The Most Important Work of Art Ever Created

I guess we doin' book reviews now

Dec 10, 2024

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One More Year — Read This Book! Do it! Right Now!

One More Year is the graphic novel you got a sneak preview of from Contested Strip’s Megan Praz and Meghan Kemp-Gee over a year ago. It’s the most important work of art ever created—about ultimate, at least. It follows the story of a down-on-his-ultimate-luck player and the rag-tag group of players his roommate helps throw together in a bid to win beach nationals and finally break a biblical streak of bad luck. Or his “curse,” if you will.

You should read this book. Anyone who has ever played ultimate should read this book. Anyone who ever will play in the future should read this book. It is the defining piece of media that has been produced about the sport. I feel strongly that part of the ethos of this platform is to support others doing creative, independent work in and around ultimate. That’s a large part of why I included the preview in The Breakside last year. But if The Breakside didn’t exist, and I found One More Year by accident, I would still be shouting from whatever platform I had for you to get your hands on One More Year and to read it.

Nothing I have ever seen captures every single part of what makes ultimate the special sport and community that is like One More Year does, and it’ll be a long time before I find anything that even gets close. This book is the perfectly distilled essence of the sport. Everything that makes it amazing and everything that makes it really hard sometimes, too. It’s all there, illustrated and written about beautifully. If you care about ultimate at all, something in this book will move you deeply.

I was immediately emotional when I finished my first readthrough of One More Year during my post-redeye layover at JFK International Airport on the way back from nationals. I knew reading One More Year would hit on some Big Feelings. But I was still surprised at just how emotional I was upon finishing. I often use my writing about ultimate to navigate my own challenges, big emotions, and unresolved feelings about the sport. Sometimes, it works better than other times. However, One More Year manages to absolutely nail so many of the sport's funny, sad, heartbreaking, triumphant, joyful, communal, difficult, and special moments in one graphic novel than I’ve fit into thousands of published and unpublished words about ultimate.

Clint, the main character, spoke to me deeply through his challenging relationship with the sport. I see so much of myself in a person who doesn’t feel like the sport loves them back and is on the rocks with their future relationship with ultimate. Most importantly, One More Year doesn’t offer an easy resolution to Clint’s story. He doesn’t magically fix everything about his relationship to ultimate because he makes the best team, wins a bunch of tournaments, or by doing the same things he’s always done and just working even harder than before. He has to repair his relationship with others and with himself. Which is something I myself am still working to internalize and do.

But every other main character was such an honest reflection of other aspects of my own relationship with ultimate, too, not to mention the different relationships people have with the sport of ultimate. They all felt like incredibly earnest and genuine people, more than characters, and were deeply relatable because of that. Every person in this story feels alive, feels like someone I’ve talked to, thoughts I’ve had, or conversations I’ve had about why I still play. Even Cheese, one of the absolute highlights from One More Year, who is perhaps a little more aspirational than relatable to me.

One More Year is also self-aware about the place ultimate has in the hierarchy of sports and #legitimacy, to a degree many of us could learn to emulate. And yet it nails how seriously this sport is taken and deserves to be taken, and why we care so much too. The question of why ultimate, why have I spent so much time on it, working at it, sacrificing and agonizing over it, is not yet one I have fully answered. It’s one I’m hoping to touch on and work through in future writing as well.

This book makes me feel so much more than I could ever articulate right now. It’ll probably take years more of playing, working through my relationship with the sport, and another half dozen read-throughs of One More Year at minimum.

Read this book though. I love it so much. Get it as a gift for yourself or someone in your life who loves ultimate, graphic novels, or both. It was even a hit with family members who have never played ultimate during my Thanksgiving week plans. It’s really special.

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 (@noamgum/@breaksideulti now too!) or email (noamgumerman@gmail.com).