In a world where brawny sports like football and hockey rule the airwaves, one sport is waging a quiet revolution—quiet, except for the whirr of a plastic disc spinning through the air. America’s best ultimate frisbee team, where teams score points by catching the disc in the opposing team’s end zone, is based here.
A ragtag collection of players who range from undergraduates to 30somethings, Axis of C’ville quietly made its way through sectionals in mid-September, regionals at the beginning of October. Then to the Ultimate Players Association’s national championships in Florida, where they won the national title.
“The idea behind the team,” says Natasha Sienitsky, a former team captain and current player, “is that there’s people with other commitments, whether professional or familial, so that when we got together, we wanted to commit to spending good quality practice time together.” Though the sport may be unfamiliar to some, the team’s training regimen is intense. Axis trained six days a week, lifting weights, running hard and honing their disc skills with drills. Three of the team’s players are still in college. Most live in Charlottesville, though some commute for practice from as far as Richmond and Washington, D.C.
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Axis of C’ville competes in the Ultimate Players Association league, what Sienitsky calls “the highest level of competition for ultimate frisbee.” |
The hard work has paid off. “It’s exciting to be from such a small town and to be beating teams from all the big cities in the country,” Sienitsky says.
More people play ultimate frisbee than rugby or lacrosse, but according to Sienitsky, nobody pays attention to the sport because you don’t need much equipment to play it —and no equipment means no corporate sponsorships. Or rather, few enough corporate sponsorships that the team needs to bankroll its own trip to the world championships in Prague, at around $2,000 a head.
More than anything, says Sienitsky, “Our goals are to play well, to play hard.” Even if they get there, it’s not all fun and games. “We’re the team with targets on our backs,” she says.
