Frisbee players really love pie.

This is partially a lie. Not all frisbee players actually love pie although I doubt that your team would complain if you brought some post-game celebration pie. Plus, you’d probably get a quirky pie related nickname.

So I’ll divulge my findings on this pie situation. I was exploring the roots of the actual frisbee disc in an article called “The Origins and Development of Ultimate Frisbee”. The seeds of the sport were sprung at Yale University circa 1887, where students would buy “Frisbie Pies” from a bakery and throw them like modern day Frisbees after they feasted on the delicious cobbler held inside (Griggs 2009).

There’s a debate on whether it was either pie tins or cookie tins. One Yale student’s account is pretty convincing in this important distinction: “I clearly remember the cookies; and I also recall that the cover of the tin box was used by the older kids just the same way Frisbees are now used” (Griggs 2009). But after talking to the widow of the Frisbie bakery, the official story the frisbee legends go with is the pie trays.

All that the sport of frisbee needed to grow was a frisbee made to fly, not made to hold pie. So in 1948, an inventor created a plastic version of the pie tin and improved it with several prototypes. With a solid frisbee design in place, the game grew to a “Frisbee Football” type of game which was the precursor to the best version of all the frisbee games, ultimate frisbee (Griggs 2009).

I know some of you are wondering about how ultimate frisbee works, so I’ll be explaining some basic rules and situations today hopefully without boring you with too many details:

Ultimate Frisbee is played 7 on 7 and is considered a non-contact sport; but incidental contact always happens. There is a stall count which the person guarding the thrower will count out loud to 10 seconds (this is kind of like a shot clock); before 10 seconds the thrower must throw it to a teammate to reset the clock or it is a turnover to the opponent. You cannot run with the disc, but you can pivot on one foot like in basketball. You must throw the disc to advance it to your teammates. If your teammate drops the disc or a defender deflects it to the ground, possession is turned to the opposing team. While both teams are on the field, play continues until one team scores or until a foul is called. Catching the frisbee in the opponents endzone will earn your team 1 point. Games are played to a score selected before the game starts, usually pre-determined in the tournament rules.

So, I’m going to show you a video and I here’s a list of ultimate frisbee keywords you might encounter.
Handler=a throwing position (much like quarterback in football)
Cutter=a receiving position (much like receivers in football)
Mark=defender guarding the thrower
Someone screaming “inside” or “around”=people on the sideline giving the mark information on where to move
A break=scoring on a point in which you started as the defender
Pull=the first throw of the match (like a kickoff in football)
Huck=a long pass
Dump=a short pass usually to another handler for no gain to reset the stall count


The easiest way to see how Ultimate Frisbee looks like is by video so just check this club match.




Griggs, Gerald. "The Origins and Development of Ultimate Frisbee." The Sport Journal12.3 (2009): Academic OneFile. Web. 2 Sept. 2012.