URI women's Ultimate Frisbee gets sponsorship

2/4/10 - The University of Rhode Island women's ultimate Frisbee team has made one step forward to help the program and help bring publicity to the sport.The team received a sponsorship from "Five Ultimate," an equivalent to a Nike or Adidas supplies for basketball.

The company provides ultimate gear such as jerseys, shorts, hats and sweatshirts. They have also customized jerseys for professional ultimate teams, as well as a featured team page on the Five Ultimate Web site.

They received the sponsorship after they submitted an application and were chosen as one of the 10 growing ultimate programs. For this sponsorship, the team needed to submit an application either in a book or video form.

The girls submitted a handmade book detailing what their goals were as a team, their expectations for this upcoming semester and why they would be a great candidate for the "Women's Growth" sponsorship.

"We also get the prestige of calling ourselves a Five Ultimate sponsored team," said player Samantha Bernardi. "They are one of the top three ultimate companies catering specifically to ultimate players.

Bernardi also added, "They also have many great programs such as this college sponsorship and other programs like 'Women's Initiative' and 'Youth programs.'"

Even though the women's ultimate team will be losing many of their seniors due to graduation, they are under very intense recruitment and are always looking for new girls to join their team, and benefit from the great sponsorship of Five Ultimate.

"We absolutely need more girls to join our team, said Bernardi. "No experience is required, we will teach new players everything they need to know."

The women's team practices Monday, Wednesday and Friday in the Mackal Gymnasium at 6:00 pm until spring.

"Ultimate is so great because for the most part it's one of the most chill sports you can play in college. Really, the only equipment you need are cleats and a disc," said Bernardi.