Missing the “Sex Signals” Essential NU was the best thing to happen to me freshman year. Granted, it was a mistake; I confused Ryan Auditorium in Tech with McCormick Auditorium in Norris and ended up in the wrong Brutalist building. Today, missing a Wildcat Welcome Week activity seems inconsequential. But as a freshman, I wanted to believe that I knew what was going on and blend into the crowd and this shattered those hopes. To make matters worse, earlier that day a suited administrator described the punishment for absence from an Essential NU — an afternoon detained in an academic building listening to a private lecture with other miscreants.
After asking an upperclassman for directions to Tech, I set off along the lagoon past concrete colossuses in hope of finding my PA group. I wandered, overwhelmed by the landscape and wondering how to distinguish my destination from the other concrete-and-iron buildings unfolding in front of me.
As I rounded a shrub toward the Tech parking lot, I nearly ran into a pack of guys who looked neither lost nor like freshmen. They all held frisbees. After I nervously inquired about how to get to Tech, the three of them asked if I had any interest in playing ultimate. I jumped at their question. In high school, I had been a relatively successful ultimate player and came to NU hoping to play regularly while not let sports get in the way of my studies. They took an interest in me and, after days of only being asked the five questions (name/hometown/dorm/major/extracurriculars), I treasured this genuine conversation. I never made that Essential NU up (sorry administration, but I already graduated), but that day I stumbled upon something more essential to my NU experience.
Over the next three years, ultimate dominated my college life. Weeknight trips to the Keg or library lost out to SPAC or the Lakeside Stadium. Every weekend, we visited a different sleepy town for a tournament. Many peers see the Midwest outside of Chicagoland only from interstates or airplanes. From frisbee, I got a three-year tour of the heartland through overcrowded hotel rooms, all-you-can-eat buffets and cornfields converted to soccer complexes. Unfortunately, though, it may be the single worst place on earth to play ultimate. When I complained about the gale-force winds, downpours and hand-numbing cold that ruined tournaments and practices with frustrating frequency, my friends told me to focus on grades, go out and have fun or do something worthwhile.
At the end of my sophomore year, after playing frisbee full-time for two years, I was named captain of the ultimate team. At the same time, I also joined GlobeMed and the Freshman Urban Program, groups that let me explore my interests in global health and social justice. I straddled two Northwestern worlds: by day, I would lead discussions on ethics and design health education curricula; by night, I would organize practices and deliver pump up speeches saturated with expletives. Even though I had more in common with my friends in the social activism community than my teammates, the former never understood the value of my involvement with the latter. On one occasion this year, a close friend called my involvement with the ultimate team “the lost years."
It's easy to see playing frisbee as worthless in comparison to devoting oneself to activism, climbing organizational hierarchies or studying. Club sports don’t improve the lives of others. Nor do they open doors to prestige and power. But as a freshman, I didn’t need to set myself up for success: I needed to have a community that accepted me without an agenda to mold me into their vision as an academic, activist or leader. I needed space to figure out what I was trying to get out of my college experience. I needed camaraderie and support. I needed a frisbee team. Many of my peers came into college with a plan to join a group and work up through the ranks. In the process, they immersed themselves so deeply in their culture of choice that they missed the forest for the trees. Freshman year, I needed to decide which forest to explore.
At the end of my junior year, my knees worn out and my schedule overrun with work for GlobeMed, I decided to quit the ultimate team. But this is a not a rebuke of my involvement with the team; never will I refer to this detour from the achievement rat race as lost time. As I walk away from Northwestern, I will be reminded of my time on the ultimate team by a slight limp and a sense of peace.