Come for the Disc, Stay for the People: Inside Whitman’s Ultimate Club Teams

Lucy Brown ’28, from Corvallis, Oregon, had never touched a disc until her first-year roommate convinced her to join a practice with the Gender Diverse (GD) Sweets, one of Whitman College’s two Ultimate club sports teams.

“The people I met that day were kind and welcoming, even when I made all the mistakes one could possibly make,” Brown says. That’s why she kept coming back, despite her unfamiliarity with the sport. “Going to practice is like going to hang out with a big group of friends,” she says. “Sure, we run around and play a sport, but we spend most of our time cheering each other on, laughing and bonding.”

Both teams pride themselves on creating an atmosphere that includes cheerful, unconditional acceptance alongside the determination to compete at a national level. 

“I would say 30% to 40% of the people on our team had not played any Frisbee before coming here,” says Colin Pfister ’26, a Psychology major from Seattle and Captain of the Men’s Sweets. “We try to mold them into Frisbee players, figure out what their strengths are, and squeeze everything we can out of them.” 

Once Upon a Disc …

Every Sweet has a unique origin story with the team. Pfister joined the team in his first year at Whitman after a lifetime of playing club soccer. A couple of months later, after a thrilling series of games—all victories except one—he was in love with the sport. “This is a competitive outlet for me but also just really fun,” he says. “I really liked the team culture. The people on the team were really fun. The upperclassmen were people to look up to.”

Sociology-Environmental Studies major and Co-Captain of the GD Sweets Gabbie Campbell ’26 got an early start in elementary school growing up in Seattle—a city with a strong Ultimate community. The sport was so ingrained in her identity that she couldn’t see herself at a college without an Ultimate team. But what she found with the Sweets was more than an outlet for her love of the sport. “I immediately started making Frisbee friends my first week here,” she says. “And that has become my network and my support system since.”

Fellow Seattleite Jay Senstra ’28, who is double majoring in Rhetoric, Writing and Public Discourse and Economics, began his adventure with the Sweets on a campus tour, where he ran into a high school friend who invited him to join practice. “It was a really great experience and was actually one of the things that convinced me to choose Whitman over the other schools I was looking at,” Senstra recalls.

Despite their disparate skill levels, every Sweet reports being welcomed with open arms into the team.

“My parents joke that I wouldn’t have gone to Whitman had it not been for the Frisbee,” says Psychology major and GD Sweets Co-Captain Josie Bygrave ’26, who played on her high school team in Denver, Colorado. “Which is obviously an exaggeration, but it definitely had an impact on the schools I was looking at.” When she watched Whitman’s teams play at the annual Onion Fest tournament during a visitor’s day for admitted students, she couldn’t resist the pull to join this fun and passionate community, which has become the cornerstone of her social support network at Whitman. “Some of my first friends at Whitman were all people who had played Frisbee and joined the team.”

A Year in the Life of the Sweets

A season with the Sweets is a yearlong progression that shifts from community and skill-building in the fall to competitive showdowns in the spring. The teams hold practices on Monday and Wednesday afternoons and Saturday mornings.

“We spend a lot of the fall welcoming new players, teaching them the basics of Frisbee, and creating a fun community outside of the sport,” explains Campbell. 

The Sweets are no-cuts teams. There are no tryouts and no mandated requirements; anyone can show up. “If you just want to come hang out and throw a Frisbee, you’re always more than welcome,” Pfister says.

The fall season includes low-stakes tournaments like the Oregon Fall Ultimate Disc Games, mixed invitationals across the Pacific Northwest, and goofy, themed tournaments like the Sweets’ own Hat Tournament and Angels vs. Devils.

As spring approaches, things ramp up with the official start of the USA Ultimate Division III season in January, which includes sanctioned tournaments, conferences, regionals, and the Division III College Championships. Since spring tournaments determine the club’s ranking and qualification for nationals, commitment expectations increase. Saturday practices, for instance, become mandatory for anyone wishing to compete.

The Land of the Goofy & the Fierce

No one excels at finding the sweet spot between goofy fun and competitive athleticism quite like the Sweets. “I love this team’s balance between competition and fun, and when we’re having fun, we always play better," says Brown.

The GD Sweets’ halftime ritual has become a signature. “Regardless of whether we’re up or down at halftime, we’re going to be dancing,” says Bygrave. 

Some of Brown’s favorite moments are the evenings of group homework in the hotel during a tournament weekend. “We’ve also done some team bonding activities, such as bracelet making, temporary tattoos and nail painting,” she says. And every Saturday after practice, both teams gather for brunch at Cleveland Commons.

Then there are the organized traditions. Every year, the Sweets kick off the fall season with a Hat Tournament where the headgear is unconventional to say the least. If the hat falls off, it’s a turnover. oPlayers get creative. “Jasper, a couple of years ago, wore a hat he constructed entirely out of Magic cards,” Pfister recalls. “He glued them all together and had this cap. Some people cut open stuffed animals.”

Every spring brings Onion Fest (O-Fest), a gender-mixed, party-like tournament held across multiple fields on and off campus, including Ankeny, Harper Joy and Martin Field. “We always choose a theme for each team,” Campbell explains, and players often wear costumes. “We had prom one year, and we all showed up in prom outfits for our games. It’s just a super funny way to play Frisbee but also still super competitive—the perfect combination of the joke and fun part of Frisbee and actually playing a sport.”

O-Fest draws teams from across the Pacific Northwest, including current college players, alumni and local club teams. A highlight game often pits the “Youngling Sweets” against the “Aging Sweets.” And at halftime, brave fans can get in on a Walla Walla onion-eating competition. 

There’s also Frolf, a disc golf game  designed to turn campus landmarks into golf holes. The Sweets play it consistently on an 18-hole course that snakes across campus. According to Pfister, the course has been passed down for decades. Alumni returning on Alumni Weekend will play the same holes they did 30-plus years ago, sometimes sharing rules that have been lost to history.

Competing on the National Stage

Amid all the fun, the Sweets also take competition seriously. Both teams have established themselves as national powerhouses in Division III Ultimate. “We’ve gone into nationals ranked as a top-four team in D3 the last three years,” Pfister says.

Last year, both teams won their respective regional championships, securing automatic bids to nationals. The GD Sweets particularly dominated at regionals, winning every game by at least 10 points, with their closest match ending 15–5. For Brown, the experience was affirming. “It was an honor to be able to go to nationals as a rookie player,” she says. “I’m proud of us for winning the conference last year and for playing open lines at our first competitive tournament this year, meaning everyone got fairly equal playing time.”

Senstra expresses confidence in the team too, noting that the men’s team has won back-to-back titles at Big Sky, the ultimate postseason conference, both years he’s been on the team. The Sweets also compete at the Stanford Invite, one of the most prestigious regular-season tournaments in collegiate Ultimate, which traditionally draws elite D1 and D3 programs from across the country. “It’s a whole different ballgame playing against them,” Senstra says, “but it’s fun to see how their systems work and apply that to your own game.”

Campbell says what makes the team’s competitive drive special is that it never comes at the cost of inclusion. “We do an amazing job of balancing a super intense, competitive nature while also being so inclusive and supportive,” she says. “Having that balance in a sport is really hard, and we do it really well.”

Game On!

To anyone interested in picking up a disc, every Sweet shares the same wholeheartedly warm message. “Skill level does not matter at all,”  Brown says. “I used to not even know how to throw a disc—and sometimes it seems like I still don’t—but that doesn’t stop me from having a good time.”

The easiest first step is showing up at one of the fall practices. Pfister and Senstra both recommend joining at least one fall tournament to get a real feel for the game. “It really gives you a sense of what playing Frisbee is actually like,” Senstra says.

For those who stick around, Pfister promises the payoff goes well beyond athletic improvement. “You’re probably going to have a really big group of friends,” he says. “You’ll have things to do outside of practice, people to hang out with, and … parties to go to. And there’s also a really good relationship between the GD team and the men’s team.”

Ready to play? Learn more about both Ultimate teams and other club sports at Whitman.