How a seven-kid experiment became a state championship program — and why it keeps growing.
The score was 12-12. One play remaining. Eighth grader Sam Randall was cutting hard into the end zone when an opposing player leapt and swatted the disc clear of his hands.
He landed. He sprinted. He dove.
He caught it.
“We won that game,” Sam says, “and I was really, really happy.”
But the most remarkable thing about that moment — and about every moment in Ultimate Frisbee — had nothing to do with the catch. There was no referee on that field. No whistle. No adult adjudicating what was in bounds or out, fair or foul. Here, the players govern themselves. And if you want to understand how a program that began with seven middle schoolers on a local field has grown into a multi-division organization with state championships, national tournament appearances and a brand-new girls team, that detail is where the story starts.
Building From Nothing on Purpose
Michael-John van Rhyn launched the middle school program in 2018 for the most straightforward of reasons: his seventh-grade son wanted to play and there was no team to join.
“We looked all over, couldn’t find one,” van Rhyn says. “So I said to him, if you’d like to start one, we can start one. He gathered a couple of his friends together and we had about seven kids and we practiced right here on the field.”
What followed was the kind of organic growth that youth sports administrators spend careers trying to manufacture. High school players began volunteering as coaches. When those same middle schoolers reached high school, they returned to do the same for the next wave. The cycle quietly reinforced itself, season after season.
Today, Montclair Ultimate encompasses elementary school clinics, multiple middle and high school teams, a newly formed girls program and a Saturday adult pickup league at Anderson Park. Residency is not required for any of it.
Why It Sticks
Ask the families who make up this program what keeps them coming back and almost none of them reach for winning as their first answer.
Sam is one of three Randall siblings in the program. Their father, John, has watched his kids compete across a range of Montclair sports, and he frames the difference carefully.
“The vibe here is really great and the kids really build each other up, the coaches build each other up,” he says. “They have meetings after the games where they talk about what worked well and what didn’t and compliment each other. It’s a really great sport to have discovered for our family.”
That culture is not an accident of coaching philosophy. It is encoded into the sport’s DNA. Ultimate was invented at Columbia High School in Maplewood in the late 1960s — just across Essex County — by students who wanted to create what they saw as a perfect sport. The founding premise: no external authority, no referees, no adults making calls. Players settle disputes themselves, on the field, in real time. That principle has a formal name, nearly six decades later, that every Ultimate player knows: the Spirit of the Game.
“The kids that started it wanted to create what they considered the perfect sport,” van Rhyn says. “The idea was, we don’t want someone else telling us what’s in, what’s out, what’s right, what’s wrong. We want to be in charge of it ourselves.”
This is not incidental to the program’s growth in Montclair. At a moment when youth sports participation nationally has been declining — squeezed by cost, specialization pressure and burnout — Ultimate offers something structurally different. No expensive equipment. No prior experience required. No gatekeeping.
Seventh grader Mazie Ofran arrived knowing very little.
“I didn’t realize it was an actual sport,” she says. “If you join, you don’t even have to know how to throw a frisbee. You just need to have the effort. I could barely run a couple steps without wheezing last season, but now I can run distances with more stamina.”
Her mother, Becky, played Ultimate in college and recognized immediately what her daughter was stepping into. “Ultimate is a great option for kids who maybe haven’t felt like they fit into some other sports,” she says. “Even if you don’t know how to throw, you can learn. If you don’t know the plays, you can learn. And it’s just really fun.”
A Girls Team, a First Season, a State Award
This past spring, Montclair fielded its first high school girls team — open to high school girls and non-binary players — and Mazie was among those building it from scratch.
“When we all started, there was one girl who had four years of experience, a couple girls who had never ever played or touched a frisbee before,” she says. “So it was fun to mesh.”
That first-year team made it to the state championship. They did not take home a title. They took home something the program may value more.
“They did win something that was amazing,” van Rhyn says, “which was the Spirit of the Game Award.”
The Spirit of the Game Award is not handed down by officials. It is voted on by opposing teams — a recognition not of scoring, but of how a team conducts itself when no one is blowing a whistle. For a brand-new program to win it in its inaugural season says something about what this community has built, and what it is passing on.
The program is currently seeking a head coach for the girls team. Details are at montclairultimate.org.
How to Get Involved With Montclair Ultimate Frisbee
Summer camps are open now for grades three through nine. Fall season registration is live. The program is open to players throughout the region — Montclair residency is not required. All information is at montclairultimate.org or by calling (973) 370-2203. Adult pickup runs every Saturday at Anderson Park.
Image Credit: Montclair Ultimate
