DISC PLAYERS LIKE THE SOUND OF HAVING FUN.

Byline: Jim Feehan The Register-Guard

They weren't playing football or soccer at the Monroe Middle School field on Saturday. The athletes running up and down the field were engaged in a sport that's a little bit football and a little bit soccer - only without the contact, expensive equipment, trash-talk and even referees.

It was Ultimate Frisbee that drew 38 teams and about 500 people from around the western United States to Eugene this weekend for one of the largest Ultimate tournaments in the Pacific Northwest.

The 25th annual Summer Solstice Celebration Tournament was hosted by Dark Star, a Eugene men's Ultimate team. It's a prestigious event and carries a price tag to match. Most Ultimate tournaments require an entrance fee of $125 to $250. To get into the Solstice Celebration Tournament, teams paid $300.

Nic Porter, 30, the tournament director, took up the sport 10 years ago when he was a student at North Carolina State University. For the past five years he has been playing in Eugene, most recently for Dark Star.

The exercise and the camaraderie is what draws people to Ultimate, he said.

"There is nothing like a well-thrown spiral, much like a quarterback; it's simply a thing of beauty," Porter said just before his team played Mass Transient of Seattle.

Regardless of the level of competition, Ultimate players say the "spirit of the game" makes the sport alluring. The spirit refers to the focus on sportsmanship and the fact there are no referees in Ultimate, said Cedar McKay, 26, a molecular biotechnician at the University of Washington and a member of Mass Transient.

"We all do this because we love it," McKay said.

The sport is among the cheapest games in town, all you need is a Frisbee and something to mark boundaries, usually miniature traffic cones, said Deb Cussen, 26, captain of Seattle Riot, the world champion women's elite team.

The team's rigorous 40-hour a week training regimen of running on a track and practicing three times a week is the key to Riot's success, Cussen said. That's on top of the 40-hour a week jobs team members put in at such companies as Microsoft and Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, she said.

"The sport combines strength, speed, endurance and skill," Cussen said. "It's just plain fun."

Teams competed on fields at Monroe and Roosevelt middle schools, the south bank fields near Autzen Stadium and Amazon bike path fields. A juniors division, comprised of high school athletes, competed at Sheldon High School. The tournament concludes today at Monroe Middle School with championship games in the elite, open and junior divisions.

CAPTION(S):

Seattle Riot's Kathy Scott congratulates a teammate.