UPDATED: Oct. 8, 2018 at 12:10 a.m.

As a small child, Elizabeth Jamison roamed the sidelines of her mother’s ultimate frisbee games.  Her mother, Alicia Shultz, played in various ultimate tournaments and taught her the basics of the sport.

Throughout Jamison’s time in high school, they played in local social and women’s leagues together, and while she’s glad Jamison picked up the sport, Shultz never pushed her to play. Jamison found a passion for the sport on her own.  

“She always wanted me to (play) it,” Jamison said, “but I was actually planning on going to school for music, so all my time (in high school) was towards music stuff. So, she definitely established my love for it, but then I came back to it because of my own love.”

Jamison’s first experience with competitive ultimate came her sophomore year at SUNY-ESF when she joined Fox Force Seven, the Syracuse women’s ultimate frisbee team. Now, as a senior, she’s one of two captains on the team and handles scheduling, payments and practices, among other things.

After a freshman year in which her former roommate and close friend Miranda Ciardulli described Jamison as being in the library all the time, the pair discovered Fox Force Seven through an event called “Discology.” Ciardulli thought they should go to the event, not Jamison.

Both enjoyed the event and joined the team, and while it was Ciardulli’s first time playing, Jamison already had an advantage on many of the players. Summer leagues and learning from her mom aided Jamison. In the first month after she joined the team, she was one of three new players invited to play with the team in a tournament.

“The normal way you throw a frisbee is the backhand, and then there’s a flick (forehand),” Ciardulli said. “Usually, people who are just learning cannot throw that for their life, but she could already throw it, and she could play, and her flick is just amazing, so people would be like, ‘Oh my God.’”

Jamison still had adjustments. College ultimate was faster and more strategic. In higher levels of the sport, there are two positions – cutters and handlers – and they function akin to quarterbacks and wide receivers in football. Jamison handles for the college team and cuts for her club team. More fluid than football, ultimate players don’t run individual plays or wait for a whistle. Instead, it flows more similar to a soccer team advancing the ball downfield with the only difference being a player with the frisbee can only advance it by passing.

For the last two years, Jamison has spent her summers playing for Boomslang, a club frisbee team located out of Albany. There are four main leagues for ultimate in and around Jamison’s hometown of Schenectady – competitive, open competitive, social and women’s. Boomslang reaches beyond local competition, hosting tryouts for prospective players and competing against teams from beyond central New York. At the end of their season, club teams play in both sectional and regional qualifiers leading up to the national tournament, which Jamieson has yet to make with Boomslang.

Beyond the results, the increased activity with the sport has brought her closer to her mother. It’s their main topic of conversation when they’re around each other, and Shultz goes to most of Jamison’s games. Jamison’s co-captain, Megan Kirby, said that Shultz is often her daughter’s biggest critic and always pushes her to play better.

“I’m so lucky,” Jamison said. “I don’t have many friends in the ultimate community who can go out and throw with their mom or play with their mom, so it’s fantastic.”  

The same passion that has kept Shultz around the sport for more than 20 years has carried over to Jamison. She hopes to pass on her knowledge to the next generation of ultimate players as was once done for her.

“Because ultimate is a relatively new sport and most people don’t know much about it,” Jamison said, “I want to foster the community, especially in high schools and getting women involved at younger ages.”  

CORRECTION: In a previous version of this article, Elizabeth Jamison was misnamed. The Daily Orange regrets this error. 

Published on October 5, 2018 at 1:00 pm

Contact Arabdho: armajumd@syr.edu | @aromajumder