Ultimate Players Association

I know there are a good number of disc golfers who are Ultimate players also, so I thought I would put up a link to the UPA so some other people can find out a little more about Ultimate.

The Ultimate Players Association (UPA) is a player run not-for-profit organization based in Boulder, Colorado, USA. Founded in 1979, the UPA is among the first flying disc sport organizations in the world, and one of the largest, with approximately 19,000 members and hundreds of volunteers.
The UPA serves as the governing body of the sport of Ultimate in the US. Our mission is:
To promote and support the sport of Ultimate and its players;
To increase participation in the sport of Ultimate at all levels;
To uphold the Spirit of the Game, including personal responsibility and integrity; and
To provide a framework for players to organize and conduct competition and other activities related to Ultimate.

From the UPA website:

"The “Founders:” Joel Silver, Bernard “Buzzy” Hellring, and Jonathan “Jonny” Hines, inducted in 2005: In the summer of 1968, Joel Silver was introduced to a “frisbee football” type game while participating in an educational enrichment program at the Mount Hermon School in Northfield, Massachusetts. After returning to Columbia High School in Maplewood, New Jersey, that fall, he got a motion passed at the student council to introduce Frisbee into the curriculum. Together with his friends Bernard “Buzzy” Hellring and Jonathan “Jonny” Hines, they got other students to play their new game and refined the rules, producing a written “first edition” of the rules for the sport Joel dubbed “Ultimate Frisbee” and naming their group the “Columbia High School Varsity Frisbee Squad” in early 1970. The three classmates laid the foundation required to permit the transformation of a recreational activity into a sport over the following years. Ultimate today is still played largely according to the rules developed by Joel, Buzzy, and Jonny.Joel Silver is currently an accomplished Hollywood producer, producing dozens of films including the Lethal Weapon series, the first two Die Hard films, and The Matrix series. He is married to Karyn A. Fields, has one son, and currently lives in Burbank, CA. Jonny Hines, who founded the Princeton team and played in the first college game ever -- the Rutgers-Princeton match-up played before more than 1,000 spectators in 1972, is now an international attorney splitting time between New York and Moscow. He is married to Olga Dyuzheva and has two sons. Tragically, Buzzy Hellring died in an automobile accident while returning to college at Princeton University in the spring of 1971."

Some pretty good reading there. It's really interesting to look at their organization and compare it to the PDGA. Go ahead - read a little about the UPA and ultimate.

"Special Merit: the “80 Mold”
In addition to the individuals honored in the inaugural class of 2004, Special Merit is deserved for Wham-O’s 165 gram World Class “80 mold” flying disc. The 80 mold was introduced by Wham-O in January 1977 and, over the next two years, was embraced by the Ultimate community. Unlike the somewhat flimsy black Master frisbee disc that had been the Ultimate standard in the early growth years of the sport, the 80 Mold was heavy and sturdy enough to be tossed for distance even in strong winds, and consistent enough to be accurately thrown with a forehand flick and upside down hammer. The adoption of the 80 mold marked a new era of competitive play from west to east in the US. The disc is still considered the classic throwers disc, and it continued to be used in UPA Nationals games by many teams well after it was discontinued in 1983."

Dan "Stork" Roddick, an Inaugural Inductee of the PDGA in 1993 was also in the UPA Inaugural Inductee Class of 2004. Now that's something!