The Ultimate scholarship

Among the thousands of athletic scholarships given out in the Pittsburgh area each year, one… Among the thousands of athletic scholarships given out in the Pittsburgh area each year, one stands apart from the rest.

It doesn’t go to the most highly touted running back in the country, the best point guard or most dominant long-jumper. It’s not given to the best goalie, quickest skater or even the state’s best pitcher. It is, however, given to someone with supreme athleticism, knowledge and community leadership within this particular sport – a sport that has recently undergone enormous growth and hides under the shadows, ready to break into the mainstream.

To the average individual, this sport is known as ultimate Frisbee. To those who play the game, it’s just called ultimate.

In early 2003, Darren Shultz, currently a Carnegie Mellon graduate student and commissioner of the Pittsburgh High School Ultimate League (PHUL), had the idea to recognize someone in the league who demonstrated great skill, leadership and service to the sport by offering them a small scholarship to a college in the area.

Shultz teamed up with David Vatz, who is now a Pitt senior, to start organizing a scholarship. They were looking to reward a single player from PHUL $100 per year for four years. Such a small amount of money hardly covers any costs though, Shultz said, and that was a problem.

“$100 barely gets you a book now,” Shultz said.

In 2005, unhappy with the award’s lack of progression, Vatz approached Shultz with an idea.

“I wanted to make a substantial award that kids would want to compete for, rather than just a small $100 token award,” Vatz said, who acts as the executive director of PHUL and chairman of the PHUL scholarship.

Together, Vatz and Shultz decided it was time to for the scholarship to take on a new life and really start to evolve. From there, the progression didn’t just start – it took off.

The goal was to raise $100,000 in an endowment within 10 years, which would make the award self-sustaining for $4,000. This would allow a new scholarship to be given in $1,000 increments each year to a new student. The award would be renewed each year throughout each individual’s tenure at college, totaling $4,000.

Shultz and Vatz received considerable help from Henry Thorne, an integral part of the ultimate community since the 1980s. Thorne helped accelerate the growth of the fund not only by making its first major monetary contribution, but also by setting up a meeting with the Heinz Endowments, which resulted in a $12,000 grant.

Because of the quick growth, a new recipient of the PHUL scholarship is chosen each year by a board of five people who are highly familiar with the league and the applicants.

Along with showing great leadership and skill within the game of Ultimate, applicants turn in letters of recommendation and high school grade point average – and they have to be attending a college in the greater Pittsburgh area.

Shultz said that recipients of this reward are some of the best speakers and business leaders that many communities may see.

Vatz agrees.

“Both of us have a strong passion for the city,” he said. “We wanted to make something that would keep our best players, organizers and leaders in Pittsburgh beyond high school.”

The scholarship is given during the annual PHUL Benefit, a charity dinner which started two years ago and will continue at the beginning of each June. It brought in about $7,000 the first year and $3,000 last year.

This past spring, the scholarship was awarded to Pitt freshman Julian Hausman, who has played ultimate competitively since he began high school.

Julian, who captained his Mt. Lebanon high school team for three years, played on the city all-star team and also served on the PHUL student board, said that the work he did within the league was a great experience that will help him in the future.

“It’s run a lot like a business,” Hausman said. “There’s a lot involved.”

He also added that the five-member student board pretty much runs everything on their own, at times putting in 10 hours of work per week.

Because of this effort, PHUL now consists of 37 teams, each representing a high school in the area, and almost 500 players. The strong majority of these teams have a club status and no coach, which means they are not sponsored in any financial way by the school. This forces all scheduling, fundraising and practicing up to the players, something Shultz said helps the kids grow leadership skills.

“I really don’t see it taking that long,” Vatz said. “The league is pretty much doubling every three years.”

At the college and high school level, ultimate is definitely starting to pick up popularity around the country and has seen a great amount of success in the Pittsburgh area.

Shultz said the league takes “great pride in our local growth” and is happy with the way things have been evolving for the sport.

Vatz has played on the Pitt ultimate team for the past three seasons, finishing in the top 13 each of those seasons and ending last year ranked ninth nationally.

He said that of the estimated 400 ultimate teams at universities around the country, more and more coaches are being brought in. The Pitt squad, along with many other top teams, has been fortunate enough to have a coach in recent years.

For the PHUL scholarship, there’s still plenty of time to reach its goal. Seeing that it has raised $42,387 so far, it’s well on track to accomplish, and even exceed its desired money in the 10-year plan. And as the halfway point is close to being conquered, no one seems to be worrying.

“We’re way ahead of where we thought we’d be,” Vatz said. “And I don’t see it slowing down.”