Ultimate Frisbee

It's changed quite a bit since its beginnings. The game went from being very loosely structured to one that now has international associations and is taught in schools at all levels.

There are men's and women's teams as well as co-ed teams. In some cases at the high levels, they actually use 'observers,' which are basically referees. That's been a big change. The point system has also changed and is sort of inconsistent, depending on where you play. The rules also differ between the Canadian, American and world associations.

I started playing the game myself in 1997. At that time, a lot of people were arguing about whether or not soccer or baseball cleats were the best shoes to wear for Ultimate Frisbee. Our company decided to use the best aspects of all the other shoes that people liked in order to come up with our own shoe, specific to Ultimate Frisbee, and that's how it started. It's much like in the game of Squash - it has its own shoe, so we thought Ultimate Frisbee should too.

I liked that the game has etiquette similar to golf. The fact that you can play without referees, which is how most people play the game, and not have everyone arguing the entire time was what was most amazing to me. Having a referee or observer changes things in the way that you'd expect - people try to get away with a lot more things, rather than soul searching to decide who was at fault. At a high level, when there are spectators, having an observer is helpful because people will argue more about the rules should be interpreted, and the referee speeds up that process.