Ultimate Glory; Frisbee, Obsession, and My Wild Youth
New York: Riverhead Books, 2017. First Printing [Stated]. Trade paperback. Format is approximately 5.5 inches by 8.25 inches. xii, [2], 328 pages. Illustrated front cover. Illustrations. Inscribed by the author on the title page with drawing of a fully extended frisbee player releasing the disc. Inscription reads To Anthony, Fellow lover of the wild! As great friend from the old days. David Gessner. To the Reader. Ultimate Preamble--That Primal Feeling. Fair Harvard: Origin Stories; Arete, and the Dawn of the Barbarians, The Hunger of Youth, Commencement; Glory Days: The Glorious Fall, My Forever Love, Defending Champs; Howls of Arrogant Laughter; Childish Things, Benediction; A Frisbee Afterlife. Epilogue: This is the Modern World. Acknowledgments. David Gessner is an American essayist, memoirist, nature writer, editor, and cartoonist. Gessner was attended Harvard College where he worked at the Harvard Crimson drawing political cartoons, most notably a drawing of Ronald Reagan urinating on an unemployed man in the gutter, entitled "The Trickle Down Theory". He was awarded his degree in 1983. He is the author of eleven books that blend a love of nature, humor, memoir, and environmentalism, including Leave It As It Is: A Journey Through Theodore Roosevelt’s American Wilderness and the New York Times-bestselling All the Wild That Remains: Edward Abbey, Wallace Stegner and the American West. His prizes include a Pushcart Prize, the John Burroughs Award for Best Nature Essay, the Association for Study of Literature and the Environment’s award for best book of creative writing, and the Reed Award for Best Book on the Southern Environment. David Gessner devoted his twenties to a cultish sport called Ultimate Frisbee. Like his teammates and rivals, he trained for countless hours, sacrificing his body and potential career for a chance at fleeting glory without fortune or fame. His only goal: to win Nationals and go down in Ultimate history as one of the greatest athletes no one has ever heard of. With humor and raw honesty, Gessner explores what it means to devote one's life to something that many consider ridiculous. Today, Ultimate is played by millions, but in the 1980s, it was an obscure sport with a (mostly) undeserved stoner reputation. Its early heroes were as scrappy as the sport they loved, driven by fierce competition, intense rivalries, epic parties, and the noble ideals of the Spirit of the Game. Ultimate Glory is a portrait of the artist as a young ruffian. Gessner shares the field and his seemingly insane obsession with a cast of closely knit, larger-than-life characters. As his sport grows up, so does he, and eventually he gives up chasing flying discs to pursue a career as a writer. But he never forgets his love for this misunderstood sport and the rare sense of purpose he attained as a member of its priesthood. Ultimate, originally known as ultimate Frisbee, is a non-contact team game played by players with a flying disc, flung by a human. Ultimate was developed in 1968 by a group of students at Columbia High School in Maplewood, New Jersey. Although ultimate resembles many traditional sports in its athletic requirements, it is unlike most sports due to its focus on self-officiating, even at the highest levels of competition. From its beginnings in the American counterculture of the late 1960s, ultimate has resisted empowering any referee with rule enforcement. Instead, it relies on the sportsmanship of players and invokes the "spirit of the game" to maintain fair play. Players call their own fouls, and dispute a foul only when they genuinely believe it did not occur. In 2012, there were 5.1 million ultimate players in the United States. Condition: Very good.
Keywords: Ultimate Frisbee, Sport, Athletics, Flying Disc, Competition, Teams
ISBN: 9780735210561
[Book #83294]
Price: $150.00