Sport: Ultimate Frisbee

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With these varied tosses, a Frisbee team can generate a crisp, coordinated offense as players weave down the field hitting each other with short, hard passes. For gamblers, the long bomb is the most spectacular weapon: it sends receivers and pursuers in a frantic dash to catch the floating disk as it descends 40 or 50 yds. ahead. On offense, everyone needs the passing skills of a pro quarterback; the job of the defense is to block a pass or pick off the Frisbee in flight. Most teams use a man-to-man defense, though some are introducing zone coverage. In a good game, the Frisbee changes hands almost as fast as in basketball, and scoring is frequent. In the Mother's Day Classic, the final score was Hampshire 22, Tufts 18.

Though it requires the stamina of soccer, Ultimate Frisbee is in many ways a spoof of big-time sports. Most of the schools with teams are far from athletic superpowers—Tufts, Hampshire, Rutgers, Holy Cross, Clark University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The players take pains to maintain their non-jock distinction. When Rutgers showed up at the first Intercollegiate Frisbee Championship held last month at Yale sporting numbered uniforms and soccer shoes, the Tufts varsity responded by wearing yellow T shirts all emblazoned with the number 3. At the Tufts-Hampshire tiff, the first Frisbee was thrown out by the grandmother of one of the Tufts players, Mildred Cunningham, a little old Planned Parenthood lady who proceeded to give away LOVE CAREFULLY buttons and tell other spectators that she was "glad the boys are doing this —there're so many worse things they could be doing."

Most Ultimate Frisbee players agree —not necessarily for the same reason. There are, in fact, few other sports that Hampshire High Scorer Steve Hannock can play with his hair spilling down his back and an ever-ready can of beer handy on the sidelines. Or that Maggie Hirsch, a Hampshire junior, can play alongside her male classmates. While the younger brother of one player talks excitedly about pro franchises some day, most players would agree with Hampshire Co-Captain Dave Dinerman when he says, "Too much competition will make this the kind of game I wouldn't want to play."