Showing posts sorted by relevance for query joel silver. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query joel silver. Sort by date Show all posts

Wednesday, May 18, 2016

Joel Silver Explains His Ultimate History

Joel Silver (producer of the new film The Nice Guys)is an alum of Columbia High School where the first rules of ultimate frisbee were developed.

Quotes from the Coming Soon article [5/18/2016; Silas Lesnick]:

Joel Silver on his contribution to the sport of ultimate:
"I like to say we developed it."

Joel Silver on his inspiration:
"I went one year to Mount Hermon...prep school. One summer, there were a couple guys there from Amherst and Amherst was the location of a place called [The Frisbie Pie Company]. They made these metal pie tins, which is what they first started throwing around there in Massachusetts.... There was kind of a game that they played at Amherst since the '50s that had elements of a kind of run and catch game, which I was taught there that summer. Then I brought it back to my high school."


Joel Silver on how he started ultimate at his high school:
"As a joke one day — because it was a kind of counter culture time — I had raised my hand in my student council and I say, 'I'd like to move that we have a committee to investigate the possibility of bringing frisbee into the high school curriculum.'  I mean, it was a joke. I didn't expect to have a committee to investigate playing frisbee, so we kind of started playing this game and they just had built that parking lot, which is down the street. They decided to light it at night, because they didn't want a dark, empty parking lot there. They lit it all night, so we had a place to go and we'd come at the end of our evening and we'd all collect there and play this kind of game that we started playing."

"It was popular. People would come and hang out and play this game. We'd play in the winter. It was fun and, by the end of that school year, we played the student council."

Joel Silver on writing game rules and naming the game:
To show what the committee did, I decided to put the rules on paper and so we wrote up the rules. There was a game then they used to play that Wham-O had put out called 'Guts Frisbee.' It was the dumbest games in the world. You stand there across from each other and throw the frisbee as hard as you can at the other team. It's called 'Guts Frisbee.' Dumbest game. So when my friend who wrote the rules wrote it, he called it ‘Speed Frisbee’. I said, "You can't call it 'Speed Frisbee'! That's as dumb as Guts Frisbee! Let's call it "Ultimate Frisbee." The Ultimate Frisbee, that's what well call it!" So we typed it up, put it in, submitted it, and that was the game."


RELATED: TMZ Sports asks Joel Silver about ultimate Frisbee


Friday, November 15, 2013

TMZ Conversation with Joel Silver

TMZ Sports caught up with Joel Silver for a 30-second conversation about Ultimate Frisbee. Props to the interviewer who knew his Ultimate history and ESPN's coverage.



Here's a transcription of their cordial conversation.

TMZSports: Is it true you invented Ultimate Frisbee?

Joel Silver: (slight pause) Um, more or less.

TMZS: At Columbia High School?

JS: Yes, I did.

TMZS: How did that happen? Did you kinda...

JS: I mean, it's on the internet. You can read the whole story. But, I mean...it's a long story. But, we kinda put that game together, and, I'm proud of that. I'm proud of that.

TMZS: Every college that has it should erect a statue of you. I love that! I love watching on ESPN...the Championships.

JS: Well, thank you very much.

TMZS: Do you watch it?

JS: Absolutely!

TMZS: Have a good night.

Friday, August 13, 2010

Founding Father

Q&A: Joel Silver [SI . 01.24.06]
Hollywood uber-producer Joel Silver (Lethal Weapon & The Matrix movies) is one of the founders of Ultimate Frisbee.

SI: Where will the sentence: "He was one the founders of ultimate frisbee" appear in your obituary?

Silver: Years ago I read an obit on Donald Duncan of Duncan Yo-Yo's. At the very end of the story it said he also invented the parking meter. I thought that was interesting and as much a significant thing as his Yo-Yo. I'm a filmmaker and I'm proud of the movies I've made. But in the background of my life I was also very involved in the creation of the sport.

SI: In the fall of 1968, at the end of a student council session at Columbia High School in Maplewood, New Jersey, you made an historic resolution, correct?

Silver: I raised my hand and said, "I move that we form a committee to investigate the possibility of introducing Frisbee into the high school curriculum." Everybody laughed. Then somebody said, "OK, on that item, we'll vote for it." And everybody's hand went up. Out of this committee, we ended up making the rules of the game. My [late] friend Buzzy Hellring Jr. wrote the rules. My other friend, Jon Hines, who lives in Russia and works for a big law firm in Moscow, reviewed the notes. Out of that came the first set of rules. At the end of 1968, there was an ultimate game between the high school paper and the student council. That was all in 1968-69, which was my junior year of high school. During the summer of 1969 they put in a parking lot by the school which was lit at night and we ended playing on the parking lot.

SI: How much of this was a revolution against the jocks?

Silver: There was a polarized world in my high school. This was 1970 in South Orange, N.J., which had an upscale school. A guy in the area had written an article in the local paper that said one out of two students at Columbia High was doing drugs. It was a very controversial thing in the community. The Vietnam War was still happening and there was a lot of different groups that were thriving in the school. We just felt that the game could cross over all the groups. I didn't do drugs. A lot of my friends did. But it wasn't like a "Let's get stoned and play frisbee' thing." It was just a way all of these groups could get together and play.

SI: How often does the game come up in your daily life?

Silver: Whenever I would do junkets for a movie, invariably, some journalist would ask me about it because [they saw a story about it] on the Internet. That's why I eventually put in my bio.

SI: You played Frisbee Football at a camp in Mount Hermon, Mass., in the summer of 1967. You were 15. Why did the game stick with you?

Silver: I've thought about that frequently. I always had the ability to throw a frisbee pretty well. I don't why. I swam a little bit in high school but I wasn't a jock. ... I never really was that passionate about playing sports. But when I was at this Mt. Herman school, I did have the ability to throw the frisbee. So when this sport evolved, it was fun because I was good at it. That's probably what got me excited.

SI: There are now an estimated 100,000 frisbee players in more than 40 countries, and a book chronicling the history of the game was just released. Stunning, right?

Silver: You ever see the movie Dreamer? I'm not saying I'm Dakota Fanning. I didn't know the horse would win. But I did feel that it was a cool enough thing. There was a guy, David Leiwant, who was a younger member of our team. I told him once, "See that, David, some day they'll be playing the game all over the world." He said, "Yeah, right". But I really thought it would. It was a kind of anti-establishment game and sport. When we started it at Columbia High School it was a joke. It was a very kind of Mad Magazine quality to it when it started out. We took the security guard at the school and made him our manager. I didn't take it as seriously as people take it today. People are passionate about playing it.

SI: Who have you worked with that would be a good Ultimate player?

Silver: I've never really thought about it like that. Think about an action movie. Most of those guys are the real deal. We were making the Matrix and Larry Wachowski always said to me, "I want Keanu Reeves, Carrie Ann Moss and Hugo Weaving all to know martial arts." I kept saying, "Larry, you want to paint your house, you don't hire an actor and make believe he's a painter. You hire a f------ painter. So let's get stunt guys who can do this." He said, "No, no no. People want to see these people do the stuff themselves". So they trained for five months before the first movie. Anyone of those guys would be an awesome ultimate player. They were incredibly athletic, and they were in incredibly good shape. So would Kristen Bell, who is on my show, Veronica Mars.

SI: When is the last time you actually played Ultimate?

Silver: Many, many years ago. But I have a 4-year-old son. We play every now and then. He's getting better, but he's only 4. He's just starting to throw. It's one of the things we do together. But I don't play the game that much.

SI: Where will Ultimate be 50 years from now?

Silver: Well, I don't think you'll be watching Monday Night Frisbee. It was never in the establishment or the mainstream. But the fact that people are acknowledging it as such, well, I'm really happy people like the game and enjoy playing it.


CHSfrisbee

Friday, December 19, 2008

Scripted History

abcdef
The yarn how Sludge got its name is better, but worth a looksee...
A Parking Lot Game Spread Around the World (Nov 26.08)
How Ultimate Frisbee Began 40 Years Ago

That parking lot in the New Jersey suburb of Maplewood is where the game of Ultimate Frisbee began and this year's game will mark the 40th anniversary of the sport. In a corner of the lot is a weathered metal plaque embedded in a rock that proclaims "Birth Place of Ultimate Frisbee Created by Columbia High School Students in 1968."

"I marvel at it sometimes," said movie producer Joel Silver, who is to Ultimate Frisbee what Abner Doubleday was to baseball. "It's kind of a shock that it's reached such proportions," Silver, better known for his "Matrix," "Lethal Weapon" and "Die Hard" series.

As a Columbia High School student in 1968 and a member of the school's student council, he won a vote, almost as a joke, to have the game declared a club sport. He and a couple of fellow students refined the rules from football's first-down rules to the fast paced free flowing game that has swarmed across hundreds of college campuses and around the world.

Friday, June 21, 2019

On This Day: Ultimate Frisbee Game Was First Publicized

On this day (June 21) in 1969, the sport of ultimate Frisbee was first publicized in a Newark Evening News article. Columbia High School student Joel Silver, contributing as a "Special Writer" for The Newark Evening News, introduced the team game of Frisbee (without ever mentioning it by name) to the people of New Jersey in a story entitled "Frisbee Flippers Form Teams."

From the article:
"There is a new sport at Columbia High School (CHS) in Maplewood-frisbee. Every day, students from the 10th through 12th grades take part in the newly popular game. Though many may consider the sport to be immature, these high school students are joining the thousands of other people in the country who are enjoying the fun and exercise of the game."
The inaugural game played in the springtime between the two CHS teams - the Council (included president of CHS Student Council) versus the Columbian team (sponsored by the CHS newspaper) - was mentioned:
"In the first meeting between the teams, the Columbian team won by an 11-7 margin."
Silver boasts:
"A number of frisbee-ers hold varying degrees in the International Frisbee Association."


The Newark Evening News was an American newspaper published in Newark, New Jersey. At its apex, the newspaper was widely regarded as the newspaper of record in New Jersey. Its last issue was printed on August 31, 1972.


[H/T Ultimate: The First Four Decades]



Wednesday, March 02, 2011

Exclusive: CHS Varsity Photo

CHS UltimateSome new info surfaced over the past weekend about the famous "original" (1969) Columbia High School Varsity Frisbee team...

Who exactly are the adults in the picture?

  • 2nd from left (purple oval) = Listed as "Head Coach" Cono Pavone; Actual = High School janitor
  • Far right (green oval) = Listed as "General Manager" Alexander Osinski; Actual = High School security guard
[Joel Silver, standing, is located on the far left with a black Columbia Varsity Frisbee shirt]


Monday, November 18, 2013

Major League Ultimate on FOX Sports 1

Major League Ultimate was a featured sport on The Jones and Moseley Show, which is . The "JoMo Show" runs on Fox Sports 1 (FS1) - a direct competitor to ESPN - is a sports-oriented cable channel which launched in August 2013.

The November 17 episode of "JoMo Show" featured MLU's Championship game from July 13, 2013. The Jones and Mosley Show, hosted by ex-NFL player Dhani Jones & Olympic gold medalist Jonny Moseley, recapped game footage with concentrated bits of info in the sidebars. Sidebar topics ranged from history, lingo, specific professional ultimate rules to random factoids. See below...

The History

Flying Disc Creation: 1938. Walter Morrison. Invented after tossing a cake pan back and forth with his wife.
Actually, it was a popcorn tin lid that the Morrisons flung.
Invention of the Rules: 1968. Joel Silver. Developed the rules at Columbia High School in Maplewood, NJ.
1st Intercollegiate Game: November 6, 1972. Rutgers University vs. Princeton University
November 6, 1972: Was also the 103rd anniversary of the 1st organized football game. Which was also played by Princeton and Rutgers.

The Inside Info / Game
Play: Player can advance disc by throwing complete pass, or Tipping disc without the disc first touching the ground.
Average game score is 15 points.
MLU games are officiated, opposite of many other self officiated leagues.
If a Frisbee is thrown out of bounds, the in-bounding player must touch the ground with the disc before throwing it back in.

The Lingo
"Invalid Pass": When player hands off pass without throwing the pass.
"Marking": Guarding the thrower within 10 feet of the thrower's pivot spot.
"Stall Count": 7 seconds permitted to the thrower before they must release the disc.

The Rules
Back Pass: If the goalie picks up the ball after receiving a back pass from a teammate, their opponent is awarded a penalty kick.
THERE IS NO GOALIE nor BALL IN ULTIMATE!!! Wrong sport...soccer.
General Manager: Jeff Snader. 2012 Philadelphia Spinners split from the American Ultimate Disc League. Created the MLU.
Snader wasn't just the GM of the 2012 Spinners, he was the owner & coach.

The Inside Info / Popularity
Participants: Almost 5 million people participate in Ultimate Frisbee in the US alone.
Popularity: Over 7 million players in 80 countries.

The Inside Info / Random
World Event: MLU has yet to be entered into the Olympics. Has been a medal earning sport at the World Games since 2011.
Er, Flying Disc (Ultimate); not MLU.
Distance: In one match, some players run 5+ miles.
Seems like a lot of running! Data source?
175 Gram Frisbee Weighs the Same as: 3 tennis balls. 70 pennies. 310 goose feathers.
Awesome!

Thursday, November 22, 2018

Maplewood, NJ Proclamation Honors the 50th Anniversary of Ultimate Frisbee

The township of Maplewood, New Jersey, honors the 50th anniversary of Ultimate Frisbee with a proclamation declaring November 22 and 23 as "Ultimate Days."

Maplewood, NJ proclamation [photo via The Village Green]

Whereas, in 1968 Columbia High School student Joel Silver introduced to the student council the idea of (Ultimate) Frisbee.

Mayor Victor De Luca declares November 22nd and 23rd as Ultimate Days in the Township of Maplewood.


Wednesday, June 01, 2016

Do Over: May 2016

Catch up on last month's noteworthy posts you may have missed...


  • Playing ultimate is healthy
  • Joel Silver ultimate historian
  • COMING IN 2017: Indoor ultimate presented by USA Ultimate
  • Ultimate beer label


  • Thursday, February 09, 2012

    This is the Ultimate Game

    A young Jared Kass
    As an an Amherst College student in the late 60's, Jared Kass would frequently play a team game with a Frisbee on campus. Kass was also a camp counselor at Mount Hermon Summer School (MHSS) in 1968 where they offered "Recreational Activities". Included were touch frisbee, tackle frisbee, water frisbee, one-handed frisbee, one-legged frisbee, three-legged frisbee, frisbee basketball, frisbee roulette, and strip frisbee - obviously many experimental games with the Frisbee. One notable MHSS camper was a Columbia (NJ) High School student -- Joel Silver.

    Per Kass "I remember one time running for a pass and leaping up in the air and feeling the Frisbee making it into my hand and feeling the perfect synchrony and the joy of the moment, and as I landed I uttered to myself, 'This is the ultimate game. This is the ultimate game.'"

    SOURCE: "Ultimate: The First Four Decades"

    Updated Photo via UPA Newsletter, winter 2003:

    Tuesday, December 23, 2014

    What is Ultimate Frisbee

    Describing the sport of Ultimate continues...

    Via the Diamondback (December 5, 2014)
    Ultimate is a hybrid game, combining aspects of football, soccer and basketball. It's not uncommon for players to have some sort of background in one of the three.

    "It's the same amount of running as soccer, you're playing on a football field, and when you have the disc in your hands, it's essentially like picking up your dribble in basketball," said Max Katz, a junior community health major who played soccer growing up.

    "It's basically the same as Glee where they have Sectionals, Regionals and Nationals,"


    Via AllAfrica (December 10, 2014)
    "Frisbee is very easy to learn to play. It can also be played anywhere, including beaches, so a ground is not a problem at all."


    Via Los Angeles Times (November 22, 2012)

    When kids square off in ultimate Frisbee, the emphasis is on giggles and grins, not winning at all costs.

    ultimate Frisbee — essentially football with a plastic disc — is now played competitively at 400 colleges. Of all people, producer Joel Silver is credited with inventing it back at his New Jersey high school in the '70s.

    ...ultimate Frisbee, this breezy new sport with that troubling sense of mirth.

    Zoe Towne on how ultimate is played: "There's a real simple explanation. You try to get it to the other end without dropping it."

    ...Ultimate Frisbee is ultimately about having fun.

    Wednesday, July 24, 2013

    The Ultimate Sport's "Conception"

    Move over Joel Silver. Step aside Columbia High School. Based on a recent posting, Jared Kass does not take credit for naming the sport, but Kass does think he invented the basics rule for Ultimate.

    William (Willie) Herndon sums up Ultimate's origins with: "The sport was conceived at Amherst, its DNA more or less complete, gestated at Northfield Mount Hermon, and birthed at Columbia High School."


    Monday, October 24, 2011

    Signature Trophy


    The winner between the annual Ultimate game between Seton Hall vs Columbia High School received an autographed disc by Ultimate Frisbee's founding father (& Hollywood movie producer) Joel Silver.

    Wednesday, December 28, 2016

    Do Over: Ultimate in 2016

    The 2016 calendar year was a busy 12 months! Here are some memorable moments:       [in no particular order]

    ++++++
    Greatest Trick Play Not Designed as a Trick Play: Philadelphia Spinners
    First weekend of the 2016 MLU season (April 11) and the highlight of the year occurred. Lots of people took notice, too!  The stat book would simply report Nick Hirannet to Himalaya Mehta for the goal, but soooo much more happened.


    Runner up: Joel Schlachet (Team USA @ 2016 Worlds)

    ++++++
    Ultimate Highlights to Watch Again & Again:
    Jenny Wei (All-Star Ultimate Tour)
    Marisa Rafter (UC Berkeley Pie Queens )
    Callahan video submission

    Josh Markette (Boston Ironside)
    Cricket's snag of a wobbly disc (tipped dump from Jeff Graham) an inch off the turf and then forehand assist.
    ++++++

    Team of the year: USA's Ultimate Nationals Teams
    Team USA was dominant with a (62-1) record in 2016 racking up 6 gold medals and 1 silver.

    Honorable Mentions:
    Boston - Slow White, Ironside & Brute Squad - club championship sweep.

    2016 AUDL champion Dallas Roughnecks that went (17-0) in the season.

    ++++++
    Jersey of the Year: Atlanta Hustle (AUDL) alternate jersey
    For the 2016 season, the Hustle wore a purple top and a white top until its last regular season game. An alternate jersey - blood orange on top and black on the bottom with HUSTLE across the chest - was made and kept as a secret until a big game - a 1-point Atlanta victory in their season finale versus Jacksonville.

    ATL's "ALT jersey (right)

    ++++++
    Best Experiment: @being_ulti twitter
    A simple mission with a lots of personality which started in June 2016. It's a twitter account that gets taken over by a different person every week as a way to showcase those that play ultimate.

    ++++++

    Neatest Innovation for the Ulti Community: 
    1) The Mixed Division Spirit Awards
    The idea was inspired by Seattle Mixtape to recognize players from the mixed division who exhibited personal responsibility, integrity, and selfless contribution to Ultimate, combined with a high standard of playing ability - just like the annual awards given by USAU in the men's and women's divisions.
    Winners:
    Allysha Dixon (Philadelphia AMP) and David Protter (Love Tractor)

    2) Team reference webpages by Ultiworld

    3) Scoring/shot map chart by MLU/William Curb

    4) USAU publishing post-tournament results with team seeding.

    ++++++

    Coolest Infographics: openbracket(ultimate)
    This uniform design company has been crafting WUGC tourney outcomes in an appealing manner.
    Mixed Division: Assists + Goals
    Spirit of the Game scores
    & more

    ++++++

    Trending: Ultimate players on Jeopardy.
    Answer: Who is Doug Behrend?
    Answer: Who is Cindy Stowell?

    ++++++

    Best Exhibition Ultimate Games
    [March 2016] "Futures" Game by Bama Secs in Atlanta

    [Summer 2016] All-Star Ultimate Tour 2016

    [October 2016] Off-season friendly between Iris vs Brute Squad

    [April 2016] Women's All-Star Game in Cincinnati

    [April 2016] Bay Area Women's Ultimate All-Star Game

    [June 2016] Boston Area Women's All-Star Game

    ++++++

    Best ultimate games: Seattle Riot vs San Francisco Fury 
    October 2016: An(other) "instant classic" between two storied club ultimate teams during the semi-final at 2016 USA Ultimate Nationals: Riot versus Fury.

    May 2016: Team Canada vs Team USA tune-up at Torneo Eterna Primavera from Colombia finals. The game was streamed via Facebook by Beau Kittredge.

    June 2016: The New York Empire-DC Breeze games during the American Ultimate Disc League regular season were all amazing. This double OT thriller from the summer stands out.

    ++++++

    Best Roster Pic: Ross Ward (New York Empire)

    ++++++
    Weirdest Victory: Washington D.C. Current & Boston Whitecaps (MLU)
    D.C. Current went on the road to play a night game at Boston. The Current did not play their June 11th game against Boston Whitecaps; they never even made it to Boston. Yet both teams still managed to earn a win.


    Per the MLU: "The game will not be re-scheduled, and both teams will award a win instead, moving the Whitecaps to 7-2 and the D.C. Current to 3-5 on the season."

    ++++++

    Most Athletic Feat: Khalif El-Salaam
    Running from sideline to sideline (40 yards)...on his knees. My knees have threatened to go on strike if I ever pull a stunt like this.



    ++++++

    Best in-print forms of Ultimate 
    Ultimate Outsider novel by Alexander Rummelhart
    "Skyd" (magazine) by Skyd Magazine
    Fast Count! children's book by Hechter/Neugeboren

    ++++++

    Best Films on Ultimate: All-Star Tour Documentary
    All-Star Ultimate Tour: The Documentary by Alex Axworthy covers the inaugural 2015 tour and its effect on the players and the tour's impact in the ultimate community.

    Honorable Mentions:
    Bad Lip Reading by Chicago Machine
    Fulcrum's coverage of Women's Division at Club Nationals
    Flatball - a History of Ultimate Frisbee

    ++++++

    Persons to be given a round of applause that crescendos into a standing ovation.

    Qxhna Titcomb
    As the founder and creator of the successful All-Star Ultimate Tour, Qxhna is a charismatic leader. She's someone whose passion, energy and intelligence are poured into every project she is involved with. The ulti community is better because of her work on and off the ultimate field.

    Isaac Saul
    Isaac is a reporter and journalist who covers politics (an important job I would never want). Isaac played on Pittsburgh Thunderbirds (AUDL) and New York PoNY in the 2016 seasons. He's known for his o-line knack on the ultimate field while showing deft skills in his career. His A Plus posts are a refreshing take on the world, while his Twitter account is a public arena where he regularly defends facts, his opinions, his profession, his background, and - when necessary - the sport of ultimate.

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