Sports

Amherst, Massachusetts is known for many things. It has an elite liberal arts college, and has been called home by lexicographer Noah Webster, writer Emily Dickinson, and actress Uma Thurman. It is not, however, well-known for its camping grounds. On the weekend of May 2, 3 and 4, Stuyvesant’s Boys’ Ultimate Frisbee team, the Sticky Fingers, visited Amherst and made the best of it.

“It was awesome,” junior Kevin Chen said. “We stayed overnight with a host family who had a fire pit in their backyard. It was like camping. Most city kids [...] don’t get a chance to camp outdoors, but we got a small taste of it this past weekend.”

The primary purpose of the team’s trip, however, was not to roast s’mores and tell ghost stories, but to play in the Amherst Invitational, one of the seven out-of-city tournaments that the team participates in. They placed fourth overall. In this tournament, Stuyvesant played a close game against Maine’s Greely High School. After falling behind 8-5 in the first half, Stuyvesant was able to tie the game at 10-10 late in the second half. “We fought our way back into the game and made them earn each and every point,” Chen said. Despite these efforts, Greely was able to pull away with a 12-10 victory in the end.

Although they lost this particular game, the team is usually a semifinalist at these out-of-city tournaments, according to senior and co-captain Chris Rong. The team travels out of the city to play because the city’s teams aren’t quite on par with the Sticky Fingers. “When we get out of state, the level of competition is very high,” Rong said.

Junior and co-captain Allen He agreed, and suggested that Ultimate is taken more seriously in suburban areas. “People recognize that it is as, if not more, competitive as other sports,” He said. “[Ultimate] teams from other states attract many more athletes, whereas our [Stuyvesant] athletes choose to participate in teams that are more recognized.” At Stuyvesant, he said, many athletes tend to gravitate towards more traditional and established sports.

Still, there is competition for Stuyvesant within the city in the New York City Ultimate League (NYCUL). According to senior Un Seng Chio, the NYCUL consists of Stuyvesant, The Beacon School, The Hunter School, Riverdale Country School, Horace Mann School, Bard High School, Bronx High School of Science and The Fieldston School. Their level of competition, however, doesn’t match Stuyvesant’s. “Most of the city teams lack [fundamentals] “like “basic throwing and clean offense,” Rong said.

“We currently have a winning dynasty in the league, and we certainly hope to defend our title this year,” Chio said. Stuy has won the city championships three years in a row, but Beacon has proven to be a continuing rival. Stuyvesant is currently 4-2 in NYCUL play.

To maintain their dominance over the NYCUL and to prepare for out-of-city competitions, the team trains every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday at Prospect Park in Brooklyn, according to junior Peter Valdez. “We warm up with some standard jogging, sprinting, stretch routines, and then run drills or practice specific plays,” he said. “At the end of practice, we sometimes [scrimmage].”

These intense practices are run by volunteer head coach David Hollander and volunteer assistant coach Devon Huang. Hollander, who has won Frisbee championships at both the national and world levels, has been coaching the team since 2002. He has reached the highest level of Ultimate, but has never received any money for it because there is no professional Ultimate Frisbee organization. “No one makes any money, and players at the club level pay a lot out of pockets” to participate in competitions, he said. “We play because we love the sport.”

Hollander has thoroughly enjoyed coaching the team. “Nothing is more rewarding to me than seeing a group of people succeed, at least partly because of the things I’ve shared with them,” he said. However, an 18-month old daughter and a less flexible schedule than he had when he was a college professor (he is now a writer) have made it harder for him to commit so much time to coaching the team. He said that this year will probably be his last year coaching. Next year, Huang, a Stuy alumnus(’93), will replace him as head coach.

Players, nonetheless, will not forget the practices Hollander ran. “I make them run a lot,” Hollander said. “God only knows what they say about their old coach when I’m not there.”

It may come as a surprise to him, but players speak very highly of Hollander. “Having coach [Hollander] be our coach is definitely a reason why I’m glad that Ultimate is not PSAL,” Chen said.

Chen said this because the Public Schools Athletic League (PSAL) requires all coaches to be licensed teachers, which Hollander is not. Ultimate, however, is not sanctioned by the PSAL. This is beneficial in many ways, mainly because the team is able to appoint such an experienced and qualified coach.

In addition, players feel that independence from the organization allows Ultimate’s unique culture to thrive. For example, the PSAL would require games to be officiated by referees. Ultimate, however, is governed by “what is known as the Spirit of the Game, where players, not referees, officiate amongst each other if anyone commits an infraction,” Chio said. “The system helps build good sportsmanship and character within every Ultimate player.”

Not being in the PSAL does, however, have obvious drawbacks, namely the lack of funding. The team has to raise its own funds to pay for the expenses of traveling to out-of-state tournaments, which can cost up to 700 dollars to attend, according to Chio. Chen estimates that the team collectively has spent 1,300 dollars on tournaments from September to February. The team tries to raise at least 3,500 dollars a season through various methods like “candy selling, disc selling, hosting our own tournament,” Chio said. So far they have raised 2750 dollars from September to the present, according to Chio. On Tuesday, May 20, the team held a raffle where the prizes were a Nintendo DS, an iPod nano, movie tickets and an iTunes gift card. Tickets cost two dollars, and it helped offset the cost of States and allowed the coach to go with them. Despite all these efforts, “members of the team usually end up paying out of their own pockets,” Chio said.

The team’s final tournament of the year was the State Championships, held on the weekend of May 23, 24 and 25 in Buffalo, New York.