Many kids in Green Bay grow up dreaming of one day playing at Lambeau Field. That was certainly true of Tim DeByl. So I grew up probably two miles from the stadium and my family's had season tickets. For me, it was amazing. Me and my brother used to go to all the games. But in college,
Tim discovered a whole new game
Ultimate Frisbee. You've probably seen it played like this on a sunny day in a park. It's a simple game. Connect on a pass to a teammate in the end zone to score. It's unique to sports I think, in that it always requires two people to have a score. There s no way to run it in. There's no way to throw it to yourself. There's seven guys. They all touch the disc. Everybody needs to work together to get a score. I think that's one of the compelling things about the sport. That cooperative spirit goes back to ultimate's origins in the 1970s counterculture. An era that also inspired the name
for Madison's professional ultimate team
the Radicals. That's right. Ultimate, the mellow pastime, has gone pro. And Tim is playing a huge part as manager, head coach and co-owner of the Madison Radicals. Look at the coach-owner setting up the sign. I don't think that we ever really thought that it was a great business decision. You know really this is much more about having a passion for the sport. A passion that is being shared by hundreds of fans who show up at games, and through live streaming video coverage.
Announcer
We are live at Breese Stevens Field. And it really took off. There's highlights all throughout the game. People are diving for the frisbee. Come on. - Let's go. They're making great catches, great throws. And while the Radicals are a passion project for Tim, it helps that his day job is running a marketing firm. Having marketing skills in this was a huge advance to our franchise. The Radicals have been one of the league's most successful franchises, both on the field and in the stands. Fans obviously want to come out and watch a winning team. And I think without that, they might not be as interested as they are. Tim has provided the hometown fans with a winner. Going into today's game against their division rivals, Pittsburgh Thunderbirds, the Radicals are unbeaten at home. A 30-game home win streak is somewhat unheard of in sports. It's kind of an amazing streak in itself. And we want to keep it going. The streak is all the more impressive considering Madison is, by far, the smallest city in the league, giving Tim a much more limited talent pool to draw from. There's a bit of a bias towards the bigger cities like San Francisco and Dallas and Denver where there's a lot more players. I think our guys just want to prove they want to be in that conversation. Like many sports teams without superstars, the Radicals have found success by emphasizing defensive play. Something Tim learned from basketball, especially from legendary UW-Green Bay Coach Dick Bennett. My high school coaches in basketball were Dick Bennett fundamentals. One against four. Knocked away. So he was always about defense. But it was a hard sell to get an ultimate team to work on defense. When I would ask, "Hey, what's our defensive strategy?" It generally would be, "Well, stand near your guy." We focused half of our practice on defensive principles. And I think that was a big surprise to everybody. But it proved to be really successful. We've been the number one defensive team every year in the league. Tim's coaching success is even more impressive considering that even having a coach is new to the game. We're back, okay, if it goes in the end zone. Coaching ultimate players is really hard. So most of them didn't have a high school coaches. Most of them didn't have college coaches even. But coaching has become Tim's real passion. When I started the AUDL team, I wanted to be the general manager. I thought, "Well, for the first year, I'll coach until we get things going." And I just, I remembered how much I love coaching. I love working with players. I love the interaction between coach and players. And those relationships that you build. I think being a coach is something that I don't want to give up anytime soon. Ra-Ra-Radicals! And it even lead to something Tim never imagined growing up in Green Bay. Let's play frisbee gentlemen. Ultimate being played at Lambeau. The Packers invited the Radicals to play ultimate at halftime on the Frozen Tundra. Eighty-thousand people. The biggest ultimate game that's ever been played. For me, coming out of the tunnel was the best part. The team got to run out of the tunnel and it was like, "Wow! This is Lambeau and it's packed. And the fans were really into it, which was cool too. It was amazing. While Tim didn't get to play at Lambeau, he's now done something even fewer people have achieved. He got to coach a team there. Being able to see them out there on the field playing, for me, was as good as playing. I knew how much it meant to the guys.
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