This week we chat with disc golf and ultimate star Ella Hansen. Co-hosted by Tulsa Douglas and Luisa Neves.
In this episode, Ella tells us about her quick rise through the ranks in the disc golf world. She talks about the mental side of disc golf, and how it is similar to and different from ultimate. Then she digs into her experience dealing with fame in disc golf, and the pros and cons that come along with it, as well as the work that she still hopes to accomplish, both competitively, and in terms of equity. Ella also details her thoughts on the PDGA's ruling effectively banning trans women from playing disc golf (although this was recorded before the ruling came out, the conversation is still relevant). Then, she wraps up by telling us what she's excited for in 2023, and plays a classic Share the Air game, Ten Second Stall!
Share the Air also has some news: we are collaborating with the Global Ultimate Training School (which you might know as our sponsor, NUTC), to help put on a virtual conference for coaches of all levels! Check out NUTC's registration site to find our more!
This is the third episode of Season 3 of Share the Air. To listen to previous guests, check out our Season 1 and 2 episodes wherever you get your podcasts. If you want to hear even more of us, check out our Patreon page, where you can listen to bonus content every two weeks, as well as access other cool benefits! We have a number of bonus episode out, filled with new interviews, thoughtful discussions, great stories, and extra content that we couldn't fit into the original episodes. Also, if you want to rep some sweet Share the Air gear, check out our gear store, courtesy of VC Ultimate! For more information on upcoming episodes, follow us on our socials: Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
Share the Air is hosted by Tulsa Douglas and Luisa Neves. It is planned, edited, and produced by Tulsa Douglas, Luisa Neves, and Tim Bobrowski. Share the Air's music is by Grey Devlin and Christopher Hernandez. Share the Air is sponsored by the National Ultimate Training Camp, VC Ultimate, and the Centre for Applied Neuroscience.
[00:00:00] Ella Hansen: This is the funnest podcast I've done, for sure.
[00:00:04] Tulsa: Let's put It that in quotes on our website.
[00:00:10] Ella Hansen: You should.
[00:00:11] Tulsa: Ella Hansen. The funnest podcast I've ever done."
[00:00:15] Luisa: Uh, Hello, listeners, welcome back for another episode of Share the Air. I know that it's been quite a minute but appreciate everyone tuning in after a bit of a break that we've had. We're super excited to be back and we're super excited for the conversation that we just had with Ella Hansen.
[00:00:39] Tulsa: This episode we recorded with Ella a couple weeks ago. So this conversation happened before the PDGA's recent decision about trans athlete's participation. If you haven't been following the PDGA, they recently decided to effectively ban trans athletes from participation, and we just want to say Share the Air completely disagrees with this decision, and we want to support trans athletes playing disc golf and are always here to have conversations and share people's voices if you'd like to talk with us.
[00:01:15] Luisa: If you're someone involved in any of these spaces and you would like a space to talk about your experiences with disc golf, with ultimate, Share the Air is always gonna offer space for that. So feel free to reach out to us. We're more than happy to give our teammates a platform to speak.
[00:01:30] Tulsa: We haven't changed any of the content of this episode, but because of when we recorded this conversation, we had to edit a little bit just to provide some more context based on current events and updates.
[00:01:44] Luisa: So obviously we talk a ton about the PDGA and disc golf in general with Ella. We also talk about things related to mental resilience, how it overlaps with ultimate, and just some shared lessons between the two.
[00:01:55] Tulsa: If you wanna hear more about mental resilience, go on over to our Patreon, where we have a bunch of bonus episodes, including a bunch with Tiina Booth about all these things. Tiina has also been working with Ella on a lot of what we talk about in the episode and on our Patreon.
[00:02:09] Luisa: And speaking of Tiina Booth and the amazing work that she does in the off season, coming this January is the GUTS Coaches Conference. GUTS standing for the Global Ultimate Training School. Uh, it's brought to us by the amazing coaches at NUTC. All three of us, myself, Tulsa and Tim, we're gonna be participating in that coaches conference, leading a number of super cool classes for new coaches, old coaches, I think there's content really for everybody. So if you haven't registered for those classes yet, you can head over to NUTC's social media, and all the registration links are there. We'll include the registration links for the GUTS conference in our show notes as well.
[00:02:46] Tulsa: As for us, we'll have a few more episodes coming up in the new year. We have some things planned on the horizon, so keep an eye out for that and enjoy this episode with Ella Hansen.
[00:03:13] Tulsa: Share the airs back. And today we're chatting with Ella Hansen. Ella began playing ultimate in middle school in Seattle. She won a national championship her first year with the University of Oregon's Fuke, and she was twice named to the U 24 USA Women's National Team winning gold at both the 2018 and 2019 U 24 championships.
[00:03:32] Tulsa: Ella has played clubs with teams such as Portland Schwa, and San Francisco Nightlock. In 2019, Ella began her disc golf career and has already attained a number of titles, including second place at the 2022 Preserve Championship and first place at the Canadian National Championships. She was the 2021 P DGA FPO Rookie of the Year and the 2022 FPO World Distance Champion.
[00:03:54] Tulsa: Ella is currently ranked seventh in the Disc golf Pro tour standings. She also is a big fan of bagels and her go-to order is a toasted sesame bagel with plain cream cheese. Today we'll talk ultimate disc golf and a whole lot more. Ella, thanks for joining us.
[00:04:08] Ella Hansen: Thanks for having me. I'm excited.
[00:04:10] Tulsa: Awesome. Let's jump in then. So we always like to start just asking how you got into ultimate frisbee.
[00:04:17] Ella Hansen: How did I get into ultimate frisbee? I actually, I have like a weirdly kind of entrenched story about how I got into ultimate. I grew up in Seattle and Youth ultimate is really big in Seattle. And I went to like a pretty small middle school. We had like 120 kids, I think, and there were three ultimate teams.
[00:04:37] Ella Hansen: So it was, Uh, pretty popular. And there was like, we had like other sports, but it was like an outdoors middle school. So it was like ultimate was the sport. And I thought it was really dumb at first. And I was really into baseball at the time. I mean, I'm still into baseball, but I was really into playing baseball.
[00:04:53] Ella Hansen: So sixth grade, I would play flyers up and catch with my friends at recess and stuff. And then one day they had, it was well one day. My dad was in the hospital, turns out he was dying. Did not know it at the time. I played a baseball game, the school's frisbee team needed more girls cuz it was mixed and people were gone.
[00:05:13] Ella Hansen: So I was like, oh yeah, I'll join the team for a little bit. I like played two games with them. It was like super fun. I was like, wow, this is amazing. And then my dad died the next day. Um, So, which is like sad, but it's also kind of I don't know. It was, it was a weirdly timed, I think, but also I ended up playing the rest of the season with them and it was really fun. And then I kept playing through middle school, high school. I got coached by Miranda Roth, which was pretty sick. And then Alyssa Weatherford among other club coaches, but those, they were my high school coaches, which was pretty sweet. And then, yeah, moved on to college.
[00:05:53] Tulsa: I think that timing piece, it's, it sounds like to me, I also, my dad played ultimate a little bit in like college, grad school, like very informal. And then I started playing in middle school and then got a little more serious in high school. And then my dad also died in, when I was uh, just finished my freshman year of college.
[00:06:17] Tulsa: And at that point I was kind of into ultimate, but after that I got more, definitely way more serious about it. And I feel like for me there's a bit of a connection of, and my dad didn't, hasn't seen me play for like a national team or at club championships and stuff, but I feel like.
[00:06:34] Tulsa: I hear a little bit of that connection of the timing, there was like some sort of connection to your dad in that timing of starting while he was sick and dying.
[00:06:41] Ella Hansen: Totally. Yeah. And it, it's kind of a weird, like sections of my life because obviously like ultimate has been so important to me and to have it literally start right then when obviously that was a really big, unfortunately pivotal moment in my life. But like, yeah, I was, I always have kind of thought about how weird that is, but yeah.
[00:07:01] Tulsa: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:07:04] Tulsa: Okay, so then you started Disc Golf in 2019, and for people who maybe don't know, can you, I know there are a lot of podcasts we can send people to, to, to listen more about that, but can you talk a little bit about what it was like going from ultimate to Disc golf?
[00:07:20] Ella Hansen: Yeah, sure. I always kinda loved messing around my college team. At Oregon, we had we and the, the men's team Ego, we would have we had an 18 hole course on campus that we would play like at night and just with normal frisbees. And, you know, you would throw from this one line in the rock and then you would hit the tree.
[00:07:42] Ella Hansen: And I always had a lot of fun doing that. And then I was actually working, I was hired as a contractor with OT World to be a camera op for the Pan American ultimate Championships in Florida in 2019. So I flew out and Charlie and Daniel Prentis picked me up from the airport and they were like, we're gonna go play disc golf, cuz we had to pick someone else up from the airport in a couple hours.
[00:08:06] Ella Hansen: They were like, we're gonna go play disc golf, you can join us or you can like, sit in the car. And I was like, well, I'm not gonna just sit in the car. So I played for the first time and I was pretty bad, but I was really enthralled by the fact that I could throw just like a disc golf putter further than I could throw an ultimate disc.
[00:08:25] Ella Hansen: And I was like, whoa, if I can throw this further than that, like I was kind of blowing my own mind of how much further I could throw, like, you know, a distance
[00:08:35] Tulsa: Yeah, because you can already throw an ultimate disc really far.
[00:08:39] Ella Hansen: uh, Yeah. So I was, I was kind of hooked. Then we ended up playing one more time that weekend. Played with Sadie Jazerski, who was also a con camera op with us. And then I actually had a friend from my program in college who I knew played Disc golf. And turns out her then boyfriend now fiance was like a big shot team manager for Disc mania at the time, which is my sponsor now, and he was moving to Disc Craft to be their team manager.
[00:09:12] Ella Hansen: There's all sorts of disc golf politics. But anyway, at the time he was, or she and I had like talked about DISC golf and ultimate, like a little bit. And cuz she was on like the DISC golf team at U of O and I reached out to her and
[00:09:25] Tulsa: a disc golf team.
[00:09:26] Ella Hansen: yeah, yeah, they had a, they have a disc golf team, which is actually pretty cool.
[00:09:29] Ella Hansen: They had multiple world champions in disc golf have coached that team, which is kind of funny. They have some, some good connections there. Anyway, I reached out to her, I was like, Hey, like I played disc golf and it was fun. Like, do you have any disc recommendations?
[00:09:44] Ella Hansen: So she and her boyfriend put together a little mini bag with eight discs that I bought from them. And I started playing like almost every day as much as I could, and it was just like a really fun thing for me to do. And yeah, I just got hooked and then I was playing for like, what, three months or something, and then Covid started and I couldn't play ultimate, so I got more into Disc golf, ended up meeting some people. They kind of recognized my potential and encouraged me to, work on it and try to go pro. And I did.
[00:10:21] Tulsa: When was your first tournament into all that? And then how many tournaments did, I mean, and if I am not understanding this right, tell me, but how many tournaments did you play before you went pro
[00:10:31] Ella Hansen: I played one tournament before I went pro Um,
[00:10:35] Tulsa: Okay. Okay.
[00:10:36] Ella Hansen: I, I played my first tournament in like, I think it was Labor Day weekend of 2020. And, I saw this other tournament that was like 45 minutes away from where I was living at the time, and there was nobody, no amateur women signed up. So I was like, oh, I'll just sign up for like professional and see what happens.
[00:10:54] Ella Hansen: And I played really well the first day and I was like beating this woman who was she was like on, had been on tour and I was like, whoa, this is crazy. And then, um, I played really bad the next day because I got nervous and that was like my first real taste of like how the nerves in DISC golf are different than the nerves in ultimate. But I still played well enough to like cash is what it's called, like earn money in the division. And I sort of knew, but like, not really technically that if I accepted money I would become a professional, but I was like, eh, whatever, I'll just do it. Like, I don't know, I was. Excited about it and hyping myself up, so I, yeah, accepted cash then and played all my, the rest of my tournaments as a professional
[00:11:42] Tulsa: Wow.
[00:11:44] Luisa: That one. That's, that's amazing. That's incredible. I also think what a wild, journey into becoming a professional athlete. I dunno that there's many other people, who have a similar story to that.
[00:11:55] Luisa: It's
[00:11:56] Ella Hansen: it's it's pretty wild. It's pretty wild, honestly.
[00:11:59] Tulsa: You mentioned the difference between nerves and disc golf and ultimate, is that something you, be willing to talk more about?
[00:12:07] Ella Hansen: At, at its core, the great thing about ultimate is that you have teammates. The negative thing about ultimate is that you have teammates, right? Like you have people to support you, and you have everything you do is as a team. But, I can mess up and let my team down or I can mess up, or somebody else on my team can mess up and let, let the team down, you know?
[00:12:28] Ella Hansen: So in Disc golf, everything is on me. obviously there's some external things, but like if I miss a really short put, it's on me. Like it's my fault. I blame myself. And the cool thing about that is I can know that if I play really well and I make a really good shot, that's also on me. so that's really cool.
[00:12:47] Ella Hansen: But I, I think it's a lot more polarizing than it is in ultimate and especially in ultimate, like in a high pressure situation. if I am really stressed and I have the disc, I could just dump it and like run away , um, or you know, something like that. Whereas in disc golf, I can't really, you can't really avoid the problem.
[00:13:06] Ella Hansen: Like an ultimate, you can run harder, you can put in more of that physical work and in disc golf you don't really have such an easy out and I think it takes a lot of practice and that's something that was tough for me to learn, but Every moment that I have found that I successfully keep my head, even if it's only for half a second longer than I had before, that is like helping me become a better athlete and better player.
[00:13:35] Ella Hansen: and yeah, I think also, especially coming up so quickly in the game, it was really easy for me to look at the players that have been on tour for so long and, and been professionals for so long and been successful and assume in my silly little head that they aren't nervous and that they have it under control and like they're just better than me.
[00:13:58] Ella Hansen: And so that was like kind of a tough, I mean, I still have those thoughts, but that's something I'm like more aware of now. But yeah, that's something that is challenging to think about and I think that individual versus individual. Thing is a little bit different than an ultimate, like obviously you can like have someone you're guarding and really, you know, try to get in their head or whatever, but it's not quite the same
[00:14:20] Tulsa: Hmm.
[00:14:21] Luisa: Has the fact that you've had such a quick rise in the sport, has that contributed to any of the pressure nerves that you feel that, like, I know you've had a lot of success in ultimate frisbee, but you started in middle school, so maybe a longer path, you know, to that, to that sort of success.
[00:14:40] Luisa: has that contributed to those nerves like having to compete at such a high level
[00:14:44] Ella Hansen: Yeah, I think so. In, in disc golf people kind of talk about learning how to win and so, some people learn how to win by playing amateur events and I, like I said, I only played the one and so I didn't. Have that time to like understand the mental fortitude it requires to like keep your head when you know you're up by two strokes with one hole to go and you've, just shaking, you know Um, so I think that that has been a little bit challenging. And I think also because I'm like known as like a pretty far thrower in disc golf, I think sometimes I get feel more pressure on more open courses or, or longer courses to perform well.
[00:15:25] Ella Hansen: And I think that can kind of over. Power reasonableness sometimes, or like if there's a, a hole that's a par five, and I know I could throw it far enough to get an eagle and then I try too hard and I like mess it up. that's definitely something I've done before.
[00:15:45] Tulsa: Yeah. That's super cool. It's, I feel like that's such a, To go from a team sport to an individual sport and even an individual sport. Not like something like tennis where you have similar qualities like you mentioned, where you can run hard and like just go, keep the ball in, go for the next shot. It's so, disc golf is so different, like on the opposite end of the spectrum in terms of movement and mental, yeah, just gameplay is so different.
[00:16:11] Tulsa: So that's really cool to be learning all those strategies and adjusting and adapting.
[00:16:16] Ella Hansen: Yeah. I think one of the things that I've noticed is, like I said about like the mental thing of just practicing. Using that. It's also like true physically, because I think for me, especially with putting, like throwing and driving is transfers over pretty well from, from ultimate but putting is like basically completely different motion, completely different objective. And I noticed that this year, my first full year on tour, I got to a point where it finally became muscle memory, my putting form. And that kind of like really changed my game and my mental approach to putting, because before I kind of had to really focus on putting, because my body didn't naturally do it.
[00:17:02] Ella Hansen: And then when I got to that point where I was like, oh, like yeah, my body knows how to do this. I can kind of change my mental game and just focus on.
[00:17:11] Tulsa: mm-hmm.
[00:17:11] Ella Hansen: on one thing to remember, instead of trying to think of five different things to focus, okay, now look at the basket and then straight line back and push off and all that stuff.
[00:17:20] Ella Hansen: You know,
[00:17:21] Tulsa: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:17:23] Luisa: So when you're talking about the thing, the physical things that transfer over in terms of like oh my gosh, I'm gonna mess up all of the dis golf turns throwing and driving.
[00:17:31] Luisa: Was that right? Okay. Are there things that you've pulled from ultimate in terms of like mental fitness, finding a routine? I imagine that as a very in, I just imagine that for individual sports there's almost more routine that you have to do because you're relying kind of solely on yourself.
[00:17:51] Ella Hansen: Yeah, totally. Definitely disc golf is interesting because there's some people who just don't train, have never touched a weight in their life, don't warm up and they're still really good, which is like kind of annoying I definitely, it's, it's interesting I think because. Physically and mentally kind of, you know, connect to each other.
[00:18:11] Ella Hansen: Whereas like if I feel like I warm up for too long, I start to get in my head about my putting. And I don't, think that I've really perfected my ideal amount of like, warm up and preparation, but that's definitely something I like, think about a lot. And have tried to look at more evidence based, but it's kind of hard for me to tell sometimes cuz it's like, sometimes I'll, not want to get outta bed and like have a shorter warmup and play really well.
[00:18:39] Ella Hansen: And sometimes I'll not wanna get outta bed and have a shorter warmup and play terribly. So . Um, I guess I, I wanna think about more how I. All the energy I used to put into like supporting my teammates from the sideline and on the field and stuff into like back into me to like hype myself up, I guess.
[00:18:57] Ella Hansen: But I would say I'm not very good at that.
[00:19:01] Tulsa: I love that idea though. Yeah.
[00:19:04] Luisa: Share the Air will be right back, but first here's a quick word from our sponsors.
[00:19:09] Tulsa: Share the Air is sponsored by the National Ultimate Training Camp. Located in Western Massachusetts. NUTC is the longest running ultimate sleepover camp in the country. It has also gone international, hosting camps and teaching clinics all over the globe. With the most talented coaches in the world, NUTC is teaching ultimate for the next generation. Learn from the best at NUTC.
[00:19:30] Luisa: Share the Air is also sponsored by VC ultimate. VC has been producing custom uniforms and performance apparel since 1998. that proudly puts values and community before profit, VC is the world's best source for quality design and all your ultimate needs. You can support VC and rep Share the Air jerseys by checking out our team store at vcultimate.com.
[00:19:51] Luisa: So one of the things that we talked about in the pre-call, was how sports, which is a naturally competitive thing, how. We, as we choose to be community members and teammates and individuals, all those sorts of things can also prioritize equity alongside competition.
[00:20:10] Luisa: I know that we talked a little bit about how this has appeared on our various ultimate teams. Maybe before we talk about all of our experiences, I don't know, Ella, if there is in what ways this is maybe presented for you in disc golf.
[00:20:25] Ella Hansen: Yeah, I think I haven't. Necessarily noticed it as explicitly in Disc golf as I have in ultimate. But I think it's definitely still, still prevalent there. Yeah, I, I just think a lot about offering opportunity rather than like trying to force people into something, I guess. Disc golf is like a super white sport, super male dominated.
[00:20:49] Ella Hansen: I think only 7% of the membership of the PDGA is women. Which is not great. And I, I just find it interesting like the ways that people try to get people into a sport, whether it's disc golf or ultimate And I think that like having a really welcoming community is the most important thing because for me at least, like the priority is giving people the opportunity to like, try something that they've maybe never tried before.
[00:21:19] Ella Hansen: And see if they like it. And especially with disc golf, it's a super accessible sport, which is really nice, financially very accessible. Like you really only need one disc. You can buy one for $10 from a local used sport and good store and you don't really actually need more than that to get started.
[00:21:38] Ella Hansen: Most courses are free. There's a lot of courses, most metropolitan cities have, and not metropolitan cities have at least one to five or 10 courses within 30 minute drive. but there's also like really, you know, things that are not great. Like, I know a lot of women who aren't comfortable playing disc golf by themselves because they're walking in the woods by themselves.
[00:22:03] Ella Hansen: And like, personally I, that, that's not how I feel, but I totally understand why people feel that way.
[00:22:09] Tulsa: I think what I'm hearing that is a really interesting distinction is like Disc golf and ultimate people talk about being so accessible in terms of you just need cleats in a disc in a field, and that's talking about accessibility in this very
[00:22:27] Ella Hansen: one dimensional.
[00:22:29] Tulsa: Yeah, In a very one dimensional way, not thinking about all of the other pieces that go into accessibility. And if you show up to a space and somebody is sexist to you or says something hurtful, like that space is not accessible. Even if it's, if the sport is cheap, that's not gonna have people wanna be there and stick around.
[00:22:51] Tulsa: So I feel like that's, that's a really important distinction of what it, a sport or a space or a community means to be accessible to people.
[00:22:59] Ella Hansen: Mm-hmm. . Yeah. I think for me, like the most exciting, I, I've worked with an organization called You Play Disc Golf, which helps teach youth disc golf and, bring disc golf to people around the US and around the world. And one of the things that I find the most valuable, like, I've taught ultimate in a lot of schools.
[00:23:18] Ella Hansen: I used to work as a. Nonprofit director for an ultimate organization. And we taught in schools and it was really fun and the kids liked it, but like, it's kind of wild to me how excited a kid gets after making their first putt. it's really so fun to see and they are just like so hyped about it most of the time.
[00:23:39] Ella Hansen: And that's really, really fun for me. But I think it's really important to find people who are passionate about disc golf in smaller communities, and then help them bring the resources. Like not to be like, oh, you have to do the work. Obviously also helping do the work of teaching and stuff, but not just deciding like, oh, I'm gonna bring disc golf to this community and like, or ultimate to this community and like, it's gonna be so good for them.
[00:24:06] Ella Hansen: But just like making sure it's like a full community thing rather than I'm bestowing this gift upon you, you know, because it's so good.
[00:24:15] Tulsa: Yeah, we've talked about that a little bit on our episode with Kua. I mean, a while back of the kind of colonial aspect of ultimate of like, here we are, a bunch of white people bringing our sport that we think is so great into your communities of color and telling you you should do this and be like us.
[00:24:31] Tulsa: And yeah, I think that's, that's a great observation.
[00:24:35] Ella Hansen: Yeah.
[00:24:35] Luisa: Yeah. In thinking of the oh, okay, what can we, what can we do that like, makes things better? We've talked I think now, maybe at least twice with Tiina Booth on our tea, with Tiina bonus episodes specifically about what Disc golf is doing. Versus ultimate in terms of bringing people into the sport, or at least let's say, offering that sort of exposure.
[00:24:59] Luisa: it's not that, that tactic of going into a community and saying like, okay, everyone here play, play this, play this version of it, or whatever. But Tiina's told us about, you know, going to tournaments to, sorry, to specifically dis golf tournaments and sharing how, yeah, how accessible it is specifically to the fans.
[00:25:21] Luisa: Those events are like really, like really build and elevate a component for the fans in terms of you know, how you can consume the event, you know, how you can walk away with it. You know, Tiina was telling us about how they're, you know, handing out discs to kids and how that's like huge because then you can go just play on your own versus. ultimate tournaments, which are in the middle of nowhere and not well advertised. And we talked about it on the last podcast Tulsa, you talked about going to worlds and the selling points were for fans were, oh, you get to come sit on a sideline in your own chair and you get to use the porta-potties that that the athletes are also using and stuff like that.
[00:26:07] Luisa: So yeah, just in terms of like what we currently have available to us, that's, you know, not really involving going into communities and, and sort of forcing our sports on other people. disc golf seems to be doing a bit of a better job than ultimate right now in terms of the fans are already there.
[00:26:28] Luisa: How do we get the fans who already enjoy the sport more actively playing the sport?
[00:26:34] Ella Hansen: Mm-hmm. So in. Thinking about competitiveness, competition and being equity focused in ultimate or dis golf. I'm curious for both of you, where have those two kind of come at odds? Where have those two come together easily?
[00:27:02] Luisa: Oh my God. How much time do we have let me see if I can pick one. I think one conflict that just like immediately comes to mind is just the urgency of sports. I know that we've, we've talked about urgency specifically around spirit of the game and how our ultimate tournaments are even designed in ways that make it difficult to talk about conflict and resolve tension.
[00:27:27] Luisa: And it's sort of just like, purely just urgency, right? We have to get to the next round. We have to, you know, we've got eight games in a weekend that we have to play. We don't really have time to through things. And I don't think that the system of getting your team to sit in a circle and rate each other and rate your opponents is even close to being the right solution.
[00:27:52] Luisa: result tension, but Yeah, that's one that I think is still very much in conflict for, for me, in Mm-hmm. ESP like even more so I think since joining the mixed
[00:28:04] Ella Hansen: I just think there's kind of this paradox between equity and playing a highly competitive sport that isn't necessarily addressed all the time. And I think that looking at it, for me at least, like looking at my job, I'm a professional athlete doing a sport that is extremely niche.
[00:28:24] Ella Hansen: And sometimes I think why am I doing that? Like, I wanna have a good impact on the world and like, I wanna, Make the world a better place. And I think. back to like myself as a kid and how much empowerment I got from other women in positions of power and people who were empowered in their own right.
[00:28:46] Ella Hansen: And how when I was growing up, I wanted to be, I wanted to be the first female professional baseball player. That was like my dream. And obviously it's not quite that, but like it's pretty cool to be in that place.
[00:28:58] Ella Hansen: And I think that for me, using my like niche, but sort of powerful-in-the niche position is, is important to help people feel more empowered. And be inspired. And I think that, I feel like I'm rambling again, but , I think, I think in terms of like equity, yeah. I think it's just accepting that, yeah. Like we all play sports that are on the surface can be seen as silly and, and pointless and not important. Yeah. And I think that think for me, like acknowledging that having a well-rounded life is important and that the more, you I can enjoy playing disc golf or other people can enjoy, like being on a team playing ultimate stuff like that, that helps me at least.
[00:29:54] Ella Hansen: And I think other people do better in their, other parts of their lives that can promote equity and stuff like that.
[00:30:01] Luisa: That concept of like, well-roundedness really resonates with me. I think that's um, so my, club team exists this year. We did like a series of equity workshops and we did one on mental health and sort of talking about the identities and, and burdens and privileges that people bring to a team space.
[00:30:21] Luisa: And that was something that I remember one of my breakout groups talked about was acknowledging that frisbee can, can take a lot and we shouldn't tie all of our self worth to it. We should be these well-rounded individuals that can do more for our team and in our communities, both in and outside of frisbee.
[00:30:40] Luisa: But also acknowledging like, oh, frisbee is a great outlet for us in a lot of ways and for a lot of us, we wouldn't have this community of People of both similar identities and very different identities in order to talk through some of these conversations and conflicts around equity and racism and sexism and transphobia and everything.
[00:31:03] Luisa: So yeah, I think if you have a really good community, it does allow you to be able to do something that is enjoyable and very silly and a good outlet, and also hopefully tackle some of these harder conversations, be able to do this, this sort of work and see change at a more, community level rather than, I don't know, trying to enact change everywhere, all at once. Yeah.
[00:31:33] Tulsa: One thing you mentioned was about trying to use your position as a top player in a niche sport, but your position there and the power that comes with it to do good. And so I'm, wondering I know one of the things that we had kind of talked about previously was about, being an activist in ultimate spaces and in disc golf spaces and what's the difference there and, what impact can you have?
[00:32:04] Ella Hansen: Yeah. that's like a interesting topic. Totally. I think that the player group of ultimate players are generally more activist centered, and equality focused and yeah, then disc golfers and I think for me, like, what I've noticed is the top disc golfers in general are like more liberal leftist than I expected. But I think that a lot fans and stuff are not. And I think that what I've noticed for me, and maybe it's because I'm like a little bit of a people pleaser, but I find that I've had the most, impact on other people by not being like really aggressively activist, I guess.
[00:32:50] Ella Hansen: And I think especially in like a disc space that is so social media focused, people just aren't very nuanced in terms of their beliefs, and they are fine to share their opinions no matter how wrong they are because they're on the, on the internet. And like, there's that kind of barrier.
[00:33:09] Ella Hansen: And I think that, I've found it a lot more effective or felt like I've made more of an impact on people by having individual conversations with people or yeah, just being nicer. Nice. I guess sometimes nicer than I would like to be. I mean, I've had like a, an and I, there's some things that I think in my head, maybe I did good on this, but I don't know, but like I've.
[00:33:34] Ella Hansen: A guy do, scores for my, my card a couple times and at different tournaments, you just traveled and was like, I'm gonna volunteer and do scores, which is cool. And he had a big old thin blue line stick patch on his backpack. And I was like, and my first instinct was like, to not talk to him, to just be like, fuck this guy.
[00:33:56] Ella Hansen: Like, pardon my language, screw this guy. I don't wanna deal with this. And you know, I, I wasn't like, Hey, how you doing? I, but I, I interacted with him. I was, I think nice. And I think that to me, having that connection with people who don't really believe the same things that I do, and then like, Posting, not super out there stuff, but like, making my opinions and beliefs known online.
[00:34:26] Ella Hansen: I hope that I could have a positive impact on that guy. And I think that doing it that way is going to make, be way more potentially positive than if I was like, this guy doesn't has a wrong belief, which is like what I believe, but like, I don't think I will actually make good in the world.
[00:34:43] Ella Hansen: I'll create more division if I'm like, I'm not gonna talk to this guy. He will probably think I'm more radical and stuff. And there's a couple times where I've seen it work and there's sometimes where I'm like, I hope it worked. so I'm, I wouldn't necessarily say this is a foolproof strategy.
[00:35:00] Ella Hansen: And there certainly are some people who are like, oh, you have this opinion, like, I'm not gonna be your fan anymore.
[00:35:05] Tulsa: Hmm.
[00:35:06] Ella Hansen: I've had people like, Call and email my sponsors, because of stuff like that. And fortunately, my sponsors are cool and they are like, we don't care. We're gonna keep supporting you. but yeah, there's, there's some people who I feel like are really hard to like, get the point across, but I think, in my head I'm like, if you're coming out to like support women's disc golf and you have this patch, I feel like you have some space in your brain to like listen.
[00:35:36] Ella Hansen: You know what I mean? Um, anyway, that's just my, my weird thoughts,
[00:35:43] Luisa: Well, one of the things you said in there, I think that's an interesting example of when does competition and equity conflict is like even you talking about your sponsors, that's such a different world right now than where we are with ultimate is. Even with the Pul, you've voicing a personal social opinion, has the potential to lose you a sponsorship and it's like, okay, cool.
[00:36:09] Luisa: Thank God your sponsors are cool, but already that, that that's possible for you in, disc golf? Is that the first time that you experienced that? Was that like, oh, kind of surprising, like, what did you think when you learned that, people were reaching out to your sponsors because of your own personal opinions?
[00:36:27] Ella Hansen: Yeah,
[00:36:27] Ella Hansen: it's definitely interesting. I mean, I think coming from ultimate, I feel like I was pretty active. I mean, I'm still pretty active on Twitter. but that was such a big ultimate player hub and generally people agreed with me. I think politically are people who, share their opinions and were on that platform.
[00:36:44] Ella Hansen: and so switching over to Disc golf definitely was nerve-wracking. I mean, there were no out queer people at the time that I started playing. now there are more, but I was definitely, when I started focusing. on disc golf social media. I was like, I don't know that I should make it, obvious that I'm gay, you know?
[00:37:08] Ella Hansen: I was like, eh, I don't know, . So I was
[00:37:11] Ella Hansen: like, yes, in 2019. and one of, well, the, top women's player, Paige Pierce, who's now engaged to her fiance, but she like posted about that, like, I think kind of slowly, like middle of 2021, I think even. And, one of my friends, Thomas, he came out last off season, so like less than a year ago.
[00:37:39] Ella Hansen: and that was really, really big news. And like, you know, he got a ton of people. similarly, were like, yeah, I'm, I was a big fan. No, I'm not gonna support you because you don't read the Bible or whatever. Like dumb stuff like that. but yeah, there's definitely, definitely interesting in, in that sense.
[00:38:00] Ella Hansen: So I was definitely like treading carefully when I first started. and I kind of had this thought of like, okay, if I can like, build up a certain level of followers and like, feel comfortable with that, then I'll, feel more comfortable just doing my own thing and not really caring about that. But yeah, it was definitely kind of, uh, interesting to see that all play out in real time. and I think the reception for the most part has been good but yeah, like I said, there's definitely some people who are not very nice about it.
[00:38:35] Luisa: Wow.
[00:38:36] Tulsa: sorry. I feel like that's a another interesting tie between the competition and the equity focus piece, because you mentioned becoming a, good player and then feeling more comfortable sharing who you are with people, and I think that's a, uh, I guess a way in which the competitive aspect can boost up the equity aspect.
[00:39:01] Ella Hansen: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And it's interesting with disc golf, my value as a player, like obviously players have value, but a significant amount of that value comes from how much my sponsors can earn from me, right? So like, how much they're willing to pay me is contingent on how much they. How many of their discs I can sell.
[00:39:20] Ella Hansen: And so for me, I feel like I kind of have a little bit of an advantage in some ways where I'm like, maybe there's a lot of people who are like queer and are more excited about buying my discs than like other players. but obviously there's also like negatives of there probably are people I know there are people who won't buy my stuff because of that.
[00:39:39] Ella Hansen: And then, yeah, there's also like, been a big debate in disc scoff community about trans participation. and I don't know if by the time this airs if there will be a decision, but the PDGA is like, or publicized decision. I have heard they've already made a decision on whether trans women will still be eligible to participate in the women's division.
[00:40:02] Ella Hansen: Um, Which has come up because a trans woman had won two tournaments this year and people got very up in arms about that. But on top of that, there's also been a lot of people who think, because I got good so quickly and because I have short hair and because I can throw it far that I am trans or that I'm secretly a man or whatever.
[00:40:22] Ella Hansen: And that's a very strange thing to like walk the line of and deal with and like it's just weird and people are dumb.
[00:40:33] Luisa: I'm very sorry that that's happening. That's Scary and unsafe.
[00:40:36] Luisa: As we mentioned at the top of the episode, we recorded this conversation prior to the PDGA's ruling. This is where we had to cut some of the q and a from this section just based on the timing of our conversation.
[00:40:52] Ella Hansen: And I just think that for me it's just frustrating to me how one-sided people see it. I think that yes, there's nuance to the discussion and, and I think that.
[00:41:05] Ella Hansen: There's there are certain arguments that I understand parts of. But in general, I think that it's super, yeah.
[00:41:14] Ella Hansen: People are super one-sided about it and it's hard for people to understand the nuance of it, I think. And people see that one trans woman won two tournaments this year and that's it. And that it's another, it's just sexism because it's a man oppressing women, which is like not at all true
[00:41:37] Ella Hansen: Um, But what people don't see is that there's like many other trans women who play disc golf, who play at professional tournaments who don't win. I think that that's interesting. And. Natalie, the woman who, the trans woman who's won. She, her progress in the sport is like so similar to mine and to my friend who I mentioned earlier, in terms of our ratings, how successful we've been, it's like almost identical what time we started and then how far we've gotten since then.
[00:42:11] Ella Hansen: And I think that it also just says a lot about the depth of the division that it's growing so much and you don't have to be a man to be like, be a man as people say to like be successful in the women's division. Like I think that that's, yeah, that's one of the main things that frustrates me is that, I mean obviously the whole thing is frustrating, but yeah.
[00:42:34] Ella Hansen: And. Another thing that I have also noticed is that Natalie works really hard and I, she's practicing all the time. She practices so hard and there was the most ironic moment last year where I was sitting at a table eating food after a tournament round and heard some other players, talking about Natalie and how, you know, being transphobic about her and about how she's shouldn't be playing in the division.
[00:43:02] Ella Hansen: Meanwhile, Natalie is over like a hundred feet away practicing and they're just like lounging around after they're round, which like, I understand like practices and everything, but think that she only got to how good she is because of her, whatever, but she works really, really hard to be a better player and I want her and, and other trans women to have, continue to have that opportunity to play
[00:43:28] Ella Hansen: So,
[00:43:29] Luisa: yeah, I mean obviously there's 1,001 reasons why trans women should be allowed to play, but it's like, it's even just comparing of, you know, women playing in the sport, improves the entire sport.
[00:43:43] Luisa: It like women playing is improving the sport for the men's experience as well. And it's just trans women playing, trans women are women. Everyone playing is going, it's just gonna improve the sport. It's, yeah. Ugh.
[00:44:01] Ella Hansen: Yes.
[00:44:09] Tulsa:
[00:44:09] Tulsa: Is it ever tiring or does it ever feel like it gets in the way of your trying to play and perform, hearing homophobic, transphobic, sexist, racist things or trying to figure out you know, this person keeping score, how you interact with them. How, how often is that making it even harder for you to perform as best as you can?
[00:44:34] Ella Hansen: I think I manage it pretty well, but it definitely affects my play sometimes. I've, most of the time the harassment is typically online and I am, you know, I can avoid it for the most part or ignore it. But I have heard some people say it in out loud, at tournaments that I've been playing in, which is not very fun.
[00:44:59] Ella Hansen: Definitely yeah. Doesn't help me keep my focus. Definitely like distract me and yeah, it sucks
[00:45:06] Tulsa: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, that's one. The things when we talk about equity and when we think about, for example, like the US Women's National Soccer Team and how well they perform on the field and all the work that they're having to do off the field for equal pay and all of this battle with US soccer, it's like imagine what they could do if they didn't have to put in all that time and energy outside of, it's like it is hard to be a woman in disc golf.
[00:45:36] Tulsa: Imagine how, what women could do if they weren't having to like climb all these extra barriers all the time. And I feel like that's, that's part of the, one of the small many reasons for that equitable pay is to like try and make a dent in all of like the extra hard parts of what it is to be play on the women's division.
[00:45:56] Ella Hansen: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And there's. a lot of it. I, I've actually found it really interesting. They, so last season that Disc Golf Pro Tour has their own like broadcasting system, system broadcasting thing called DISC network. And so they do live streams of tournaments and in, in 2021 they had the women teeing off in the afternoon.
[00:46:24] Ella Hansen: And so they would have the men's coverage, they would do the full men's tournament, full men's round and then go to the women's round. And usually it was like half of the women's round. And this year they flip flopped it and they switched. So women were teeing off in the morning and the men are in the afternoon and that allows them to do a full broadcast of both the men's round and the women's round.
[00:46:48] Ella Hansen: And I think people were expecting it to be like super poor ratings for the women, but it's actually been like, Well overall, like the ratings have gone up a lot since last year. But I don't know the exact numbers, but I know that like the women's coverage from the first few tournaments was like higher than all of the combined coverage from the previous year.
[00:47:12] Ella Hansen: And like, at least half of what the men's viewership was, which honestly like is really good considering
[00:47:21] Tulsa: The 7%
[00:47:23] Ella Hansen: yeah, totally. So like it's pretty cool to know that like that stuff is successful and I think like being professional athlete and all the media coverage surrounding women's sports and everything, I think, people haven't really given women the opportunity to like, Promote their sports and do things like that.
[00:47:43] Ella Hansen: And I think that that's a really important step towards gender equity and is just like giving the opportunity to like see what will happen if, we put W N B A games on ESPN and stuff like
[00:47:57] Ella Hansen: that and make, make it more accessible to watch. Yeah.
[00:48:01] Luisa: Okay, so we, usually end our episodes with selecting like from a handful of our repeat questions. I think maybe the one that's the most pertinent um, because we've talked about how much success you've had this, this last year. I, again, was stunned when I looked at your rankings page and saw how many tournaments you actually competed in It just in insane amount of events to have to do in one year. but
[00:48:33] Luisa: in, I think right now you, you're getting a little bit of a break. This is like a very brief off season for you. So maybe looking ahead to, to 2023 what's next for you? Either in disc golf, outside of disc golf?
[00:48:47] Luisa: Yeah, what's what's next for, for Ella?
[00:48:50] Ella Hansen: Yeah, I'm really enjoying playing disc golf and being on the road. I, I never really thought of myself as a hippie. Like I live in a van and I travel around the country kind of person, but like, I do really enjoy it. . So right now I'm actually working on building. I just bought a new van. I'm building it out so that I can stand up in my roadhouse next year instead of being in a minivan, which was great.
[00:49:15] Ella Hansen: it's, I'm ready for an upgrade. So that's like, yeah, my off season I have like, Two and a half more months of, which is terrifying to think of. But yeah, I'm building the van, which is for disc golf, but you know, also for living in, and I'll start my season mid-February. And yeah, I have like, vaguely thought about playing ultimate again, partially inspired by playing my college alumni tournament.
[00:49:44] Ella Hansen: And then also Jessie, my friend Jessie Shoffner trying to convince me to play with her in Nashville . So like, there's like a small chance that I might do that. But in general, probably playing a few fewer tournaments cuz yeah, I played a lot this past year. It was kind of exhausting. But I think I'm gonna.
[00:50:03] Ella Hansen: Go play the European swing next year. So I'll be in Finland and Sweden which I'm really looking forward to. And yeah, I'm excited to like on the road and be more comfortable just in my new van. And also just more comfortable knowing the courses and the places I can stay and stuff like that.
[00:50:22] Ella Hansen: So, yeah.
[00:50:24] Luisa: Cool.
[00:50:25] Tulsa: That's exciting.
[00:50:26] Luisa: For next year already set?
[00:50:28] Ella Hansen: Yeah, the, the main tournaments have already been put out. I haven't fully like decided on exactly what tournaments I'm gonna play. But it's, for the most part, I would say like 90% decided.
[00:50:39] Luisa: Cool. Oh, that's very exciting. I think uh, I think I'm gonna have to start watching disc golf cuz it sounds so cool.
[00:50:46] Ella Hansen: It is pretty fun. I would, I have to say it, it's a pretty good sport,
[00:50:51] Luisa: Awesome. Well, wishy luck in the coming year. And you'll have at least share the air fans
[00:50:59] Ella Hansen: Yeah,
[00:51:02] Tulsa: should we do our game?
[00:51:04] Luisa: Yeah, let's do it.
[00:51:05] Tulsa: Okay, so our game is called 10 Second Stall. Based on ultimate Stall. So you'll have 10 seconds from when we start asking a question for you to start giving your answer. And if you don't give it in time, we'll say stall, stall you out. And Lou and I will just take turns asking you questions back and forth.
[00:51:26] Ella Hansen: Okay.
[00:51:27] Tulsa: It's a very generous
[00:51:29] Ella Hansen: Whew.
[00:51:31] Tulsa: Lou, do you wanna start?
[00:51:33] Luisa: Yeah. Are you ready?
[00:51:35] Ella Hansen: Yes.
[00:51:36] Luisa: Okay. What teammate do you want on the line with you? Who's your all time
[00:51:41] Luisa: teammate?
[00:51:41] Ella Hansen: Jesse Shoffner?
[00:51:42] Tulsa: Nice. What's your most used emoji?
[00:51:48] Ella Hansen: Uh, probably the upside down smiley face.
[00:51:52] Tulsa: I like that one too.
[00:51:54] Luisa: for some of these questions we've specified whether or not it's like disc golf or ultimate. So for the ones that aren't specified, you can just pick, um, favorite tournament.
[00:52:05] Ella Hansen: Uh, oh boy. Um, I'm gonna say Maple Hill Disc golf course in, um, somewhere in middle of Massachusetts. I can't
[00:52:14] Tulsa: Oh yeah. Lancaster or
[00:52:16] Tulsa: something.
[00:52:16] Ella Hansen: Yeah. Lester
[00:52:18] Tulsa: Lester. Okay. Yeah. what's your favorite post tournament meal?
[00:52:24] Ella Hansen: Um, I've gotten into Kava recently, which is really good, but it's not everywhere. But that's pretty good.
[00:52:30] Luisa: You can only have one ultimate throw. What do you pick?
[00:52:34] Ella Hansen: Oh, high release forehand,
[00:52:39] Luisa: Solid
[00:52:41] Tulsa: I, I'm just, am picturing you just throwing that everywhere around the
[00:52:44] Tulsa: field. That would be
[00:52:45] Ella Hansen: just so fun.
[00:52:48] Tulsa: you can only have one type of disc, golf disc. What do you pick?
[00:52:52] Ella Hansen: Uh, probably, uh, mid range one,
[00:52:59] Tulsa: Nice
[00:53:00] Luisa: Good. Plug book, podcast or TV show recommendation.
[00:53:05] Ella Hansen: um, a league of their own is great. And also if you're into weird white wing, right wing white supremacist history, um, any podcast by Leah sat.
[00:53:17] Tulsa: If you could play a round of disc golf with any professional athlete, who would you pick?
[00:53:22] Ella Hansen: Um, probably we'll say Sue Bird . I did
[00:53:30] Ella Hansen: get to throw a frisbee with Sue Bird once.
[00:53:32] Ella Hansen: Um, yeah,
[00:53:36] Tulsa: What's the story?
[00:53:37] Ella Hansen: Um, in, in my senior year of high school, I did an internship with the Storm as the athletic training intern, and I got to throw a frisbee with Alicia Clark, and I don't know if I actually threw it with Sue Bird, but she was definitely there and a couple of other players, and it was pretty sick. It was awesome.
[00:53:55] Tulsa: that's fun. I love that.
[00:53:57] Luisa: okay. Favorite tournaments, Nick.
[00:54:00] Ella Hansen: Uh, pretzels or goldfish.
[00:54:05] Tulsa: Nice. okay. Last question. Who's someone you're grateful for?
[00:54:10] Ella Hansen: Um, I am grateful for my mom because she's really nice and really kind, and she is very supportive of me being a niche professional athlete. And, um, , she sent me a, Google Photos album of, uh, it was titled Ella's first year on tour from a mom's perspective. And it was just screenshots of my, like, little tournament rounds and where I was sleeping and where my location was and like, it was very sweet,
[00:54:44] Luisa: That is so, so cute. I love
[00:54:46] Luisa: that
[00:54:47] Tulsa: Yeah. That's a sweet note to end on. Nice job. I don't, yeah. You weren't even close to getting
[00:54:53] Luisa: not even close. It's like you've,
[00:54:56] Tulsa: go
[00:54:56] Luisa: gone to another sport
[00:54:58] Tulsa: yeah.
[00:54:59] Tulsa: Hey, I just, I
[00:55:00] Tulsa: played an ultimate tournament last weekend, so it's like
[00:55:04] Luisa: All right. Still fresh Nice.
[00:55:08] Luisa: Well, thank you Ella, for joining us on Share the Air. Talked about a whole bunch of, whole bunch of different stuff, so much about disc and Now I, now I gotta watch it
[00:55:19] Ella Hansen: Yeah.
[00:55:19] Tulsa: Thank you.
[00:55:21] Ella Hansen: Thank y'all. This was really fun for me. I, I enjoyed it very much.
[00:55:25] Luisa: Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time. If you like the podcast and want to support us, here are a few things that you can do.
[00:55:34] Tulsa: You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook @sharetheairpodcast and on Twitter @sharetheairpod.
[00:55:40] Luisa: You can also rate and review us, and most importantly, subscribe to our podcasts wherever you listen.
[00:55:45] Tulsa: And if you want to show more support or you just can't get enough of Share the Air, you can check out our Patreon at patreon.com/sharetheair. If you're interested in repping some Share the Air gear, check out our VC ultimate store at vcultimate.com.
[00:55:58] Luisa: If you want to get in touch with us, you can email us team@sharetheirpodcast.com. We'd love to hear from you.
[00:56:03] Tulsa: Thanks so much for listening.
[00:56:06] Luisa: Share the Air is recorded and edited by Tulsa Douglas and Luisa Neves. It is planned and produced by Tulsa Douglas, Luisa, Neves, and Tim Bobrowski.
[00:56:14] Tulsa: Share the Air's music is by Grey Devlin and Christopher Hernandez.
[00:56:18] Luisa: Finally, thanks again to our sponsors, NUTC, VC ultimate, and the Centre for Applied Neuroscience.
[00:56:25] Luisa: