While the Saluki football team tossed the pigskin Saturday afternoon, Full Tilt was tossing Frisbees.

Fifteen club teams from Illinois, Indiana and Missouri came to Carbondale for two days of Ultimate Frisbee, in the 2nd Annual SO ILL tournament hosted by Full Tilt, SIUC’s Ultimate Frisbee club team, hosted the tournament.

The friendly SIU confines didn’t translate into a victory for the SIU team.

Advertisement

Full Tilt finished in fifth place at the tournament with Hysteria from Western Illinois University finishing first. The two teams will meet again at Western for another tournament in two weeks.

Blake Brown, a sophomore from Belleville studying dietetics, said that even though Full Tilt didn’t do as well as expected, the tournament was a success.

“The competition was stiff but awesome,” Brown said.

Full Tilt began at SIUC about five years ago, with a core group of eight people that has now grown to 36.

Justin Vaugh, a senior from Eddyville studying civil engineering and a player for Full Tilt, said the team began when a player for the club team of Western Illinois University transferred to SIUC, bringing the sport along.

“It’s not like baseball or football where you play one position and that’s it,” Vaugh said. “You’ve got to be able to play everything.”

Ultimate is played with two teams consisting of seven players each. It is an entirely non-contact sport and is played on the basis of self-refereeing. With this aspect, players are responsible for their own foul calls and to resolve their own disputes.

Advertisement*

“We just go by the honor system,” Vaugh said.

Ultimate combines aspects of many popular sports, including football and soccer and focuses entirely on teamwork – a player cannot run with the flying disc so they must constantly work together in order to score a point.

As a club team, Full Tilt receives little funding from the university, so in order to fund the tournament, each team paid a fee to play. To cover the rest of the expenses, the team collects club dues and sells t-shirts and flying discs at games.

“This year we’ve really picked it up,” Vaugh said. “We got a lot of new recruits.”

Ultimate Frisbee, though it’s only been around for about 30 years, is now played in more than 42 countries.

“In my opinion, it’s one of the fastest growing sports,” Vaugh said.

Daily Egyptian writer Madeleine Leroux can be reached at 536-3311 ext. 254 or [email protected].