Nocturnal Decisions: The Ultimate All-Nighter

Five twenty-somethings packed into a Prius driving to New Jersey is all it takes to start the weekend off right. Four friends and I were on our way to an Ultimate Frisbee tournament, determined to play hard and persevere through seven or eight grueling, hour-long games. Here’s the best part: the first game started at 9:00pm.

Nocturnal Decisions is an annual winter Ultimate tournament hosted by DiscNY. Held at the Superdome in Waldwick, NJ, this indoor shindig is played overnight, from Saturday night well into Sunday morning. A Spotify music playlist is crowdsourced by the players and blasted through speakers during gameplay (no better way to play Ultimate than while listening to TSwift and R. Kelly’s “Ignition” remix). The lights in the dome stay on all night, so there’s no telling what time it is, how long you’ve been playing, or what planet you’re on. It’s like a casino in Vegas, but with way less second-hand smoke and regret. The championship game ends around 7:30am, but not before hundreds of frisbee players battle through muscle cramps, fatigue, dehydration, exhaustion, and in many cases deliriousness.

Sixteen teams of fifteen players each are matched up against each other in a classic “hat tournament” format. Each player is randomly assigned to a different team, ensuring that the teams are (for the most part) fairly selected. This is also a great way to force people to make new friends and play nice.

Though the tournament is held in New Jersey, players come from all around to test their strength against sleep (while tossing a plastic flying disc, occasionally). But no matter where people come from, they’ve all got one thing in common: a love for Ultimate Frisbee. And pizza. Okay two things in common.

Ultimate players comprise an oddly intriguing variety in the wide world of sports. While there are certainly the competitive, athletic types who are constantly training to stay at the top of their game, there are also the laid back players who have packed ukuleles with their cleats. And everything in between. The goofy kid who’s a little duck-footed might be playing against a guy who ran cross country in high school and is looking to bust deep on every point. A female college track athlete might be matched up against a girl with dreadlocks who usually plays barefoot.

Whatever the style, look, or personality, they all know the game. And they are good. I’ve seen a ridiculous guy in pink tights and a tutu completely DESTROY his opponents and make it look easy. The nerdy kid whose shorts are a little too high? He might just sky his defender twice on two consecutive points.

As I was speaking with a new friend I had just met, she called over my shoulder: “Hey hobo!” I turned to see a lanky young man with a considerable amount of body hair. Below his lopsided beanie and above his scraggly beard, he flashed a toothy grin. I had seen him playing earlier, and as chilled out as he was in this moment, he was a beast on the field.

At around 3:45am I saw a guy with an Abe Lincoln beard, stovepipe hat, and an American flag jersey tearing up the turf. Maybe it was just a visual hallucination induced by a lack of sleep, but for a moment I thought I truly saw our 16th President himself, throwing hammers into the end zone.

Nocturnal is an amazingly entertaining mishmash of all of these kinds of players, and it’s a great way to have fun depriving yourself of sleep while also being competitive. The fact that it’s played in the middle of the night not only adds a quirky twist to the tournament, but it also levels the playing field a bit, and the common struggle to stay awake and keep playing well brings each player on every team together.

The saddest part is walking outside after playing all night to realize that the sun has already begun to rise. Packing our stuff back into the Prius for the long drive home, my friends and I looked at each other with exhausted, squinting eyes and zombie faces. Though we were unable to form coherent sentences, we were all thinking the same thing:

“Can’t wait ’til next year.”