U.P.A. NEWSLETTER ARTICLE
LUXURY HITS ULTIMATE
AND EVERYONE SURVIVES!
Cinco de Mayo week, May 1 - 8, 1999, brought ultimate to Mexico in a stylish and original way, as forty players descended on Club Med, Sonora Bay for the first ever "luxury format" tournament. After eight days and seven nights of celebration and activities, everyone went home satiated and anxiously anticipating next year's tournament.
The Singular Luxury Ultimate Tournament was a format designed by three hedonistic players, Chef du Tournament Jesster Raphael, Tami Tracey and Pam Seidenman, who sought to create the ultimate ultimate experience, including every excess and indulgence a player might desire. Charles Shafer of Oaks Travel helped make the fantasy a reality, as he once did in the formative years of the Kaimana Classic.
The disc competition was run by Dave "Mo" Moscoe, Juniors Director of the U.P.A and master of the Hat format. Two teams were divided randomly each morning with a particular play theme de dio, including "hats," "primitive/futuristic," "body colors" and "bad American tourist."
In order to promote positive spirit, players were adorned mid-point with the shining ceremonial Silver Hat of Offense or the Gold Hat of Defense to mark spectacular plays. On Body Colors Day, players were showered with silver or gold magic glitter. Players were permitted to make calls at the price of a shot of tequila, a tariff liberally administrated by Jesster. (In five days there were a total of nine calls made. Yet somehow the bottle was always drained).
The tournament was joined by many curious spectators, including a seventy year old gentleman with a fine forehand, which he used to run his mid-sixties doubles partner around the field. Seven Mexican participants proved their fiesta spirit with exceptional play, attitude and drinking prowess.
The ultimate was extremely competitive. The four qualifying games were decided by a total of nine points difference.The finals matched two teams dedicated to winning the tournament for their spiritual leaders, the two undefeated participants --: Josef Kopec of Canada and Jody Bouzilleri of Telluride, Colorado - who chose the friends they wanted to help them be victorious.
Joe's friends won the tournament for him, but everyone won the party. This was surely the first tournament (at least the first including male players) in which all the participants lined up to bear-hug each other following the finals.
Following the finals, the players joined in the Disc Olympics, matching the competitive desire of men and women in three time-honored disc events: Butthead (head bounce flutter guts), Pool Layout (with an expert panel of five judges), and Z-Bee Guts (don't ask). The community pool area was surrounded by olympic flags as the guests stared in dismay at the strange spectacle of two dozen laughing crazies laying out in the expansive pool. The medals ceremony took place Friday night, attended by the entire population of the Club, except for many of the medalists, who were doing a drunken mac-line by the pool.
During the sunset hours of each day, players and their guests enjoyed cocktails, classical music, Cower, freestyle, mac lines and good company to the glowing west beach. Some afternoons it was margaritas and clothing-optional sunbathing on a private oceanside deck. The tourney was designed so no one would be disappointed if a participant wanted to skip ultimate for a day and go horseback riding or scuba diving. The afternoon activities were often replaced by windsurfing, catamaran sailing, water skiing or romantic walks along the beaches.
Each evening at the dining hall, the Epicurean buffet dinners were followed by beer or tequila events. Some were remarkably well attended by the Club guests. The single elimination "boat race" (speed beer drinking) tournament began with eventual champion Jesster against Pierre, the Chef du Sport of the Club, a remarkably fast competitor who finally succumbed after two rulings of "too close to call" brought a double-beer challenge. The tournament was interrupted by a relay "boat race" challenge from the volleyball pretenders (who had been trying to impress with "body shots" of tequila). As expected, the discers sent the ball boys packing to the cheers of the gallery. But the most fun competition was the "team gravity obstacle course," a team table-climbing and drinking competition that took the french dining staff quite by surprise.
The hospitality and tolerance of Club Med exceeded all expectations. The food was various, plentiful and delicious. The staff was most facilitating and indulged excesses that would have 86'd a tournament party from most decent locations. But the piece de resistance came when we discovered that the Club had five disc golf baskets sitting in a storeroom, for which no one knew the purpose. An hour later we had a ten-tee course, and by the end of the day the course record had been broken three times.
Each night at the disco the SLUTs had a special theme party, including the special Cinco de Mayo celebration and a Fashion Show (of which no more will be said). The defining moment of the closing ceremonies was the fire chain pageant performed by Tami Tracey of Santa Cruz, her first fire foray.
Special tournament notice goes to: Jan Grunberg for winning the spirit award, Tom "The Postman" Cleworth for taking his first-ever shot of alcohol on the field on his fiftieth birthday (actually, he took two because we missed the first photo), Brian and Mary Canniff for spending their honeymoon with us, Al Lighton for an impossible boat-race comeback upset of Jesster in a final night rematch, Fernando Najera for rallying the Mexican contingent, and everyone for having the greatest spirit ever.
The forty players arrived acquainted with few or none of the others, coming from Switzerland, Mexico, Canada, Italy and across the States; but we left a hugging, tightly knit family eagerly awaiting the year 2000 tourney.
Information and photographs of the Singular Luxury Ultimate Tournament can be located on the Web at: http://www.napanet.net/~jesster/SLUT.html.
