“Ultimate came from Ivy League universities, prep schools, and rich kids at summer camps, freestyle came from the street. If Frisbee had a gang they would be freestylers.”
Flying disc freestyle, also known as freestyle Frisbee regarding the trademarked brand name, is a sport and performing art characterized by creative, acrobatic, and athletic maneuvers with a flying disc. Freestyle is performed individually, or more commonly in pairs or groups, both competitively and recreationally.
The Freestyle Players Association (FPA) is the governing body of freestyle, dedicated to the growth of freestyle disc play as a lifetime recreation and competitive sport. The organization is involved in international tournaments and rankings as well as education grants and promotional activities. Every year, the FPA holds a world championship with divisions in Open Pairs, Mixed Pairs, Open Co-op, and Women’s Pairs.
This article describes the history of the sport of Freestyle, beginning with a look at early Frisbee and its evolution to modern play. It covers the creation of Freestyle beginning in the 1960s, which includes the founding of the first competition and governing body. It highlights the growth of the sport, from its counterculture beginnings to its emergence as a worldwide sport and pastime.
Freestyle – the First Frisbee Play.
“Play catch, invent games. To fly, flip away backhanded; flat flip flies straight; tilted flip curves-experiment!” – Wham-O Frisbee.
This is the inscription on the back of all the Frisbees from the mid-1960s. A flying disc for experimenting with different ways of throwing and catching.The first words to define the first Frisbee play that would later be called “freestyle.”
“Freestyle is the Mother of all disc sports.”
The history of freestyle is the history of the Frisbee-play that preceded and led to the first disc sports. Guts, disc golf, and ultimate are all disc sports modeled after similar ball sports, simply replacing the ball with a flying disc. These new disc sports can be played and enjoyed at any skill level by players with even introductory basic disc skills. Freestyling with a flying disc is a skill set created by throwing and catching challenges players set for themselves. Freestyle does not have to be competitive to be challenging and is considered the most difficult disc-handling discipline. Early freestyle specialists invented and developed all of the throwing techniques used in today’s popular disc sports. When freestylers began playing other disc sports like ultimate and disc golf, they brought all their freestyle throwing techniques. In the beginning, and probably still today, if a freestyler takes on a new disc sport, they come in with an advantage over players with no freestyle experience.
“All disc sports are rooted in early freestyle play. No disc sport plays at a higher level of handling skill than freestyle, therefore disc sports requiring disc handling skills will be greatly advantaged by having skill in freestyle.” – FrisbeeGuru.
In the 1960s, freestyle began introducing some of disc sport’s first highly skilled disc athletes. A few early recreational Frisbee players advanced their play and began presenting the Frisbee as more than just a toy. Freestyle competitions and the touring freestyle performers in the 1970s were the beginning of showing people that Frisbee play could be more than a park or beach recreation. Freestyle, like its name, is undefined, with the type of play evolving and changing since the 1960s. Today’s freestyle play depends on personal style and the conditions of where you are playing. Freestyle discipline is sometimes used as a cross-trainer to help in developing throwing and catching skills for other disc sports.
Frisbee Freestyle and Disc Sports First Athletes 1960s-1973.
“Freestyle is a throw and catch a flying disc jam. How you choose to do it is up to you.”
Notable origins for early freestyle were Queens Park in Toronto, Sproul Plaza at UC Berkeley, Central Park, and Washington Square Park in New York City.
Before the first disc sports and having no Frisbee mentors, Ken Westerfield and Jim Kenner in the 1960s developed a fast-flowing freestyle routine on local beaches in Michigan. Their freestyle play developed as a counterculture pastime. In 1970, after moving to Toronto, they began performing Frisbee shows in Canada for Molson Brewery and Irwin Toy (Frisbee manufacturer for Canada). Ken and Jim also directed early Open Frisbee Championship events in Vancouver, BC, and Toronto, Ontario.
On the West Coast at UC Berkeley, California, Victor Malafronte, and John Z Weyand of the Berkeley Frisbee Group (BFG) had raised Frisbee tossing and catching to a delicate art form of flowing throws and receptions. Vaughn Frick, John Sappington, and Scott Dickson were doing creative trick throws and fancy Frisbee catching on the campus of the University of Michigan during that same period. Dan Roddick began playing with flying discs with his father Jack when he was just a young lad of five. Dan organized early Frisbee events at his Pennsylvania and New York State Frisbee Championships.
The IFA Newsletter brought all of these groups together in one way or another. It led Victor Malafronte to see the new freestyle event at the Canadian Open and to meet Ken Westerfield and Jim Kenner. It would be the first time Ken and Jim would see someone else that could play with a Frisbee on their level. In response to meeting Victor, Ken trekked out to the West Coast later that year to meet and freestyle with the BFG players. Exchanging volumes of information about Frisbee styles, techniques, and activities on Sproul Plaza at UC Berkeley with Victor Malafronte, John Z Weyand, Monica Lou, and Roger Barrett. The IFA and its newsletter helped the University of Michigan guys get in contact with the Humbly Guts Team and get involved with the IFT, where they met even more Frisbee players like John Connelly, Alan Blake, and Tom Cleworth of the Highland Avenue Aces guts team.
Gerry Lynas and Kerry Kollmar were the influential early freestylers in New York. Dan “Stork” Roddick met Spyder Wills at Laguna Beach for some Frisbee play and was highly influenced by the graceful and beautiful style that Spyder showed. Also, before the first freestyle competition, the 1973-74 period would bring John Kirkland, Alan Blake, and John Mortimer to Toronto at different times to meet and freestyle with Jim Kenner and Ken Westerfield. The exchange of ideas about creative throwing and catching grew substantially during this 1968-1973 period of time.
Frisbee Freestyle Competition.
“Frisbee freestyle and spirituality are “a natural.” It’s all about being in the zone.”
Freestyle play up to 1975, before the invention of the nail delay, was a fast-moving flowing routine of many freestyle throwing and catching variations. Spinning and leaping stylized catches off the throw, usually done on a hard surface to allow for disc skipping and speed. Freestyle play was intense and compared to martial arts or dance. The preferred disc for the first freestylers was a small but stable disc called the Wham-O Professional Model Frisbee.
Ken Westerfield and Jim Kenner were two of disc sport’s first highly skilled Frisbee players and the architects of early freestyle. Ken and Jim began their freestyle play on Michigan beaches during their high school years, 1963-65. They used to ride motorcycles with friends to local beaches and spend most of the day playing Frisbee.
“When I began playing, there was no such thing as “getting good” at playing Frisbee. It wasn’t even considered a sport, it was just a toy you threw for fun. I remember the first day I realized I could control the direction of the throw, the next logical move for me was to try catching it in different ways. Once I got to a certain skill level of this free-form style of throwing and catching and what seemed like endless possibilities, that was it, I knew I was experiencing something pretty great.” – Ken Westerfield – Freestyle Players Hall of Fame.
In 1973, Ken Westerfield and Jim Kenner, determined to see if anyone else could freestyle, decided to add a Frisbee Freestyle competition to their Canadian Open Frisbee Championships in Toronto. A freestyle competition format where teams perform a routine judged on creative throwing and catching techniques set to music. A lack of players forced them to cancel the event.
Unknown to them at the time, there was the beginning of a Frisbee freestyle interest in the United States. A handful of players from Berkeley, New York, Ann Arbor, New Jersey, and Chicago. In the fall of 1974, Ken Westerfield and Jim Kenner would make a second attempt with their freestyle competition event in Toronto. Unlike the low competitor turnout of 1973, newly energized freestylers from the U.S. assembled in Toronto to compete in this new freestyle event. In 1974, at the 3rd annual Canadian Open Frisbee Championships, Westerfield and Kenner would introduce this new event called freestyle, and they won it.
The Decade Awards 1970-75 Top Freestyle Routine: Ken Westerfield/Jim Kenner Canadian Open 1974:
“Considered the greatest speed flow game of all time. Ken and Jim put on a clinic to cap off a blistering hot final by all of the teams. They featured a rhythmic and dynamic style with concise catch-and-throw combinations. These two gentlemen are credited with creating formal disc freestyle competition.”
Among the competing freestyle pairing were such Frisbee notable’s as Jim Kenner/Ken Westerfield, Doug Corea/Jim Palmeri, John Kirkland/Jose Montalvo, Irv Kalb/Dave “Buddha” Meyers, Dan “Stork” Roddick /Bruce Koger, Tom Cleworth/John Connelly.
“The competitive freestyle art form, which began its gestation at Berkeley, Michigan, and in Toronto, was born at the Canadian Open on Sunday, August 18, 1974, at approximately 3:00 PM Eastern Daylight Savings Time.” – FPA History of Freestyle.
This was the first freestyle competition. Westerfield and Kenner having won, as the world’s first Freestyle Frisbee Champions, that same year hosted and acted only as freestyle judges for their second freestyle competition. Ken and Jim included a freestyle competition at their Vancouver Open Frisbee Championships, Kitsilano Beach, Vancouver, BC. This is where Bill King, Jim Brown, and John Anthony of early freestyle fame, made their first competitive appearance. The following year in 1975, the American Flying Disc Open (AFDO) in Rochester, New York, the Octad, in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and the 1975 World Frisbee Championships, held at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, adopted Westerfield and Kenner’s freestyle competition format as one of their new events.
Jim Kenner and Ken Westerfield were inducted into the Inaugural Pioneer Class FPA Freestyle Disc Hall of Fame:
“Their play, innovation, and influence began in the formative years prior to competition and was critical to the origin of the competitive sport of Freestyle.”
In 1977, more State Championship tournaments got their start, specifically in Arizona and Tennessee. The delay move with the help of delay aids rapidly replaced controlled tipping as the foundation of a freestyle routine.
The NAS Tournaments in the 1970s expanded and continued to fuel the growth of freestyle. The WFC Freestyle championship became the de facto world championship of freestyle; no other competition could match its prestige. Joey Hudoklin and Richie Smit’s adroit use of the “lid,” as the Wham-O 80 mold disc was affectionately called, began the transition that eventually led to the 80-mold becoming the new standard for freestyle. Along with the use of delay aids like silicone spray and plastic nails, the 80-mold lent itself to longer delay moves because of its larger flight plate and weight, and this shifted the focus of play away from the direct catch and throw.
Discraft Sky-Styler – Official Freestyle Disc.
Discraft, founded in the late 1970s by Jim Kenner and Gail McColl in London, Ontario, later moved the company from Canada to its present location in Wixom, Michigan. Discraft introduced the Sky-Styler 160-gram freestyle disc. This disc was adopted as the standard for freestyle and replaced the Wham-O 80 mold 165 gram as the preferred disc for freestyle play from the 1980s to the present. In 1991 the Ultra-Star used for ultimate was specified as the official disc for UPA tournament play and remains in wide use. In 2011, the Discraft Ultra-star was inducted into the USA Ultimate Hall of Fame for Special Merit.
Touring Frisbee Freestyle Shows in the 1970s.
Freestyle, being the first Frisbee play, was new and exciting. Some of the top players of the 1970s created Frisbee shows. In 1972, the first Frisbee shows began with Ken Westerfeld and Jim Kenner touring Canada for Irwin Toy. Mike and Bill Schneider, Northern California players, toured Europe for Wham-O licensees. Famous touring Frisbee shows that followed were Frisbee South, Good Times Professional Frisbee Show, The Spinning Bees, The Air Aces, Flying Aces, and The Jammers. These Frisbee performers would perform at fairs, universities, shopping malls, and professional sporting events. It was the beginning of showing the possibilities of playing with a flying disc. Wham-O and Irwin Toy organized several national and international tours.
Also, sponsored Frisbee shows for major American and Canadian companies like Coca-Cola, Orange Crush, Copper Tone, Molson, Labatt, Budweiser, Lee Jeans, and the Harlem Globetrotters. These promotions and shows would reach millions of people in every city across North America and eventually the World. The early Frisbee freestyle shows deserve a lot of credit through their performances and publicity for bringing about awareness of this new age of flying disc sports.
Freestyle Becomes a Popular Disc Sport in the 1970s-80s.
“The competition in freestyle is between the player and the possibilities.”
Dave Marini started up the Freestyle Players Association in 1978, and freestyle became a regulated sport of its own. The sport of Freestyle attracted a new generation of players such as Rob Fried, Doug Simon, Roger Meier, Peter Laubert, Krae Van Sickle, Jeff Felberbaum, John Dwork, Brad Keller, and Donnie Rhodes from New York City; and John Jewell, Brian and Matt Roberts from Los Angeles. Also new to the scene was Kevin “Skippy Jammer” Givens, who would become highly influential in mentoring numerous future champions. The sport also saw the emergence of the “Coloradicals” featuring Bill Wright, Doug Brannigan, and Rick Castiglia. On the women’s side of things, New York’s Sue Strait and Jane Englehart set the standard and were closely rivaled by G Rose and Laura Engle.
Seattle’s Mary Lowry also began playing around this time and would eventually become one of the most influential women’s players of all time.
Seattle’s Randy Silvey got his start during this era. Discraft’s introduction of the Sky-Styler disc in 1980 presented an option for Freestylers and became extremely popular as a freestyle disc, eventually replacing the 80 molds as the de facto disc of choice. The Sky-Styler weighed in at 160 grams, slightly less than the 80 molds. While it had a smaller flight plate and delay surface area, it had a deeper rim which allowed for superior brushing, rolling, rim work, and wind play. It was also easier to catch than the Wham-O 80 mold. Tom Schot’s World Disc Games in Santa Cruz got its start during this period and further fueled the growth of freestyle.
Frisbee Freestyle Early Play and the Beginning of Disc Golf and Ultimate.
“We were Frisbee players. In the early days, before disc sports, we all played our versions of Frisbee football and Frisbee golf, it was cool to play ball sports with a flying disc.”
Guts, disc golf, and ultimate all have rules and playing strategies similar to long-established ball sports. All disc sports and early freestyle-play share a common history. On the underside of the Frisbee are the instructions to PLAY CATCH and EXPERIMENT. Different ways of throwing and catching were Frisbee’s first play.
In the 1960s, up to the early 70s, before the nail delay, freestyle was a throwing as well as a catching event. Every disc sport, including disc golf and ultimate, adopted freestyle throwing techniques. In the 1970s, many of ultimate’s earliest promoters were also excellent disc athletes and freestylers.
Freestyle-play and freestyle competitions were popular events in all the tournaments through the 1970s. When players would take a break from freestyling, they would play other disc sports like disc golf and pickup ultimate. Although the athleticism of early ultimate players was excellent, having an entire team skilled in forehands and other advanced throws was nearly impossible. Freestylers, with their throwing proficiency and one-hand catching skills, made up most of the top handlers in ultimate.
Early Freestylers were the Foundation for All the Disc Sports.
“Freestyle produced disc sport’s early excellent disc athletes.”
From the early 1970s, Frisbee multi-event tournaments centered around popular freestyle events. Freestylers and these early tournaments were the foundation for the beginning of all competitive disc sports.
Notable freestyle disc athletes that competed in all of the early disc sports – Doug Corea, Dave Marini, Jens and Erwin Velasquez, Jeff Jorgenson, Tom Kennedy, John Weyand, Victor Malafronte, Tom Shepard, Steve Gottlieb, Johnny Jewell, John Mortimer, Gary Perlberg, Jeff Soto, Tom McRann, Danny McGinnis, Dan Roddick, Irv Kalb, Don Vaughn, Don “Rocket” Hoskins, Michael “Muck” Young, John Bird, Cyndi Birch, Michelle Pezzoli, Monika Lou, Bill King, Jim Brown, John Anthony, Tom Wingo, Moises Barbara Alfaro, Krae Van Sickle, Mark Danna, Kerry Kollmar, Peter Bloeme, Freddie Haft, John Kirkland, Ken Westerfield, Mary Kathron, Gail McColl, Jim Kenner, John Connelly, Tom Cleworth, Bruce Koger, Jose Montalvo, Chau Rottman, Alan Blake, Marie Murphy, John Sappington, Scott Dickson, Vaughn Frick, Jo Cahow, “Igor” Harper, Don Cain, Ronnie Dorn, Jamie Moldt, Bill O’Dell, Gerry Lynas, and Tom Monroe.
The history of many of these disc athletes can be read at the Disc Golf Hall of Fame, | Ultimate Hall of Fame | FPA Freestyle Disc Hall of Fame.
Note: Some of the information in this article was referenced from the Freestyle Players Association.
- History and awards: Decade Awards
- A complete history of the beginning of disc sports and freestyle: Freestyle Players Association
- Articles on freestyle cross-training: Ultiworld | Ultimate Rob | FrisbeeGuru
- Players Organizations: Freestyle Players Association | Frisbee Guru | World Flying Disc Federation
- Some early freestyle throwing techniques and some new throws demonstrated by AUDL ultimate great, Rowan McDonnell: Rowan McDonnells 80 Ways to Throw a Frisbee.
Next Articles:
Guts Frisbee History
History of Ultimate Frisbee
Disc Golf History
Home page: The History of Frisbee and Disc Sports
Canada
History of Frisbee and Disc Sports in Canada
Ultimate Frisbee History in Canada
History of Disc Golf in Canada
Note: This information was referenced and time-lined from disc sport historical and biographical articles including U.S. and Canadian Disc Sports Hall of Fame inductions, Disc Sports Player Federations, and other historical resources. This article was researched, written, and compiled by Frisbee and disc sports historians. The history in this document may change as events and people are added. Linking or reproduction in whole or part with properly linked crediting is permitted (discsportshistory.com). For more information, contact: discsports@hotmail.com
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The History of Frisbee and Disc Sports 