This is the true story of the history of Thrashbadger Coed Ultimate, researched and compiled for the Ho-Lay-Cow tournament in Bristol Vermont, the weekend of August 5-6, 2000.

The story of Thrashbadger Coed Ultimate reads like a Who's Who in American History, starting with World War II. In late 1944, Ultimate Frisbee was firmly entrenched as the de-facto respite from the daily battle-terror, and had on occasion been the game of choice between American and German forces on Sundays. Near the close of the war, a dying president Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed a series of seemingly unimportant bills approved by Congress, one of those being the Veterans' Ultimate Frisbee Act of 1944. With that legislation in place, President Roosevelt established a "positive Ultimate Frisbee environment where veterans of all wars could freely compete." President Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, of a cerebral hemorrhage. Popular conspiracy theorists suspect it was his way of evading taxes but sources close to him confirm it was brought on while attending the inaugural game of the Veterans Ultimate Frisbee League, where he was hit in the head with a hammer. After the formal surrender of Japan in late 1945, Congress legislated that the Veterans Ultimate Frisbee League be named after the U.S. Army's Badger Brigade, in honor of their unique distinction of taking out an entire squadron of tanks with nothing but 150-gram plastic discs, and so Badger Men's Ultimate was formed.

After World War II the men were shipped back to the U.S., many of whom had difficulty adjusting to civilian life. While some turned to substance abuse others turned to disc abuse and could only be found after work on the Ultimate field. The women, no longer required to work in munitions factories were sent home to husbands who were both physically and emotionally absent, all of which fueled their need to maintain their newfound quality of life. Badger Women's Ultimate was born in 1949 as a way to reestablish their freedom. Men's and Women's scrimmages would be held simultaneously on separate parts of the same field. Badger Coed Ultimate was formed shortly thereafter in 1951, partly out of the veterans' wives need to reestablish a relationship with their Ultimate-playing husbands, but mostly because the men needed a better way to "see the women in their Spandex."*

The early '50s saw Badger Coed Ultimate transform from a government-sponsored organization to the dominating U.S. Armed Forces Ultimate team, and from there leapt into their massive dominance of the U.S. 1950's and 1960's Ultimate Frisbee scene, the likes of which we have yet to see again. Those years brought us some of our most memorable games such as the 1957 Club Nationals semifinals game: Badgers vs. DoG in which Badger Captain Lyndon B. Johnson contested a strip call made by the '57 DoG caption, Jim Parinella, Sr. and is where we get the now-common phrase, "You can't contest a strip you idiot!" And what history of Thrashbadger Coed Ultimate would be complete without a good story about Bobby Kennedy? In 1959 during a regular Badger practice, a young, brash Bobby Kennedy recklessly collided with Co-Captain and Team Strategist Hank "the Tank" Kissinger, breaking Hank's leg, simultaneously prematurely ending the career of Hank "the Tank" and established the secondary role of Ultimate as a sport for short tubby Jewish guys.

The late 60's saw the beginning of turbulent years for the Badgers, as the U.S. government shifted its focus from domestic to international issues. Money and strategy that was once allocated to Ultimate Frisbee was now used for pro-Vietnam propaganda. Historical documents show that the entire 1966 budget for Badger Coed Ultimate was used to build 12 bomber jets, with enough money left over to produce the entire running series of "Laugh-In". However, Ultimate's absence did not go unnoticed. A recently declassified memorandum from Robert S. MacNamara, secretary of defense during the Vietnam War, beseeched President Johnson (the same former captain of the '57 Badgers) to "strongly reconsider restoring Ultimate Frisbee funding" because its supporters were "associating the absence of Ultimate with the presence of military action." Truth is, the only reason people protested the Vietnam War was to restore that very funding the government took away.

History makes clear what President Johnson did. Unfunded, Ultimate quickly decomposed and those once-great players turned to drugs and rock and roll music, and the Contest of Champions was quickly forgotten. The Badgers, who could not be defeated on the field, were defeated off the field and vowed revenge. The lot of them congregated in Montclair, New Jersey to study aeronautics and mechanical and genetic engineering. Their plan: to breed a team of Superhuman Ultimate players geared to "shock the world in the year 2000".

We are the children of Badger Coed Ultimate. We are Thrashbadgers from Montclair. Be prepared.

For further information on Thrashbadger Coed Ultimate, please contact the Thrashbadger Coed Ultimate U.S. Coordinator at president@whitehouse.gov

* It's true! Spandex was available in 1951 but only through the U.S. Armed Forces and Veterans associations. Kinda like Spam, only yummier.