EXTR ACURRICULAR
Ultimate Hallmates:The Dorm as Legacy
Darkside, the
men’s Ultimate
Frisbee team,
got a foot
in the door
of Old East
at the group’s
inception
in fall 1993.
It has
hung on
to multiple
rooms
to this day.
Everyone has their college dorm stories. A lot of them revolve around
friends who managed to stay close
semester after semester. But seldom have
luck and determination combined so successfully as with a troupe of male students
that has claimed its own corner of the oldest state university building in the nation.
Darkside, the men’s Ultimate Frisbee
team, got a foot in the door of Old East at
the group’s inception in fall 1993. And it
has hung on to multiple rooms to this day.
“I was one of the winners of the campus lottery held in the spring of ’ 93 to get
a spot in Old East,” said Jacob Bonenberger
’ 96. “By the time I graduated, the Frisbee
community at Old East was rather
entrenched, largely through our customized
campus Frisbee golf course and selectively
through Ultimate.”
Dan Parrish ’ 98 put a “Carolina Ultimate” sticker on the window of room 118
back in 1996. “I can’t believe it’s still there,”
he said.
At the beginning, the team was made
up of mainly graduate-level computer science students. They named their team
Darkside, a Star Wars reference.
“We always practiced at night, because
that’s when the biggest blocks of field time
were open at UNC,” Parrish said. “Some also
said that the old grass fields down at Ehringhaus were so torn up and muddy by the end
of the semester that it was like playing on
the surface of the dark side of the moon.”
When John Gill ’04 created a Web site
for the 2002-03 team, he posted the following script under the team’s resume — which
includes trips to the collegiate national
championship in 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2005:
“Beyond these superficial accolades exists
a collection of upstanding young gentlemen.
A group of gentlemen whose dashing good
looks and unflappable [S]outhern charm are
outweighed only by their razor-sharp disc
skills, breathtaking athleticism and blinding,
white-hot competitive fire. More important,
still, is their propensity for camaraderie. Like
soldiers headed to war, they must rely on
each other and trust each other. Being
placed in these situations creates an environ-
PHOTOS BY DAN SEARS ’ 74
A pilfered road sign, competitive Frisbee memorabilia and
shoes perhaps not fit for admittance to the room. Ultimate
players Zach Washburn, Eric
Carlberg and Josh Torell were
this spring’s residents of the
famous Old East room 311.
