Bernard "Buzzy" Hellring was a co-creator of Ultimate Frisbee. [1] Along with Joel Silver and Johnny Hines, Hellring created ultimate in the parking lot of Columbia High School in Maplewood, New Jersey. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] and subsequently codified the rules of the sport. [7] [8]
Hellring was the son of Bernard Hellring, an attorney and New Jersey Commissioner of Uniform State Law and Sally Horner Hellring of South Orange, New Jersey., [9] [10] part of the South Orange-Maplewood School District.
Hellring died in 1971, in an auto accident at Princeton University. [11] [12] He was elected posthumously into the Ultimate Hall of Fame. [13]
After his death, funds were raised to fulfill his dream of producing the high school newspaper he edited as an in-house daily, through purchase of a large Heidelberg printing press. This press was sold sometime in the late 1990s as traditional printing arts were replaced by computer-based technologies in the school's curricula.
A frisbee, also called a flying disc or simply a disc, is a gliding toy or sporting item that is generally made of injection-molded plastic and roughly 8 to 10 inches in diameter with a pronounced lip. It is used recreationally and competitively for throwing and catching, as in flying disc games. The shape of the disc is an airfoil in cross-section which allows it to fly by reducing the drag and increasing lift as it moves through the air, compared to a flat plate. Spinning the disc imparts a stabilizing gyroscopic force, allowing it to be both aimed with accuracy and thrown for distance.
Ultimate, originally known as ultimate Frisbee, is a non-contact team game played by players with a flying disc, flung by human. Ultimate was developed in 1968 by a group of students at Columbia High School in Maplewood, New Jersey. Although ultimate resembles many traditional sports in its athletic requirements, it is unlike most sports due to its focus on self-officiating, even at the highest levels of competition. The term Frisbee, often used to generically describe all flying discs, is a registered trademark of the Wham-O toy company, and thus the sport is not formally called "ultimate Frisbee", though this name is still in common casual use. Points are scored by passing the disc to a teammate in the opposing end zone. Other basic rules are that players must not take steps while holding the disc, and interceptions, incomplete passes, and passes out of bounds are turnovers. Rain, wind, or occasionally other adversities can make for a testing match with rapid turnovers, heightening the pressure of play.
Maplewood is a township in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2020 United States Census, the township's population was 25,684. As of the 2010 United States Census, the township's population was 23,867, reflecting a decline of 1 person (0.0%) from the 23,868 counted in the 2000 Census, which had in turn increased by 2,216 (+10.2%) from the 21,652 counted in the 1990 Census.
Amateur sports are sports in which participants engage largely or entirely without remuneration. The distinction is made between amateur sporting participants and professional sporting participants, who are paid for the time they spend competing and training. In the majority of sports which feature professional players, the professionals will participate at a higher standard of play than amateur competitors, as they can train full-time without the stress of having another job. The majority of worldwide sporting participants are amateurs.
USA Ultimate is a not-for-profit organization that serves as the governing body of the sport of ultimate in the United States.
Joel Silver is an American film producer.
The World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF) is the international governing body for flying disc (Frisbee) sports, with responsibility for sanctioning world championship events, establishing uniform rules, setting of standards for and recording of world records. WFDF is a federation of member associations which represent flying disc sports and their athletes in 100 countries. WFDF is an international federation recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), a member of the Association of IOC Recognised International Sports Federations (ARISF), GAISF, and the International World Games Association (IWGA), and it is a registered not-for-profit 501(c)(3) corporation in the state of Colorado, U.S.
Sports in Canada consist of a wide variety of games. The roots of organized sports in Canada date back to the 1770s, culminating in the development and popularization of the major professional games of ice hockey, lacrosse, basketball, baseball, and football. Canada's official national sports are ice hockey and lacrosse. Golf, soccer, baseball, tennis, skiing, ringette, badminton, volleyball, cycling, swimming, bowling, rugby union, canoeing, equestrian, squash, and the study of martial arts are widely enjoyed at the youth and amateur levels. Great achievements in Canadian sports are recognized by Canada's Sports Hall of Fame, while the Lou Marsh Trophy is awarded annually to Canada's top athlete by a panel of journalists. There are numerous other Sports Halls of Fame in Canada.
Sports are an important part of culture in the United States of America. Historically, the national sport has been baseball. More recently over the past several decades, American football has been the most popular sport in terms of broadcast viewership audience. Basketball has grown into the mainstream American sports scene since the 1980s, with ice hockey and soccer doing the same around the turn of the 21st century. These sports comprise the "Big Five" spectator sports in the U.S.; while soccer is left out of what is known as the "Big Four." In the first half of the 20th century, boxing and collegiate football where among the most popular sports after baseball. Golf, tennis, and collegiate baseketball are other spectator sports with longstanding popularity. Most recently, Mixed martial arts, has been breaking records in attendance and broadcast viewership for all combat sports.
Flying disc sports are sports or games played with discs, often called by the trademarked name Frisbees. Ultimate and disc golf are sports with substantial international followings.
Amateur sport in Toronto has a vibrant and distinguished history, with a breadth of sports featuring significant participation in youth leagues, collegiate sports, and other organised and ad hoc events.
Columbia High School is a four-year comprehensive regional public high school in Maplewood, in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. It serves students in ninth through twelfth grades, as the lone secondary school of the South Orange-Maplewood School District, which includes Maplewood and South Orange, neighboring communities in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. The school has been accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools Commissions on Elementary and Secondary Schools since 1928; its accreditation expires in December 2023.
Ultimate Canada is a not-for-profit organization that serves as the governing body of the sport of Ultimate in Canada. It runs the Canadian Ultimate Championships (CUC) and Canadian University Ultimate Championship (CUUC) series.
Kenneth Ray Westerfield is a pioneering Frisbee disc player.
Buzzy or Buzzie may refer to:
Major League Ultimate (MLU) was a North American semi-professional Ultimate league from 2013 to 2016. It was composed of eight member teams, seven in the United States and one in Canada. It was formed in 2012, and began its inaugural season in April, 2013. The season concluded with championship games for the Western and Eastern divisions and a cross-divisional championship game.
Ultimate, originally called ultimate frisbee, is a non-contact team field sport played with a flying disc, invented in New Jersey, USA, in 1968. Japanese players and teams rose to prominence in the 1990s, and today are among the strongest competitors in the sport globally.
Ed Headrick, also known as "Steady" Ed Headrick, was an American toy inventor. Headrick served in combat in the army in WWII and was a deep-sea welder. He is most well known as the father of both the modern-day Frisbee and of the sport and game of disc golf.
The Premier Ultimate League (PUL) is a professional women's ultimate disc league that formed in 2019. The mission of the PUL is "to achieve equity in the sport of ultimate by increasing accessibility to the sport for, and visibility of women, transgender, intersex, non-binary, genderqueer, and genderfluid people through high-quality competition, leadership experiences, and community partnerships". The league strives for gender, racial, and economic diversity in the sport of ultimate frisbee. PUL players are paid $40 per league game.
Disc golf was first invented in the early 1900s. The first game was held in Bladworth, Saskatchewan, Canada in 1926. Ronald Brandon Cain and a group of his Elementary School buddies played a game of throwing tin lids into 4 foot wide circles drawn into sandy patches on their school grounds. They called the game Tin Lid Golf and played on a fairly regular basis. However, after they grew older and went their separate ways, the game came to an end. It was not until the 1970s that modern disc golf would be introduced to Canadians at the Canadian Open Frisbee Championships in Toronto and Vancouver, BC.
According to Hellring’s sister, Heidi, Hellring got Wham-O to send the team a box of Frisbees because the discs kept cracking in the 15-25 degree Fahrenheit air; one green 120-gram "moonlighter" was lost in the brook by the lot, The Colombian reported. Silver and Hellring also took the International Frisbee Association’s test, passing it as masters. The IFA was then the sport’s governing body...Hellring continued to write tongue-in-cheek Frisbee stories and place ads for the team in the paper. In one, the paper reported that "the rise of Frisbee in Columbia high school is merely indicative of a world-wide trend, according to major national periodicals." The story went on to cite a Time magazine article which recommended that the U.S.A. and U.S.S.R. take their cue and henceforth "settle all disputes between the two with Frisbees instead of missiles."
Finally, in the fall of 1968, the members of the student newspaper challenged the students on Council to a formal game. In a match up that featured two large, co-ed teams, The Columbian won the first game in front of the high school, 11-7. This historic first match was played on the now famous Columbia parking lot. During the summer of 1970, Silver, Hellring and Hines re-wrote and refined the rules which were subsequently printed and copies were sent all over the world
In the summer of 1968, Joel Silver was introduced to a “frisbee football” type game while participating in an educational enrichment program at the Mount Hermon School in Northfield, Massachusetts. After returning to Columbia High School in Maplewood, New Jersey, that fall, he got a motion passed at the student council to introduce Frisbee into the curriculum. Together with his friends Bernard “Buzzy” Hellring and Jonathan “Jonny” Hines, they got other students to play their new game and refined the rules, producing a written “first edition” of the rules for the sport Joel dubbed “Ultimate Frisbee” and naming their group the “Columbia High School Varsity Frisbee Squad” in early 1970. The three classmates laid the foundation required to permit the transformation of a recreational activity into a sport over the following years. Ultimate today is still played largely according to the rules developed by Joel, Buzzy, and Jonny.