What sports do you play? This typical, getting-to-know you type of question often receives a standard answer without explanation: football, soccer, golf, tennis. Yet some students, upon hearing this question, brace themselves for a long discussion. They know their responses will lead to quizzical looks and raised eyebrows, and will warrant an explanation.
Junior and foreign exchange student Danielle Farrelly understands this situation well. Farrelly plays netball, the national sport of her home country, New Zealand. However, netball is not popular in the United States, Farrelly said.
Netball is similar to basketball except there is no backboard and the players cannot move when possessing the ball.
“It has to be really fast paced for it to be a good game,” Farrelly said.
Farrelly said she is not used to her sport being seen as unusual.
“[In New Zealand], everyone [plays netball] so it’s a good place to meet people,” Farrelly said.
Unlike Farrelly, junior Aaron Adams and sophomore Alex Kass are used to playing unusual sports. Adams plays ultimate frisbee, a game where players score by catching a frisbee in the opposite team’s end zone, says the Ultimate Players Association website.
The frisbee moves down the field through passing because players cannot move when holding the frisbee, the website explains.
Unlike Adams, Kass’s sport takes place off the field. Kass rides horses, explaining that she competes in courses of six to ten jumps as a hunter or a jumper. Hunter events are based on speed and jumper events are based on accuracy, Kass said.
Kass said she has been riding since she was 7 years old.
Adams said he began playing ultimate Frisbee when at summer camp in 2002. However, he was not a stranger to the game.
“My parents played on high school teams in New Jersey,” Adams said. “In fact, they went to the high school where ultimate was invented.”
Adams said that family tradition is not the only thing that attracts him to the sport.
“I like ultimate because it’s extremely competitive, and requires all sorts of coordination and skill,” Adams said.
Both Kass and Adams said that their respective sports have distinctive aspects.
Ultimate frisbee is different in that there are never any referees, Adams explained. Adams said that this aspect also contributes to his liking of the game.
“It’s a noble game, if you will, because of the ‘Spirit of the Game’ rules that are in place, requiring all players to call their own fouls,” Adams said. “We all look out for each other and try to maintain the purity and respect for the game that it deserves.”
Kass said that the uniqueness of working with animals is one of her favorite parts of horse-back riding.
“There’s a really great trust and connection that you build with the animal,” Kass said.
Adams said it does not really matter to him that his sport is not as mainstream as other sports played by high school students. Ultimate frisbee is more popular in college, with many club teams, Adams explained.
Adams also encourages others to give his sport a try.
“It’s easy to pick up and you can get good at it fairly quickly, so it would be great to have some more ultimate players out there some day,” Adams said.
Published March 2008. Digitized 2025.