For senior Brady Watts, ultimate frisbee is more than just a backyard game, and he has gone to the extent of petitioning Fairfax County to turn his passion into a Virginia High School League (VHSL) regulated sport.
High schools have not seen ultimate frisbee since the early 1970s. Watts intends to change that by taking his proposal to Fairfax County, a motion that FCPS Activities and Athletic Programs assistant Superintendent Bill Curran will review if successful.
“Our short-term goal is to have ultimate frisbee as a recognized club sport in Fairfax County by the end of 2018,” Watts said.
For Watts to reach his goal of playing ultimate frisbee on a high school team, he and five others who share his dream created an online petition on ipetitions.com, to take to the county officials, asking them to create the new sports program. The petition, created in Feb. has 892 signatures as of Nov. 15. Their goal is to reach one thousand signatures.
The petition states, “ultimate frisbee is cost-effective, safe and an integrity-based team sport that gets students involved in after school activities.”
For director of student activities Joe Swarm, ultimate frisbee should be recognized as an official VHSL sport.
“I think that [ultimate frisbee] can be a sport,” Swarm said. “I want students [at Marshall] to have an opportunity to do things.”
To counter any doubt that ultimate frisbee is a real sport, on Aug. 2, 2015, the International Olympics Committee recognized ultimate frisbee as a real sport, and plans to add it to the upcoming 2020 Olympics.
“I identify very much with the ethos around [ultimate frisbee],” Watts said.