Living ultimate

Kelvin Williams likes to stay active on weekends, and for the last seven years one of his sports of choice is Ultimate disc. At the end of February, however, he traded in casual pickup games and local league teams to spend his weekends on the field with a national-level Ultimate disc team.

Williams, an accountant who lives in the Cahaba River Road area near Lifetime Fitness, was recently drafted into the Atlanta Hustle team, which plays in the South Division of the American Ultimate Disc League.

Ultimate disc, often shortened to Ultimate, is played between teams of seven competing for control of the disc and attempting to get it into the end zone to score. Williams said he enjoys the exercise he gets, as the game involves almost constant running and jumping, but he also enjoys the friendships formed on the field.

He initially learned about Ultimate and began playing in his freshman year at Alabama. Before that, Williams said he didn’t know that passing a disc around a field could be an “actual sport with rules or strategy or stuff like that.” He joined the Birmingham Ultimate Disc Alliance (BUDA) and began playing on summer and winter league teams.

Two years ago, Williams decided to move to the next level of competition and join a summer club team, the Birmingham Ironmen. The Ironmen play against other club teams in states around the Southeast, and Williams’ teammate Matt Smith played for the Hustle in their inaugural 2015 season and was named to the All-Division team. Smith encouraged him to give the 2016 tryouts a shot.

“He’s one of the guys, at least around my age, that I’ve kind of learned the most from,” Williams said. “[I decided to] do it for fun, do it for the experience and see what happens.”

The tryouts were more intense than he had ever experienced, even at club team competitions. Many of the men he was trying out with had been playing at higher levels of Ultimate than Williams, and for more years.

“I’ve never been that sore from one day of Frisbee,” Williams said. “I tried out for the experience, but it was also a challenge. I like challenging myself just to push myself, see if I can get better.”

He found out that he made the team in late February and began traveling to Atlanta each weekend for practices. Williams said he’s lucky that the busy season for his job is in winter, and his evenings and weekends during spring and summer are fairly free. However, it got more difficult once the season began on April 2 and Williams had to travel for weekly Wednesday practices as well as weekend games.

“I’m already pretty active … I feel like I was in pretty good shape, but at least these first few weeks of practice, I’m pretty tired at the end of the weekend,” Williams said.

The Hustle play against six other teams in the South Division, from North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Florida and two teams from Texas. The Hustle is one of several teams in their division that are only a year or two old.

“They’re pretty new to the scene,” Williams said.

They play 15 games throughout the regular season, which ends in July. Then, Williams said, the top teams compete for a spot in the Final Four in August, where they play against the best Ultimate teams from the West, Midwest and East Divisions.

In his first scrimmage game in March, Williams said he realized how different national Ultimate games are to local or regional games. He said there was an audience of several hundred people watching them play under the stadium lights. He said he’s looking forward to continuing that experience, as well as using that first game to drive himself to improve.

“I made a couple plays in that game, but also made a couple mistakes, which I guess is better to make some plays and some mistakes than no plays at all,” Williams said.

Williams said the Hustle has about 35 to 40 members on its team, but must select a smaller active roster for each week’s game. That inspired Williams to set a personal goal for himself this season. 

“For each game that I’m available, I want to make that roster. So that’s a personal goal that I’ve set for myself. I don’t know how realistic it is,” Williams said.

Learn more about the game of Ultimate disc at theaudl.com, and find the Atlanta Hustle at atlantahustle.com or on Facebook.