Ultimate Glory: Frisbee, Obsession, and My Wild Youth

Well-respected naturalist and chair of the Creative Writing department at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, David Gessner (All the Wild That Remains) wasn't always so establishment and settled. As an undergraduate at Harvard in the early '80s, he was an insecure kid with a romantic dream of becoming a writer. After a few beers and bowls, however, he turned into a hellion--until the fringe sport of Ultimate Frisbee saved him from self-destruction, with its free-form, no-referee rules and tie-dyed camaraderie. Ultimate Glory is his funny memoir of living the Frisbee life in his 20s while his classmates were lusting after membership in the right club, residential house and career network.

Ultimate Glory is also a detailed story of guys with nicknames like Moons, Turbo, Wheels, Rasta and Guido, who took this fledgling club sport out of its 1960s hippie past into an international professional circuit heralded by George Plimpton as "a demanding full-time sport of nonstop running, accurate throwing, and all out diving to catch that plastic disc." Gessner throws readers into the middle of scrappy tournaments between early league champs like the Rude Boys and the Hostages. He shares the aches and gashes of no-pads, no time-outs play, and chronicles the ego-driven styles of East and West Coast teams. In the end, Gessner's game days played out; he married, became a father and published books--but he hasn't forgotten that pure joy "when the combination of alcohol and sunshine and sweat and the glory of being in great shape combined in a perfect primal way." --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.

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