With The Athletes...Peter Henessy '03

Author: Andrew Niccolo Zimmermann

Senior Peter Hennessy is a Prankster with a capital "P". For those who don't know, Pete isn't the only one. There are more and they share a passion here at Middlebury.
"We're in our 25th year," the Chicago area native says. "The Merry Pranksters was a group that traveled around the country in the 70's in this bus. And they attended 'acid tests' which were basically LSD parties where they would take acid and run around in the woods and paint the trees."
The Middlebury Pranksters nowadays do plenty of running around yet don't live up to the psychedelic reputation of their namesake. Hennessy is the co-captain of the Pranksters, which is the name of Midd's ultimate frisbee team. His responsibilities as captain are many and extend to issues off the field.
"I am in charge of the team's finances and organizing trips, tournaments, and figuring out transportation and housing," he says. In fact, Pete acts as the team's president because ultimate, like many other sports, is considered a "club" and does not receive funding from the Athletic Department.
His frisbee career had humble beginnings as Hennessy hails from Kenilworth, Ill., a suburb on Chicago's north side. "Oh yeah, I'm a Cubs fan," says Pete. "Actually the summer before freshman year, one of my buddies got me to play in this summer league and I had a real good time doing it," says Hennessy of how he started playing ultimate. "When I got here, there was another kid from my high school who played and told me I should do the same. And I did and I've loved it right away."
The term "Frisbee" is actually a misnomer and refers instead to a brand name. "Nobody uses Frisbees," Hennessy says. "There is one kind that everybody uses and its called Discraft and it weighs 175 grams." So with the "disc" the Pranksters take to a 70 by 40 yard field bounded by 25 by 40 end zones. Seven players per side battle each other to either 13 or 15 points.
"The team on offense has to work the disc up the field by throwing it consecutively to players. You are allowed to catch the disc and slow yourself down [3 steps] but you can't run with the disc. And then when you stop you have 10 seconds to throw it to the next guy. You score by working it down field and catching it in the opposing team's end zone."
Simple right? "Possession works kind of like basketball or soccer," says Hennessy referring to the dynamic between offense and defense. Yet ultimate has its own unique set of terminology that is integral to understanding what the hell a Prankster is talking about when he explains how a game went. Here is the crash course.
A "D" - refers to good defense, the equivalent of "D" - ing it up in basketball.
Layout - popular term to describe getting horizontal to the ground to catch a disc.
Get Hos - see Layout.
Huck - a really long throw generally for a score. Can be used off field as well to describe - aww nevermind.
Sky - When you jump to rip the disc down.
Rip it down - When you nab the disc from the clutches of the opponent. (See Pete's picture)
Huck it deep - To through the disc balls out as far as possible. Also a credo for life according to the Pranksters.
Such terminology along with their reputation for throwing raucous parties has contributed to the perception that ultimate frisbee along with its players are unconventional and wacky. Just listening to team nicknames you would get the same idea. G-spot, Sloppy, The Vermont Original Gangster, The Rocket, Deuce, Powder Puff, Rasta, Shuffles, Wiz-Kid and Bunny are all real people - scratch that - real Pranksters. Among the many parties frisbee players throw, one of the most popular is called "Anything for a Buck" which is both amusing and self-explanatory.
But ultimate is a real sport here at Middlebury and an increasingly popular one. Middlebury fields both a men's and a women's team along with a development or "B" team.
"We're a good mix," Hennessy says. "We have a lot of guys who come from a traditional sports background. So, people try not to take themselves too seriously, but when its time to get down to business, people get down to business." This weekend Middlebury will host Sectionals, which give way to Regionals the weekend after and Nationals after that. The athletic fields on Saturday will be the setting for the event. Spectators are encouraged to attend.
Although ultimate frisbee lacks the hierarchy of the NCAA's divisions, Middlebury takes on many NESCAC teams including Williams and Amherst. However where the Pranksters differ from many of their fellow Middlebury athletes is in the remainder of their competition. "We take on bigger teams like the University of Illinois and Oregon," mentions Hennessy. Include in that list Brown, Dartmouth and UMass as bigger schools with which Middlebury tussles.
In fact just two years ago the Pranksters won an epic game against UMass in the Regional semifinal, a game Hennessy recalls fondly. "UMass always plays super hard. In this game people were really playing on top of their game. I made what I feel was a pretty big contribution on D. The game seemed to go on forever as we kept trading game points, but we eventually won."
Middlebury lost the Regional final in what turned out to be its closest shot at Nationals in team history. Now, with Hennessy in his final year and a strong cast of players, the Pranksters are looking to make a new "best memory" and go further than any previous squad has.
As Pete leaves, with graduation in May, he will leave behind his days as a Prankster. He also loves to ski and has occasionally performed on the piano while at Midd. Pete plans to also take his knowledge as an economics major with him.
He is slated to visit Finland with an advising professor to share some of the fruits of his economic research at a conference. In speculating about what to do next Pete says, "I really want to keep doing economics research, so I will probably wind up in D.C.."


Do you know any unique athletes that could be profiled in the Sports Section? Send any suggestions to Andy Zimmermann at
azimmerm@middlebury.edu.