BYU has a no-play-on-Sunday policy that applies to all athletic teams affiliated with the school. Sometimes that means those teams miss out on big opportunities.
Every athlete has to make sacrifices. For the BYU men’s and women’s ultimate frisbee teams, that sacrifice means stepping away from the field every Sunday — no matter what’s at stake. For them, faith comes first, and that commitment has made them stronger.
The BYU men’s and women’s ultimate frisbee teams have ranked top five in the nation for four of the past five years. But they’ve never competed at nationals — because part of the tournament falls on a Sunday.
“A lot of growth and a lot of learning happened last year,” Tami Klein, co-captain of the BYU CHI women’s frisbee team, said.
Last year, the women’s team was “stacked,” meaning they were still eliminated from the championship because of the tournament structure, rankings or scheduling conflicts.
Andy Lee, managing director for marketing, communications and branding at USA Ultimate, explained that while there have been many informal conversations over the years regarding BYU, the league ultimately “decided not to make the accommodations requested since the changes were deemed too disruptive for other competing teams or created competitive imbalances.”
USA Ultimate has made other adjustments in the past, including shifting guidelines to allow BYU to compete in postseason tournaments.
“I like playing here because this is the local group that’s best, and these are my friends that I’ve been playing with,” Simon Dastrup, a member of the BYU CHI men’s frisbee team, said.
Most of the team members are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Church believes in keeping Sundays sacred — which includes refraining from participating in certain extracurricular activities like competitive sports.
“I feel like as a team, it’s made us a little more united, like we are in this together,” Nikki Merril, co-captain of the BYU CHI women’s team, said.
“I have a stronger testimony of my Savior,” Klein added. “When He is more with me, I feel like I make better decisions on the field, I’m able to realign my goals and refocus.”
For these teams, their faith is the fuel that keeps them in the game.
Follow the teams’ progress in the competition on their Instagram at @byuchaiultimate.