“People see it as a fake sport. Whenever you tell someone you play Ultimate, it’s like: oh, is that where you throw a frisbee in a basket? Or is that the one where you throw it to a dog? Whenever I’m talking to someone about it, I just hope they’ll ask me enough questions so that I can talk about UNC Ultimate. That was probably the most special experience I’m ever going to have in my whole life. I was on the team for five years, then I came back and coached. My freshman year we were really, really bad. But at the moment UNC Chapel Hill is triple back-to-back-to-back national champions. And I got to be part of that trajectory. But even though the team kept getting better and better, I kinda stayed at the same level. I never became the elite player that I wanted to be. I have a lot of ‘stick-to-it-ive-ness.’ I’m capable of working really, really hard. And part of me always believed that would be enough, which is the part that burned me out. Because after working so hard, for so long, I reached a plateau. It was physical stuff. I’m just not quick enough. When I play defense I can’t keep up with the fastest offensive handlers. They’re going to score, and that’s a problem. I ended up getting cut from the elite women’s club team I was on. I switched over to mixed, but ended up tearing my ACL a couple years ago. It’s been my life for ten years, but now I’m at a place where I don’t know if I’m ever going to play again. I just don’t know if my body can handle it. I don’t want to have another, like massive orthopedic surgery. And frisbee takes up so much bandwidth; there’s so many other things I want to explore. The list is infinitely long. I’m asking myself: could I be happy playing on a mid-level team where the commitment wouldn’t be quite as high? Or will I only feel satisfied if I’m exceptional? That’s an unhealthy connection I have in my head, I think. That love is something you need to earn. And being exceptional will make me worthy of having connections with people. It would be great to become a version of myself where I no longer feel that way. And maybe we’ll get there someday. We’re working on it. In the meantime, at least I got to talk about UNC Ultimate.”
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