Floating Discs and Hovering Gods
by Sam Bartlett

More like water than like people they flowed, Houston and David, Nikhil and Naveen, Joe, and Devon, all coursing around me and around each other, shouting commands and calling names. It was fast-paced but the Frisbee made it all slow motion. All the while I was the middle schooler in the middle. I stood there and tried to understand where to move.

Devon yelled and I turned. There, suspended above the in-zone, a pack of bodies held together, as if by a piece of string, hovered with the highest hand grasping the plastic disk. It was Joe; he had the height, just over David, a sophomore at the time. He couldn’t beat him now.

Then, as if something clicked, the game slowed. Everyone stopped moving. Touchdown. Rest. Devon joined Joe in the in-zone. David, Houston, and their team walked towards the other end of the field. Luckily I was on Devon’s team; I jogged to the in-zone and joined Nikhil and Naveen, Devon, Joe, and Mr. Bentley.

"OK?" Devon asked.

"Yea, I’m good."

He smiled and tossed the disk to Joe.

"Ready?" He asked.

"Ultimate!" Joe yelled and fired the Frisbee. It flew down the field and hovered above David long enough for our team to get ready to play defense.

"Mark up!" Joe and Devon yelled in unison.

It was those games that made me love to play, made me love the game. As I think back now they seem amazing to me; things have really changed: I have come to be one of the best players here, and David and Houston haven’t been on the same team in years (we tried it once this year but they, and they alone, dominated five others), much less lose together.

Realizing now how much I've changed makes me proud and sad at the same time. It’s a reminder to me that I can become anything except unchanging. Back then I never imagined I’d ever be nearly as good as I am now; I’m sure Devon and the others felt just as I do now at some point, and that defines the legacy. We all have to start sometime, and sometime later we all have to leave. There will always be others like us but no one ever the same. I don’t pretend to be able to take Devon or Joe or anyone’s place, I’m just able to pass what they taught me onto someone else. That’s why I go to the Frisbee field everyday, and why I have gained so much respect from the middle schoolers: I go to the field and get to know the middle schoolers in search of someone else like I was, someone else who really just loves to play. Someone else who automatically and unthinkingly walks toward any group of people on a field and feels disappointed when they see a football; someone else who knows the serene beauty of a white disc above a green field and encircled by a blue sky. It’s those few people who I seek out and offer hints and tips to. I make sure they don’t get frustrated and quit because of some little mistake on a throw. It’s those people who I want searching and teaching when I’ve graduated.

This is why I strive to be the best. I have to be as good as the people who came before me, and good enough for those who will follow. It’s not just about being good at the game itself, but about the attitude that defines a Frisbee player. It is this attitude, this lifestyle of peace that I want to pass onto the next Frisbee players so that Frisbee isn’t just a game but a defining characteristic of its player’s lives.

This is my drive, I don’t need to be better than anyone, I need to be as good as the legacy, and good enough to inherit it, and when the time comes I want to leave a print on years to come and stay in some foggy memory as perfect, one part of the team, then my part was played, then and only then Joe’s, and Devon’s, and Nikhil and Naveen’s, and David and Houston’s, and so many other Frisbee player’s strive for perfection, their own little mind wars to become gods, the legacy, will not be lost.

I think back as I play now as a reminder of how to play and to be, and as I jog into the in-zone I toss the Frisbee to Bedford and ask,

"Ready?"

"Ultimate!"

As we run down the field I yell and Bedford echoes,

"Mark up!"