The Ultimate Frisbee team at Cal State Long Beach spent its spring break in Rimini, Italy, at the 17th Annual Paganello competition.
The team joined 47 other teams in the men’s division of competition. Paganello, which began April 5 and ends today, gives teams from around the world a chance to meet and compete.
“I’m really excited,” said Daniel Smeltzer, the club’s president and team co-captain, before leaving for Italy. “This is the best competition in the world.”
Smeltzer said he heard about the competition from one of his teammates and applied for one of the competition slots. According to Smeltzer and the Paganello Web site, teams that want to compete usually apply for a waitlist spot. Teams accumulate points by being on the waitlist in previous years or from competitions that help them get into the competition later. Smeltzer said he applied, thinking the team would get on the waitlist and accumulate points to get a spot the next year.
“We got really lucky to get accepted,” Smeltzer said. He added that he wrote an essay for the application explaining that the team, which has been together since forming last year, will be losing some of its original players when they graduate. Smeltzer said he wanted the team to be able to compete with the members who have been there since the beginning.
The team name, the CSULB Stalkers, which avoids “The Beach” theme used by many other club teams, came from an unusual source of inspiration.
“The name came from one guy on the team who had a girl stalking him,” Smeltzer said. “His roommate thought it would be funny. It just kind of stuck.”
Smeltzer said the addition of the team logo, which has a dark backlit figure with white eyes looking out, solidified that their team name would be the CSULB Stalkers.
Eleven team members traveled to Rimini to compete. Smeltzer said some of them even took out loans to be able to go. He said the team applied for a grant from Associated Students Inc. to take care of most of the cost, but it was denied.
The team paid a $400 entry fee in addition to the $150 each player had to pay to compete. Smeltzer said the team chose a hostel on the beach in Rimini for its accommodations.
The team has competed this year at tournaments in Las Vegas, San Luis Obispo and UC Irvine. The next competition will be the first stop on the road to the nationals. The team will compete in sectionals April 14 and 15. If the Stalkers win, they will advance to the regionals.
