With spring sports starting soon, ultimate frisbee began its season with two informational meetings. Many returning and new players attended the meeting to learn the new precautions regarding COVID-19 and what’s to come for future practices, games and tournaments.  

Head coach Spencer Hagen said this year’s meetings were later than usual because there were no indoor preseason practices, but the coaches were still able to get the message out.  

“We normally have the meeting a little bit earlier before our indoor preseason starts but we didn’t do that this year because of COVID(-19),” Hagen said. “We held the meeting virtually, it’s now because we’re getting close to the beginning of our season.”

According to junior girls’ captain Natashia Johannes, the meeting covered the basics so parents and players could get a general idea of the upcoming schedule for the spring. 

“I just gave some general information about ultimate. It wasn’t nearly as specific especially because it was a co-ed meeting, even though the teams are separate for spring,” Johannes said. “But it was just to give the baseline information to parents and players so that they know what precautions were taken and how to sign up for ultimate.”

Johannes said it’s been difficult to encourage new players to join ultimate frisbee but she’s hopeful the poster in school will help students gain more interest in the sport. 

“It’s harder for us this year to get the word out to new players,” Johannes said. “We did post posters around the school, so hopefully that helps but at the same time that only really targets students that did hybrid learning.”

According to junior Joseph McGurgan, the meeting can hopefully motivate new players to join and can give people an overview of the season.

“It’s really hard with COVID(-19) to get people to know about different clubs and sports. Meetings like this allow for people to see how ultimate is going to work for them,” McGurgan said.

Hagen said coaching may be more challenging than previous years since the team usually has indoor practices and both teams work on the basics. Now the teams will have to start from scratch during the outdoor practices. 

“It’s harder in a sense that we haven’t been able to get together yet. We usually work on a lot of the fundamentals and we’re doing our indoor practices,” Hagen said. “Then, (we) open it up to more of the strategy of the game once we get into outdoor.”

Johannes said students should consider joining ultimate frisbee because it’s an exclusive and friendly community that does not require any skill.

“It’s just a really good community sport. We do a lot more team bonding and stuff than most sports. Because it’s a club sport, it’s not nearly as competitive so it works well for players of all skill levels,” Johannes said.