Jesse Floyd
Ultimate is the quintessential egalitarian sport. Played on a 120-yard field between teams of seven players to a side, it’s a game and a community in one package.
The rules read like something cobbled together on the fly — teams start in their endzone; when a player catches the disc, they must stop in their tracks with one foot remaining planted. An opposing player starts a count of 10. If they get to 10 before the player with the disc throws it, the disc is dropped and possession changes.
Nowhere in the rules is there a referee. Players are expected to know the rules and police themselves in accordance with the “spirit of the game.”
Ultimate is formal informality. And it is growing in popularity.
“There is something very laid back about ultimate culture,” said Alon Manela, head coach of Belmont Youth Ultimate.
That’s right, along with traditional offerings of baseball, soccer and hockey, ultimate is now a youth sports offering in Belmont.
There has been a high school ultimate team for some time now. Three years ago, Manela and a few others decided it was time to bring the sport to a younger generation.
Belmont Youth Ultimate is now in its fifth season, offering the game in spring and fall outdoors and indoors during the winter.
Players can start in fifth-grade and play through eighth. After that Manela said, it is off to the high school and high school ultimate.
The rapid growth of the sport is evidenced by how rapidly Belmont Youth Ultimate has caught on. At first, it was scarcely a handful of players.
“When we first started, everyone was on the same team,” he said.
That led to some interesting dynamics. Manela recalled a tall eighth-grader and an average-sized fifth-grader who developed a special on-field chemistry, in spite of the size and age disparity.
Now, players are divided into two teams, fifth- and sixth-graders and seventh- and eighth-graders.
“That allows us to match with other towns,” he said.
Those towns include Arlington, Newton, Brookline and Framingham, among others.
Belmont Youth operates under the Boston Ultimate Disc Alliance [BUDA], a Boston-based nonprofit dedicated to the sport. The list of towns and organizations offering Youth Ultimate is close to 30 names long.
Manela’s son Aviv was a catalyst for the organization. Now 12, he wanted to play, and wanted to play in an organized league.
In Belmont, where things started fairly small, there are now between 40 and 50 children signed up to play. The interest seems to filter from the parents who played the sport, formally or otherwise, in their past, Manela said.
“There are plenty of parents of children who played, either casually or in college,” Manela said.
That joy, which Manela characterizes as passion for the sport, translates into a growing group of parent volunteers who mentor and coach the younger players.
And ultimate is growing beyond its playground roots. Boston is home to a professional ultimate team — the Boston Glory — who play their games at Hormel Stadium in Medford.
The high school team now fields a boys varsity, boys junior varsity and a girls club team, Manela said.
“There is a lot happening if you dip your toes into the ultimate waters,” Manela said.
If players want to participate, log on to buda.org.
