![[Ultimate Graphic]](UltBanner.gif)
January 23, 2005 | |||||
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We play Ultimate every Sunday afternoon in Greenbelt.
Ultimate is an energetic, non-contact sport played on a field using a frisbee; the disc is passed among teammates with the intent of scoring goals in their endzone. It takes about 4 minutes to learn how to play. For an introduction to Ultimate, visit The Ultimate Handbook. For comprehensive information about Ultimate, visit the Ultimate Players' Association.
No experience required.
Women and men welcome.
We play every week--year round--that the field is free of thunderstorms, and is not simultaneously cold and wet, or covered in several feet of snow (see our winter photos later on this page). Wear athletic clothes suitable for the current weather; soccer or football cleats can be handy, too.
Many of our players live in Greenbelt, but others come from throughout the region--Columbia, Silver Spring, Lanham, Lothian, Bethesda, Baltimore, Rockville, Laurel, Washington, and Northern Virginia.
These games are for fun--no excessively serious players allowed. We don't keep score, and our field is substantially smaller than official-size. (More intense players are happier at other games in the area such as the full-size fields on the DC Mall; check out Ultilinks.)
For more information about Greenbelt Ultimate, use the form below, or reply to Tom
Jones or Jen Williams,
For nearby Tuesday and Thursday summer games of similar intensity, check out the Goddard Ultimate Frisbee Club (which no longer has a web page); write to kogut@stars.gsfc.nasa.gov for more information. They play on the Goddard Spaceflight Center in Greenbelt.
Watch this page for updates as the time changes from season to season.
It seems that the most common question to come down the electronic pike at this website these days is "Do you folks really play Ultimate throughout the Winter?" And, once this question is answered in the affirmative, the second most-common inquiry generally results: "Why?" Before going any further, it is perhaps judicious to give a general summary of typical Maryland weather to any out-of-towners who might have wandered in. The mid-Atlantic region is rather notorious for its beastly humid summers that wilt the strongest of constitutions.The typical native of Phoenix or Albuquerque, upon returning to the desert from a representative August Maryland day, seems a bit unpersuasive. "No, really," he implores to his associates, "even though the temperature barely snuck into the 90s, the general composition of the Eastern atmosphere most closely resembles an inescapable sauna into which the exhaust from a diesel bus or two has been piped." It is important to note that we have our own variety of winter, too, that preserves the year-round edge on living in these parts. While the typical winter temperatures in Maryland cannot compare to the frightful lack of warmth in more arctic places, when it comes to playing Ultimate, the routine proximity to the freezing point of water turns out to be something of a liability, viz. the regular presence of liquid water lurking on and in the ground, ready to soak into trousers and shoes, capable of transforming human limbs into frigid blocks of petrified flesh. At any rate, the game of Ultimate involves dividing the assembled crowd into two opposed gangs called teams, and centers around a brightly-colored plastic disc. Before proceeding further, it is important to understand the sort of people who make up these teams. Some of the participants are of such stature that reaching up and plucking migrating fowl from the heavens is done with ease; others may have a direct eye-view of the navels of these titans, but leap about the field with speed unmatched by cheetahs in hot pursuit of a gazelle. Others find that their small stature and gazelle-like poise enable them to dash to and fro in wildly erratic fashion, confounding the attempts of cheetahs to lurk close by. Still others have the ability to determine with uncanny accuracy the precise spot in which an object soaring through space will land; while their occupations undoubtedly use this skill to pinpoint the ground-zero spot for incoming meteorites for NASA, in the midst of a game of Ultimate, they are able to evaluate the precise spot at which will land a throw from a strong-armed lunatic in the midst of a coughing fit. Tossed in with these superpowers are a higher number of third-world regimes who occasionally find that, by the time we can bound from one side of the field to the other, it is only just in time, for the more sprightly members of our own team have already shuttled the disc to the other side ahead of us, and the next point is about to begin. Yet, even with this motley assortment of variegated players, it is almost always the case that, even though they inhabit the same field, all manage to find their own enjoyment and be tossed the disc with good frequency. The way this all works out is that the cheetahs tend to find themselves most satisfied when paired up on the defense with other cheetahs, and the gazelles with gazelles, and so on, including the third-world regimes, who find that the other third-worlders are only too happy to position themselves in direct opposition. One team starts out with this disc, but, in an ironic twist, is compelled to promptly launch the disc through the air into the clutches of the opposite team. It is the duty of this team given the disc to heave it back and forth amongst themselves in such a manner as to progress toward the far end of the field without taking more than the most minimum number of steps while actually holding the disc. If a particular heave results in failure, viz. it isn't caught by someone on the same team as the thrower, the other team is given their chance to propel the disc in their favored direction. With just enough of these changes of power (called "turnovers" but seldom filled with apples or cherries) scheduled at opportune intervals, a single point can last for an interminable duration. And so the game goes every week in Greenbelt, throughout the year. Come by sometime, and see for yourself. |
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Most weeks we play at the Northway Fields (#1 in the map below). When those fields are unavailable, we play at the Greenbelt
Middle School (#2 below). To see which field we’re at any given week, sign up for our email list above, check out the
red box at the top of this page, or come to the Northway Fields—we usually put up a sign there when we’re playing at
the Middle School.
Roosevelt Center is close to Northway Fields, and has a convenience store, a full grocery store (open until 6pm Sundays), a Chinese restaurant, and a community cafe serving Lebanese food, and a beer and beer & wine bar.
To Northway (Field #1)Use Google or Yahoo maps, or tell your GPS you’re heading to “1 Northway Greenbelt MD” and keep going down the road. From DC: Take the Baltimore-Washington Parkway north from DC. Immediately after you pass the Beltway, take the next right. Keep to the far right--bypassing two traffic lights, onto Greenbelt Road. Just after you pass over the Parkway, take the ramp past the third light onto Southway. Go straight past the stoplight, and turn right at the second stop sign onto Crescent Road. Follow Crescent Road; you'll pass a church on your right then on your left. Turn right at the next street, Northway. Follow Northway all the way up, and keep going until it turns into a gravel road and ends at our field. From the Woodrow Wilson Bridge: Just after passing into Maryland, take the first exit, I-295 North. Stay on the Southeast Freeway (past where I-295 exits). Continue north and take the left exit for the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. Then follow the directions in "From DC" above. From everyplace else: Take the DC Beltway (I-95/I-495) to Exit 23, Kenilworth Avenue. Follow the sign at the end of the ramp toward Greenbelt (not Bladensburg), turning onto Kenilworth Avenue. Turn right at the next stoplight onto Crescent Road, into Old Greenbelt. Just past the prominently-labeled sidewalk, take the fourth left, onto Northway. Follow Northway all the way up, and keep going until it turns into a gravel road and ends at our field. Via Metro: Northway is a couple of miles away from the Greenbelt Metro, but Metro allows bicycles on Sundays except when there’s a major festival. If you don't have a bike, you can take a cab from the Greenbelt Station to the field (bring these directions) and get a ride from another player back to Metro. Go out of the parking lot and turn left onto Cherry Hill Lane in Greenbelt (the only other exit goes onto the Beltway). Cross the bridge over the Beltway, and take the first right onto Ivy Lane. Turn right at the other end of Ivy Lane onto Kenilworth Avenue (a busy road!), and take the first left onto Crescent Road at the light, into Old Greenbelt. Just past the prominently-labeled sidewalk, take the fourth left, onto Northway. Follow Northway all the way up, and keep going until it turns into a gravel road and ends at our field. |
To the Middle School (Field #2)From DC: Take the Baltimore-Washington Parkway north from DC. Immediately after you pass outside the Beltway, take the next right toward Greenbelt Road. Keep to the far right--bypassing two traffic lights, and you'll be on Greenbelt Road. Continue through several lights, and you'll get to a major intersection with Kenilworth Avenue, MD-201. Immediately after this intersection, take the small right turn onto Edmonston Road. The first left is the exit from the Greenbelt Middle School parking lot; take the second left, which is the entrance. Park at the back right side of the lot; we're just down the hill. From the Woodrow Wilson Bridge: Just after passing into Maryland, take the first exit, I-295 North. Stay on the Southeast Freeway (past where I-295 exits for downtown over the river). Continue north and take the left exit for the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. Then follow the directions in "From DC" above. From College Park: From US-1, turn onto Greenbelt Road toward Greenbelt. Pass Beltway Plaza on the left, and when you get to the big intersection with Kenilworth Avenue, make a U-Turn back onto Greenbelt Road, cross over the bridge, and turn right onto Edmonston Road at the next right. Once you're on Edmonston Road, take the second left, very soon thereafter, into the parking lot for Greenbelt Middle School. Park at the back right side of the lot; we're just down the hill. From everyplace else: Take the DC Beltway (I-95/I-495) to Exit 23, Kenilworth Avenue. At the end of the ramp, go toward Bladensburg. Keep to the far right as you approach the big intersection with Greenbelt Road. You will go so far to the right you will not even get onto Greenbelt Road, but will instead take the special bonus exit onto Edmonston Road. Once you're on Edmonston Road, take the second left, very soon thereafter, into the parking lot for Greenbelt Middle School. Park at the back right side of the lot; we're just down the hill. Via Metro: The Middle School is a 1.5-mile walk or bike ride from the Greenbelt Metro station. Metro
allows bicycles on Sundays unless there's a major event. If you don't
have a bike, you can walk or take a cab to the field (bring these directions)
and get a ride from another player back to Metro |
This information is maintained by Tom Jones, who may be reached at tjones@spril.com
