Universe Point A Book About Ultimate Kevin Cramer 9780996310789 Books
Download As PDF : Universe Point A Book About Ultimate Kevin Cramer 9780996310789 Books
As an ultimate player, Kevin Cramer will never be mentioned with the all time greats. Realistically, the only tangible things he got from his first two decades playing the sport were about a hundred crappy T-shirts and a weird clicking sound in his right ankle. But the intangible things – the moments he got to spend with some of America’s wackiest personalities playing a game that’s never quite been able to figure out how seriously to take itself - are what define his twenty year career. The personal narrative, “Universe Point” follows the evolution of ultimate from a virtually unknown “hippie game” to a growing international phenomenon over the past two decades by featuring the unforgettable characters, clutch moments in otherwise unknown contests, and overall counterculture goofiness of the perpetually misunderstood sport of ultimate Frisbee.
Universe Point A Book About Ultimate Kevin Cramer 9780996310789 Books
This is an excellent tour de force about an eighteen year old growing into manhood through a sport that is just now reaching its own symbolic manhood as it strives to join the world of professional athletics. You do not need to have played Ultimate to recognize Cramer’s version of so many of our own stories. I highly recommend Universe Point.This is a story about stories. It is a book that gives insight into why we are so enamored with sports. Most of us never played big time college athletics let alone played professionally. This is about the camaraderie of competing with and against friends and rivals who share our love of whatever sport we are committed to.
Cramer tells of his evolution from what he readily admits was a semi-moronic eighteen year old to the mature confidence of a forty year old who realizes that the stories and the memories of the journey are what matter most. It’s about the relationships one builds and the growth that comes from trying and learning, from dealing with success and failure, and from the random roadblocks. He does this by way of the almost parallel evolution of a game that is just beginning to penetrate into the consciousness of mainstream American sports.
Cramer tells the stories of his journey from his admitted egocentric perspective. The characters that he competes with and against might tell the same stories from a slightly different viewpoint, but the point is that this is what, to varying degrees, anyone who has competed for the shear joy of competition also has. They have stories. We may not have as many wacky ones and might not be capable of relating them as well and with as much humor but we have them, and the memories of those stories are what really make us sport’s fans. It’s why we watch the Steelers or whatever team. We lived the dream in our own small way and came out of it better able to cope with what life brings us. In the end what we have are friends, memories, and most of all stories, true ones or embellished ones, it doesn’t matter. Universe Point speaks to us all in a very entertaining fashion.
Conner Rafferty
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Tags : Universe Point: A Book About Ultimate [Kevin Cramer] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. As an ultimate player, Kevin Cramer will never be mentioned with the all time greats. Realistically, the only tangible things he got from his first two decades playing the sport were about a hundred crappy T-shirts and a weird clicking sound in his right ankle. But the intangible things – the moments he got to spend with some of America’s wackiest personalities playing a game that’s never quite been able to figure out how seriously to take itself - are what define his twenty year career. The personal narrative,Kevin Cramer,Universe Point: A Book About Ultimate,Skyd Press,0996310789,SPORTS & RECREATION General
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Universe Point A Book About Ultimate Kevin Cramer 9780996310789 Books Reviews
I laughed out loud reading Universe Point. Multiple times. Actually irritated the person sitting next on the flight from KC to Chicago with my snickers and guffaws. Universe Point does a great job of putting to words the two things I love most about Ultimate on-field drama and off- shenanigans. Buy it. Read it. Pass around your summer league team.
Full disclosure, I'm a character in the book. So one could say that I'm biased. But every story about me involves me getting injured. And the most positive statement the author makes about my ultimate skills is that I had a reliable truck. So no, no bias here. It's just a great book about a niche sport that every athlete can relate to.
I received this book today and didn't plan on reading it all in one day. I couldn't put it down. Kevin's writing is easily relatable and I felt like I was hearing stories over drinks rather than reading. I was laughing out loud at some stories and shared his anger with some of the others. I was pleased with my purchase of this book and look forward to reading it again.
I was prepared to not like this book. It looked like another one of a number of ultimate-related books to hit the market in the past six months and i was fully expecting it to be, well, amateurish. I mean, really, “Universe Point?” Isn’t that just an over-used ultimate-related name to slap onto a book? And clocking in at a bit under 500 pages, i was even less excited to dive into it, knowing that it could be a slog i wasn’t prepared to push through.
I was wrong. Kevin Cramer is an excellent writer, effortlessly describing times and places that will be familiar to almost any ultimate player. He weaves straight-up narrative with silly asides, alternating between intense showdowns on the field with unchecked revelry off. The book is essentially a memoir of Kevin’s life as it revolved around discovering and playing ultimate, from a small college in Florida to summer league in Pittsburgh to graduate school in California and eventually to (almost) the AUDL.
Kevin Cramer is someone that almost every ultimate player knows. He’s not the star, he’s not the guy on the highlight video, he’s just a player. And that makes him akin to the majority of ultimate players out there—the ones who will never play at Nationals or even Regionals. The ones who love ultimate but don’t push themselves to that next level, don’t have the drive to participate in more than pickup or league play, or don’t live in an area where there’s any access to a good team. There are a lot of types of ultimate players that are ubiquitous—the player who played with the greats back in the day, the player who takes 45 minutes to warm up and is ready to play when everyone else is done, the player who wears the same shirt at every practice... Kevin is the guy who always gets hurt. His ultimate career was practically defined by the injuries that altered both his career and personal paths, but every time he came back to play more.
This book made me smile and brought back a lot of memories of road trips, tournaments, parties, and friends, all attained through this great culture of ultimate that we all share. And i was forced to accept that yes, “Universe Point” was indeed an appropriate title, as the near-unbelievable volume of universe-point games that Kevin participated in are described in all of their tense glory within the pages. I can only remember two universe point games that i’ve ever played in, one where we lost, one where we won. I’m sure there must be more, but even if i could dredge up a half-dozen more, Kevin’s got me beat.
If you’re an old Grand Master player like me, “Universe Point” will bring you back to your glory days of ultimate. If you’re a newcomer to this great sport, well, take a read and see how your dad played and partied all those years ago. A lot of things in ultimate have changed in the past few decades—some things never will.
"Universe Point" captivates and entertains from page one. Cramer can *really* write, and he writes with infectious exuberance about the great sport of ultimate. He revels in the fun-loving ethos of the ultimate community, and his jaunty, irreverent style perfectly captures the spirit of the game. If you've been bitten by the Ultimate bug, you'll love the stories. If you've traveled to a tournament or bonded with teammates, you'll find yourself smiling and laughing out loud. The book will bring back great memories, and remind you why you devoted countless hours to chasing a strangely mesmerizing hunk of plastic. I got my copy of Universe Point a few days ago, and--aside from sleep and work--have barely put it down. Highly recommended!
This is an excellent tour de force about an eighteen year old growing into manhood through a sport that is just now reaching its own symbolic manhood as it strives to join the world of professional athletics. You do not need to have played Ultimate to recognize Cramer’s version of so many of our own stories. I highly recommend Universe Point.
This is a story about stories. It is a book that gives insight into why we are so enamored with sports. Most of us never played big time college athletics let alone played professionally. This is about the camaraderie of competing with and against friends and rivals who share our love of whatever sport we are committed to.
Cramer tells of his evolution from what he readily admits was a semi-moronic eighteen year old to the mature confidence of a forty year old who realizes that the stories and the memories of the journey are what matter most. It’s about the relationships one builds and the growth that comes from trying and learning, from dealing with success and failure, and from the random roadblocks. He does this by way of the almost parallel evolution of a game that is just beginning to penetrate into the consciousness of mainstream American sports.
Cramer tells the stories of his journey from his admitted egocentric perspective. The characters that he competes with and against might tell the same stories from a slightly different viewpoint, but the point is that this is what, to varying degrees, anyone who has competed for the shear joy of competition also has. They have stories. We may not have as many wacky ones and might not be capable of relating them as well and with as much humor but we have them, and the memories of those stories are what really make us sport’s fans. It’s why we watch the Steelers or whatever team. We lived the dream in our own small way and came out of it better able to cope with what life brings us. In the end what we have are friends, memories, and most of all stories, true ones or embellished ones, it doesn’t matter. Universe Point speaks to us all in a very entertaining fashion.
Conner Rafferty
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