SC Ultimate Frisbee

Origins of Ultimate

Students Joel Silver and Jared Kass, along with Jonny Hines and Buzzy Hellring, invented Ultimate Frisbee in 1967 at Columbia High School, Maplewood, New Jersey, USA (CHS). The first game was played at CHS in 1968 between the student council and the student newspaper staff. Beginning the following year evening games were played in the glow of mercury-vapor lights on the school's parking lot. Initially players of Ultimate Frisbee (as it was known at the time) used a "Master" disc marketed by Wham-O, based on Fred Morrison's inspired "Pluto Platter" design. Hellring, Silver, and Hines developed the first and second edition Rules of Ultimate Frisbee. In 1970 CHS defeated Milburn High 43-10 in the first interscholastic Ultimate game. CHS, Milburn, and three other New Jersey high schools made up the first conference of Ultimate teams beginning in 1971.

Alumni of that first league took the game to their colleges and universities. Rutgers defeated Princeton 29-27 in 1972 in the first intercollegiate game. This game was played exactly 103 years after the first intercollegiate American football game by the same teams at precisely the same site, which had been paved as a parking lot in the interim. Rutgers won both games by an identical margin.

Rutgers also won the first Ultimate Frisbee tournament in 1975, hosted by Yale, with 8 college teams participating. That summer Ultimate was introduced at the Second World Frisbee Championships at the Rose Bowl. This event introduced Ultimate on the west coast of the USA.