ULTIMATE ACHIEVEMENT.

Byline: Matt Cooper The Register-Guard

For most of us, a Frisbee means a lazy game of catch on a hot summer day.

For Ben Wiggins and Chelsea Dengler, however, it means a go-for-broke sport that causes calluses, cramps, even concussions - and they relish every second of it.

Wiggins, 23, and Dengler, 21, play Ultimate for the men's and women's club teams at the University of Oregon.

The emerging sport is played with a Frisbee on what roughly resembles a football field, and you can make a case that these longtime friends from Corvallis play it better than any college kid in the country because they've got the hardware to prove it.

Wiggins and Dengler were just named the 2003 winners of the Callahan Award - that's like the Heisman Trophy for college Ultimate players and it's named, incidentally, for the young man who founded the UO's team in the late 1970s.

What it means to Wiggins and Dengler is that, from coast to coast, opponents voted them the most skilled - and most sportsmanlike - players around.

"I found out from my mom on the telephone," said Dengler, a compact junior with close-cropped brown hair. "I actually started crying."

If you're wondering by now whether you've seen Ultimate, you probably have: Picture 14 people on a soccer or football field - seven on seven - running like mad after a thrown Frisbee, each trying to catch it in the other's end zone.

More than 100,000 people play around the world, at least half of them in the United States, said Will Deaver of the Boulder, Colo.-based Ultimate Players Association.

It's in all the big cities, college campuses and in more and more high schools - Seattle, in fact, boasts a middle school league, Deaver said, and 20 to 25 teams play in Eugene's year-round city league.

"I wouldn't say that most people" know Ultimate, Deaver said. "You go to a college campus, and people know. You go to a city like Boulder or other college towns, and people know. You go to the Deep South, where football is what it's about, and people probably don't know."

Around Eugene, though, Wiggins is one reason that young people know.

Wiggins, whose goatee and glasses give him a hipster-professor look, coaches Ultimate and has organized a clinic for younger players. He's quick to tout what he believes are the game's strengths, including the fact that there are no referees - players police themselves and are expected to work out disagreements with opponents.

"Every other game I've played, it's always, `It would have been a good game except for the ref,' ' Wiggins said. "When everybody's a ref, there's no point to cheat."

Maybe the kids in Maplewood, N.J., who dreamed the game up in 1968 had that in mind.

As Deaver tells it, they were high school students who didn't play traditional sports. One of the first games, played in a parking lot, pitted the student council against a publications club.

The game spread from there, and because it revolves around a Frisbee, it came to be associated with the hippie crowd. "Anything you do with a Frisbee was related to being laid back and the hippie culture," Deaver said.

Today's players may have nothing in common with their patchouli-wearing predecessors, but an element of carefree independence survives: Men often take the field in skirts, dresses or even tutus, costumes are commonplace and on more than one occasion, players have matched up wearing nothing but cleats.

"I saw a guy that played with an oven mitt" on one hand, said Nic Porter, who helps organize Ultimate in Eugene. "When you're doing that, you can't help but take yourself a little less seriously."

Porter, 30, migrated to the sport after lackluster ventures into high school soccer and tennis. Others, like Wiggins, were schoolboy standouts in traditional sports but found their passion chasing after a round piece of plastic.

Wiggins and Dengler displayed that passion Wednesday, during city-league games at South Eugene High School.

Ultimate is all running - cuts, turn-backs and explosive sprints down the sideline. You beat your defender, you get open, your teammate chucks you the disc.

But Wiggins played at a veteran's slower pace, hanging back, moving his team methodically forward like a quarterback ... then casually uncorking a 40-yard throw that ended with a score.

Dengler, by comparison, was all over the field: Cat-quick, she cut back sharply, then burst ahead at a dead run to lose a taller defender. It worked; a throw was lofted to one corner and Dengler launched herself after it, diving forward as if a backyard pool awaited her.

It's called a "layout," and it's the gold standard in Ultimate. The game is far from injury-free - Wiggins and Dengler said they've suffered 10 serious concussions between them - but nothing ignites crowds and teammates quicker than a player willing to sacrifice life and limb for the disc.

On this occasion, Dengler came up empty: She landed in a heap, the disc just beyond her fingers. Then she picked herself up, muttering something about not doing that again.

But she will, of course. She's a Callahan winner.

"There's absolutely no self-preservation in this game," Wiggins said.

"That's why Wiggins and I exist in this game," Dengler added, smiling.

EUGENE ULTIMATE

City league: Eugene runs Ultimate leagues year-round; cost is $15 to $30 per individual or $195 per team. Call 682-5409.

University: Students at the UO can learn more by calling the club sports office at 346-3733.

Tournament: Eugene will host 40 teams for the 25th annual Summer Solstice tournament, June 21 and 22 at Monroe Middle School, 2800 Bailey Lane. For more information, call 484-5011.

CAPTION(S):

University of Oregon Ultimate Frisbee players Chelsea Dengler (bottom) and Ben Wiggins are the 2003 Callahan Award winners. Frisbee: Players go all out to compete Continued from Page A1 Please turn to FRISBEE, Page A12 Dengler (left) and Wiggins excel in Ultimate Frisbee, created in 1968. R e c r e a t i o n