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David Gessner’s Search For ‘Ultimate Glory’ With A Frisbee

Today millions of people play Ultimate Frisbee. But in the 1980s, when David Gessner first picked up a frisbee, the sport was still relatively unknown.

Host Frank Stasio talks with professor and writer David Gessner about his memoir, 'Ultimate Glory: Frisbee, Obsession, and My Wild Youth'.

In his new memoir, “Ultimate Glory: Frisbee, Obsession, and My Wild Youth” (Riverhead Books/2017), Gessner recounts his eccentric experiences wielding a frisbee and explores the sport’s underground culture. Host Frank Stasio talks with Gessner about his new memoir and the rise of Ultimate Frisbee. 

Gessner is the chair of the creative writing department at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and the author of the New York Times bestseller “All the Wild That Remains” (W. W. Norton & Company/2015).

Cover of 'Ultimate Glory: Frisbee, Obsession, and My Wild Youth'
Riverhead Books, 2017 / Riverhead Books, 2017
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Riverhead Books, 2017
Cover of 'Ultimate Glory: Frisbee, Obsession, and My Wild Youth'

Copyright 2017 North Carolina Public Radio

Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.
Charlie Shelton