Friends of the Parks/After School Matters Ultimate Programs

As if we as a community were not incestuous enough, we now work together… teaching ultimate. This Spring Edward Uram III (of Machine) and David Marincic (of Augie and, more importantly UIC) put their heads together and wrote up a grant proposal to Maggie Daley’s NPO “After School Matters.” I will spare you the details but After School Matters (ASM) is a big deal in Chicago and has helped thousands of teens in Chicago, most of whom are from poor communities, find something productive to do with their time outside of school and make some money while they’re at it. These programs are citywide and range from art to computer programming, and now, to ultimate.

The organization, Friends of the Parks (FOTP) is the umbrella organization that manages the program and the instructors. Edward and David chose to go through FOTP for several reasons including the fact that Ultimate is played in, well, parks, but mainly because of their education department created by fellow ultimate player, Cassie Hatzfeld. Cassie has moved on from FOTP, but her programs (“Earth Team” and “Nature Along the Lake”) still remain.

*It should be noted that Cassie had a great deal with making the ultimate program happen as well.

**Also, you read correctly, ASM actually PAYS the kids to participate in most of their programs, including this one!!

The proposal itself was based on a couple of major selling points: a scientific approach to health and fitness learning, and a sport that promotes spirit, competition, conflict resolution and a great workout. ASM loves buzzwords. With the combined efforts of Edward, the Kinesiology graduate and David, the English professor, the grant proposal received the highest marks of any of the hundreds of proposals read by ASM that semester. It is my guess that it was the best written and most comprehensive proposal ASM has ever seen period, but that’s neither here nor there. They were then contracted for two programs during the summer session, one at Humboldt Park and one at McKinley park.

It was not long after they were approved that Edward came to me and asked if I would be interested in teaching in the ultimate program for the summer. Now, I had been teaching in the “Earth Team” program for a year now and was preparing for the summer session up at Horner Park in Ravenswood. However, also being a graduate of UIC’s school of Kinesiology and with my resume (oh yeah like building my resume was the main reason I chose to teach Ultimate this summer instead of Environmental science) I accepted the invitation. My brother, Matt Flynn (of UIC), was chosen as the fourth instructor and we got underway recruiting and planning for the session.

We made phone calls and visited high schools and made more phone calls. Eventually we ended up with about twenty-five teens in each program from the ages of thirteen to eighteen. The kids came from all different backgrounds, some spoke only Spanish, some were being recruited by gangs, one drove a Range Rover. David and I, who were in charge at Humboldt, actually had to turn away a few kids because our group was getting too large (thirty teens at one point). The turnout was better than any of us had imagined. It was pretty amazing when you think that so many teens in Chicago, who have never heard of the sport of Ultimate, and had, with the exception of just a few, had never even thrown a disc before were interested in playing for four hours a day, five days a week for six weeks during their summer vacation. The following six weeks were filled with just as much awe on the part of us (the instructors) at the progress of the kids on the field and off.

After the first couple of days of program backhands were developing and knowledge and understanding of the rules, which many kids didn’t seem to care for much at first, was progressing well. Strategy was beginning to emerge from the jumbled mess of bodies that characterized our scrimmages and games of “hot box.” Confidence in throwing was increasing and kids were starting to ask about more complicated throws, catches, tricks, and strategies. The kids were catching on to the game and all its related skills faster than I have seen any rookie do so at UIC since I’ve been involved.

Perhaps the proudest moment that David and I had in the first half of the program was when, after program had ended, we were challenged to a game of hot box by a group of twenty somethings who were in town promoting Wii Fit at the Taste. A couple of the kids agreed to stay after to play and we accepted. I know what you’re all thinking, “of course they’re going to win, they have Colyn Flynn and David Marincic playing for them,” well you’re right, we did win, but it was the quick cuts and good decisions, not to mention some sick defense, made by our teens that allowed us to run all over this group of guys who, for the most part, were a foot taller than the kids.

Off the field we had our share of challenges, including a few fights to break up, a couple medical emergencies, chasing after bike thieves, and, of course, my never ending war against Cheetos. We heard stories about troubled families and gun violence, but we also saw kids sticking up for the [socially] little guys. We saw those same little guys and girls start making their way up the brutal social ranks and carving our their place in the group.

The second half of the program consisted of what started to look like real Ultimate. After an ungodly amount of deal-making, yelling, and demonstrating, we finally got the kids to run a vertical stack and set it regularly. We saw handlers swinging the disc which set up in-cuts that lead to continuations. We saw kids who couldn’t make an accurate throw from ten yards step up in a game situation and let loose a forty-yard huck that went on to get run down by some kid, who, until then couldn’t read a disc any better than they could read Greek (which, for those of you who can read Greek, is hard). For obvious reasons the program was coed, but all too often, the girls would just let the boys play around them and not step up to make plays. That all changed after a couple key girls realized that they were better than a lot of the boys who talked a big game, but couldn’t hold on to the disc. From then on the girls were out there making plays against the boys and laying claim to the respect and admiration they deserved the whole time.

The end of the session culminated in an all day round robin tournament at McKinley Park. The two programs were split into four teams, two from each park. This was the first time these kids had met on the field and, I must admit, I was a little worried about the big, bad southside kids, some of whom I’m sure could bench press more than me, and several who could easily out run everyone accept Marincic, running all over our, much shorter and less athletic group from Humboldt.

The first games were intra-program games (Humboldt played Humboldt, McKinley played McKinley), and were more of a warm up. The games were pretty even, but showed the two program’s strengths well. The Humboldt crews played conservative and controlled (well as controlled as a bunch of teenage hormones would allow), while the McKinley teams played a more high risk/high return, athletic style.

The first crossover games came with a lot of shit talking and a lot of arguing, hey that sounds like summer league. A few borderline fights, usually between team mates, prolonged the games a little, but both Humboldt teams ended up victorious. WOOT! Honestly, I was a little surprised that my fears of the big dudes on the McKinley teams eating the Humboldt kids alive, but my ultimate redemption came when one of the Humboldt girls (who by the way was 13) totally skied the, I am not kidding, biggest boy in the whole program. This guy looked like he played linebacker for the Bears and she went up and pulled this floating disc down in his face!! From then on I wasn’t worried, and we went on to run away with the game after letting McKinley go on a little run early in the second half. Meanwhile, on the other field, David’s group of Humboldt teens won over a much more cohesive McKinley team than I was seeing at the time.

We broke for lunch and one of the mothers who came to watch her daughter and nieces gave me a couple of delicious home made tacos, for which I was eternally grateful. At lunch Edward, David, Matt and myself got together and decided that neither the kids nor us were going to make it through two more games, and made the call to just have one more.

On my field we played the much more cohesive McKinley team in an epic battle which lasted, if my memory serves me right to several overtime points and ended in a McKinley victory after a thirty minute or so point. One of the most exciting (and excruciating) ultimate games I’ve ever witnessed. On the other Field the Humboldt team had an easy time with the McKinley team that was having internal problems and soon came over to cheer for their park-mates in their marathon finish at the other field.

The six weeks ended with a lot of smiles, some injuries, a lot of sore kids, and four exhausted instructors who were in dire need of a few ice cold fermented beverages. The success of the summer programs has helped secure the existence of this program in the future. There will be two more programs in the fall, one at Humboldt again, and another at either Union Park or Arrigo Park. I expect that, due to less time to work with during the week and more bad weather, the progress of overall game play will be slower, but we will have more opportunities to teach the health and nutrition aspects of the program, which is exciting for me. Also, we are always looking for people who may wish to volunteer some time to help out at practice or make a presentation about their job or some other expertise they might have, as these programs are geared toward showing teens in Chicago that they do have a future and have endless options for what to do with it.

One more note that I would like to add is that even though the kids who participate in this program and other After School Matters programs are statistically much less likely to be involved in dangerous activities such as gangs and drugs, they are not immune. Some of you may recall that over Labor day weekend there were three gang related shootings resulting in the deaths of three Chicago kids. One of those kids was Eternity Gaddy, who had participated in our program at Humboldt Park along with two of her cousins. David, Colin Taylor (the Education Director at Friends of the Parks and a man who also deserves a great deal of credit for the success of these programs), and I attended Eternity’s wake. It was one of the most painful things I’ve ever experienced in my life. I have a lot of things to say about the culture of violence that has come to be the norm for inner city kids and has intensified in Chicago in the last few years but will spare you the rant for now.

If you would like to get involved please email us at fotp.ultimate@gmail.com. Thanks for reading!!

Colyn Flynn played college ultimate with UIC FUNK and is one of the founders of Hand Grenade/Mechanical Roundhouse.