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CU-Boulder alumni rank among pro ultimate disc's top players and promoters. Can they take the sport mainstream and big-time?��

Tryouts for the Austin Sol professional ultimate team were still weeks away last��November when team owner Patrick��Christmas (CompSci’01) noticed a��splashy press release from a rival. The��Dallas Roughnecks had signed Beau��Kittredge (Comm ex’09), the game’s��dominant player — winner of the fledgling��American Ultimate Disc League’s��last two MVP awards.

The league, with 26 teams from coast��to coast and in Canada, was tooling up��for its fifth season, but 2016 would be��the first year for the Dallas and Austin��squads. They would be instant rivals, playing��each other four times in a 14-game��spring and summer season.

An imbalance between the Sol and��Roughnecks seemed clear from the start.��Christmas, a longtime player and organizer��whose club team won the 2014 “masters”��title for players over age 32, has a day job��writing software for National Instruments��in Austin. He’s financing the Austin��Sol with no partners and no budget for��superstars, unlike his deep-pocketed counterpart��in Dallas, the founder and CEO of��a multi-state auto services company.

Weeks after Dallas signed Kittredge,��Christmas could only marvel as Dallas��did it again — inking a deal for Jimmy��Mickle (Engr’13), the young phenom who��had won college player of the year and the��college club national title at CU-Boulder,��plus a national title with Boulder’s open��club team, Johnny Bravo, all in 2014.��

(Ultimate, which officially eschews the��word Frisbee, is organized into recreational��leagues and college and club divisions, sanctioned��by Colorado Springs-based USA��Ultimate. The pro teams are independent��of USA Ultimate, but draw their players��from the elite college and open club teams.)

By February, Dallas owner Jim Gerencser��had assembled what many are calling a��dream team, with four of the biggest names��in ultimate on the roster and salaries said to��be as high as five figures, according to popular��ultimate websites — astonishing sums in a league with scant corporate sponsorship��and a devoted but small fan base.��

Christmas, who pays his players $25��a game, faced the prospect of being��trounced by in-state rival Dallas. But he��was pumped all the same.��

“I definitely thought this was good for��us,” he said of Dallas’ superstar recruits. “I��knew I couldn’t afford the top talent, but��by Jim getting them I knew I would be��getting them to Austin twice.”

Still, Christmas was also perplexed. In��his view, growing a fan base in the early��years of an upstart pro league means��creating family entertainment, like what’s��offered at minor league baseball games,��not rolling out big stars.��

“I feel like they’ve overvalued the effect��of paying for the best players,” he said in��February. “Everyone needs to focus on the��best possible experience in their city and��that’s about more than just winning.”��

A grueling aerobic game in which players��run, jump and “get horizontal” — dive��headlong — while throwing and catching a��plastic disc, ultimate��pits seven players at��a time per team on a��large field. They score��points by advancing��the disc into an end��zone, as in football.��

By now, the sport has matured far��beyond its 1970s cult status on college��campuses in California and the Northeast,��where it first emerged as a neo-hippie��alternative to traditional sports. With��tens of thousands of players in organized��leagues, and recent recognition by the International��Olympic Committee, ultimate��is now at a crossroads.��

Among the big questions: How and��whether a sport that has never attracted��many spectators can succeed at the��professional level.

Ultimate has always had a credo of fair��play, known as the “spirit of the game,” at��its core. That has meant games are played��without referees, even at the highest levels.��But the American Ultimate Disc League��(AUDL) does use referees, which some��view as part of a broader transformation.��

“We’re starting to pull the better��athletes into the sport, and the players��that were there are making the most of��their athleticism by pushing themselves,”��said Bob Krier, a founding��player and now coach of Boulder’s��Johnny Bravo and also coach of the U.S.��national under-23 men’s team.��

These days, the top players are freakishly��talented athletes of the sort that��populate the best football and basketball��teams, though they’re typically leaner.��Kittredge and Mickle epitomize the��type: Tall and ultra-fast with great hands��and 30-plus-inch vertical leaps.��Still, despite occasional ESPN appearances��and highlight videos that can��generate a million views, ultimate itself��isn’t yet mainstream entertainment.��

“It’s about ready to be shown to the��world. It’s getting there. It’s close,”��Kittredge said in a winter interview, after��moving to Dallas from the San Francisco��Bay Area. There he’d led his club team,��Revolver, to two USA Ultimate fall series��national championships (and the AUDL’s��San Jose Spiders to titles also).

These days the top players are freakishly talented athletes.��

Most teams in the AUDL are breaking��even or losing money. Adding to the��challenge of growth, there’s a newer rival��league called Major League Ultimate in��eight cities. In the near term, Christmas��said, ultimate would like to reach the level��of professional lacrosse, which attracts a��few thousand fans to a typical game.��

“It still needs to be figured out how exactly��to capture fans,” said Kittredge, “but��the fans that did show up had a good time.”��

He added, “As far as legitimately growing��the sport, we need some smart people��that know how to do that.”��

Christmas is one of the smart people��trying to take the game mainstream. He��was a hard-working player who, by his own��account, made the most of his athletic��talent. And today he’s a hardworking, pragmatic organizer and team owner driven by��a love of the sport.��

“At some point in my life I had the��ability to do something that meant a lot to me,” said Christmas, 35. “You’ve got to be a believer to get in on the ground floor.”��

Christmas grew up in Boulder, the son��of two engineers. He played ultimate in��his final three semesters but never joined��the elite CU college squad, Mamabird.��It was as a computer science graduate��student at the University of Texas that he��emerged as a top collegiate scorer, on a��team that made it to nationals.

Now married with children ages 5 and��7, Christmas has spent years organizing��recreational leagues and clubs in Austin.��He bought the rights to a local AUDL��team several years ago for $10,000, far��less than today’s entry price.��

He hired a well-regarded coach to��assemble the team of 26 players and run��the show on the field, and he avoids the��temptation to meddle: “I certainly want to,��but I don’t think that should be my role.”

Off the field, Christmas directs the��show, writing checks, even greeting fans��at the gate. In all, he expects to spend��$100,000 in the first season and hopes to��see $50,000 in revenue, including support��from at least one corporate sponsor.��

Kittredge, naturally, believes the Dallas��effort to pay for big-name players is a��winning formula, along with the other trappings of family entertainment.��

“You get one, you get the other,” he said.��“If you make the competition better, it��becomes a prettier sport to watch.”��

Kittredge and Mickle, co-captains of the��Dallas Roughnecks, are both on the U.S.��national team that will compete for the��world title this summer, and both led CU��Boulder’s Mamabird team to national titles,��ten years apart, in 2004 and 2014.��

Kittredge, now 33 and the author��of several ��children’s books, arrived in��Boulder in the early 2000s as a free��spirit after growing up in Fairbanks,��Alaska, and traveling for a couple of��years after high school.��

“He was a freakish athlete,” said��Bob Krier, then the CU’s club team’s��assistant coach. “We were like, ‘Who is��this guy, he just walked out of the Alaska��wilderness?’ He was still raw with his��throwing ability…he didn’t like to show��that he was working hard.”

But Kittredge did work hard, making��himself an all-around player.��

“He’s stillthe biggest��game-changer,”��said Krier, whose��U.S. under-23��team won the��world championship in England last��year. “You have to account for him��every time he’s on the field. … If you try��to cover him one-on-one, he’s going to��beat you by seven steps deep.”��

Mickle, 24, made a name in the sport��as a CU freshman. A powerful thrower��and cunning receiver, he was a top-5��finisher in college player of the year balloting��an unprecedented three times, and��was a standout on the summer “NexGen”��all-star tour. (He also toured with a��cancer-awareness nonprofit, Early Recognition��is Critical, or ERIC, founded by��Dallas owner Gerencser, whose son, Eric,��is a cancer survivor.)

Mickle has additional sources of appeal��also, according to the Johnny Bravo��website: “Vacillates between clean-cut��and long locks, has been seen around��town from time to time with facial hair,��confusing fans who have come to fall in��love with his boyish charm.”��

Both Mickle and Kittredge are��steeped in the CU tradition of serious��training and discipline.

“It’s treated like a sport rather than an��activity,” Krier said. “We spent as much��time in the weight room and on the��track as any D1 team. …That passes on��to the next generation.”

So the pieces are in place for AUDL to��succeed, and Colorado may get in on the��action. The Boulder-Denver AUDL territory��has an ownership group — led by��CU alums — but hasn’t formed a team��yet because of the distance from other��teams, Krier said.��

Back in Texas, the season opened for��the Austin Sol with an April 2 game at��Dallas, followed by a Roughnecks visit��to Austin on April 9. Dallas took both��games, as expected, in tallies of 30-18 and��29-18. Still, the Sol attracted a healthy��crowd of 1,300 at its home opener.��

“We had a ton of people who had never��seen ultimate before,” Christmas said��afterward, including hundreds of kids��who might become lifelong ultimate fans��— or, just maybe, players.��