Ultimate: The Plot

Die Hard, Predator, Lethal Weapon, Sherlock Holmes, V for Vendetta – film producer Joel Silver helped create many classics, but he arguably built his biggest blockbuster even before his career began… ultimate frisbee.

Silver was part of the Student Council at the Columbia High School, as well as the school newspaper. With his friends and council colleagues who were all looking for some entertainment in their evenings, he led the invention of a quick, intense, team-sport known as ultimate frisbee.

Around 12 months later, in 1969, the high school had formed its first ultimate team and began playing competitive matches in a car park, using anything they could find to mark out the end-zones.

The first discs used by these friends were produced by an American toy company called Wham-O, after the company had re-designed the typical frisbee to create a more professional, sportier model.

Another year later, Silver and his friends Buzzy Hellring and Jon Hines set about writing ultimate’s set of rules, and then played for Columbia High School in the first ever interscholastic match.

These few years marked the birth of a sport that, in the next 40 years, would grow from a small corner in Maplewood to the opposite end of the world.

The first signs that showed frisbee fever was spreading was in 1972, when Rutgers edged Princeton in the first ever match at college level. Rutgers then went on to win the inaugural ultimate tournament between eight teams in ‘75 – a competition that one year later became known as the National Ultimate Frisbee Championships.

By this time, the sport disc golf was also growing in popularity.

The game spread like wildfire and the European Flying Disc Association formed in 1981, with Sweden winning the first European tournament. The Swedes then hosted the inaugural World Ultimate Championships in ‘83, but the United States won the open and women’s competitions with two extraordinary club teams.

The millennium passed and the sports reputation had grown in immense proportion. With it, ultimate became a medal sport at the World Games in 2001.

Now, ultimate is played in over 90 countries worldwide and has been recognised by the International Olympic Committee. Word around the ultimate community says the sport could make the LA 2028 Olympic Games, but that’s a story for another time.