You’d think that in a college setting, you wouldn’t have a lot of stuff accumulated to sell at a yard sale. However, the Frisbee team makes it happen. Just outside the bookshop in Cro there are tables filled with knickknacks, clothes, DVDs, CDs, books and other items such as a CamelBak and a little Nikon camera. I myself got a new scarf!
The purpose of the Frisbee team yard sale, as well as the Frisbee team auction, is to raise funds for their first outdoor tournament in Georgia this year. “The school gives us a lot of money, but the majority of it comes from these fundraisers and out of pocket,” said Captain Jesse Moskowitz ’13. “I will spend close to 1,000 dollars out-of-pocket this season.”
This is a huge part of being on a club team–the school does contribute some money, but the captains deal with everything that the college or a coach would handle on a varsity team. “We have to cover food, gas, transportation, housing, jerseys…we couldn’t do it without fundraising,” said Captain Max Weigert ’13.
This fundraiser is an annual event and is specifically to fund team food, housing and gas for those who are driving people to Georgia this year. The auction earlier this week was also for the Georgia tournament. “It was more of a skills auction,” said Captain Kat Beame ’13. “We auctioned stuff like a serenade, to wait a table for a Harris date, cooking a Mexican dinner, paper editing, hanging out with a puppy for an hour – things like that.”
To prepare for the yard sale, members of the team went around to every dorm on campus asking for donations of stuff people didn’t want. “We also bring our own stuff,” said Beame. “Also, since we do this every year, the people who work in Cro will bring us their old stuff too, we have a great relationship and anything we don’t sell we will donate to the Salvation Army.”
The Frisbee team plays in these types of tournaments all season, and they are equivalent to games or meets for other teams. The tournaments occur almost every weekend – most are for the team’s standing in the USA Ultimate, but some are also for fun. The team can also go on to compete at regionals and nationals if they qualify.
“We play a lot of schools in the Northeast, mostly colleges like ours but some against big schools like Yale,” said Carmen Zazueta ’13. “But we have our big tournaments like in Georgia or in the fall the men went to one in LA where they played the top Division III schools.”
“The tournament in California was really fun,” said Weigert. “We were right up there with these big schools and played very competitively against them.”
The men have qualified for nationals before and hope to repeat that this year with the growth the team has experienced. “We’ve grown a lot this year,” said Moskowitz. “We actually have a coach, he comes to our practices and we’ve seen improvement.” Their coach is John Korber, a member of the Connecticut Constitutions, a professional ultimate Frisbee team in CT.
Ultimate at Conn has also been around for a while. “It was started in the ‘70s,” said Christina Fogarasi ’13. “It was started by a group of philosophers at Conn, one of them was Michael Rossi-Reader, or so he says.” The team’s name, Dasein, actually comes from Heidegger’s philosophies, the word Dasein meaning, “being there” which some could say is essential for a Frisbee player.
As of this season the team itself has about twenty women and thirty to forty men, they practice together for the most part but compete in separate teams at each tournament. “It’s a great sense of community,” said Weigert. “In addition to being just a sport, we become really close friends, through all the practices, tournaments, hotel bonding.”
Weigert and Moskowitz are captains of the men’s team, while Beame and Annalise Keeler ’14 are captains of the women’s team. “It’s a great experience,” said Moskowitz. “It’s a lot of time but it’s always enjoyable, it’s never a chore.”
“One of the best aspects is learning how to lead and organize in addition to learning how to balance the role of a mentor and a friend,” said Weigert. “Especially since I’ve played all four years, growing into the role has been a great process.”
