Going pro, a thousand throws at a time

While most of his fellow juniors spent their spring semesters trying to line up internships, Himalaya Mehta dreamt bigger.

Since starting at Penn, Mehta had committed to playing for Void, Penn’s club Ultimate Frisbee team.

“It starts out as just another club to try on campus, and soon it grows into much more,” Mehta said. “From the practices to the friendships, Ultimate became a big part of my life — I had found a passion.”

When the collegiate season ended each year, Mehta would play on competitive club teams, getting to experience the game at a higher level.

So when the Philadelphia Spinners — one of eight teams in Major League Ultimate — announced they were having tryouts, Mehta couldn’t help but be intrigued.

By getting the sport televised and more publicity on the whole, the Ultimate community has tried over the last decade to remove the belief that the sport is solely played by hippies.

With two new professional leagues starting up just in the last year, the community believes this is the time to turn Ultimate into a spectator sport.

“Our coach said that this league, this season can be something bigger than any one of us,” Mehta said. “This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. I want to be a part of something special.”

Getting that opportunity proved to have its challenges.

Mehta started preparing for tryouts during winter break, knowing that he would have to be in the best shape possible to make the team. Once the semester started, the workouts only intensified.

“I never took a day off, and I took every opportunity to improve my game,” Mehta said.

When his coach told him to practice by going out and having an 1000-throw session, Mehta would be out there, honing the subtle differences based on distance and release point.

Ultimate asks players to not only be able to throw, but also to be quick, agile and conditioned, as well as having the hops to pull down discs over defenders.

By making the decision to sacrifice doing on-campus recruiting for a shot to make the Spinners, it was impossible for Mehta and those close to him not to second guess his decision.

“Junior summer is a crucial crossroad as far as our careers are concerned and at times it was very hard to believe that I was making the right choice by putting everything else aside to make the Spinners squad,” Mehta said. “Let’s just say that my parents were not happy with me when I went home for spring break.”

But the hard work paid off for Mehta, who made the Spinners’ squad after going through three intense tryouts.

Yet, when the MLU injury report came out prior to the Spinners’ first game of the season against the Washington D.C. Current on last Saturday, Mehta was listed as an Approved Absence.

“It was not an immediate decision because the Spinners had this opening day marked on their calendar since January and the Philadelphia-Washington rivalry goes pretty deep,” Mehta said. “Missing out on the season opener was a bummer for sure,” Mehta said. “However, I ultimately decided to go to sectionals with Void.”

So while his professional teammates prepared for a trip down to Washington, Mehta was in West Winsdor, N.J., for a chance to earn a bid to the regional championships. He scored the team’s first point of the weekend and Void won all its games. Next weekend, they head to Regionals in Ohio.

“We have all worked all year, from early September to now for the College Series. The team has put in the work together, and so I was going to compete with them,” Mehta said. “You never get these four years back.”

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