Finding Comfort on the Aging Curve, In Life and Ultimate
Falling back in love with the sport
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Falling Back in Love as a Player
Yes, I recognize that this may be a silly title or article for someone 23 years old to write. However, over the past 18 months, I have made several decisions that have helped to change my perspective on life and ultimate. The relevant ones to this discussion are: leaving my biggest chance for personal and team success in college by dropping out of Davenport, not playing in last summer’s club season entirely, playing pickup with my father at the local Great Grandmasters team’s practices, reconnecting with old friends and making new ones on my winter league teams this past winter, and getting to watch the team I captained for two and half years in college (Brandeis TRON) play at two separate tournaments this spring.
Let me be a little more specific.
I have played ultimate for over half of my life. For all of that time, I have been nearly singularly focused on being the best player and playing on the best team that I could. If you are a regular reader of this publication, you will know that it hasn’t always worked out for me the way I’ve hoped. I had a hard time not attaching some of my self-worth to my ability and success as a player growing up in a youth hotspot that was experiencing a lot of success, when I was unable to experience some of that success in the way I had hoped. That mindset all came to a head late in 2023 when I enrolled at Davenport and found myself in a very unhealthy situation, chasing both personal and team success. And as a result, I dropped out, took about nine months off from playing ultimate, and skipped my first club season back home in North Carolina.
I am extremely happy with the decisions I made. My time off from ultimate, which required me to adjust my professional and personal plans and essentially spend a year getting my bearings as a young adult, really helped shape my perspective. I began to shed the partially self-imposed constraints of equating my value as a player with my value as a person, as I started to engage meaningfully with the “real world.” And time and space, away from the most competitive areas of the sport, helped me accomplish all that, too.
One step that helped me on that journey was finding time to play ultimate with my dad. My dad is the reason I play ultimate. He played for many years in college and afterward. Some of my earliest memories are throwing a disc in family-friendly pickup games he used to organize for our family friends when I was very young. Additionally, some of my favorite memories from growing up were going to weekend pickup ultimate games with him when I was in high school. Starting towards the end of last summer, I began playing with him again. I was working my way back to a healthier relationship with the sport, and he has been asked to play with the Great Grandmasters teams for years now, and had been putting it off. So we went together. The first time, I just went to encourage him to get back into it, and brought a drink for myself, planning to just observe and heckle him a little. However, I was immediately invited to play with the group, and while I did not on my first time out, I began to go two or three times a month with my dad throughout the late summer and fall.
There were (and still are) so many things I love about going to play with that group. Seeing and reconnecting with an old coach, watching and playing with my dad for the first time in five years, and getting a glimpse into the future of how much joy ultimate can bring to my life for decades to come. It is incredibly inspiring to step into a group of people who have been playing the sport for longer than I’ve been alive, and to see it still bring them the same joy, frustration, and intensity that it brings anyone playing at any level of the sport. Seeing that has helped me further internalize that my relationship with the sport of ultimate will be one of the longest I’ll have in my entire life. And, that maintaining a good relationship, a deep one, built on genuine love for ultimate, rather than a one-dimensional, exclusively results-based one, will be what serves me best for the decades to come. One way I am working to be more intentional about by relationship with ultimate, is focusing more on the interpersonal relationships that are present and cultivated during my time playing.
This nicely brings me to the next significant and impactful ultimate experiences I had recently: playing both an indoor and outdoor winter league here in the Triangle. I owe a large debt of gratitude to both teams for creating such fun environments and welcoming spaces for me to integrate back into the triangle community more fully. On both my indoor and outdoor teams, I had the opportunity to reconnect and play with old friends for the first time in over five years, as well as meet a whole slew of new people and form new friendships with them, too. Both leagues allowed me to balance my competitive instincts by playing with and against some amazing players, and they also provided a meaningful and fulfilling social experience. The balance of which I hadn’t appropriately struck in the prior two or three years, and something that I didn’t know was missing so much from my life. Not only was it rejuvenating and exciting for my sense of self as a competitor, and inspiring to reach higher for my competitive goals, but it allowed me to further find a place rooted in confidence, comfort, and connection in the local ultimate community.
And finally, this spring, I had the opportunity to watch my college team, TRON, and their newly expanded coaching staff, featuring former teammates of mine, play at two separate tournaments. I went on a day trip to Richmond to catch day two of DIII River City Showdown and was in Boston for Passover, the same weekend Brandeis hosted Metro Boston DIII Men’s Conferences. This was the first time seeing how a team I gave four years of my life to, and nearly three as a captain to, was doing since I’d left. It was an opportunity to see the cycle of college ultimate and of teams in general for the first time as an alumnus of a college program. I was surprised by how much it moved me, getting to observe a new iteration of TRON that I was no longer a part of - having fun, competing, making jokes, chatting after points, and doing everything that college teams typically do. It provided a small sense of relief and a moment of peace to see things just continuing. It made me feel just a little bit smaller, but in the best way. It helped me appreciate that my place in the ultimate community is small, but that everyone else’s is too. What makes teams and communities special is everyone’s small piece coming together to create something big and important. It further motivated me to continue giving back to younger players through coaching, as I saw three former teammates of mine now helping to coach TRON and watching them experience life on the other side as well.
My big takeaway from the last several months is a renewed focus and appreciation for my relationships with the sport and the people I play it with. And a little bit more comfort with expanding my focus to include more than just competition and results. One of the most valuable lessons I learned during my time playing in college was to maintain a growth mindset and a process-oriented focus on the team, and to trust that good results would follow. Maybe I’ve learned a little more about how to appreciate the journey and the process of my entire relationship with ultimate, rather than a single-season focus on just one team.
I must admit, I still feel the pull of old habits. I have several conflicting ideas about what I want out of this club season, what I’m willing to do, and what I need, both on and off the field. I will even admit, in writing, that as scary as it feels to put myself out there like this, my long-term goal is to make club nationals as a player. (Which I also know is not a process-oriented goal!) However, I know that the learning and growth I’ve experienced over the last few years will lead me to a better spot than I would have found on my own. And I feel much more comfortable in my knowledge that there’s not one single path to any destination in ultimate.
About The Breakside
This newsletter aims to tackle the gap in present coverage of ultimate as a sport. Commentary, analysis, and community are some of the guiding ideals behind the Breakside.
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About the Author
My name is Noam Gumerman (he/him). I am from Chapel Hill, NC, and studied Journalism and American Studies at Brandeis University. I am a journalist by trade and have been playing ultimate for over half my life. I love nothing more than combining those two interests. Contact me for discussions, feedback, story suggestions, and more on Twitter or Bluesky (@noamgum/@breaksideulti now too!) or email (noamgumerman@gmail.com).