Tag: Sports

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Q&A: Phil Cannon,

“Golf is a good walk spoiled,” Mark Twain once famously said. But for Phil Cannon, tournament director of the Stanford St. Jude Championship golf tournament, golf is a good walk, period — especially when it benefits St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. A volunteer with the tournament since 1968, Cannon became tournament director in 2000. Last week, the Flyer spoke with Cannon during the tournament’s 50th anniversary. — by Rachel Stinson

Flyer: What is your favorite memory from the tournament?

Cannon: Working with the volunteers has generated hundreds of memories for me because they’re donating their time and raising money for children. For every five years of volunteering, we award the Volunteer Year Pin. After someone has volunteered for 25 years, we give the gold pin. This year, Gertie Tribo was the first volunteer to get the diamond pin for 50 years of volunteering.

On a more personal level, I’ve loved the opportunity to make friends with Bill Murray; he came to play in the pro-am in 2005. He is the most generous, down-to-earth celebrity in the world. Every once in a while, my cell phone rings, and it’s Bill Murray.

What about the tornado in 1986?

That was FedEx’s first year as title sponsor, and it was then that we really saw FedEx’s “can-do” spirit. The storm came in about 6 p.m. the night before, and it blew down trees everywhere. The PGA tour accessed everything and said we were in jeopardy of not being able to have the tournament. Either we were going to need hundreds of people to clean up, or we were not going to have it.

The next morning at 5 a.m., there were 250 people out there working as human vacuums. They weren’t even trained volunteers; they were just hard workers. That really was an indicator of FedEx and the local community.

Which hole is the most difficult?

The 14th hole is the most challenging. It’s over water, and [with the wind blowing] 15 to 20 mph, it’s difficult.

The slogan for the tournament used to be “Hush, Y’all,” but it changed this year. Why?

Early on in conversations with Stanford, we came to the realization that this was much more global for them than for FedEx; certain things that translated well in the Mid-South didn’t translate well globally. “Hush, Y’all” may have fit the Mid-South and been endearing here, but it wasn’t global. Our new slogan is “Desire Knows No Bounds.”

How long does it take to plan the tournament?

We have 1,850 volunteers this year, and they’ve worked a combined 22,500 hours. They love the family atmosphere, and they love the chance to combine effectively into big teams to raise money for St. Jude children. We also have six full-time staff members year-round. On Monday, June 11th, we start planning the next tournament.

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Good As Gold

Few and far between are the Memphis sporting events to reach a golden anniversary. This weekend at Southwind’s TPC golf course, though, Memphis and the PGA Tour will be doing the links equivalent of blowing out 50 candles.

What might you find different about the 2007 Stanford St. Jude Championship, as compared with the 1958 Memphis Open? Well, start with the prize money. Billy Maxwell won that inaugural event (at the Colonial Country Club) and took home $2,800 out of a total purse of $20,000. This year’s winner can cash a check in the amount of $1.08 million, with the total purse no less than $6 million.

Among the favorites for this year’s winner’s check are Vijay Singh, Retief Goosen, Sergio Garcia, David Toms (pictured), and last year’s champ, Jeff Maggert. Adding to the drama of this year’s event is the fact that the SSJC is the final tune-up before next week’s U.S. Open.

An important final note: Last year’s tournament donated more than $1 million of its proceeds to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Now THAT is a gold standard every Memphian can celebrate.

Stanford St. Jude Championship at TPC at Southwind through June 10th. For more information, go to stanfordstjude.com.

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Opinion Viewpoint

Getting the Shaft (Again)

Eldrick Woods (you know him better as “Tiger”) will not be playing in this year’s Stanford St. Jude Classic. For the 11th consecutive year since he turned pro, the greatest golfer of this generation has, in golf terms, given the shaft to Memphis.

Tournament director Phil Cannon takes a dignified stance each year — no surprise there — when asked about the absence of Woods. He tells anyone within earshot that the greatest golfers in the world “playing golf” this weekend will, indeed, be playing in Memphis. And he’s spot on. But Cannon, his professional colleagues, and the legion of volunteers who make the tournament hum deserve better from the preeminent personality in their sport.

As a journalist, I find myself objectively rationalizing Eldrick’s continued absence. He has more money than anyone outside of Bill Gates’ accountant could manage. He’s all about winning majors, having won 12 before his 32nd birthday and chasing Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 like Ahab did that pale whale. Eldrick’s handlers would tell you their moneymaker is “resting up” for the U.S. Open (to be played next week in Oakmont, Pennsylvania), which is like the Cleveland Cavaliers coming to town and LeBron James staying home to “rest up” for the Cavs’ next game in Detroit. When the spotlight is brightest, says Eldrick Woods, I’ll show up. And when convenient.

What Woods is forsaking in his continued dismissal of our local tournament is the very heritage — golf’s heritage, mind you — that makes him so famous and wealthy today. There would be no “major” PGA event were it not for the weekly tournaments that gave the tour weight in the middle of the last century.

The rise of Arnold Palmer’s “army” made golf a sport that could be embraced (and played!) by hoi polloi. As public courses sprouted across the country, no longer was a country club membership a prerequisite to swinging a two-iron with all your unrefined might. (Palmer, by the way, played in Memphis five times between 1958 and 1972.)

Growth in popularity, Woods well knows, means growth in sponsorships, television coverage, and yes, money. When the Memphis Open was first played in 1958, the total purse was $20,000. This week, the field at Southwind will split a cool $6 million. Find me another enterprise that — even allowing for inflation — grows 300-fold in a half-century. Tiger is cashing the check that tournaments like ours in Memphis have made possible. And he can’t make one appearance per decade to say thanks?

In a city with as large an African-American presence as Memphis, you think Woods spending a weekend here wouldn’t have some impact? When Venus Williams came to town last February and stormed to victory in the Cellular South Cup, she had the entire city wrapped around her media-friendly finger. It was an exchange of affection that will last years, whether or not Williams returns to the Racquet Club on an annual basis.

Woods, alas, is too culturally blind to see the impact — off the golf course — he might have in the Mid-South. If it’s not mere blindness, I’d argue, the annual snub is that much more damning.

Nicklaus won two majors the first year he played in Memphis (1963). He won his second Masters the same year he won the Memphis Invitational Open (1965). He won two more majors in 1966 and picked up $4,650 for finishing 4th in Memphis. However many majors Woods eventually accumulates, for Memphis fans he’ll never be able to match the Golden Bear. Matter of fact, he’s not even on the same course.

As Cannon would remind us, there will be some great golf played in Memphis this week by the likes of Vijay Singh, Retief Goosen, Sergio Garcia, David Toms, Justin Leonard, and defending champ Jeff Maggert. Whether following them on the course or watching on TV in your living room, find one — or many — of these players to cheer.

Just remember, Memphis golf fans, to cheer them the following week, too. And the week after that. Until Woods pays Memphis a visit, I’ll be cheering his competition along. And the only Tigers I’ll be backing are those wearing blue and gray.

Go to MemphisFlyer.com for Frank Murtaugh’s weekly sports column,”From My Seat.”

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Opinion

The Hype Hall of Fame

Twelve stories, and not one of them hit the nail on the head.

The Commercial Appeal‘s two-week Grizzlies-palooza failed to identify the real reason the newspaper is so fired up about Tuesday’s NBA draft lottery.

It’s not, as the headline over columnist Geoff Calkins’ story said, because the “Future of Griz riding on right bounce.” Nor is it, as the headline over Grizzlies beat writer Ron Tillery’s story said, “Why the Grizzlies NEED to win the lottery.”

It’s because the future of the CA is riding on the right bounce, and the CA NEEDS to win the lottery.

Daily newspapers and sportswriters are always among the big winners when a professional sports franchise comes to town, but they rarely admit it. Major-league sports is one of the few subjects that can still attract a mass audience of fans and readers. The news operations of television stations — there are five of them in Memphis — can make it on murder and mayhem and weather. A daily newspaper — there is one of them in Memphis — and good writers like Calkins and Tillery need headliners and big stories.

No Grizzlies means nothing but the Redbirds, golf, and prep sports to “fill” the space between Tiger basketball and SEC football. And that would mean further declines in a readership that is already shrinking.

So, come on, guys, go ahead and say it: Professional athletes are overpaid mercenaries but good local reporters and editors are here for the long haul. If the Grizzlies win the lottery and get one of the top two draft picks, it’s good for the franchise and it’s also good for the daily paper (and to a lesser extent the Flyer). I don’t care if Pau and Stro stay or go, but I do care if Geoff, Ron, Mark Perrusquia, Mary Powers, Otis Sanford, and the Flyer‘s Chris Herrington and some others stay gainfully employed.

Whether the Grizzlies are all that important to Memphis is another question. Some pretty strong evidence runs the other way: The Detroit Tigers went to the World Series last year; the Detroit Pistons are three games away from the NBA Finals; the Detroit Red Wings are two games away from the NHL Stanley Cup Finals. But the city of Detroit is about 0-5 against the world in the 21st century, with half its population gone since the 1950s, Ford and General Motors bleeding jobs and profits, Chrysler putting its fate in the hands of private-equity investors, and Comerica Bank — the corporation that bought the naming rights to Comerica Park, the home of the Tigers — moving its headquarters to Texas. Not coincidentally, Detroit still has Mitch Albom and two daily newspapers, thanks in no small part to their healthy sports sections.

Pittsburgh has three major-league teams but is also bleeding residents and jobs. And, of course, there is New Orleans, proud home of the Saints.

If the Grizzlies help keep FedEx in Memphis, then FedExForum was worth every dollar. If FedEx were to move a substantial number of jobs, then it wouldn’t matter a hoot if the Grizzlies won the NBA championship.

A case can be made that colleges, medical centers, safety, and good public schools are more important to cities than pro sports teams. Think Oxford, Tupelo, Hattiesburg, Cleveland, Mississippi, Nashville, and Murfreesboro. Then think Batesville, West Memphis, McComb, Greenville, and Memphis.

What Memphis needs is a Hype Hall of Fame. The obvious location would be The Pyramid, with plaques commemorating Sidney Shlenker, the inclinator, the Big Dig, the Hard Rock Café, and Rakapolis. The music wing should include a tribute to tributes to Elvis Week. The football wing would feature highlights from the Arena Football League, the USFL, the Mad Dogs, and the uniform and oversized shoulder pads of Albert Means, the greatest football prospect who never made all-conference in college. The basketball wing should have a place for Dajuan Wagner, Bryant Reeves, and The Commercial Appeal‘s breathless build-up to “Christmas in May,” “the ultimate birthday party,” and “the biggest thing to happen to Memphis since God invented fire and the pig,” otherwise known as the NBA draft lottery.

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News News Feature

Extra Innings

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

From the outside looking in, baseball is the most cliché-riddled institution in America.

So it is that when former big-league ballplayer and now Memphian John Denny says he played “for love of the game,” he is, strictly speaking, using a cliché, but he himself is not a cliché; he’s worthy of a pass (and no one cry foul).

Denny has had a charmed life in baseball. He came up with the St. Louis Cardinals organization, with his first full season coming in 1975. In 1983, with the Philadelphia Phillies, Denny posted career bests: 19-6, 2.37 ERA, 150 strikeouts, winner of the Cy Young Award for best pitcher, pitched in and won game one of the World Series.

Following the season, Denny was invited to a state dinner at the White House. Included at his table of eight were President Ronald Reagan, the Queen of Nepal, Carol Burnett, the secretary of the Treasury, and a general.

All told, Denny played 13 seasons for the Cardinals, Cleveland Indians, Phillies, and Cincinnati Reds, retiring in 1986. In 2001, as a rehab pitching coach with the Arizona Diamondbacks, he won a World Series ring.

A few years ago, Denny moved to Memphis. Even this, it must be admitted, seems scripted: “I met this girl on the steps of Graceland,” Denny says.

Now Denny is getting back into the swing of things. At his school, JAD Baseball Experience, Denny instructs students of all ages on the finer points — and some not so fine — of pitching. As a teacher, Denny is part anatomist, part psychologist, part friend, part father to his students.

“I want them to understand that this is an art form. This is something that not everyone can do. It takes a real commitment to spend the time to do something right.”

Denny’s coaching stint with the Diamondbacks was a key stepping-stone to his current career in Memphis. “I felt like I had a talent to teach pitching,” he says. “Some of these [Diamondbacks] guys I had to rebuild. It seemed like I was able to see things and do things with them that other guys couldn’t.”

What it all comes down to is focus, he says: “Focus is certainly a common denominator that all players at the professional level need to have. You can’t be distracted by what you’re trying to do. If you are, you’re going to have a problem.”

For instance, take game one of the 1983 World Series in Baltimore. President Reagan was in attendance, and Denny had just given up a first-inning home run. “The crowd noise was so intense,” he says. “I could feel the vibration in the pitcher’s mound.” Denny recovered to win the game.

Denny’s decision to stay in the game as an instructor, long after playing, is owed in some part to early teammates, including Joe Torre, Tim McCarver, Bob Gibson, and Lou Brock. “Brock was one of the best teammates I ever had,” Denny says. “He took me under his wing. One time he said, ‘John, you need to learn to play the game within the boundaries of fair play.’ There’s an unwritten code of ethics. You act very professional. Be dignified, a class athlete, someone that people would respect.”

These principles, Denny feels, connect him to an earlier time in baseball history. Torre, McCarver, Gibson, and Brock “learned from the players [who started] in the 1930s and ’40s,” Denny says. “What was common in those players was a real passion and love for the game. It wasn’t so much money and notoriety; it was just loving the game.

“It has been a way of life. I can do it now in a different capacity and try to pass some of it on, because it means that much to me. [Baseball is] a game you’re set up to fail. Maybe that’s the beauty of it: It’s a game you’re set up to fail, but because of that, you still want to try to prove that you’re not going to.”

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Boxing Day

CREDIT: Karen Samuel | Dreamstime.com

People who can’t keep their hands off each other in a public display of affection are told to “get a room”; those who can’t stop touching each other in a public display of aggression are commanded to “take it outside.” Guess which one applies when Zab “Super” Judah and Ruben “Modern Day Warrior” Galvan tangle Friday night?

Judah and Galvan headline the newest installment of the Fights at the Fitz series of boxing matches at Fitzgeralds Casino in Tunica. This Friday, the Fitz is literally going to “Take It Outside” — staging their bouts just outside the casino on the banks of the Mississippi River in a ring specially constructed for the evening.

In the main event, former welterweight champeen and all-around badass Judah needs to defeat Galvan to get to a tentatively scheduled match against undefeated WBA World Champion Miguel Cotto in June at Madison Square Garden. But the Judah-Galvan 10-rounder is just one of five bouts on the card. Among other pugilistic highlights Friday night, the NABO flyweight title will hang in the balance as Rayonta Whitfield grapples with Jonathan Perez, and Southaven, Mississippi, homeboy Jason Ross gets in the clinch with Bo Skipper in a light heavyweight scrum.

The fights will go down rain or shine — the ring will be covered. Spectators can view the jabfest ringside or via broadcast in the casino’s Great Hall. The sweet science will also be televised live on ESPN2.

Fights at the Fitz, “Taking It Outside,” fitzgeralds casino, Friday, April 13th. Gates open at 7 p.m., fights begin at 8 p.m. $75 reserved seats/$35 general admission. For tickets, call 800-766-5825.

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Sports Sports Feature

Sweet, Again

For at least a week, the Tennessee legislature should consider replacing the three stars on the state flag with basketballs. For the first time in the history of the NCAA tournament, all three regions of the Volunteer State will be represented in the Sweet 16, with the University of Tennessee, Vanderbilt, and Memphis each two wins shy of the Final Four. Better yet, with Ridgeway High alum Derrick Byars starring for the Commodores and White Station’s Dane Bradshaw starting for the Vols, Memphis will have a say in this event, dammit, one way or another.

As for the Tigers’ second-round win over Nevada Sunday, it was as gutsy as any 16-point victory you’ll ever see. When the Tigers’ top scorer, Chris Douglas-Roberts, went down with an ankle injury with eight minutes to play, Tiger apologists had their excuse should the U of M wilt against the Western Athletic Conference champions. Instead, Memphis outscored the Wolf Pack by nine the rest of the way.

Guts, you say? With the Tiger lead down to two points, sophomore Antonio Anderson took the plank, er, free-throw line and dropped a pair through the twine, lifting the chin of every foul-shot-fearing fan between New Orleans and Memphis. When Joey Dorsey — he of the sub-50-percent ratio for the season — made his first free throw to extend the lead to five, one got the feeling the U of M had a vice grip on this one. When Anderson saved the ensuing miss from going out of bounds — retaining a valuable clock-killing possession for Memphis — the Tigers seized enough momentum to carry them to the final buzzer.

Guts? Find the smallest Tiger on the floor Thursday night and you’ll see the term personified. Dorsey and Douglas-Roberts (missing free throws, injured, or otherwise) are the most valuable Tigers. Anderson and Jeremy Hunt are clutch at both ends of the floor. But this is fast becoming Andre Allen’s team.

It takes some doing to join the club of elite Memphis point guards. Recent history has seen Andre Turner, Elliot Perry, Chris Garner, and Antonio Burks provide the electric pulse for NCAA tournament teams. (Some would include Penny Hardaway on this list, though Hardaway’s greatness shouldn’t be confined by any positional boundary.) Despite being, technically, Willie Kemp’s backup, Allen made an imprint on the Tiger wins in New Orleans that was second to no one. A steal and driving layup by Allen were key to a 10-2 run early in the second half of the first-round win over North Texas, a game in which the backup point guard played 36 minutes, compared with the starter’s nine. Allen’s hyperactive defensive presence in the backcourt establishes the standard for his teammates and serves as the pressure point through which Memphis opponents must begin their half-court offense.

“Andre’s motor is going 100 miles per hour,” said Coach John Calipari after the Tigers won the Conference USA tournament March 10th. “The greatest thing ever to happen to Willie Kemp is Andre Allen. Willie can’t cost us a game. He won’t cost us a game, because I won’t leave him in long enough. I’ll bring in Andre.”

Energy — and guts — will be a prerequisite to winning the South regional. Thursday night in San Antonio, the best player on the court will be Texas A & M guard Acie Law. The Aggies will be playing in their home state and in the Sweet 16 for the first time since Michael Jordan was a junior in high school (1980). With enough defensive help from Anderson — and a reasonably healthy CDR — the Tigers might escape the long arm of Law, and you couldn’t ask for a juicier foe in the regional final, regardless of who wins the Ohio State-Tennessee contest. If the favored Buckeyes are victorious, Memphis fans will be booing the very man-child they hope to cheer (as a Grizzly) next season: Ohio State’s freshman center, Greg Oden. And if UT wins? Merely a chance to avenge the 18-point drubbing Memphis suffered in Knoxville in December.

Here are the Memphis Tigers, with 24 consecutive wins and — for the first time since 1985 — a second straight dance card in the NCAA’s Sweet Sixteen. Seems they deserve better than a four-word cliché for their performance to date … and their chances ahead. But it’s a great cliché: no guts, no glory.

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Star Wars

Beginning this week, all eyes in the tennis world will be on the stars shining in Memphis during the men’s Regions Morgan Keegan Championships and the women’s Cellular South Cup at the Racquet Club. Among the luminaries in Memphis will be three of the current top-10-ranked men’s tennis players and arguably the most recognizable woman athlete in the world.

American star Andy Roddick returns to Memphis to try to reclaim the trophy he last won in 2002. He comes off a recent run of excellent play: Last week he helped the U.S. defeat the Czech Republic in Davis Cup match play, and last month he had a semifinal finish in the Australian Open. He’ll vie for the Memphis title against James Blake, who completed the 2006 campaign 6th in the world, the first African American to finish in the top 10 since Arthur Ashe. Defending champion Tommy Haas takes on all comers boosted by his own Australian Open semifinal finish.

Played concurrently is the Cellular South Cup. Sofia Arvidsson tries to make it back-to-back championships, but it’s Venus Williams (pictured) who will be hogging all the cameras in the Bluff City this week. A sore wrist has plagued her of late, but when healthy, her racquet’s as potent a weapon as women’s tennis has seen since the heady days of Steffi Graf and Monica Seles. The stands might be the only safe place to be in the Racquet Club this week.

Regions Morgan Keegan Championships and the Cellular South Cup, February 16-25, The Racquet Club of Memphis,

5111 Sanderlin. Call 685-ACES (2237) or go to www.rmkchampionships.com for more information.

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Sports Sports Feature

St. Louis Spirit

CREDIT: AP

Let’s start this week with a time warp. Think back to when you were 13 years old. Try and pinpoint a moment from your 14th year that you can close your eyes and envision today. The setting, the time of day, the people you may have been with.

I was 13 in 1982 when the St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series in seven games over the Milwaukee Brewers (Harvey’s Wall-Bangers, that crew was called). That was the Cardinals’ last world championship until they shocked the sports world two weeks ago by upsetting the Detroit Tigers and winning the 2006 series after the fewest regular-season wins (83) by any champ, ever. I watched Game 7 of that ’82 Series in the living room of my family’s apartment in Northfield, Vermont. It was a Wednesday night, when Bruce Sutter — just this year inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame — struck out Gorman Thomas to clinch the championship. It was the ninth world championship for St. Louis but the first of my lifetime and the franchise’s first in 15 years, what seemed like an eternity at the time for my father.

I remember trying to out-smile my dad as a mob of fans stormed the artificial turf at “old” Busch Stadium. And I remember thinking, surely, this would be the first of many such celebrations.

It was twenty-four years — almost a quarter century — before my heart again pounded the way it did on October 20, 1982. We don’t get all that many 24-year cycles in a lifetime, so I’ll be relishing the Cardinals’ 10th championship for as long as I can share the memory. But how different, this celebration.

What’s happened since 1982 — age 13 for me — besides the hundreds of Cardinal games I’ve seen and listened to? High school happened. College. A wedding. More than 130 issues of Memphis magazine hitting the streets with my name next to “managing editor” on the masthead. Best of all, I’ve welcomed two daughters since 1982. (They’ll remember this World Series, let me assure you.) And worst, my dad isn’t here this time to try and match my smile.

Amid the glow of merely winning, Dad would love the improbability of this championship. St. Louis managed to win the World Series in five games with merely two RBIs from baseball’s “perfect” player, Albert Pujols. (Last week, the Elias Sports Bureau announced that Pujols is only the sixth player since their ranking system was devised in 1981 to score a perfect 100 for a season.) How perfectly appropriate that the Series MVP was a player — 5’7″ shortstop David Eckstein — whom Pujols could eat for lunch. Smallest player on the field; the player with the fewest “tools”; a castoff from a team with which he won a championship, but a team that felt it could improve without him. Nice way to acquire your first new car, Mr. Eckstein. (That yellow beauty, though, needs a coat of red paint.)

This is the second of at least 52 weeks during which the words “St. Louis Cardinals” must be prefaced by “world champion.” The joy I recall from my days as an 8th-grader has lost some context as I’ve gained adulthood and all the rites that come with it. I wonder, with a pounding but heavy heart, just where my dad might be now, knowing how happy this long-awaited victory would make him. This is where I gain a little faith and, with inspiration from a certain Disney movie starring Danny Glover — a Murtaugh, it should be noted, in another of his popular roles — a speculative theory on what happened as the Tigers botched one play after another in the sloppiest Fall Classic we’ll see in years: Perhaps, Cardinal Nation, just perhaps, St. Louis had a little help from its own angel in the outfield. Imagination — no, belief — has a life span much longer than 13 years.

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Opinion Viewpoint

No Refs, No Coaches

BOONE, North Carolina — People look at you funny when you say you’re going out of town to a Frisbee tournament.

You mean that’s a sport? And you’re gonna go watch it? And you’re driving 600 miles to do it? Uh, have a nice time.

We did. Along with 32 teams of men and women from 16 colleges including Duke, North Carolina, Appalachian State, Warren Wilson, and Elon, my wife and I came to this mountain haven 150 miles east of Knoxville to see our daughter, the fall colors, and the booming sport of Ultimate Frisbee — or just “Ultimate,” as it’s called.

Ultimate is the ultimate anti-sport for our sports-crazy times. There are no referees, no coaches, no contact, and certainly no scholarships. The object is for a seven-player team to advance a Frisbee across the opponent’s goal line by tossing it to a team member without dropping it. Players call their own violations — picks and drops, mainly — on an honor system. The player with the Frisbee has to stand still and get rid of it within 10 seconds, and a fair, unhurried count is another part of the honor system. The game lasts 90 minutes or until one team scores 13 points.

Teams substitute freely and dress creatively. The lads from Warren Wilson, a small liberal arts college in Asheville, North Carolina, wore flannel shirts and a lot of facial hair. The women of App State opted for yellow tops, knee socks, and skirts. After four rounds, the freshmen from several teams joined forces to play an extra game. This was called the All-Star game.

Many Ultimate players are non-jocks, while others are refugees from competitive soccer, basketball, softball, or tennis, where screaming parents and no-nonsense coaches are the norm. The best players can run fast and sail the disc accurately for an incredible distance overhand, forehand, upside down, or backhanded — and do it with either hand.

Diving layouts are common, arguments are rare. The Spirit of the Game is the sport’s official rulebook.

To start one game, a diminutive girl from App State paused behind her own goal line, took four quick steps, spun around in a complete circle, and launched one the length of the field, or nearly 100 yards. A Frisbee sailing in slow motion over a green field through a blue sky against the backdrop of the New River and the Blue Ridge Mountains in early November was, in its way, as lovely a sight as watching Jonathan Crompton later that afternoon throw a 50-yard touchdown pass in front of a 105,000 fans in Neyland Stadium in Knoxville. ESPN will probably never capture the moment, but it’s our loss.

Ultimate was supposedly invented by hippies in the 1960s, but who knows? The sport now has its own magazine, national rankings, and is played in organized fashion by more than 500 colleges and universities. The New York Times reported last week that a professor of psychiatry at the University of Washington has found a correlation between Ultimate and college graduation rates and scholastic excellence.

Well, maybe, but this seems contrary to the Zen-like spirit of the game. Give it a rest, doc. If Ohio State beats Harvard, so be it. The point is to be in the moment, to play and enjoy. Another round of rankings and seriousness and justification is the last thing many of us — parents and students alike — want to hear after the tears, stress, and disappointments of competitive sports.

I don’t mean to put down big-time sports. I couldn’t watch a baseball game for three years after my son quit the UT team after pitching only a couple of innings in his freshman year so that he could spend more time fishing and hunting. And after the last Ultimate game, I rushed to a sports bar to watch the Vols play LSU in football on TV.

Each sport is what it is, wonderful in its own way. That’s the Ultimate lesson.

John Branston is a Flyer senior editor