We are fortunate to have a great group of coaches to lead the BHS Ultimate team:
Andrew grew up on Bainbridge Island, and began playing Ultimate as an 8th grader at Hyla Middle School. He quickly fell in love with the game, and it’s been a big part of his life ever since.
As a high school Sophomore, Andrew was one of the founding members of the BHS Ultimate team. He played competitively through high school and college, making three trips to the College National Championship tournament as a member of the Carleton College team (CUT). After college, he played two seasons of club Ultimate in Seattle before retiring from competitive play.
Andrew has coached the BHS Ultimate team since 2011, and in 2014 began coaching the Hyla Middle School team as well. Coaching Ultimate is one of his great passions, and he loves the opportunity to share his knowledge of this great and unique sport.
BIU is super excited to have Zac & Kira join our coaching ranks! They worked together to lead our 2022 Fall Bx JV squad to a successful season, with tremendous personal growth as well as team cohesion.
For nearly 20 years of his life, Zac didn’t know a thing about ultimate frisbee. It wasn’t until his senior year of high school that a friend brought him to a summer league game. After moving out west for college, he began playing at the University of Puget Sound (UPS). While at UPS, he traveled around the west coast and attended D-III Nationals in 2018. His senior year team finished a great season early in March 2020 as COVID shut everything down.
But in 2021, a year after graduating virtually and moving down to California for grad school, ultimate returned to Zac’s life. He played for the UC Berkeley team, Ursa Major, for his frisbee fifth year (after the brief COVID hiatus and a much-appreciated USAU eligibility extension) and attended D-I Nationals.
The 2022 season was Zac’s first as a coach, and he’s excited to bring his love of the game and team-building to the Bainbridge ultimate teams.
Kira is a 2017 graduate of BHS, who rowed all 4 years but never played Ultimate. After moving to Colorado for college, she was searching for a new sport (in the flat land of Colorado Springs), and was introduced to the Ultimate frisbee team at a club sports fair. She was immediately drawn to the community before later coming to love the sport itself.
Kira played on Zenith – the gender inclusive team playing in the D-I women’s division – for all four years at Colorado College. During her time on Zenith, she got to travel all around the country to play against top college teams, competing at a high level in a competitive region.
Kira is excited to be back at BHS coaching Ultimate. She especially loves getting to work with new players and introducing them to the sport and the community it creates.
Cath first played Ultimate when out on a run, and her route took her past a game…. she was invited to join, and has loved playing ever since. Her whole family plays (except their dog, Seamus – he prefers balls to discs).
Cath has played at the college level for the University of Chicago, and at the club level in both the women’s and mixed divisions. She had the good fortune of competing at several national and world club tournaments with her women’s teams — Seattle Riot, and Seattle Women on the Verge. She was a member of the Verge team’s 3-peat world champion squad.
Cath started coaching on Bainbridge Island in 2012, and has coached here at the middle school and high school levels. She loves coaching Ultimate–it is such fun for her to see players do amazing things on the field!
Dave is the consummate veteran of Ultimate. Starting his illustrious career a long time ago (c.1990) in a galaxy far, far away (UMass Amherst), Dave now has a solid 30+ years of ultimate experience under his belt.
Along his ultimate journey, Dave has played for multiple teams, finding a local group wherever he lived: Tucson, AZ; Olympia, WA; and eventually Seattle, where he was part of the still-legendary, always-in-contention Seattle Sockeye.
Dave brings his years of ultimate wisdom, his desire to impart that wisdom, and his love of everything about the game (as well as an ability to be heard from anywhere on the practice field) to his coaching. He’s coached at both Hyla Middle School and BHS for the last decade, and by his own admission can’t wait to get out there on the fields any time the schedule for his day job allows.
Lisa was first introduced to Ultimate in high school PE class, back in the day, and then learned the finer aspects of the sport while at Yale. For a stretch, she was just a casual, pick-up player in Prospect Park, Brooklyn (competitive distance running being her priority), but then she joined the NYC women’s club team in the mid-1990s and was hooked.
From that point on, Lisa poured her athletic energy into club-level Ultimate, spending a few seasons in NYC and then relocating to Palo Alto, CA, where she began with a women’s team but eventually migrated to the mixed scene for close to a decade. She was a captain and founding member of Mischief, traveling to club Nationals and Worlds along the way.
Forced into retirement by the rigors of motherhood, Lisa had a stint coaching at BHS from 2006-2009, then picked it up again when her own children came of age, at Hyla in 2018 and then back to BHS in 2021.
Ben first learned how to play Ultimate during his junior year of college, which he spent abroad at the University of Sussex in southern England. Upon returning to Tufts, he joined their men’s team (the E-Men) for his senior year.
Thereafter, Ben spent many years in the Club scene, playing for men’s teams in southern Louisiana, NYC, and the SF Bay Area. He also played for multiple mixed club teams in the SF Bay Area, including his time as a founding member of Mischief.
These days, Ben enjoys sharing his knowledge and love of the sport with the BIU youth teams, and still skying the young ‘uns (because, you know, you can’t teach height) :)
Jarrett’s ultimate career began in his junior year at BHS, when he switched from baseball to flatball. When asked how things translated from one sport to the other, he notes the quickness, athleticism, and strategically-minded play are something they have in common.
After graduating from BHS in 2017, Jarrett went on to play at Whitman College, captaining the men’s team in his senior year (2021) and traveling to D-III Nationals.
Having returned to the island, Jarrett is excited to be mentoring at his alma mater, helping the next generation of Bainbridge ultimate players do their thing and learn the beauty of the sport.
Emma began playing ultimate the summer before 6th grade at Hyla Middle School, and continued to play throughout her years at BHS. She simultaneously played on the competitive Seattle-based YCC U20 women’s team, winning gold with her team at Youth Nationals in 2013 and 2014.
After graduating from BHS in 2016, Emma played for a year on the Carleton College women’s D1 team (Syzygy), a perennial powerhouse in the college women’s scene. The summer after Emma’s first year, she decided to take a step back from playing competitively and stepped into an assistant coaching role at DiscNW Youth Ultimate Summer Camp and Youth Summer League.
Now back in the PNW and based in Seattle, Emma shares her strategic knowledge and “ultimate intelligence” as she joins the ranks of alumni coaches who help make the BIU program as strong as it is.
