2011 D-III College Championships: Team Info

•           Wake Forest
  
  
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  Wake Forest Winston-Salem, NC   Team Name: WOMB (Well Oiled Machine, Baby)

  Wake Forest’s Ultimate team (WOMB) was founded in 1999. We had qualified for Regionals numerous times through the 2007 season. Our leadership has always been strong and our alumni have left to play for a number of competitive Open and co-ed teams that include Truck Stop, Space City, D’Oh, TAU, L.A. Metro, and others. In 2007, led by Dave Zarkowsky and Evan Lepler, WOMB at one point during the season attained a ranking of 26th in the nation; the highest overall ranking we’ve achieved to date.   This season our team has come together as the spring has lapsed. Our players have improved tremendously since the beginning of the fall. We are very excited about the opportunity to compete at DIII Nationals.

•           North Park
  
  
  
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  North Park Chicago, IL   Team Name: Lost Boys

  Ultimate at North Park is different, mainly because we are a faith-based institution and try to implement our faith in our game and the way we play.  The team was started in 2001 by a group of friends who decided to call the team Extend, with the main purpose being the extension of Jesus Christ’s love to the Ultimate community, hence the name.  Over the years, as the team has gotten better, it is more difficult to keep this the main purpose, but we try our best to show other teams and players what it means to be a follower.  Another word to describe our team is "brotherhood."  We consider our teams a family, and we all have each other’s backs and try our best to make everyone feel welcome.  Many players that join have no intention of playing because they love the game of Frisbee, but playing because they love the community that the team offers. However, we are constantly working towards improving our game and our ability to challenge higher level teams.

•           Connecticut College
  
  
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  Connecticut College New London, CT   Team Name: Dasein

  Dasein is a German word from the philosopher Heidegger, meaning a being that is capable of recursively comprehending the primal authentic nature of its own being. Dasein the Ultimate team started in 2000 as a mixed team, and has gradually grown to where we stand today, with both men’s A and B teams, and women’s A and B teams. Dasein made regionals from 2005-2007, but had not been back until this year. 2011 marks the first time Dasein has made nationals, and hopefully it will be the first of many trips.

•           St John's
  
  
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  St John's Collegeville, MN   Team Name: Bad Ass Monks (BAM)

  BAM was founded officially in 1990. Over the course of the last 21 years BAM has attracted some of Minnesota’s best high school talent. In doing so, BAM has had many successful seasons including, most recently, a third-place finish at DIII nationals in 2006, and an eighth-place finish at DIII Nationals in 2010. BAM has produced a number of elite club players including a number who still play for Sub Zero in the open division and Surly in the Masters division.

•           Grinnell
  
  
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  Grinnell Grinnell, IA   Team Name: Grinnellephants Coach: Casey Fergus
  Bio unavailable

•           Bentley
  
  
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  Bentley Waltam, MA   Team Name: Icehouse

  Bentley Ultimate Society formed as a club on campus in the spring of 2003. BUS first participated in the USA Ultimate College Series in 2004. Last season, BUS tied for fifth at DIII nationals. The team, nicknamed Icehouse, is a tight-knit group on and off the field.  Every year in our history, BUS has improved its postseason finish, our goal since September has been to improve compared to last May’s finish.

•           Colby
  
  
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  Colby Waterville, ME   Team Name: Dazlin' Asses

  In the past few years, Colby Ultimate has undergone drastic changes, but remained true to our roots. We still play co-ed for the whole fall season to promote team unity and Spirit of the Game and then split genders in the spring for the college series. Four years ago, we were a team who seemed to finish in the bottom or middle of most tournaments. Last year, our team placed a greater emphasis on fitness and made a commitment to embrace the fundamentals and it paid off as we made our first trip to Regionals. Coming into this season, after losing six seniors, we did not know what to expect. Luckily, our team was bolstered by a strong freshmen class that included eight players with high school experience and many of our older players began to join summer leagues and club teams. By continuing our focus on fitness and moving to a more fast-paced offense, we were able to surprise many opposing teams this year and earned our first bid to Nationals.

•           Lewis & Clark
  
  
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  Lewis & Clark Portland, OR   Team Name: Bacchus Coach: Breeze Strout

  In 1999 the team was called Chicken Skin and was not very competitive, no one wore cleats.  After the freshmen challenged the seniors to a winner takes all game, the team was renamed Bacchus and became more serious.  At this time there weren’t enough people to have an all-guys team so Bacchus in the early years was co-ed. After four years, the team had enough people to be only men and has continued to get better each year.

•           Swarthmore
  
  
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  Swarthmore Swarthmore, PA   Team Name: Earthworms

  The Swarthmore Earthworms were born toward the end of the second millennium (CE), amidst one of the College’s most prolific periods of anagrammatic activity. Like their eponymous haplotaxidan mascot, the Earthworms thrive in all manner of soil and ecological conditions, and have even been known to perform more effectively, as a team, in the wind and rain. Unlike their eponymous haplotaxidan mascot, members of the Earthworms are not characterized by their involvement in parthenogenetic processes of reproduction, nor by the ability to regenerate missing segments of their bodies. Sizable units of Earthworms (and closely associated Warmothers) can be found prowling the Swarthmore campus every Thursday, close to midnight, improving their skills out along the arboretum’s rigorous disc golf course. Other team traditions include the Good vs. Evil match (a day-long Ultimate extravaganza based upon the judgment of souls), semesterly team banquets (including the distribution of paper-plate awards), annual trips to South of the Border (SC) during March break, and anything even peripherally related to the song "Take Me Home, Country Roads" by John Denver. What a jam. Members of the Earthworms distinguish themselves through a demonstrated commitment to social justice and progress within the global community. It has been speculated that no active member of the Earthworms has ever been convicted of a felony, on any continent, within the past decade. Other "Swarthmore" anagrams include: Thermos War. Worst Harem. Hamster Row. Smarter How? Hot Warmers. Warmth Sore. The Marrows. Arrest Whom? Homer’s Wart. Them Arrows. Mortar Hews. Tremor Wash.

•           Lehigh
  
  
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  Lehigh Bethlehem, PA   Team Name: Lehigh
  Lehigh is one of the oldest club college Ultimate teams, having been founded in 1975. As the program progressed, we have grown significantly. Our team has increased in size from 24 in 2006 to 84 players in 2011. 2011 saw Lehigh’s first girls’ team as well as the second year of our B team. Lehigh Ultimate is completely un-coached.

•           Harding
  
  
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  Harding Searcy, AR   Team Name: Apocalypse

  Apocalypse was founded in 2003 by some guys who loved getting together and having fun while tossing around a disc.  Apocalypse is a team that has been gradually getting better over the years.  Without having a coach, and by focusing on passing the game down internally, they continue to be a very competitive team year in and year out.  The structure of leadership on the team consists of three captains, referred to as the Triumvirate.  These captains are elected by the players and are usually the most experienced players.

•           Truman State
  
  
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  Truman State Kirksville, MO   Team Name: JujiTSU Coach: Joey Huegerich

  Founded as the Truman Ultimate Bureau (TUB) in the late 1990s, Truman State’s Ultimate team has quickly developed into a competitor at both the regional and national levels.  As the seasons have progressed, so has the team, both in size and strength.  From 2003-09, JujiTSU qualified for South Open Regionals every year, finishing as high as seventh in 2009.  JujiTSU finds balance in intense, competitive play and a fun, relaxed environment.  We are excited for our first year at DIII Nationals and wish everyone participating the best of luck.

•           Missouri S & T
  
  
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  Missouri S & T Rolla, MO   Team Name: Miner Threat

  Miner Threat is a young program that was started in 2004. Every year since, the team has travelled to more tournaments (eight each semester this year) and progressed exponentially. We’ve travelled all across the country sporting the highlighter, as far east as Georgia and as far west as Las Vegas. Our team excels on playing the hardest and loudest in each game, while maintaining the highest spirit possible. Last year we attended our first ever DIII Nationals, taking a savage squad of 8 players, yet left the tourney above seed and with a spirit championship.

•           Georgia College & State
  
  
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  Georgia College & State Milledgeville, GA   Team Name: Disconnected Coach: Doug Oetter

  Formed in 2003 in an effort to keep barefoot Ultimate off of our Front Campus, and with the expressed intent to use cones instead of trees to mark the goal lines, Georgia College Disconnected is the College Open Ultimate team for Georgia’s one-and-only public liberal arts college.  Like most other crafty strategists, our early Bobcat leaders spared no expense to make our Team Spirit well known across the South, consistently playing harder, partying longer, and cheering louder than all our worthy, and sometimes less worthy, comrades and comladies.  Following at least a few 0-7 weekends in far-off climates like Chucktown or Orlando, Disconnected developed and won several games at the 2006 and 2007 Atlantic Coast Regionals, and scored more goals and friends than many park-a-mile-away , research-professor-never-knew-my-name, 700-student-economics-class-size schools at tournaments like Mardi Gras (we like Mardi Gras!), Terminus, Warm Up, and Chilly Dawg. Throughout these magical runs, Disco has always retained the chilliest, fairest, and most respectful attitude to our opponents and friends.  Other teams like us, and sometimes (Wassup GaSouthern!!) they invite our band to play their tournament party!!  Based on the talented experience and class of last year’s #5 team in DIII Women’s Nationals—Lynx Rufus—we expect to make a run for the prize of the most fun team south of the Erie Canal.

•           Claremont
  
  
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  Claremont Claremont, CA   Team Name: Braineaters

  Located in sunny Southern California, just east of L.A., the Claremont Brains represent not one, but four different schools united by the Claremont consortium: Harvey Mudd College, Pomona College, Pitzer College, and Claremont McKenna College. The Braineaters have a proud and noble history, steeped in lore and tradition.  Created in 1979, the team is currently celebrating its glorious 30th anniversary.  In the team’s early days, it represented only Pitzer College, the alma mater of the Braineater’s founding father Jeff Landesman.  Legend has it, the 1979 team was one day away from their first tournament and needed a name to call themselves.  A teammate heard about a low-budget B movie on TV that night called "The Braineaters," and they decided it would suffice.   The Brains swiftly developed a reputation at tournaments for being a fun, if not particularly talented team.  The most famous Braineater tradition was the ritual offering of the pre-game "Mystery Box."  If the opponents accepted, the Braineaters would receive all of the pre-game decisions.  If the opposing team declined the box, they would receive the pre-game decisions.  Not surprisingly, nearly all teams accepted the contents of the mystery box, which has been known to include everything from a functional wetsuit to a naked team captain.

•           Occidental
  
  
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  Occidental Los Angeles, CA   Team Name: Detox Coach: Bert King

  Occidental Men's Ultimate has had a history of being both a competitive team, and, more recently, a team geared towards having a fun time throwing around. This season, we are again on the upswing of being competitive, perhaps more competitive than we have ever been in the past. Our team is geared towards improvement of the individual, and, more importantly, of the team and the program as a whole. Our team is able to compete with all the DIII teams in our region. Our team is a very tight group, and we plan to take each other very far this season, and in seasons to come.

•           Mary Washington
  
  
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  Mary Washington Fredericksburg, VA   Team Name: Mary Massacre

  Mary Massacre was born less than ten years ago and has matured into a fabulously dedicated Ultimate team. Rising from our humbling season last year, where we had 10 rookies, 6 sophomores, 1 junior, and 1 senior, we started this year off strong, coming in fourth place in N.J. and beating our overall wins from the previous year in just one tournament. From there, we continued to prove that Mary Massacre is more than just the underdog, we are a talented team with the ability to play competitively while still having a good time. We look forward to continuing to develop as a team in the future.

•           St Mary's (Maryland)
  
  
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  St Mary's (Maryland) St. Mary’s City, MD   Team Name: SMUT Coaches: Sandy Ganzell, Davey Clough
  St. Mary’s Ultimate Team (SMUT) was founded in the early 80s as an open team. It wasn’t until 2006 that the women’s team was formed. Sandy Ganzell has been coaching the SMUT since they have started as a program. He has brought his knowledge from high-level club Ultimate to this team, and added a nice balance of fun and competitiveness.

•           Valparaiso
  
  
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  Valparaiso Valparaiso, IN   Team Name: Chicks Hucking Discs

  Valpo’s Ultimate team has been around for a while, but the women’s team became a separate entity from the men’s in 2007.  The first two years of this team’s existence have been rough, with recruiting numbers, as well as finding committed players to grow and lead the team.  After making it to DIII Nationals last year and getting third place, we are back with more than half of our team being girls new to the sport of Ultimate this year.  We like to say "What Rookies?!"

•           Princeton
  
  
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  Princeton Princeton, NJ   Team Name: Lady Clock
  Lady Clock played at DI Regionals the past two years. We are super excited to be at DIII Nationals and look forward to meeting and playing teams from across the US.

•           Carleton College
  
  
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  Carleton College Northfield, MN   Team Name: Eclipse

  Carleton is a Frisbee-crazed school, and as the women’s program expanded a few years ago, Eclipse came into being as a B-team to Syzygy. Eclipse has always been a fun group of girls who love to dance, but their serious commitment to competitive Frisbee is a relatively new development. Eclipse made cuts for the first time last year, and established a goal at the beginning of this season to make DIII Nationals. This year’s squad is the fastest and most athletic that Eclipse has ever fielded, but the team has not sacrificed its spirit. We feel lucky to be able to spend so much time playing the game we love with the people we love.

•           Grinnell
  
  
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  Grinnell Grinnell, IA   Team Name: Sticky Tongue Frogs

  For a small town in the middle of Iowa, Grinnell has a high thrift store-to-resident ratio. Sometime in the early 2000s, a young college student came across an old jersey in one of the four thrift stores in downtown Grinnell. The jersey bore the logo of a frog and the words "Sticky Tongue Frogs Grinnell Ultimate." This was fortuitous, as the young woman happened to have been thinking about re-forming the women’s ultimate team at Grinnell, which had disintegrated in the years before. She bought the old jersey and the mascot was reborn.  The Sticky Tongue Frogs once again took to playing Ultimate all across the Midwest, and have been going strong ever since.  With a third-place finish at DIII Nationals last year, the team trained harder than ever through the long Iowa winter and ventured out as far as Georgia to test their mettle against other teams.  A large, talented senior class is leading the charge to Buffalo this year (but they need to be back on Monday morning to graduate!), where they will take to the fields with the deepest team in Grinnell women’s Ultimate history.

•           St Olaf
  
  
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  St Olaf Northfield, MN   Team Name: Durga

  St Olaf Women’s Ultimate has been around since the late 1990s under the name "Durga". The program has had continual growth since that time, and has seen a lot of improvement in the past five years  or so. Over the past four years, we have risen up in the rankings and have placed very well at both Sectionals and Regionals. A few girls came to the team having already played Ultimate in high school and increased the strength of the team with their knowledge of the game. Durga has always been a cohesive, fun-loving, but competitive, group of women.

•           Macalester
  
  
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  Macalester St. Paul, MN   Team Name: Purse Snatchers

  The Macalester College Purse Snatchers were founded in the early 90s. Inspired by a sign warning of possible thefts, the Purse Snatchers procured said sign and began their quest for fun-filled Ultimate. Since then, the team has grown, shortened its name to Snatch, and become increasingly competitive. The team is known for its skill, but perhaps more importantly for its fashionable jumpsuits and "snatch gear." While Snatchers love to play hard, they believe that having fun and being spirited are of equal, if not greater, importance.

•           Williams
  
  
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  Williams Williamstown, MA   Team Name: La Wufa   Coach: Jeannie Albrecht

  The Williams Ultimate Frisbee Organization dates back decades, before most of us were born. Our strong traditions of fun, competitiveness, and camaraderie are a major draw for many of our players.  The program has grown tremendously in the 2000s, and we now have close to 100 participants between the men’s and women’s teams at a school of fewer than 2,500 students.  This is La Wufa’s first time at nationals since anyone on the team can remember, and we look forward to making a name for ourselves in Buffalo.

•           Smith
  
  
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  Smith Northampton, MA   Team Name: LunaDisc   Coach: Casey "Dale" Krone

  LunaDisc Ultimate Frisbee was founded as a year-round club sport at Smith in 1994 by alums Meredith Martins (’97), Ingrid Carlson (’96), Emily Carlson (’96), and Elspeth Healey (’97) and has been going strong ever since. Their goal to make a supportive and fun environment in which to learn and enjoy the sport paid off in 1999 when Luna qualified and attended Nationals, playing savage the whole weekend. Throughout the year, Luna travels to numerous tournaments and hosts their own each season, called Carpe Discum. During their Spring Break, they travel to Georgia to play in the week-long tournament High Tide, where they finished fifth this past year. In 2005 Luna hired their current coach, Casey "Dale" Krone, a Hampshire College alum who has helped Luna become a more competitive and driven team in the last few years and provides an energy and enthusiasm for the sport on and off the field. After 17 years and with a significant number of young players on the roster, Luna is very excited to be able to participate and compete at Nationals once again.

•           Wellesley
  
  
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  Wellesley Wellesley, MA   Team Name: Whiptails Coach: Marshall Goff

  The Whiptails unofficially began in 1996 as a group of Wellesley students became interested in this whole "Frisbee" thing. We don’t know much about the early days of the Whiptails, but the team kept a strong enough following to finally be institutionalized as a club sport in 2003.  Since then, our program has continued to grow. By 2006 we were a large enough group to split into an A-team (the Whips) and a B-team (the Tails) for the competitive spring season, and now have a total roster of almost 50 players. In 2010, the Whips went to Division III Nationals in Madison, WI, finishing seventh overall.

•           Haverford
  
  
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  Haverford Haverford, PA   Team Name: Sneetches

  The Sneetches have been a fun-loving but serious and competitive team since 1993. We enjoy wearing our most epic flair and composing cheers on the sideline just as much as we love beating our girl deep to the end-zone and denying every in-cut on defense. We are a Bi-College team with players from Haverford and Bryn Mawr colleges that began in 1994, and this is the first time in team history that the Sneetches have gone to Nationals.

•           Oberlin
  
  
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  Oberlin Oberlin, OH   Team Name: The Praying Manti

  Oberlin College men and women formed a co-ed team in 1976, playing their first game against Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute that year. Starting in the 1990s, the men and women Ultimate Frisbee players split to form two separate teams, the Preying Manti and the Flying Horsecows. The Preying Manti were chartered as a formal Oberlin club sports team in 1996, and qualified for Women's Nationals the following year. The women's team has always taken the basic tenant of Ultimate Frisbee – Spirit of the Game – strongly to heart, writing elaborate cheers to pop songs for our opponents and wearing sequined skirts.

•           Franklin & Marshall
  
  
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  Franklin & Marshall Lancaster, PA   Team Name: Code Blue

  F&M Ultimate originally began in the 1970s as the Hucking Amish but died out soon after its founding. However, ten years ago, the team was resurrected! The Hucking Amish were reborn as a co-ed team in 2000. In 2006 as the men’s and women’s numbers began to grow, women were encouraged to start their own team, and the school encouraged a new name for both. The Hucking Amish name was changed to Deep Blue for the men, and Code Blue for the women. Code Blue began with enough people for a starting line, and since then has grown to have just over three lines of women on the team. Since the inception of Code Blue, numbers of players coming out have increased each year due largely in part to our members spreading the word.

•           Claremont
  
  
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  Claremont Claremont, CA   Team Name: Green Shirts

  Long ago, in the Cretaceous era, a group of friendly, colorblind dinosaurs found a particularly round, flat, white rock.  They thought it was white at least, but it may have in fact not been.  Anyway, they found this rock to be unusually light and discovered that they could run and throw it about and soar up into the air to catch it.  This, they thought, was the ultimate pastime.  They got some great shirts, which a laughing Plesiosaur told them were green, and thus the Claremont Greenshirts were born.

•           Occidental
  
  
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  Occidental Los Angeles, CA   Team Name: Women’s Air Corps Coach: Mark Hartford

  Women’s Ultimate at Occidental College has not had a very long history but in the past two years the team has grown in both size and ability. Three or four years ago the team struggled to get more than five people at practice and usually traveled to tournaments with no more than nine people. More often than not, the team would play savage for the majority of its games. Two years ago, the team saw an influx of talented and dedicated freshman and sophomores who helped expand the team into what it is today. Last year was focused on building the program, with only two players having solid prior Ultimate experience. Now, this year the team has elevated its level of play and become competitive within the D-III Southwest region. Our goal for this season was to qualify for DIII Nationals and send our seniors out on a high note. We are very pleased with how our season has gone so far and we look forward to playing hard and gaining valuable experience at Nationals.