
The Ultimate Experience
By Taleni “T”
These are some things you should know about me: I’m fifteen years old and my favorite colors are red, black, and white. I’m from America Samoa (Pago Pago) and I have five siblings. I love sports and my favorite number is fourteen.
I’m here to write about my experience with ultimate. I started playing in October 2016, so it’s been less than one year. Playing ultimate Frisbee has been great because of what my coach has done for me, my family, my team and my school. My coach, Rocky Beach, has done everything in his power to help Ultimate Impact grow and make sure we have things we need like jerseys, cleats, and new experiences traveling and playing against other schools. Most importantly, he feeds us, which is great because we are hungry after games.
One of the trips we took was to Santa Cruz for a tournament called the California Middle School State Championships in May 2017. Even though our team didn’t win a game (we are a new team), we won the spirit trophy, which means that other teams had fun playing against us and liked our sportsmanship. I enjoyed the different parts of the trip, like spending time with my friends in the van and getting better at ultimate, but I especially liked meeting new people my age, playing with my teammates between games, and getting to go out to dinner together on the ride home.
Ultimate Impact has changed my life because it helped me lose weight {LOL}!! The program has also given me with a job this summer. Ultimate has been great because it makes me feel good, gets me out of the house, and it makes my family happy because they see me enjoying it. Every time I play I have fun and see myself improving and that just encourages me to play more. Also, every time I see Rocky play or throw it motivates me to improve because I want to be like him or better than him someday :-)
One thing that I’ve experienced is that there is a lot of opportunity to learn through sports and ultimate. I’ve also learned that it’s not all about winning (though it would be great to win a game in a tournament someday) and the main point is to have fun and meet other people.
It feels good being the first team at Visitacion Valley Middle School (VVMS) and one of the first San Francisco teams because it makes me feel like a leader. I also like that I can persuade others to join and help the program grow. Maybe I’ll be remembered as the first captain of Ultimate Impact. In the future, I’ll get to watch the VVMS team improve and Ultimate Impact grow because I see more kids already interested in the sport. I know that there are colleges that have ultimate and the sport might help me get a job someday. I’ve also heard that there is a professional league. I’m proud that I became a captain and this summer I received my first job ever as a Junior Coach with Ultimate Impact. As a Junior coach, I get the chance to teach little kids how to play. It’s great because when they grow up they might take my job and become like me, or even better :-)
