Exploring Life & Business with Tristan Green of Triangle Ultimate

Today we’d like to introduce you to Tristan Green.

Hi Tristan, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I grew up locally and started playing Ultimate frisbee at McDougle Middle School in Chapel Hill, and attended High School at Carolina Friends School, helping get the Ultimate frisbee team organized there.

After traveling abroad in Guatemala, I returned to UNC-Chapel Hill for college – and Ultimate frisbee was a huge part of my college experience. Little did I know, all this time that I was spending on the sport that I loved would turn into my career.

Right as I graduated from UNC in 2013, the local nonprofit organization that organizes the sport of Ultimate frisbee in the region, the Triangle Flying Disc Association had grown to the point that it was hiring its first full-time staff. The organization was founded in the mid-90s but was completely volunteer-run for the first -15 years of its existence. Following the rapid growth of youth Ultimate in the late 2000s, I was hired on as the first full-time staff in the Fall of 2013.

Since then, my growth as a leader in the Triangle, and the growth of Triangle Ultimate have gone hand in hand. Over the past 9 years, Triangle Ultimate has grown to serve over 3000 local participants, over half of whom are youth athletes. We run over 70 programs each year, including leagues, tournaments, clinics, and camps for anyone and everyone. More than just growing the number of players, Triangle Ultimate has set our vision to build community, and more so, to build a community that represents the Triangle.

Through my years with Triangle Ultimate, I have been able to connect with the local nonprofit community – whether that was during the classes I took in Duke’s Nonprofit Management Certificate program when I started, or more recently as a Goodman Fellow in the Spring 2020 Regional Cohort of Leadership Triangle. While my work is focused on sport, we see ourselves as more than just a sports league.

Our mission statement focuses on “collaboratively building community emphasizing accessibility, relationships, and engagement through learning, playing, and teaching the sport of Ultimate.” So this means accessibility initiatives like our no questions asked Pay-What-You-Can Registration structure for all of our beginner programs – so that finances are never a barrier to participation and there is no stigma or additional burdens placed on players that may not have the full ability to pay.

The mission also means collaboration with local Boys & Girls Clubs, where we have annual cohorts of 6 Americorps Coaches through Up2Us Sports, a national partner, who lead regular Ultimate frisbee sessions at the local clubs.

I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to turn my passion into my career, and I am proud of the work that Triangle Ultimate as an organization, and community, has done over the past decade to grow the sport of Ultimate in the Triangle. In addition to the local success of Triangle Ultimate, Ultimate in the Triangle has had success nationally and internationally now.

Over the past decade, we have won multiple Youth National Championships, College National Championships (UNC Men’s & Women’s both won nationals in 2021), an Adult Club National Championship (Ring of Fire, Men’s, 2021), as well as Professional Men’s & Women’s Championships with the Raleigh Flyers & Raleigh Radiance. Ultimate frisbee is thriving in the Triangle and I am proud to be a part of it.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
One of the biggest challenges we have wrestled with over the past decade has been how to prioritize equitable growth. Ultimate frisbee has historically been a predominantly affluent, white, college-educated group of people with more males than females participating, and as the sport grows it is easy for those trends to continue.

It has taken intentional effort to focus on ‘how we grow’ and who we are prioritizing with that growth. Our focus on equitable growth has led us to actively work on growing the sport at local public schools, build partnerships with local youth-serving organizations like the Boys & Girls Clubs, and put additional effort into growing opportunities to introduce Girls in the Triangle to the sport.

We have also focused on accessibility, avoiding year-round travel teams and expensive pay-to-play programs and focusing on local recreational opportunities to play in partnership with local Parks & Rec, and adopting pay-what-you-can registration structures so that nobody is priced out of the sport.

Additionally, as with most, the pandemic was a struggle. In March of 2020, we abruptly paused all of our programs in response to COVID-19. With our newly set vision of ‘building a community that represents the Triangle,’ we also knew that our return to play plans had to emphasize the health & safety of the entire Triangle region, not just of our own participants.

So while we may have had pockets of players that were at low risk or had the means to not be the worst affected by COVID, we made our return to play plans prioritizing the overall health & safety of the region with those affected most in mind.

This resulted in a slightly slower return to play than some wanted, required mask policies, and lots of communication – and I am grateful for our communities understanding and receptiveness to this approach.

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am the Executive Director of Triangle Ultimate.

What sets us apart from others is that we are more than just a sports league, we are building community. I am most proud of our newly rolled out no questions asked Pay-What-You-Can Registration structure for Ultimate frisbee to promote accessibility. All of our beginner programs and school-based programs now cost $0-$65 no questions asked so that no additional burden or stigma is added for those who may not have the means to pay.

I’m proud of our community because it has come out and supported this beyond expectations by providing additional donations at registration and through other events to make this pay-what-you-can structure not only possible but sustainable in the long term.

Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
I love how connected the city and region are. There are people working to help each other from all across the region, and it is exciting to see that happen.

I dislike the amount of athletic field space and greenspace in the Triangle – we need more places for our community to get out and play and compete with each other. As the region grows rapidly, I hope that places and spaces for community and connection through athletics grow with it.

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: www.triangleultimate.org
• Instagram: instagram.com/triangleulty
• Facebook: facebook.com/triangleulty
• Twitter: twitter.com/triangleulty
• Youtube: youtube.com/triangleulty

Image Credits
Brian Whittier and Lindsay Soo