The Beginning of UVM Women's Ultimate

Winter 1986 I was a sophomore, heading for my first women’s ice hockey practice Friday night. Pete Thomas (Team Chill, and Catamount Acapella singer) intercepted me in Mason and MADE us go to the men’s practice in the indoor track net. He said there were a couple women who arrived in town and wanted to get some UVM women started playing. These women were: Hall of Fame Heather “Morris-Raker” Morris and Gardner Powell. Soon Betty Goodman came up to raise lots of trouble with them. Hall of Fame Chris “Teens” Dunlap also showed up that night or the next coaxed by her Gym Teacher. She was taking Ultimate as her final gym credit senior year... in order to graduate… talk about serendipitous. Teens and I were hooked from that night. The men were awesome and welcoming and helpful. These women were “legends” of ultimate at that time, known nationally.

Heather, Betty and Gardner suggested we should go play at Easterns, UMASS. We went with 6 players strong. Our name was actually “Factory Seconds” and wore Ben and Jerry’s Green Classic cow design shirts that said “Vermont’s Finest” on the back. We got to the tournament, totally fired up, and then even more fired up once we actually saw what a huge deal (and huge party) it was. We instantly got networked into the women’s Boston, D.C., NYC scene because of our mentors, we felt so welcome, truly nurtured, from the start.

We played another tournament that season, and changed our name to “Rod’s and Rocks”. Teens was t come up with a shirt design still but she had the nerve to graduate ON TIME (after 4yrs) and moved away to play with NYC Survival, later known as Godiva. Heather and Gardner moved away, but Betty remained our honorable mentor.

There wasn’t much of a women’s team at that time so I started playing with the men and slowly gathering women to start a team. Becky Kline, started coming to practices and we decided to start a team for real. We designated ourselves captains. She did most of the real work administratively; I did the coaching.

We went to seemingly many tournaments up and down the East coast. We would pick up players when we didn’t have enough women for a team- and often ended up making it to finals, or even winning the tournaments. We even qualified for the first ever women’s Penn State Nationals.

We changed our name again to “Cool Runnings” a nod to our predominant practice and road trip music choice then. Chrissy Pratt (artist and player) designed out shirts. I guess that name stuck for a while.