Interview: Ultimate’s Matt Baum

1) Tell TGR a little bit about yourself?
My name is Matt Baum.  I am a 20 year old Jewish student at the University of Connecticut, and I grew up in New Rochelle, New York.  I began playing rec league basketball and youth league baseball at a young age, and I’ve always been a pretty athletic kid, but loved playing music more than anything.  I began taking piano lessons at a young age, and in elementary school began to play the saxophone.  I played sax all through middle school and high school, and I am now a Jazz Studies major at UConn.  I have also taught myself guitar, and I constantly think about music in everything I do.  Being brought up around sports though, I always had that athletic outlet in basketball and baseball.

2) When did you get involved with Ultimate Frisbee?
I actually began playing frisbee in middle school during lunch recess, but did not start playing ultimate until I got to high school.  My junior year of high school, I saw a poster for the start of an Ultimate Frisbee Club.  I went to a few meetings and practices, and immediately became obsessed.  I wasn’t great in high school, but it was a good way to start playing the sport.  I got involved with the Ultimate team at UConn (Our team name is GRIND) as soon as I began my freshman year, and have been playing ever since.  I also played for the club team “Slow Children” this past summer, which gave me a ton of experience with high level ultimate.

3) What is the American Ultimate Disc League? How did you get involved?
The AUDL is a new league that was recently formed, with the main goal of making Ultimate more accessible and spreading the sport to take it to new heights that the sport has never been to before.  The AUDL is doing a ton of promotion and marketing with the main goal of making the sport more mainstream than it has ever been before.  I got involved after hearing a little bit about it from my teammates, my coach, and other Ultimate players.  When I first heard about the league, I did not think too much of it.  I really did not think that it would be as big as it is today.  A few weeks ago, my UConn coach, Dan Saipher, insisted on a bunch of the UConn guys going to the open tryouts that the Connecticut Constitution were holding.  We had nothing to lose, so about fifteen of us went.  4 of us were invited to the second round of tryouts, and 3 of us were invited back to the third and final round of tryouts.  Those 3 players (Myself, Ben Weyers, and Kamil Skwarek) all ended up making the team.

4) What are the Connecticut Constitutions chances of winning it all?
I think that the Constitution’s chances of winning it all are really good!  Next to all of the pure athleticism and talent that we have, our team chemistry is like nothing I’ve ever been a part of before.  Every single guy on the team is incredibly nice, supportive of each other, and has a desire to win that is unparalleled by other athletes.  I could not think of a better and more talented group of guys to play with.