Photo by Amanda Lee
You’ve noticed their discs flying overhead as they practice on the green. You probably recognize their distinctive blue hoodies as you pass them on campus. You most likely know a few guys on the team. But what do you really know about the Men’s Ultimate Frisbee team?
The Basics: The men’s team is known as Dasein, after a philosophical German word roughly translating to “existence” or “being”. The Men’s “A” Team is composed of sixteen players ranging from one freshman to eight seniors. They play competitively in both the fall and spring, with the spring being the official college Ultimate season. During the winter, they train about three nights a week to prepare for the spring season. During the spring, they practice five days a week and attend two-day tournaments over the weekends.
The Lifestyle: On tournament days, they are up as early as 4:45 AM to depart for schools all across the Northeast. Upon arriving at the fields, they’ll play up to four games in a single day, with games lasting up to an hour and a half. Throughout this time, their main supply of food is a garbage bag filled with bagels, fruit and peanut butter that has been supplied by the hosting team. At the end of the day, they’ll often cram into hotels paid for by the members of the team. Seniority earns you a spot in a bed.
They Win Games!: Dasein has finished better than their original seed at three of their five tournaments this spring. The squad started off their spring season at the Long Island Classic seeded twelvth out of sixteen teams. Next, they clawed their way to a one point win over highly favored Princeton University, and beat hosting-team Hofstra University to come in fourth place overall. At Yale Cup, they upset UPenn to come in seventh after being seeded twelvth out of eighteen. Most importantly, was their finish at College Conferences, part of the USA Ultimate College Series, or, in simpler terms, the playoffs. The team broke seed and placed third to earn not only a bid to Regionals, but was offered a bid to play at the Division I level with some of the best teams in New England. This was their first bid to regionals since 2007.
They’ll be Representing Conn at Nationals: The team’s strong play earned them the top seed at regionals. They played strong competition on Saturday, but held on to beat SUNY Cortland 15-10 before earning wins against Rider and rival, Marist. Coming into Sunday, they needed three consecutive wins to secure a bid to Nationals. A win against Hamilton College in the quarterfinals and a 15-5 stomping of Ithaca College in the semi-finals sent them to the championship game where they met Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. With Dasein on their heels, down 14-13 against RPI, the men locked down on defense and went on to win the thriller 16-15. This bid to College Nationals in Buffalo, New York is the first in Connecticut College history
They Play Through Adversity: The team has a number of factors pinned against them. As the sport has yet to be granted NCAA status, they are unable to officially recruit. “The guys just saw me with a disc during orientation and told me to start coming down to practices,” said Jake Schwartz ’14 on his recruitment. Additionally, they lose a bulk of juniors each semester due to study abroad and have to deal with the generally small population of the school. “The sport of ultimate already fields a small number of players, but at a school with only 1800 some-odd students, it’s really amplified,” said captain Max Weigert ’13. “We’ve taken on and beaten schools like Central Connecticut that have 15,000 students. It’s like David vs. Goliath,” added fellow captain Jonah Guerin ’11.
So now you know. Look out for Dasein these next few weeks of school, congratulate anyone on the team if you see them, come out to practices next fall and get excited for their brand new discs that will be on sale. “We’re getting a disc design with President Higdon’s face on it! I can’t wait to look at it!” Schwartz informed me enthusiastically. •
