East Boothbay’s Ben Snead wants you to have some ultimate fun. Snead has been organizing Ultimate Disc pickup games at the Boothbay Region High School football field for most of the summer. The 5:45 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday games have an average of 15 in attendance, he said.

Turnout has brought all types, from players new to the sport to those with a history in competitive leagues, Snead said. When the pickup games started, there were already groups of high school students, Boothbay Harbor Yacht Club kids and other youths holding their own pickup games, so some of them stay longer and keep the numbers up, he said.

“This is a friendly pickup game, it isn't a tournament or a league. Anyone can practice here to further their skills, but this isn't a cutthroat type of game. It's a have fun, get exercise and make fun plays type of game.”

Ultimate was introduced in 1968 at Northfield Mount Hermon School in Mount Hermon, Massachusetts and then, according to World Flying Disc Federation’s history of the sport, at Columbia High School in Maplewood, New Jersey. Rules for the game were drafted in 1970 for the first interscholastic game between CHS and Millburn High School of Millburn, New Jersey.

The following year, Rutgers and Princeton universities held the first intercollegiate game on the same field and on the same day as the first intercollegiate football game 103 years earlier. Rutgers won both. 

Now, over 800 colleges and universities and many more high schools sport a varsity or club team and the American Ultimate Disc League (AUDL) has 25 teams across the U.S. There are many more official and non-official adult and youth leagues.

The sport is non-contact, self-officiated and played by two teams of seven players on a 110-yard by 40-yard field with 20-yard end zones. The sport has elements of basketball, soccer and football: teams line up on each end zone with the defense “pulling” the disc to its opponents; defense can be played man-to-man or in a zone; the player in possession of the disc must establish a pivot foot and cannot move while in possession; they have a ten-count stall, counted out by a defender no more than three yards away, to make a pass; "stalling out" means turning the disc over to the other team; if the disc touches even a blade of grass after it leaves a thrower's hands, it is down and is turned over to the other team; points are scored when the offense makes a completed pass to a teammate in the end zone; and games are typically over when one team has scored 15 points.

Self-officiating is typical in all levels except high-stakes arenas like professional leagues and college championships. That means athletes make calls on traveling, scoring and fouls. Calls contested by the opposing athlete or team means the disc goes back to the thrower and play goes on. Uncontested calls either bring the stall count back to zero, return the disc to the thrower at the stall count last counted before the throw or count the attempted pass as completed. For all the official rules, go to: https://usaultimate.org/rules/

Snead said Ultimate might have a lot of rules, but the goal of the pickup games is to play for the fun of it and for people to play as hard or as relaxed as they want.

“This is a good mix of both. … (and) people who have never played before?” asked Snead. “They're welcome. Everyone's welcome and everyone's willing to teach them. Everyone's been good about that. We work on throwing, playing, catching, getting open … I can't run the whole night, so I'll play for some time and then take a point off and not run too hard. But the people who want to run hard and play do it. There's a good balance here and nobody minds. Come on down and play.”