Rewinding to the 1982 UPA Men's Club Championship
Digging through the long-lost past of the sport to predict its future
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Ultimate Archeology
A while back, I fell down a YouTube rabbit hole. Not one of my regular ones about Pokémon VGC tournaments, video game speedruns, or moments in sports history I may have forgotten about. Instead, I found this video, which is 34 minutes of footage from the 1982 UPA Men’s Club Ultimate Championship game between the St. Louis Tunas and Boston Rude Boys, a game the Rude Boys would win 21-121. The championship was the first for Boston in the men’s division, and second for the city after B.L.U. won the first-ever UPA Women’s Club Championship in 1981.2
Through a little more YouTube sleuthing, I found this video, dated 1979, showing the Bucknell Mudsharks, which is still the name of the men’s and women’s programs there, playing what is one of, if not the single oldest game of ultimate ever filmed.
There is some truly incredible footage out there of old ultimate. The 1982 Tunas and Rude Boys game is, from what I can tell, the gold standard of footage that old surviving to be digitized. It’s remarkably clear and easy to make out, with some solid commentary to boot. There are multiple different camera angles the broadcast cuts to, noticably similar to how broadcasts look today. There is even a moment in which the two “observers” are called in. No orange uniform, just two guys in mismatched sweatshirts slowly walking onto the field who’s full job is to “when asked, give their opinion.” Nothing more, nothing less. No active calls, no hand signals, nothing like modern observers. Not to mention it’s a national championship game, so the stakes are high, players are throwing their bodies around, and it’s honestly electric stuff.
I have always been fascinated by the history of this sport, as many of you will know. So I was enthralled watching the highest level of sport over 40 years ago. It’s impossible not to think about how things have changed and how they will continue to evolve.
And across all of the videos I found from the late 1970s to the early 1980s, there are some (predictable) themes that stand out.
The most obvious one is the marking. I don’t know exactly when setting a force came into the mainstream, but I can tell you it was definitely after 1982. In all the games I found footage of in this time period, the marks are hyper-aggressive, simply trying to take away whatever the thrower is looking at in that moment.
The next most obvious historical trend is the mechanics of the thrower. Not just in the throws themselves, but even more in the pivoting and the way the thrower holds the disc when preparing to make a throw. The best way I can describe it is “pickup” style, and inefficient in terms of the energy expended with the disc in their hand to make a throw. It’s a very active thrower, pivoting frequently, spin-pivoting, to try to open windows. But the big difference is that it feels (obviously) decades behind today’s motion with the disc in the thrower's hand in terms of the intentionality and efficiency with which modern throwers move the mark.
A less obvious result of the first two is how vertical teams are playing on offense. In ultimate today, teams have very defined and structured reset systems, which they are very comfortable using to open up vertical space to attack. Meanwhile, in the past, teams were much more comfortable pushing up the field as quickly as possible, even if it resulted in a turnover, and didn’t look to reset the disc as frequently. A number of times a player in what we would consider the reset space today just cleared upfield wihtout being looked at, leaving six people ahead of the thrower. And other times they stayed at home and did get a reset. The number of turnovers in an elite-level game over 40 years ago was also significantly higher than it is now, indicating that the possession-oriented offensive focus has been in the works for a very long time.
What does this glimpse into the past mean for the future of the sport? Where will the game evolve next? What areas of the sport are as unoptimized now as team defense and reset systems were then?
Well, let’s start by taking a look at a big trend present in other major sports. Across basketball and soccer, especially, and to a lesser extent, football, baseball, and hockey, the last couple of decades have been defined by a renegotiation of the standard player positions into a more “positionless,” versatile, and free-flowing version of the sport. In basketball, this has manifested through the expansion of shooting range and the increased mobility of larger players, who were typically confined to a role near the basket. In soccer, this has manifested through defensive-minded players developing their technical abilities to become more effective on-ball players, allowing teams to exert increased control over the game.
We’ve seen the beginnings of a similar trend in ultimate. Beau Kittredge was an era-defining player in the sport a decade ago, thanks nearly exclusively to his high-end athleticism. And in the time since, no real replacement for that archetype has arisen3. There is too much emphasis on the disc skills of players developing to create someone like Kittredge on the elite level. Just look at the World Games team from a month ago that took gold. The Ings, Marques Brownlee, Dawn Culton, and Liv Player are all players of a newer generation that could have thrived on athleticism and more exclsuviely a cutting role, defining upwards of 90% of their game. But have all worked to expand their skillset to become big, strong, fast, and more importantly, well-rounded (dare I say true hyrbid) players, which gives them a leg up on all their competition.
Many of the innovations of other sports come through more efficient uses of space, though (and the improving technical abilities of players also reflect this). So, how will it manifest in ultimate? From the past to the present, we’ve seen innovations in how defense restricts space through marking and team defense downfield, and how offense attacks that restricted space more creatively with organized reset systems. What do more refined versions of those concepts look like? What does a defense look like that can switch every matchup seamlessly? What does a reset system that more fluidly and comfortably uses negative yardage look like? To me, those seem like the most logical adjustments that may take place over the next few decades. But teams have also adapted traditional structures in different ways, too, with the rise of small-ball, front-of-stack driven offenses in elite open ultimate being what first comes to mind.
I obviously cannot say for sure where the sport will go next. If I could prognosticate my way to the cutting edge of the sport, I’d have experienced far more success as a player and coach than I have right now. So I am excited for the new innovations of the sport to come that are outside the realm of what I can predict. And as a lover of sports, innovation, and the past, present, and future of ultimate, I cannot help but wonder where the sport is headed next.
What innovations from other sports do you see reflected in ultimate? What changes have you seen that you think ultimate will mirror in the coming years?
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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).
Jeff Babbitt seems like the closest comparison to me, but to be honest I was too young to get a good sense of “prime Kittredge” so don’t judge the comparison too closely
You could probably look up Tom Kennedy to ask about strategy at the time. He wrote the original Fundamentals of Ultimate in 1983, I think it was. That book did not mention either a force or a stack. I remember one diagram that showed offensive players strewn about the field each doing their own thing.