This year marks the 65th year of Guts tournaments. That's right newbies, Guts is the oldest Frisbee sport on the planet. Guts is nearing retirement age (though we feel good!) while Ultimate Frisbee just got married and had kids and disc golf is still young and dumb. No offense disc golf, you're more successful as kids than we've ever been. We're like proud grandparents over here.
Guts has a long, long, crazy history. We could talk about it for hours. We could tell you it all started at a family reunion in the far reaches of Michigan's upper peninsula in the 1950s. About how some Healy family members were playing catch with a Pluto Platter with a beer in their free hand. About how the more beer was consumed, the harder the throws got. About how the "must catch with one hand while not dropping your beer" was the first rule of the game. That rule got changed to rule #69B just two hours and four beers later. We could tell you about how the game evolved and became so competitive so quickly that in 1957 we held the 1st International Frisbee Tournament. We named it that because one guy from Canada showed up. So we were international, baby. We could go on and on about our glory days in the 70s and 80s when Guts tournaments featured 60+ teams and thousands of spectators. We could tell you about how we showcased Guts at the Rose Bowl. We could tell you about how this wacky upper peninsula game somehow made it to Taiwan ... pre-internet. In fact, come to think about it, we still don't know how Taiwan found out about us. We could tell you about the sweat, the dirt, the dives, the blood, the guts, the rips, the tears, the bags, the hair, the soaks, the stares, the faces, the aces, the shots, the stops, the comebacks, the upsets, the Cupola Bandits, the Library Bar ... we could go on forever about the good old days. But you don't want to hear about that, do you?
If we still have your attention, then we're about to learn ya a thing or two right now. Guts is great. The game is insanely fun. The community is like family. And we're still alive and kicking. Fact is, we almost died in the 90s. We literally had twelve players compete at the 1994 International Frisbee Tournament. The resurgence began in 2007 at the 50th IFT when there was an injection of young players into the game. Now our U.S. tournaments typically attract 14-20 teams and we're starting to grow again. Meanwhile, Japan, Taiwan and China have adopted our nutty midwestern sport as their own and they have thriving Guts communities. Recently Germany, the UK and Columbia have all joined the family. We call ourselves "the original extreme sport" and we challenge you to disprove that claim.
Now on to the game itself. That's why we're all here. We know that Guts looks pretty intimidating, but once you have a practice or two under your belt you start to see the disc better on defense and it becomes less scary. After you play for a while, there is nothing scary about it. You look forward to a guy ripping the disc at you. Our Frisbee is 110 grams and it's very pliable. If you've ever played baseball or hockey, than this is like a big friggin toy coming at you. Shoot me!!!
So welcome to our new site and welcome to Guts. This site has been developed to help grow the sport. We implore you to start a club, practice up, and travel to an established tournament. We're here to support you the best that we know how. We can send you Frisbees and direct you to videos and even help defer some of your travel and lodging costs to come compete. Hell, we'll even pay your team's entry fee, just get to a tournament.
It's time to meet your Frisbee family and we can't wait for you to chuck some plastic at our faces.
Catch you soon,
Uncle Buck
USA Guts