There are more than 100,000 ultimate players across the United States and Canada alone. These coed leagues are in cities almost everywhere and the sport has grown an unprecedented 200% in the last five years. Every other year approximately 20 countries participate in the World Championships or the World Club Championships. Whereas teams are coed in leagues around the world, often at tournaments it is mostly traveling competitive men and women teams that gather and compete. Additionally, there are also Juniors, Masters, and recently, Coed divisions are now competing at the National and World level as well. This year, like disc golf, ultimate will be a medalled sport at the World Games in Japan in August. Our next goal for recognition will be at the 2004 Olympics in Greece where it may hopefully be a demonstration sport.

The World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF), and the Ultimate Players Association (UPA) (the governing body for ultimate in the United States), mainly govern the sport. Ultimate is most active in Boston, Washington, and California, and throughout all major cities in North America, but proudly and surprisingly the largest league in the world resides in my hometown, Ottawa, Canada. It is here where, in a region of almost one million, we have nearly 4,000 players and over 325 teams. Ottawa's league also recently purchased 100 acres of land, and currently has 19 fullly-irrigated fields at Ultimate Sports Park Inc., the only ultimate-dedicated sports park in the world.

The culture of this sport is unique and terrific. Ultimate began in 1968 in Midfield, New Jersey, and is now populated with mostly hi-techies, students and lawyers. Everyone seems to know someone else, and there's always an open door if you're traveling anywhere in the world. We love our sport, and we love playing with a disc. As our sport grows larger, and the players grow older or more injured thus disabling them to throw their bodies about the ultimate field, hundreds of them are turning to enjoy your world of disc golf. We're still playing Ultimate, and now thankfully, if we're not playing at an ulty tournament somewhere on the weekend, we're out improving our PB on a local DG course.

If you've got about a dozen fellow DG players -- and you can convince them to try something new -- we'd love to see how you do throwing a light 175gm disc around an Ultimate field.