On This Day, 1983: Melting Pot Won the First Women's Division Title at World Ultimate Championships

On this day (September 3) in 1983, USA's Melting Pot from Boston, Massachusetts, won the first women's division title at World Ultimate Championships (WUC). Four other women's teams competed at WUC tournament which was held in Gothenburg, Sweden, between August 29 through September 3, 1983.

How they entered the tourney as a pick-up team:
"One of the most fun adventures, and one memory I will cherish forever, is the story about how we got to be World Champions in 1983 in Sweden. I contacted the tournament organizers and made it clear that we were not the US Women’s National Team, but there''s a bunch of us women traveling with the (Boson) Rude Boys. Would it be okay if we competed in the tournament? And they said okay. We pulled together 8 women, which is really insane. One woman had never played before, and we picked up a woman from Belgium."

Lessons Learned:
"...From that experience as a leader, what I brought to the table there was if you don't ask, you don't get. So we opened the door to be able to play. And once we got there, you just give it everything you have. At the end of the week we ended up as so-called World Champions."

"if you don't ask, you don't get. So we opened the door to be able to play. And once we got there, you just give it everything you have."

Melting Pot's 8-person roster: Suzanne Fields, Kate Foulke, Mary Johnson, Daphne Rulf, Chris Rushlow, Corinne Corrigan, Patricia Van Halteren (Belgium), Kelly Waugh.

WUC 1983 Champions: Melting Pot [photo via hartti]

Tournament Results:
WUC women's pool play games were played to 10 (the open division played to 15). Melting Pot went (6-0) in the 4-team pool play. The WUC Final was against Finland - who USA beat twice in pool play by the score of 10-8 and 10-6. USA (Melting Pot) would win the WUC championship over Finland by the score of 10-9.

The Boston Rude Boys also went (7-0) at WUC and win the 1983 WUC open division title.


[h/t Bent Ultimate]