San Diego Youth Ready to Toss for Frisbee Title

With Sea World’s 1-acre map of the United States providing a fitting backdrop for a national Frisbee championship, San Diegan Peter Albers will be trying to win his first major title this weekend.

Frisbee flingers representing eight regions of the country will start the 1989 World Junior Frisbee Disc Championship on Friday morning at Balboa Park’s Morley Field, site of the 18-hole disc golf course and the first of five events, and conclude Saturday at Sea World, with the crowning of boys and girls champions from the 12-15 age group and the under-11 division.

But this year San Diego fans find particular drama in the five-event competition with the emergence of a local San Diego Frisbee-slinger vying for the title.

Peter Albers, a 14-year-old freshman at St. Augustine High School and winner of the Southern California regionals in Pasadena in early August, hopes to build a national reputation by outscoring defending champion Shawn Kennedy, 16, of Connecticut.

Albers, Kennedy and the other regional finalists are competing for pride and a purse of a $1,000 savings bond. Albers and his competitors survived a national tournament that involved 4,000 recreation centers and schools throughout the country and more than 700,000 participants.

But carving another notch on his trusty Frisbee will be no easy task for young Albers, who faces a sturdy-handed veteran in Kennedy, who dominated last year’s nationals, finishing first in accuracy, distance, maximum time aloft and disc golf while taking second place in the freestyle event.

Kennedy, who turned 16 after the tournament started, has the opportunity to be only the second competitor in the 21-year history of the event to win back-to-back titles.

“I think I’ll give him a run for his money,” Albers said, exuding the quiet confidence of the quintessential California teen-ager.

Albers’ father, Tony, takes credit for his son’s enthusiasm but denies any connection to his son’s proficiency with a flying disc.

“I can’t even hold the thing,” he said, awkwardly fondling the circular disc that his youngest son mastered at the age of 8. Peter, who also plays football, baseball, soccer and tennis, confesses to a little nervousness concerning the weekend but maintains that the Frisbee is simply a recreational device.

Practicing his freestyle skills at the Morley Field disc golf course, Peter, surrounded by Frisbee experts such as former U.S. Open Champ John Tallent, finds it easy to remain humble about his skills.

Tallent, 47, who is Peter’s unofficial coach, said Peter “has the aptitude and some of the greatest players in the world to play against to help him develop into a future champ.”

Emotional Boost

Though tournament officials have redesigned the Morley Field course to eliminate Peter’s home field advantage, family and friends should give Peter an emotional boost his out-of-town competition will be lacking.

“From what people tell me, I have a chance of winning it all,” said Peter, a thin, blond 6-footer.

The two-day tournament also serves as an unofficial tribute to the plastic flying disc of mysterious origin that has become a staple of California culture.

Despite the intrinsic California “gnarlyness” of the flying platter, some Frisbee lore specialists trace the disc’s origin to a group of inventive and mischievous Yale students who started throwing metal pie tins from the Frisbie Baking Co. in the 1920s. A verbal alarm of “Frisbie” would alert unsuspecting pedestrians of an approaching pie tin.

But it wasn’t until the late ‘60s and early ‘70s that organized Frisbee sporting events, like this weekend’s junior championships in San Diego, took flight.

The tournaments culminate with the U.S. Open Championships, held annually in June in Los Angeles and recognized as the granddaddy of Frisbee competitions, drawing competitors from around the world.