Grass Roots Ultimate started in 1991 as an informal league with less than one hundred players. Over the years and with the help of numerous volunteers, we now offer four seasons of coed leagues each year, host four tournaments, run a summer youth instructional league and have approximately 1,000 participants each year.
We also have one of the longest-running benefit Ultimate tournaments in the country, GRUB (established in 1992). We believe the unique spirit of sportsmanship of Ultimate provides a model for individual and social responsibility and GRUB is one of our ways to give back to the community.
In 2011 GRU awarded its first Spirit Scholarship to support exemplary youth who participate in Grass Roots Ultimate programs, are nominated by GRU participants and who will be attending a four year college or university.
Grass Roots Ultimate and all of its activities are entirely managed by volunteers from the community. A participant-based, 501(c)(3) organization, Grass Roots Ultimate is primarily run by an unelected, volunteer board of directors.
Ever wondered about the disc hanging from the tree in the GRU logo?
1992 was the first year of the fundraiser tournament that is now known as the Grass Roots Ultimate Benefit (GRUB) but was initially known as LAMA (Latin American Medical Assistance). The LAMA tournaments supported Steve McCrosky’s work in an indigenous community and a disabled veteran’s group in El Salvador. Over the years of the LAMA tournament, ultimate players donated over $20,000, enough to purchase 10 acres of land and construct two buildings.
In 1993, the proceeds from the tournament were used to support a prosthetics workshop for disabled veterans and a natural medicine pharmacy. That year, Steve spent a couple days working on the design for the tournament. After looking through several books in the indigenous community’s library, he decided to base the design on two different gods.
Tezcatlipoca, an Aztec warrior god, the figure on the left, represents the thrower. In the sky, his constellation appears as a man missing a leg.
Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent, plays defense. What he represented is debated, but he is often related to vegetation renewal, the wind and the sky. In the disc design, he is stalling to ten in the Mayan dot and line numerical system.
While Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca were often described as rivals, they were also described as collaborators in the creation of the world. The disc they play with has the Aztec symbol for fiesta.
The LAMA tournament was a big part of the genesis of Grass Roots Ultimate, and as a nod to this history, when GRU was officially christened; the chosen logo included the disc from the 1993 LAMA design.
