questionable spirit, and a lot of smack talking. But he was also known for putting together great nationals winning programs at 2 different schools, UNCW and then ECU. So 11 of us drove down for spring break to be coached by him. It was awesome. We had a pretty weak team, and weren't able to take all of our key players. But a few key players and a bunch of rookies went down for the camp. Everyone improved a lot, we learned new (easier) ways of looking at offense, and gained an appreciation for fundamentals. Flat throws, solid marking, throws to space, interchangeable parts on the field. (things that the current U of C teams could use a refresher in). We came back the following weekend, and attempted to teach the stuff to the rest of the team. It was an uphill battle. Got some of the plays taught, but without Mike G's leadership, the fundamentals fell through the cracks. Too many players set in their ways. Went to Whitesmoke on the way back from Carolina I think. Big 10s again, we did all right. Sectionals at Notre Dame. Notre Dame beat us handily to finish off pool play and knock us to the bottom of the brackets, where we had to face Indiana, who was in the middle of their consecutive nationals runs. They beat us, although we played them well, and we had to face Illinois in the losers bracket in the game to go to regionals. We lost to them, by one point. The Illinois team was captained by an unusually tall Chinese guy named Leo Wang. (No relation to the aforementioned Leo Wang).

98-99. Whitney had graduated. Akira and Paul Wollan were co-captains. Other notable players on the team: Josh Caditz (brother of aforementioned Jake Caditz), Matt Flynn, Andy Cowan. The team went to Carolina again, and I was invited by Mike G to co-coach it with him and Kenny Dobbyns. That was fun. Wasn't just Chicago that year. Dartmouth and Cornell went, too. The end of that weekend was the U of C's first and only time going to the famous College Easterns Tournament in Wilmington, NC. A bad showing there made for a lack of invitation in later years. Did okay at sectionals, well enough to go into the new smaller Great Lakes Regionals tournament at about an 8 seed.

99-00. Matt Flynn was captain. Andy Cowan helped him out. So did Tazo Inui. The team was renamed Killer Robots. what? Yes. It's true. They changed the name to Killer Robots, after over a decade of being the DiscMonsters of the Midway. I can understand wanting to redefine oneself (although I'm a fan of tradition myself), but Killer Robots?

Damn.

Anyway, they changed the name. This was the year of the team's first trip to Savannah. Fun was had by all. I think they hit Whitesmoke on the way back. Maybe. I don't even know if they made regionals. They might have.

After that, I can pass the history duties on the the current team, because in 2000-2001, Joe, Z, and Brian Avery started playing with the team. We started playing indoors in the lab school gym because they closed Bartlett to turn it into a dining hall. Tazo was captain, with a little help from Andy Cowan. Z picked up with scandal to play at Paganello, and Joe and I were often placed on the same indoor team, probably because we dominated whenever we played together that year and Tazo wanted to keep Joe interested so he'd keep playing.

I don't remember the tournament results that year. I also know that other significant people on the current team started that year. I just threw in Joe, Z, and Avery because they're graduating.

Ya'll can fill in the rest of that year and the following years if you want. I'll help a little:

01-02. Captains: Tazo, Z.
02-03. Captains: Z, Joe
03-04. Captains: Z, Joe

So, that's a random smattering of historical trivia about the teams here at the U of C.