Ultimate Glory

May 15, 2017
Gessner (All the Wild That Remains) reflects with honesty and humor on his dedication to the sport of Ultimate Frisbee. He describes the sport’s ragtag culture as well as his annual quest for a national championship during his formative 20s in the mid-1980s. Gessner defends Ultimate’s anti-sport ethos but uses traditional sport themes, such as clutch performance, training regimes, and tournament drama. The book could have been tightened to more succinctly describe his musings on the idealistic and conflicting “Spirit of the Game” philosophy and the ambivalent effect of Ultimate on his behavior, relationships, and, most intriguingly, a writing career in desperate need of a jump start. What saves the book is, in Ultimate parlance, Gessner’s ability to “lay out” (to dive while making a catch): he is honest, especially in his observation of how he’s matured since his Frisbee days. He also remains entertainingly unrepentant about a decade spent in the throes of a game that itself was evolving beyond its carefree image. Gessner nicely captures the persistent pursuit of greatness in the face of doubt and failure.

May 1, 2017
An anecdotal tour of a sport that has only been around for a few decades but that claims legions of adherents.To play Ultimate Frisbee, you need a disc and a dog, right? Well, no. The neohippie penchant for throwing a Frisbee at a willing golden retriever has nothing to do with an athletically demanding sport that Gessner (English/Univ. of North Carolina, Wilmington; All the Wild that Remains: Edward Abbey, Wallace Stegner, and the American West, 2014, etc.) describes as "a hybrid of hockey, soccer, basketball, and football." Yet, as he notes, there's an old-hippie element to the proceedings: the game was invented at a suburban New Jersey high school in that heady year of 1969, it's definitively coeducational, and somewhere around the pitch there's likely to be a cloud of marijuana smoke wafting. Gessner's definition takes scarcely a page, and some of the rest of the book is padded. The "wild youth" part of the subtitle is the least interesting aspect of the narrative ("I see myself for what I was: a scared little boy playing at life"), while the origin story, as with all origin stories, is foundational in more ways than one and is the best part of the yarn--and how could it not be, with a geek Hercules who stood 6 feet 7 inches tall and managed to go to high school "without getting kicked out once"? Parts of the narrative are overwritten, parts undercooked. Readers will want to know more circumstantial detail about how the game was transmitted beyond the East Coast and where it might be going as it becomes better known. Still, Gessner's enthusiasm is unmistakable, and there's much to commend the story as a case in point of how a kid, once finding his or her metier, can make of a pastime a life-transforming experience. Not quite deserving of a spot alongside Plimpton and Angell but a pleasing glimpse into one corner of countercultural jockdom.

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May 15, 2017

Ultimate frisbee requires great endurance and athleticism. It is a mix of several sports, including hockey and football, in which teams use a Frisbee as a ball and score points through passing and catching a disc. Environmental writer and best-selling author Gessner's (All the Wild That Remains) book is not a history of ultimate frisbee, but rather an examination of his own life as he became obsessed with the sport. Introduced to the burgeoning game at Harvard University, the author immediately fell in love with playing. He participated on different teams over the next 15 years, including several that reached the National Finals. Here, he relates his years on the field; memories of friends, girlfriends, and teammates; and some of the more memorable matches. This once niche sport is now televised and popular across the world, even being considered as an Olympic event. VERDICT Though well written and entertaining, this book is best suited for ultimate frisbee fans and Gessner's previous works.--Jason L. Steagall, Gateway Technical Coll. Lib., Elkhorn, WI

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2017
What's the appeal of a nontraditional sport like Ultimate Frisbee? Self-officiated athletic competition, the thrill of outreaching your opponent for a flying disc (known as skying), team camaraderie, and membership in a tribe of nonconformistsall of which drew author Gessner (All the Wild That Remains, 2015) to the sport during his years at Harvard. This memoir offers both an insider's perspective on the unique culture of Ultimate, focusing on the 1980s and 1990s, and a poignant account of an aspiring writer as he transitions to manhood. Along the way, Gessner pays homage to the sport's pioneers, including Hall of Famers Kenny Dobyns and Steve Moons Mooney, and details classic battles between rival teams. The history of Ultimate may be young compared with basketball and football, but now that it's being considered for inclusion in the 2024 Summer Olympics, it's sure to gain a bigger stage. An important contribution to the history of Ultimatenot a hippie-dippie activity but an exciting sport requiring tremendous athleticism worthy of respect.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)