Throwing a frisbee on the beach is as different from the sport of Ultimate as walking a dog in a park is from international tourism. Most people toss their frisbee discs unaware that in 1968 a new game was born in the United States then called Frisbee Football. It has since matured into international championships, a professional league in the United States, a global federation with Olympic aspirations, and a new name, Ultimate or sometimes Ultimate Frisbee. And Costa Rica, believe it or not, has been in the game since 1989.
As recently as a few months ago, Costa Rica’s international Volcanic Tournament, played at the Tilajari Resort and now in its 15th year, concluded its weekend-long competition in which 70 Latin Americans and 70 other foreigners competed. Aside from this privately run tournament, the Costa Rican Flying Disc Association consists of five permanent clubs that play on various fields around the Greater Metropolitan Area. But these events are by no means the first organized Ultimate event. I began playing Ultimate when I arrived in Costa Rica as a Peace Corps Volunteer in 1993. By that time, Americans and a few Costa Ricans had already been throwing passes here for four years, largely at the University of Costa Rica athletic fields. But we took field trips all over the country to play. Different aficionados sponsored soccer fields in Paquera, a Dole banana plantation in Guapiles, and Monteverde.
Today, however, the tournaments are far more organized, applying the international rules of the World Flying Disc Federation which governs the sport across the 103 countries that actively play Ultimate in the same way that FIFA governs soccer.
Ultimate Is Aerodynamic, Aerobic, and Telegenic
When I think of Ultimate, what comes to mind is speed, power, co-ed, few disputes, aerodynamic, aerobic, sportsmanship, telegenic, entertaining, and cheap to play (a $10 disc is about it). If you don’t believe it, just type “Ultimate highlights” in YouTube.
As an article in The New Yorker summarizes, Ultimate combines “the constant movement of soccer and the aerial passing of football with a Boy Scout code of ethics, Ultimate is played between two teams of seven, on a rectangular field a hundred and twenty yards long and forty yards wide, including two end zones. The goal is to score points by catching a pass in the opponent’s end zone. Running with the disc is not allowed. Nor is intentional contact. Unique among sports, it’s self-refereed. This last feature relies upon a steadfast embrace of sportsmanlike conduct, referred to as ‘spirit of the game.’ It is Ultimate’s most cherished and fussed-over attribute, which the game’s purists have sought to protect as it has moved from the fringes to the foreground.”
Given Ultimate’s non-contact nature, if a person can throw the disc well enough forehand, backhand, and overhead, and knows how to play, they can play into their 50s. I am 53 and still compete with kids one-third my age. But the true grandmaster who began playing in Costa Rica one year before I did in 1993 and thus is the longest Costa Rican player in the country, Fico Chacón, comments back then how odd it was for most Costa Ricans to see us use a soccer field for some sport that was, well, not soccer. But “a lot has changed over the years in the Ultimate world, more countries in Latin America have developed leagues, tournaments, and so on. Costa Rica has been a bit slow but now things are changing and there is a lot more interest.” Indeed, the composition of players has migrated from mostly (American) foreigners to mostly ticos today with a splattering of other nationalities such as Chilean Carlos Orellana who also started playing in Costa Rica in the early 90s.
Non-contact means as well that success depends more on skill than pure power; Ultimate is a co-ed sport, except at the highest levels. Nicky Rodriguez, for example, began playing when she was merely 13. She wanted a Girl Scouts sports badge, but the conventional sports didn’t inspire. So, “my dad suggested this group that was practicing something fun at the soccer field across the street from my house.” She looked out her window in Santa Rosa de Santo Domingo, where pick-up Ultimate is still played every Monday night at 8 pm, and her life was soon to change.
Now Nicky is one of the leading players in the country. Her advice to other women who might want to play, “If you are intrigued, interested, and looking for something different from all the ordinary sports, we are more than willing to teach, support you, and have fun together. We are like a family… Ultimate has changed my life incredibly.” Indeed, 35% of all registered association players around the world have been women for the past 10 years, according to the World Federation.
Ultimate in Costa Rica Today
Today the Association which enjoys 89 members and growing sponsors pick-up Ultimate twice a week in Heredia, an annual tournament, as well as exhibition games at high schools and public fields throughout the year to promote the sport. Paul Chaves, a member of the board of directors, indicates that a sixth club from northern Guanacaste could be joining the Association in the future. The organization also sponsors a sort of national team called Osos Perezosos Ultimate Frisbee Club which has played in tournaments in Panama, Nicaragua, the USA, and in November will participate in the Pan American Ultimate Championships in the Dominican Republic. The Osos Perezosos (or “Sloths,” Costa Rica’s 15th national symbol) are not yet Costa Rica’s official national team until the Association becomes an accredited sports federation. But that’s in the works, Paul says.
While the pandemic reduced the number of registered association players around the world and the International Olympic Committee last year dashed the sport’s hopes of playing in the 2024 Olympics in Los Angeles, Ultimate in Costa Rica continues to fly high.
Costa Rica Produces the Best Flying Disc Ever
In 1946 the famous early disc designer, Fred Morrison, took the flying cake pan idea (students at Yale used to eat pies and then throw the metal pans at each other) and improved it with his metal Whirlo-Way. Then in 1947, as reported by the Flying Disc Museum, “Pilot Ken Arnold spotted an unidentified flying object that he said ‘Flew erratic, like a saucer if you skip it across the water.’ Bill Bequette of United Press in his write-up reported that Arnold had seen a ‘Flying Saucer,’ and the name stuck.”
Later that year Morrison and his partner had converted the metal Whirlo-Way into the very first plastic flying disc. Given the UFO craze at the time, they called their new disk the “Flyin Saucer.”
Little did they know that only 23 years later (1971) in little Costa Rica, the same year that the very first Ultimate conference formed in New Jersey, the best flying saucer photo of all times was taken. A Costa Rican survey plane flew over Lake Cote to photograph the terrain to create a map for the eventual Arenal hydroelectric project. The crew shot pictures every 13 seconds from 10,000 feet. Only when they got back to develop the film, they found this image on frame 300 and nothing on either frame before or after. Costa Rica’s National Geographic Institute still retains the original photo in its archives. New York Times journalist and top expert in the UFO field, Leslie Kean said it is probably “the best photograph of a UFO ever taken.”
Imagine what Fred could have designed had his inspiration come from this saucer instead of an apple pie pan.
For more information on Costa Rican Ultimate, visit the Association’s Instagram page, Facebook page, or send an email.
Jon Kohl, aside from playing Ultimate since 1994 in Costa Rica, writes about tourism, heritage conservation, protected areas as well as works in the protected areas management field. See his publications at ResearchGate.
