Senior Sam Ingham will be starting his professional frisbee career on May 2. Photo by Andrew Buckley.
DAVID JACOBS | SPORTS CO-EDITOR | drjacobs@butler.edu
Orientation week is an odd time for first-year students, from signing up for random clubs at the block party to hanging out with people you will never talk to again afterwards. For senior accounting major Sam Ingham, one frisbee toss changed the course of his college career.
Ingham was familiar with ultimate frisbee from summer leagues in his hometown of Toledo, Ohio, but he never took it seriously. Frankly, he was not great at the sport when he started playing with Butler’s club team his first year either.
“When we first started, he was not by any means the best player,” senior P2 pharmacy major Andy Schmidt said. “He struggled with throwing [and] played like he was 5-foot-5 instead of 6-foot-5, but throughout freshman year and into sophomore year he learned how to play tall.”
Utilizing his size unlocked Ingham’s full skill set, catching the eyes of his coaches who urged him to try out for the AlleyCats, Indianapolis’ United Frisbee Association (UFA) team.
“[The] last day I was able to, I signed up for tryouts,” Ingham said. “It was a two-day tryout… they made cuts after the first day, and it was pretty intense — everyone was trying their hardest.”
While not a rare feat in the UFA, Ingham is one of just three players on the AlleyCats still in college, stacking the odds against him in the tryout.
“I think what made me stand out is that I’m pretty tall,” Ingham said. “I’m kind of fast and shifty for my size and frame, I made a couple of big plays [as well]. What sucks is there [is] only so much you can do in a tryout, so if you have an off day you’re kind of screwed.”
Such big plays are hard to miss throughout practices and games. In his role on the team, Ingham plays through a dominator scheme — meaning he is getting every other throw.
“He has excelled into being potentially the best player in Butler program history,” Schmidt said. “It’s very clear that he is the best one on the field… It’s not like ‘Find Sam,’ it’s that he’s already there and he’s calling for the disc.”
All of Ingham’s skills mold him into an ideal frisbee player. Specifically with his cutting skills, as there are two positions in ultimate frisbee — handlers and cutters — comparable to quarterbacks and wide receivers in football.
“He does a really good job [at] essentially everything,” Carter Hart, senior finance and international business double major, said. “He’s a great athlete, but [it’s] his ability to read the field and just keep going [that sets him apart] … we’re really lucky to have him.”
Just as with anything in life, it took lots of practice and training for Ingham to get his abilities to where they are today.
“If I’m going to do something, I like to do it all out,” Ingham said. “I took it hard from the start and worked on my throws. I got very confident as a player, using the assets that I was given to get better at the game.”
With graduation looming, Ingham plans on sticking around for one more year on the club team as he goes through graduate school. Afterwards, he will stick with the AlleyCats and see where that will take him, with his rookie season starting on May 2 against the Pittsburgh Thunderbirds.
“I think I have a lot of potential that I can still tap into,” Ingham said. “I’ll keep training, and maybe getting to play on better teams and win a championship — that’s the goal.”
