Andrew Ragsdale said his 11-year-old son quit baseball to play ultimate.
His son is just one of many Gainesville children who will play in Gainesville’s new youth ultimate league, organized by UF’s men’s and women’s ultimate club teams and the local ultimate community.
Ragsdale, one of the league’s organizing members, said the league was created to give local middle school and high school students an organized way to play and teach them about the game.
“It’s an investment in our future,” said men’s team vice president Billy O’Bryan, a UF nuclear engineering sophomore. “In general, ultimate is a small sport, so we all want it to grow.”
Students can play in the league from noon to 1:30 p.m. at Citizens Field each Sunday until Nov. 23. Boys and girls of all skill levels are encouraged to attend.
The men’s and women’s club teams will help teach the players how to throw discs, run defense drills and set up offensive plays, Ragsdale said. In December, the teams will host a tournament for all youth participants.
On the league’s first day of play, Oct. 26, O’Bryan said about 50 students played on three full fields.
“It was really cool to see,” the 19-year-old said. “Some of these kids were a lot better than I expected.”
The men’s club team won national championships in 2006 and 2010. Ragsdale said they’ve been great mentors to the youth participants.
“It’s fantastic,” he said. “They really are a great group of individuals. A lot of these kids don’t realize they have the cream of the crop teaching them.”
One of the sport’s main draws to youth is it only requires a disc and field to play, Ragsdale said. His goal is to grow the fast-paced sport to every local middle and high school so students don’t have to travel across the city to play.
[A version of this story ran on page 9 on 11/1/2014]
