The Forgotten Years (by Dan Axtell '80)
 
About 1979, Scott (I forget the last name) had a whole bunch of the old-logo T-shirts silk-screened in various colors.  I saved 4: dark blue, light blue, green, black.  Except for the dark blue, these colors were not used in games.  If there's ever a display of early Ultimate memorabilia, I can be convinced to part with these old things.  Scott was an engineering student who used the DEC PDP-10 to model a Frisbee flight--no mean feat at the time.

It's telling that so little is known of 1976-80.  It's not coincidental that 1979 was the peak year of illegal drug use among adults.  The team was pretty much stoned continuously for four years.  It was said that all the student activities money for the club (we were technically a club called "The Varsity Frisbee Team") was used to buy marijuana.  The attitude was incredibly lax by today's standards.  Once we were playing near the bleachers on Ellis Oval during a football game and the smoke was blowing towards the stands.  I told a teammate that one of the Tufts Police had noticed us and he said, "Oh great, now he's going to want some."  The officer politely ignored us even though there really was enough to share. 

I was a slow runner, but with the great pharmacological evener, that didn't really matter.  Everyone got to play the same amount.  After every 2 goals, the next 7 on the roster went in.  It was a lot of fun.

Most players also were into "Frisbee Golf" and a course was set up around campus.  There wasn't intercollegiate competition, but some serious intramural interest.  I don't remember much about the course (see above paragraph), but I remember that one hole was the front doors of Ballou.  You got to knock two strokes off your score if you hit President Mayer walking out.  No one ever earned that advantage.

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