Interview with Tom 'TK' Kennedy
by Tony Leonardo
May 2000

Tom Kennedy is a remarkably modest sort; I sensed he is more of a man of action than a man of words. He conveys a personal perspective that invokes spirit and community within Ultimate and his continued presence in the sport speaks louder than his words. But perhaps his presence is more closely felt here in Santa Barbara and the West Coast, where for over 25 years he has been a player, captain, coach, friend and mentor for others to emulate and appreciate.

It is his continued dedication and love of the game that has prompted this profile. I had hoped to write about the glory days of TK’s tenure as captain of the dominating Condor teams of the late 70’s and early 80’s. But TK is not the type of guy to catch his own huck. He carefully avoids talking about himself and his accomplishments. I prodded him endlessly for glory-day quotes, anything that began with “I...” and ended with “...and that won the tournament for us” but none were forthcoming.

But what to make of the illustrious Santa Barbara past? There is almost a hidden history to the sport of Ultimate. We have no hall of fame and no hidebound historical indoctrination. When we play, we play for ourselves and for the present time. But this is not the case in Santa Barbara because of TK and what he has done for Ultimate. And he has done a lot.

The Condors, originally called the Santa Barbara Disc Connection, were founded by TK and his circle of friends in 1974. In 1978 TK helped to found the Ultimate Player’s Association, becoming its first director after the heavily laden East Coast teams merged with the West. In 1979, TK and Greg Sharp started Ultimate at UCSB, encouraging the formation of intramural Frisbee on campus (which drew 72 teams in its third year) and in 1983 TK and Jeff Hirsch began holding the Santa Barbara Classic to bring together teams from all over the west coast for one great tournament.

The late 70’s and early 80’s were exciting years for TK and Ultimate. Everyone thought disc was on the verge of breaking into the mainstream. But it never happened for a variety of reasons and when you ask TK the difference between Santa Barbara Ultimate in 2000 compared to Santa Barbara Ultimate in 1975, he’ll tell you what he told me, “it’s about the same.”

Being the same in Santa Barbara means being successful, spirited and alive. And that can be said for Ultimate all over the nation as the fundamentals that have defined the sport since its inception are still the ones that guide us today.


What did the sport first mean to you?

I think it allowed for the purest expression of pure athletics. And other appeals, like the camaraderie. You hang out with people five days a week, year round – and all of a sudden you have a genuine bond and it gives you a wealth of opportunities.

There are no right fielders when you play Ultimate. If you play - you’re a player. To me personally I like the team thing. You are able to make something more than the individuals and I’ve witnessed that too many times not to embrace it as one of the finer aspects of our sport.

Ultimate is a good workout and I’ve played just about everything. But there’s nothing else that gets that kind of workout and Ultimate is a really fun, and addicting, way to do it.

What are some noticeable ways the sport has changed since those early days?

Well, it’s almost exactly the same. The quality has risen. The game is more physical now. But although I think some things have changed, I feel real comfortable with the way things have grown organically. There’s nothing artificial - its all been done naturally. Organic growth.

In the beginning, at UCSB, it was kind of fad-like. At that time everything was right for Frisbee. Nowadays there’s more of an infrastructure and the teams are established. They have more staying power.

We must realize that the game is going to evolve...and will successfully as long as there is self-regulation and spirit.


When did you stop playing competitively?

I think it was the middle 80’s. ACL on my left knee. That was pretty devastatingly not fun. I think everyone says it - when you go out there, you’re just not one of the guys. I’d much rather play than watch, and when you were as deeply addicted as I was it was especially hard.


What is it about Santa Barbara that has kept such strong and successful Ultimate programs? [for the record, UCSB Men have won 6 national championships, UCSB Women have won 4, the Condors 3 (unofficially), and the Lady Condors 4] I mean, it's kind of a ritzy, glamorous, well-to-do community of preppies, right?

Well, we’ve practiced in some pretty frou-frou areas. But the community is a comfortable place to live and UCSB is a pretty sweet spot to go to school. People come here to play Ultimate year round.

I think [with the Condors] the talent from UCSB stuck around and put some energy back into the team. There has been enough talent base with the college team and UCSB has some nice traditions that it has kept to keep everybody feeling a part of the community.


How do you keep up with Ultimate now that you no longer play competitively?

I serve as an ‘advisor’ to the UCSB men’s team, but that’s just hanging out. Literally, I don’t say much - I just hang out. [but ask some of those UCSB players and they’ll give a lot of credit to TK for his role as a spiritual link from the past to the present].

I’ve never completely left Ultimate. I think I’ve read every newsletter and kept abreast almost daily by reading Rec Sport Disc. I have too much invested to watch it go by the wayside.


It seems as if Ultimate has a love/hate relationship with the mainstream. It wants to be recognized, but doesn’t understand the Heisenberg Principle whereby recognition necessitates change in position. Do you foresee a change in Ultimate whereby it slowly joins the mainstream?

Educators really like the spirit of the game and the cardiovascular benefits, and the Cub Scouts like it too. I could see it happening -- I think it has all the components to become an All-American sport.

But I don’t have big expectations about how it is going to be. It feels normal and natural now. I don’t know if I even want it to be a TV sport. Regardless, there will always be some uniqueness.

I think it’s pretty nice what it is right now. It still teaches those things that are important in life -- you have to understand that this game was on my call, on my integrity -- and how you deal with that in the present and in the future is important.


Tell me a little bit about the 70’s and what was going on in the Ultimate scene on the west coast.

The Rose Bowl was a happening -- a thing unto itself. The promotion got a ton of people in the stands, TV coverage, the kind of national play they [Wham-O] couldn’t have gotten any other way. We had something going on there - I think maybe the Bowl was half-filled or a third and that’s like 60,000 people. [The event was the 1975 World Frisbee Championships, sponsored by Wham-O based out of Los Angeles. The Championships included multiple disc events and a game similar to Ultimate that Wham-O was intent on promoting. Most of the competitors had been brought in from the East Coast where Frisbee sports had been popular for some time. TK and a few select others were also invited to participate in the events, and soon thereafter, flush off the thrill that they would be going to the Rose Bowl, brought together a group to play a Frisbee-football game on Mission lawn. Within a short time that group became the Condors and the game became Ultimate]

The first time we played an east coast team we were very, very pumped. [The proto-Nationals finals in 1977 pitting the western champion Condors versus Penn State was a 31-12 (SCORE?) rout in favor of Santa Barbara, thanks largely to the fact that the Condors were generally older and more experienced disc handlers.] Two of the people that played on that Penn State team, Mike “Snuffy” Broughton and Dave Taber [sp?] stuck around the area and are still local. We took them to a nude beach, some sights, and they couldn’t leave...


What about the start of the UPA?

I think it was more of a feeling that I had the time and energy and I was definitely very enthusiastic about the sport.. It was a timing thing - right place, right time. Or right place, wrong time. Bottom line -- it was a timing thing.

We were aware that we had an opportunity to put some cohesion to something that needed some cohesion. There was not a vehicle through which everyone could communicate and Jim Powers and Larry Schindel had tried to put together the newsletter out of Philadelphia.

Then Wham-O got involved and therein we saw a potential to get some help. There’s a degree of symbiosis and yeah, we were thinking, ‘I guess we are associated with them so yeah, ok, we can put out a mailing, put out a team list...’ and things started opening up when that happened.

I was doing a lot of the orchestrating and worked closely with Dan [“Stork” Roddick, who had migrated from New Jersey to a position with Wham-O running the International Frisbee Association, or IFA, which was closely aligned with Ultimate for obvious reasons. Having the fledgling UPA tied to the IFA and Wham-O was important and explained why the infrastructure of Ultimate moved from the East to the West coast.]

Dan was a player so he knew that whatever support was given to the sport had to be given with a completely ‘no strings attached’ and the players were very conscious it. ‘This may be good - but no we’re not selling out.’ It was very conscious at that time, plus ‘question authority’ was foremost on everyone’s mind. Things were happening! People were not willing to accept anything status quo without asking ‘well, what’s going on with that?’



*****

Like I mentioned earlier, TK is uncomfortable re-living the glory days when all was new and good under the crisp California sun. However, he did supply me with names of teammates and competitors alike that could provide the good stuff I was looking for. Namely, the praise and ego-boosting recollections that every player, secretly or not, thrives on.

David Barkan

In 1978, when I was about to go to my first Cal States tournament, everyone was talking about the Condors, the awesome Condors, the unbeatable Condors - the guys who had the best throwers, receivers, jumpers, and athletes in the game. All business on the field, these blond, tanned, masters of disc were perceived as unstoppable.

The topic of the Condors would invariably introduce the man named TK. Who was this guy who needed no more than two letters to make such an impression, I asked? "You'll know him when you see him", my teammate said, “he's the captain.” So when I had the chance I went over to the field where the Condors were warming up. A swarm of 25 guys throwing and running, and sure enough, there he was. He was one of many tall blond tan guys, but the difference was, he was the guy, the hub, the undisputed leader. People came to consult with him, he directed a couple people to take care of some things, and he surveyed the field, studying his team and the opponents. And then I watched him throw. I had heard about his backhand, supposedly the sweetest in the game, and there it was, like chocolate ice cream. He pulled in his team, and I left to go join my team, thinking "that guy is my hero." Later when I watched him dominate the finals, throwing blistering bombs and skying bigger men, I was truly inspired to become good at this game.

There is no doubt in my mind that the strength of The Condors and Black Tide throughout the past 20 plus years up until today is mostly a result of Tom's visionary leadership and mentoring. I may be the only guy around who played against the Condors in 1978 and 1999, and I am not embellishing when I say that playing against the 1978 team and the 1999 team were incredibly similar experiences. They just had the same qualities, like the gutsy wide-open offense, intense communicative defense, total shared-team concept, and most of all -- utmost confidence in winning while playing with the spirit of clean, aggressive play. This is pure TK.

His gift to his community and the sport are truly unique and unrivaled.

The Condor name (and tradition) has been alive in Santa Barbara for over twenty-five years! Wow TK!


Danny Weiss

TK was THE MAN. When I was a rookie in '78 and we (Cornell) went to Santa Barbara to play the Condors in the finals (east v west in those days) he was billed as "the best Ultimate player in the game" while we had a guy, Jim Herrick, billed as "the best athlete in Ultimate." TK was probably around 28 at the time, while we were all 20, 21, 22. We thought he (and his teammates, who were also "older") would tire, and that our young legs would carry us to victory. HA!!!!!!!! No such luck, as of course they were not "old" just more experienced. We gave them a good game, but came up short

I later moved to California and got to know TK better.....a true gentleman, with a sense of the game vis-a-vis history, the future. His efforts in initiating the UPA were monumental, and he was THE ONE who could have made that happen. He was a great player, with a vicious backhand bomb, but a general skill level not often seen in those days....and clearly a leader off the field. A good guy.....fun, funny, fair, intelligent, commanded everyone's respect.


Jeff Hirsch

His commitment to everything we did wasn’t for financial gain. [Jeff, along with TK, was instrumental in the first Santa Barbara Classic tournaments in 1983, 1984, and 1985 when Coca-Cola, Lite Beer, and Coors sponsored the events, raising enough money for the tournament fee to be returned, free beer for the players, and a thousand dollars or more for the winners.] He was happy to be involved and be able to get the support to be able to do things right -- but never was the goal to make money. It was always to make the best possible vehicle for promoting the sport, and promoting the sport for the sake of getting more people involved. He has such love for what Ultimate means to him and he wants to share that with people.

TK is an amazing guy and he has been a phenomenal influence on me. His whole life, for so many years, has been about Ultimate. Every generation knows him -- if TK decided to have a 25 and-a-half year Condor re-union, everyone would come because of TK. There’s already tons of friends in Santa Barbara that have stayed there and many children from ultimate couples.

I personally believe that spirit of the game is a personal thing and nothing you can do can contaminate that, and TK over time has been willing to change his view on rules and how the game is played, without losing track of what spirit really means......

A lot of times a captain of a team, a leader of a team, gravitates towards best players. It wasn’t like that at all with TK. It didn’t matter who you were, it didn’t matter if you were never going to make the team, he would always be there encouraging you, supporting you. There was no ‘class system’ for him and that’s pretty unusual.

****

And me, what more can I say? I first met TK in Minnesota, at 1998 College Nationals won by UCSB. He was quiet but enormously influential. Black Tide teammates have always given him a lot of props for his continued presence. I saw him again at 1999 Club Nationals, where he was roaming the sidelines checking out the inspired action. But this interview was the first chance I had to speak with him at length and it proved to be fulfilling. I am sure TK will always continue to be a great leader in the Ultimate community.

-- Tony Leonardo