The Garfield Frisbee program began long before I arrived at Garfield as a student in the Fall of ’96. Upon entering high school there was a coed team already in existence that was player run and player coached. Throughout my time at GHS this did not change and it was not until after I graduated from GHS in 2000 that the team began to get some coaching from local club/college players. These early coaches, including Sean Rohan, D’Arcy Gholston, and others were influential in keeping the love of frisbee going in a tumultuous atmosphere of the inner city school.

In the summer of 2008, I met the captain of GHS Ultimate (Diane Simunek) at a DiscNW Youth Summer Camp, and we began to talk of the future of the program. Shortly there after I ended a 3 year tenure at the Northwest School as a Varsity then JV boys coach. Upon my termination I was encouraged to go back and help the program that began my love of the sport. I got in contact with Diane, met Travis Burgstahler and Matt Bricker-Mounts (other captains) and began to foster a growing program at Garfield.

In ’09 we had a coed team and I added a boys team which competed in league and states. In ’10 the coed program grew to include a JV team in addition to the Varsity squad and the boys team. In 2011, we kept the same 2 coed teams and our boys team took off competing in league, states, and Westerns. Since then we have grown to include 3 boys teams (a Varsity and 2 JV squads), 2 mixed squads, and a girls program.

In the past seven years our parental support has increased exponentially including donating over $10000 in scholarship dollars for those who come from lower-income families. Our coaching staff has grown too, from the original 1 coach (Rusty Brown) to include 4 Bx coaches, 2 Mixed Coaches, and 3 Gx Coaches. Coach Brown has since moved to a more program coordinator role for the whole program. Check out our staff pages for more information about the coaches.

Sincerely,

Rusty A. Brown

Class of ’00 and GHS Ultimate Program Coordinator