Discs slip into mainstream of youth sports When you throw a boomerang correctly, it comes back to you. Given the right prevailing winds and perhaps an expert touch, even a flying disc known as a Frisbee will return on command as well.

Some Triangle Flying Disc Association (TFDA) members are hoping what goes around comes around.

Enthusiasts are certain the right spin will grow "Ultimate Frisbee" among area youth, giving kids another active alternative to traditional sports, while also coming back around by "ultimately" feeding adult leagues and club teams with experienced enthusiasts.

While both Chapel Hill and Carrboro offer kids instruction and pick-up play through Ultimate clinics and camps, and Carrboro offers an adult league in the autumn, the Triangle Youth Ultimate League (TYUL) will launch new, competitive league play for area fifth- through 12th-graders this summer.

TYUL committee member Lindsey Hack got things going while thinking of how so many great Ultimate teams come from locations where they have youth leagues, Czuba said.

"The younger you can get kids started and loving the sport, the more that want to keep playing it and the better they're going to be at it," Czuba said.

"There are camps, but there are no places to play outside of camps. Jordan and Chapel Hill High School have had teams for several years, and teams are forming at several middle schools, but we're starting this league so that kids have someplace to play outside of school."

Once the stuff of college quads (Harvard students are credited with popularizing the game of tossing Frisbee Pie Company plates around the yard), the flying disc still invokes images for many of the tie-dyed set cavorting on a green. While retaining its self-governing principles and rules of play, the game of Ultimate has ascended to legitimacy. It requires skill and endurance, while often providing spectators a display of athleticism on the scale of an ESPN SportsCenter highlight reel.

According to the Ultimate Players Association (www.upa.org), the sport is played by two, seven-player squads, with a plastic disc on a field similar in size and shape to football. Teams score by catching a pass in the opponent's end zone. A player must stop running while in possession of the disc but may pivot and pass to any of the other receivers on the field. Turnovers occur with a dropped pass, an interception, a pass out of bounds, or when a player holds the disc for 10 seconds.

"Ultimate is sort of a mish-mash of basketball, football and soccer," Czuba said. "It's a benefit if kids have played some field sports, because there's some field sense involved, (but) anybody can do it. There's a lot of running, and it's a great way to stay in shape."

First played at Amherst College in Massachusetts in 1960, Ultimate was formalized in the late 1960s by a group of New Jersey high school students, the UPA Web site said. Ultimate is now played in more than 42 countries.

With nearly one million players in the U.S. alone, Ultimate boasts almost twice the number of people playing lacrosse and rugby combined. The sport has yet to earn NCAA status, however.

While discs occasionally soar high above the playing field, overhead is low, which makes teams and leagues a bit easier to establish.

UNC lists both a men's and women's team among its sports clubs programs.

"UNC's club team went to the College Nationals this year," Czuba said, "and the women's team from Wake Forest also went. They were the only two teams out of North Carolina who went to the College Nationals."

Many who play recreationally as teens or with college club teams graduate to play in leagues such as the Triangle Flying Disc Association (TFDA).

"The Triangle Flying Disc Association runs most of the leagues with the exception of the fall league run by Carrboro," Czuba explained. "Among our club level teams, North Carolina sends at least four teams to Nationals every year."

Outside of leagues, pick-up play often sprouts up on weekday evenings or weekends when no other competitions are scheduled.

"People will just get together and scrimmage together," Czuba said. "There are several places in Durham and Raleigh that we use, and people will also go to Cary and Morrisville."

Still, players often find such a bond and kinship with the sport, Czuba said that volunteers looking to teach and introduce the sport to area youth through the new league are plentiful.

"We have a large base of volunteers that play Ultimate who are willing to give their time as coaches," Czuba said. "We have plenty of coaches -- we may actually have more coaches than players right now, but that will change.

"We're completely committed to teaching kids the rules, how to throw, how to catch, how to cut and how to play the game. We're welcoming every experience level, even if the kids have never touched a disc. No experience is required whatsoever."

Organizers are hoping for co-ed play in three age groups (for grades 5-6, 7-8, and 9-12) with league play tentatively running late June through mid-August. Games will likely be played on weekends and nominal registration fees will pay for insurance, discs, T-shirts and an end-of-season celebration. Potential game sites will be in Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill.

Hand-in-hand with teaching the skills of the game, organizers and coaches will look to instill an understanding of the sport's ethics. Unique to Ultimate, the informal code of honor called the Spirit of the Game allows the game to be self-officiated.

"There are not referees in this sport currently," Czuba said, "so players make their own calls. It basically boils down to being good sports, and that's what we're interested in upholding and teaching these kids."

Czuba said the league will not coincide with, but, rather, hopes to draw from area summer Ultimate camps and clinics like those offered through Chapel Hill Parks and Recreation.

Czuba said evidence of the growth of Ultimate is everywhere.

"We're in the process of trying to build a large Ultimate complex in Durham, which would have 16 fields," she said. "We had a carnival there in May to introduce the community to the site ... and we're still trying to raise money."

Similarly, the UPA and World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF) have been working to promote disc sports on the worldwide scene for some time.

A major milestone in this effort occurred in 2001 when Ultimate was included in the World Games for the first time as a full medal sport, UPA.org said.

As Ultimate ascends to higher and higher statures in the world of sports, it might just be graduates from youth programs like the Triangle Youth Ultimate League who give back to the sport and send it soaring to new heights.