The Mythology and Lore of
NIETZSCH FACTOR
WESLEYAN ULTIMATE

WHAT DOES NIETZSCH FACTOR MEAN? The Story of David "NIETZSCH" Garfield, Class of 1980 When the "WES-U-Bees" won their first game, against UCONN in April of 1975, it was the beginning of a long and continuing tradition of Ultimate excellence, stretching back to the earliest days of the game. The early Bob Lacy, Bob Bischoff, and Bill Ritchie-led team was re-invigorated with the arrival of Chris Heye and Nick Donahoe in the fall of 1977. Suddenly, practices involved actual running up and down the field. Fortunately, Spike Berry was there as a calming influence to prevent the young turks from making the team into a complete bunch of hard asses. By 1979 the team, still known as WES-U-Bee, was a solid performer in the fast-growing New England college Ultimate scene. Williams College was the closest college rival, with the Dukes of Disc reigning as the Connecticut club bad boys. Two new players joined the WES-U-Bee team, players who would bring the team to even greater success: Steve "Moons" Mooney and a guy from Pittsburgh called David Garfield -- universally known as "Nietzsch". Mooney, a giant of an athlete, quickly became a dominant deep threat and one of the first "big" handlers in the game. Donahoe realized he had a kindred spirit in the Moon man, and pushed the team even harder in practice. Vomiting ensued. Wins quickly followed. Although Mooney, Heye, and Donahoe never made it to Nationals (a separate college division was not created for Nationals until 1984), they joined some of their former rivals from Williams to create the first "super-team", the world champion Rude Boys, in Boston. As for Nietzsch himself, he was an unassuming player, most often described as "deceptively fast." He would come blazing off the pull or out of the stack to outrun surprised defenders for the quick huck, a play practiced by Heye and Donahoe years earlier. Garfield got the disc time and time again because he wanted it more than the other guy did. This became the "Nietzsch Factor" -- that ineffable difference-maker that has defined the team over the decades.

DAN HAAR '81, CERTIFIED NIETZSCH FACTOR OLD-TIMER, ADMITS THE TRUE NIETZSCH STORY: "...be aware you have been sitting on a monumental bit of disc history. It [had been] thought that the first Wes ultimate game was October, 1977, against Williams. That college has always claimed chronologic supremacy, its competitions dating to 1976... I remember playing with some of those primordial guys in 1977. And I well know the UConn guys, who later became the Dukes of Disc. As for the name, your version is close to the essential truth, which is that the Nietzsch Factor was the speed of a guy named Nietzsch.... David Garfield, class of 1980 and now an immigration lawyer in D.C., looked less like an athlete than anyone...but he had NCAA Division I football speed, brilliant instincts and great hands. He brought the nickname with him from high school in Pittsburgh. The Nietzsch Factor play, developed long before the name, was him blazing out of what we now call a stack, whether off a pull or a set play. Nietzsch hung around in the fall of 1980 before heading to Ghana in the Peace Corps. At that time we were finally ready to take on a real name. [Our original name] "Wes U Bee" was initially a play on the question, "Where's your Frisbee?" The day we talked about a name, on the field behind Delta Tau, happened to be his last day before embarking. And so it [NIETZSCH FACTOR] was a natural, although Garfield never played on a team with his name..." "...I'm distressed that your site contains the actual, true accounting of our naming history. There's a much more lyrical, mythic version floating around. You may remember it, the one about Nietzsch being a 6-foot-8, All-State wingback from Pittsburgh... This version has the better Nietzsch story, so it should replace the unfortunately accurate one on your site. Eventually we could build on the history until it's all pieced together and the truth comes out: Todd Maybrown '83 is the nearly forgotten but crucial linchpin in the team's history..." DAVID "NIETZSCH" GARFIELD RESPONDS: "Scooter, I read Danny's piece -- there is [only one] correction -- I have been called Neitzsch since 3rd grade... I never introduced myself [as Nietzsch] -- but the name caught up with me at Wesleyan because there were people I knew from Pittsburgh..."

MESSAGE FROM BILL BATH, OLDEST OF THE NIETZSCH FACTOR OLD-TIMERS From: "Bath, Bill" To: Scott Michaud Subject: Wesleyan Ultimate Frisbee While researching how much public information there is on the internet about me, I found your website about Wesleyan ultimate frisbee. I am the Bill Bath referenced in Wesleyan's first ultimate frisbee game in 1975. For the record, I was high scorer in that game. I do remember that Bischoff could throw-accurately- further than anyone, and I had a better sense about where his long tosses were going than others. I was class of '75, so I wasn't there in '77 when ultimate frisbee apparently became more formal. There was an informal game at Harvard in '76 that you could list on the website if you want, but I can't remember the outcome. It wasn't official league play. I found your e-mail listing useful- now I know how to contact my friend John Brainard, also on the 1975 team. I'm proud (still) about our first game, so I don't mind your documenting it. Another interesting fact is that Time magazine was going to cover the game after our 1975 UConn game- I think it was going to be against Tufts- but it got rained out. Bill Bath EESH Shared Services

SCOOTER, MIDDLING OLD OLDTIMER, COMMENTS ON HIS REIGN IN THE NIETZSCH "DARK AGES" OF THE EARLY '80s... When I joined the team as a freshman in 1982, Todd Maybrown was captain, and his class was the last to have played with the legendary Nietzsch (Dave Garfield). We freshmen learned the game of Ultimate hearing the glorious exploits of the speedy "Nietzsch", the indomidable "Donohue" and the Brogdinagian "Mooney"... When Maybrown's class graduated, there was talk of changing the name -- I remember the name "ARACHNIDS" being suggested as a replacement. So, my one small claim to fame (very small) is that at that time -- that critical juncture in team history, that temporal crux, that lame post-season team meeting with too little beer and too much yakking -- I convinced enough other players not to change the name of the team. In addition to being a two-year captain in my (long ago) junior and senior years, I also had a work-study job in the Wesleyan Office of Public Information and Publications, which means I got to see any and all news articles mentioning our illustrious Universitas Wesleyana. Every once in a while, I'd come across an article actually mentioning the Ultimate team or the game in general. They will appear here from time to time as I stumble across them in my "filing" system... Scooter, '86

ABOUT NIETZSCH CAPTAINS TEAM RECORDS NIETZSCH CENTRAL IN THE NEWS PLAYERS IMAGES