Once upon a time…

Once upon a time in the vast Ultimate wasteland we call ‘western Kentucky’, an Ultimate team was formed. And so it was. The team didn’t actually start in the Fall of 2003-it started a little earlier than that. The group that played pickup in front of the Preston during MasterPlan had played before…in Louisville, Cincinnati, and Kansas. Melissa’s brother Bryan Paris plays for the Apes of Wrath in Oklahoma. Tony’s friend plays for Vanderbilt. Nathan’s friend Mike from Illinois State (who helped start the team there) played with us in Ohio. The team at Western has been also influenced by the five years I spent at Kansas with the HorrorZontals (and coach Will Spotts), the club team Go Dog Go in Kansas City (Shawn Dubbs, etc.), summer leagues, intramurals, and of course the grassroots pickup games (with Jeff, Luke, McShea, etc.).

The Western way…
Forces combined on the lawn in front of Preston during MasterPlan 2003. Shirtless and shoeless, many met for the first time while chasing plastic. Katie Marks, Nathan Morgan, Tony, Shaun, Joe, and others all met in the Bemis lobby that first meeting to draft an official constitution and cover various Club Sport guidelines and forms for officers and such… Our first official game was when we invited the USI DiscJockeys (Evansville) to town. On sunny Saturday, we lost two good games to the DJs.
Later in the semester, we traveled to USI for a one-day scrimmage that included a club crew from Louisville. It was cold and windy-and we lost another two games. It was a high-spirited day, however, and the rookies learned something about throwing in the wind…

“Spectacular Bid”
In the Spring 2004 semester, we stepped it up. Poker nights, carwashes, and disc sales were the main sources of revenue and laughs. January brought a cold, one-day scrimmage at Lexington Catholic High School, with their team, Berea College, and a mixed club team from Lexington called “Black Lung”. We were 1-3 that day, winning finally in a close game with Black Lung. Ask Curtis and Brandon about their end-zone collision in the Berea game! We had found our rival in Berea…
Voting in a team name and design (drawn by Mike Ruble), we had jerseys made-coordinated by Curtis Haynes and Duke’s Sporting Goods. Spectacular Bid was a horse that had an illustrious racing career which ended in 2003-the year our team begins. Spectacular “bids” have come to describe what our games and practices are like, either because our throws are so bad…or because of awesome layouts on defense.
Taking our new name, jerseys and 11 players on the road, we played in a “Boogie Nights” tournament at Miami of Ohio-our first ‘real’ tournament. Saturday we lost to Eastern Michigan (4-13), Michigan “B”, Berea (8-13), and Ohio (1-13). Sunday our only action was a loss against Oberlin “B”, but it was a great game; we made some great defensive stops on their goal line-including a few 10-minute points-and showed some veteran savvy in the wind on offense.
Our last tournament of the year was at Berea: the “KY State Championships”. On Saturday, we lost our first two games to Lexington Catholic (again) and Cumberland College. At the end of the day, though, we beat out a team from Centre College (11-3), and a club team from Lexington 11-7…finishing 2-2 for the day. Sunday morning, our team woke up. We finally won against Berea, shocking them 11-6. Next, we handled Xavier 8-6 in a time cap. That put us in the championship game with a rematch against Cumberland. Our team was hurting (Mike Ruble’s hand, Curtis achilles, etc.) from having only 3 or 4 subs the whole weekend. Cumberland argued every call we made-including an upwind score when Dave High was ‘picked’… The highlight was probably the Callahan score caught by Joe Robinson, after a deep pull by Brandon (?) and a mark by BP. We lost 11-9, but impressed the KY Ultimate scene with our first-year play, finishing the weekend 4-3.
Overall, we improved a great deal. Most of our players are playing in summer leagues or pickup in Nashville and Louisville. We are getting ready to come back in the fall to recruit, raise some money, and improve the team. We ended up 4-9 officially (ranked #266 with the UPA). At the year-end cookout, Mike Birdwell showed us his digital ‘commercial’ with real footage from practice. Our new website is up now, thanks to Dave High (our first “alumnus” of the team, with Megan). It was a great start for a first year-this next 2004-05 season we plan to host a tournament in October and head to Savannah for the spring break Ultimate camp called “High Tide”.