In June 1977, I transferred to the University of Texas with my Syracuse professor. Shortly after arriving in Austin, I met Charles Tips, author of “Frisbee by the Masters.” Austin had a substantial number of Frisbee players, who regularly played Folf (Frisbee Golf) and Freestyle at Waterloo Park, east of the capitol building. Together with Jim Bowman, Jeff Burke, Tom (“T”) Gould, Brian Huddleston, and Robin Malinston, we formed Austin Aeroform. We would Freestyle at various Austin parks, teaching people the basics. I was in charge of Ultimate. I ran ads in the school newspaper, The Daily Texan, “Ultimate Frisbee at Freshman Fields, Thursdays at 5.” One Thursday, 2 friends from Houston, Bruce Lewis and Kirk Lively joined me and T Gould. UT Ultimate was born. By the early spring of 1978 the team was registered as an official Club Sport.

In the summer of 1978 Neal Dambra arrived in Houston, and soon formed a team. In the fall we arranged a game between UT Ultimate and the Houston AeroDynamics, played along the banks of the Buffalo Bayou. It was the first Texas intercity Ultimate game. In the spring of 1979, Tom MacNiven of Southern Methodist University hosted the First State Ultimate Championship in Dallas. The home team prevailed, 1st -SMU, 2nd -Houston, 3rd -UT, 4th Aggies and 5th -SMU’s second team.

Meanwhile, the Austin Aeroform club grew to more than 20 members, changed their name to Lone Star Frisbee, and formed a second Austin Ultimate team. In November 1979 I organized the first CenTex Ultimate tournament that was held in Memorial Stadium. Centex is the longest continuous Ultimate tournament in the world, now 47 years old! (The Pandemic ended Connecticut’s Turkey Bowl.)

In 1981 and 82, Chris Baker of Lone Star Frisbee and I teamed up to host the 3rd and 4th Ultimate Players Association National Championships held in Austin. In 1985 I started the first Beach Ultimate Tournament in the world at Surfside Beach, TX (as confirmed by the international governing body the Beach Ultimate Lovers Association (BULA,). The tournament continues in Galveston under the guidance of Sean McCall and is now held in Galveston. In addition to starting UT Ultimate, I helped “Big John” Corbello coach the Deaf School team, started the Plastic Profits, a team at Abilene Christian College, and organized two Masters teams, Third Coast Ultimate and The Pretenders, for the 1991 and 1999 World Club Championships.

In the spring of 1987, I joined Richard “Daddy-o” Summers coaching the “Alvin Hounds”. I was in a wheelchair, after having bone spurs removed from both heels. Once healed, I took turns with Daddio “hucking” to the incredible Alvin Hound athletes. That year we beat the #1 seeded Bayou Blasters in the South Regional Championships. The heel spurs forced me to be a handler, as I avoided running as much as possible. Nevertheless, I required an additional 15 surgeries that I attribute to teammates that made me dive for catches. Maybe I was just slow. In spite of these injuries, I managed to play 50 straight years, first with the SCSC swim team preseason warmup in 1973 and last with the SCSC Ultimate Alumni Team in 2022, where I had a hand-block and a diving catch.

Like many, I often say “Ultimate changed my life”, as I played to have fun and make friends. After two years of running tournaments together with the late Chis Baker, he said “For a Yankee, you’re all right.” His statement made me realize that the Texas players had made me a better person. I consider myself extremely lucky to have met and married an Aggie Ultimate player, Susan (Wilson) Farquharson, 40 years ago. I will not argue that she is the better player.