20 Years of Riverside
by Brian Nilson
“Let’s play Frisbee” has been the call for two decades of lunch time Riverside Ultimate. The Riverside lunch game began in the spring of 1989. A group of guys who worked together at Lichliter Jameson Engineering (and assorted friends and associates) began playing Ultimate every Tuesday and Thursday at noon. The lunch time diversion soon became an obsession. Co-workers knew not to plan anything that would interfere with our “Frisbee days” and if they did they were appropriately chastised! Our office was near Auditorium Shores on Riverside Drive and that was our field.
Sean Douglass had played in high school and provided us with the basics of the game. The play was “rough” to say the least. Hucks ruled the day, stall counts were an unknown and defense was…well…lacking. It was great fun.
Our numbers were small, most of the time we played 3 on 3, 4 on 4 maybe 5 on 5. There where many 2 on 2 games! We were always trying to recruit new players. Some days it was a struggle get numbers. This started to change when summer league started. Most of us signed up to play summer league and ended up on various teams. The subject of where we played invariably came up and we all extolled the virtues of our lunch time game and encouraged people to join us. Much of the arm twisting took place at the summer league after game parking lot sessions. These cool down sessions started out small but grew over time, some lasting until the early morning hours, fueled by cold beverages. The “Sinatra Sessions” were some of the most memorable.
Several years into our existence, Jim Martinez joined our group. He had been playing regularly with the IBM group and he arranged a scrimmage with them so they could tune up for Centex. We did fairly well in the scrimmage and decided we wanted to be involved in tournament play. It took several years of tournament play before we had a victory but we had a wonderful time trying. The same spirit that made the lunch time game special, that everyone was welcome to play Riverside, was applied to the early tournament teams. Maybe not the best recipe for success if your definition of success was wins but definitely a great plan if the goal was to have a good time with good people.
The lunch game has spawned several competitive club teams including the current Riverside club team, Messengers of Truth and several masters’ teams. (See more pictures in Debra Fulton's gallery)
In March, Riverside celebrated its 20th anniversary with a BBQ get together graciously hosted by John and Dee Houck at their disc golf ranch near Wimberley. Riverside also has its beer in hand game every year between Christmas and New Years. It’s a great time to catch up with many of the former players who have moved from the Austin area but are back in town for the holidays. It has become a “can’t miss” event for the Riverside crowd and this year was used as a fund raiser for the east side YMCA.
Over the last 20 years I have played Ultimate with literally hundreds of different people at our lunch time games. Some have played the noon game for years, some were just passing through, but all were welcome. It has truly been a joy to be associated with the community of friends called Riverside.
Life for Ultimate..Ultimate for Life.
