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hands down one of the hardest things to leave behind when moving to africa was coaching syzygy. here’s a team that models everything i ever wanted in a team, a team that included me in its successes and its failures as one of its own. so, why did i choose to walk away from them? i guess i don’t look at it as a choice, but as something i had to do. leaving syzygy had nothing to do with them and everything to do with my need to contribute to the “greater good,” to be involved with global public health, living and working abroad, and my need to have a worthy cause to finally get me to stop playing ultimate, if not for good, at least for a little while.

over the years, ultimate has come to define who i am. i play ultimate, i coach ultimate, i live ultimate. i am a part of the community and i love the community. but, i have not completed a fall club season in 4 years. each year i come back from a knee injury (read: surgery) to work my ass off, only to be met with another knee injury (read: surgery) before the season is over. this cycle of love & injury took its toll on me – i lay awake at night agonizing over the things i have yet to accomplish as a player wondering if i’ll be strong & confident & healthy enough to try again.

earlier i wrote about my first sunday pick-up game in kampala and talked about the pseudo-celebrity that comes with playing elite-level ultimate. i was excited to play ultimate in uganda because i could play exclusively for the fun of playing…no ego, no reputation, no nothing…just playing ultimate. but, suddenly here i was ½-way around the world being awarded some kind of credibility and authority that i hadn’t earned. initially, my ego was inflated, of course. then, i paused to react internally. wait a second, what happened to me just playing ultimate for the fun of it?

i wanted to play ultimate like syzygy plays ultimate. when the current syzygy kids talk about syzygy, they don’t talk about how good they are (which they are) or how much they know about the game (which they do) or how much they win (which they do a lot). they talk about how proud and lucky and happy they are to be a part of this team. a team that is more than a team…it’s a family. they play to be a part of that family.

so much of playing has become wrapped up in the ego of it for me. my need to play with the best, to be the best, to be a part of the elite-elite. but when i look back over my 10 years of playing, the most personally gratifying experiences have been those when i was intimately involved in the growth of a team, when i could contribute (physically, emotionally, strategically…however…) and be valued for those contributions. that’s why coaching was so rewarding – i was never judged on my ability to perform on the field; my ego had no place in the dynamic. ahhh, ego-free ultimate…how liberating!

when i first started playing pick-up here i thought that the games were organized by ex-pats. i was wrong and happily so. in fact, 6 years ago a couple of ugandan rugby players got together and started playing ultimate. maybe they learned about it from ex-pats? maybe there were other ultimate games/clubs going on in the city? i don’t know. i haven’t learned all of the history and dynamics, yet. what i do know is that this core group feels ownership of their game and their club. the core is a group of very, very cool guys. athletes. they understand what it means to be teammates, friends. to work hard to accomplish goals. jordan, a rwandan who lives in kampala, said he was originally skeptical of the game. he’d watched from the sidelines and didn’t really understand the whole allure. then he played…and he’s played every sunday for the last 5 years. he said it was addictive and he never wanted to stop playing. he talked about how his friends are all ultimate players. i think it’s a story that you’ll hear anywhere – the unifying effects of ultimate. there’s just something special about the game…maybe that’s why i’ve never been able to walk away…

since graduating from college i’ve lived in 3 different american cities and the source of my friendships in each have been the same – ultimate & work. moving to africa has been no different. i thought it would be, but as it turns out it’s exactly the same. i know a handful of people through work and 3x that many through ultimate. in my earlier post, i also mentioned wishing that an anthropologist would conduct an academic study of the ultimate community – the social structure, hierarchies, etc. i’m no anthropologist, but i’ve taken a stab at the study anyway. among my ultimate friends, 75% (not scientifically supported, but i’d bet i’m not too far off) are married/long-term committed to other ultimate players. i admit my sample’s probably skewed since most of my ultimate friends play seriously, which is to say during season we spend on average 12-15 hours a week practicing, strategizing, and thinking about ultimate. up that number if it’s a tournament weekend, or if you’re a coach/captain. it’s pretty hard to sustain a serious relationship with that much time away from home, family, kids (on top of work, of course), if your partner doesn’t also play. okay, so maybe this huge time and emotional commitment causes ultimate players to be drawn to ultimate players. but, i think it’s more than that. the common culture, competitiveness, camaraderie? what it is i don’t know, but i’m seeing its effects in africa as i listen to these ugandan guys talk about the game and the friends they’ve made playing and how they wouldn’t miss a sunday pick-up game in 5 years. 101paige 101ultimate 101africa