Many people probably have heard of or played ultimate Frisbee, but many people probably have not heard of Blackcat Ultimate, the club ultimate Frisbee team at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

“The team actually just got started when some guys from my floor in the dorms just started playing,” said junior Trent Fleege, a member of the team.

The founder of the team was Ken Drager, who did so a little over two years ago. After he graduated, he handed the team over to Kevin O’Connor, the president of Blackcat Ultimate.

“I’m just trying to lay down a vision for this team and make sure everyone is doing what their supposed to do,” O’Connor said.

The team is currently one of 390 colleges who are part of the Ultimate Players Association, which is the governing body for ultimate Frisbee and was founded in 1979. The UPA has grown rapidly over the years and currently has 22,000 members.

The team travels in tournaments around the country, recently going to Baton Rouge, La., to take part in a national tournament, which featured colleges such as Florida State, Ole Miss and Ball State.

The team returned home with a respectable 3-3 record in that tournament. Their next tournament will be over spring break when they head south to play in Georgia.

The team does play some games in Wisconsin, with the majority being played at UW-Whitewater.

“One of the best parts about playing is being able to travel,” Fleege said.

As for people who are not familiar with the sport of ultimate Frisbee, the best comparison is that it is a mix between football and a bit of soccer.

Like football, the game features the passing of a Frisbee or a disk to other members of the team. The object is to score a goal in the end zone.

The field is 70 yards long and 40 yards wide and it contains seven players from each team on the field at one time. Position players are called handlers and cutters. The handlers are comparable to a quarterback in football while the cutters are comparable to receivers.

For NCAA basketball junkies, ultimate Frisbee is also comparable in the sense that RPI and strength of schedule is taken into play for Top 25 rankings, just as college basketball uses the RPI and strength of schedule for the NCAA Tournament.

As for tournament play in ultimate Frisbee, Blackcat Ultimate has to finish in the top six in Sectionals, which are against teams in Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula, to qualify for the Regionals, which are against teams in the Midwest.

They then must finish as one of the top two teams in the Regionals to qualify for the National Tournament, which features the nation’s 16 best teams, which then compete for a national championship.

UW-Madison has been the dominating team in Wisconsin recently. Ultimate Frisbee is becoming so big that Carlton College in Colorado now offers scholarships to play ultimate Frisbee.

Along with Fleege and O’Connor, the team’s future appears bright with captains Connor Howley and Adam Twito leading the team.

And no matter what sport is being played at UWM, one thing is for sure: the UWM-Marquette rivalry is always present.

“I would have to say my best moment for me was beating Marquette in sectionals last year,” O’Connor said.

Anyone is encouraged to join. For more information, contact Jason Fuller at jafuller@uwm.edu.

For more information on ultimate Frisbee, check out the official Web site at upa.org.

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