By Ian Round

“I love Ultimate. My heart bleeds discs.”

Unhappy with the Ultimate offerings at Mount Vernon Nazarene University (MVNU), colloquially known as “the Naz,” senior Lindsay Doerr looked elsewhere to get her frisbee fix.

She turned to Gambier, emailing the Kenyon team to ask about joining.

“We have intramural Ultimate at Mount Vernon, but it’s terrible,” Doerr said.

Doerr, 22, of Wooster, Ohio, said she played Ultimate “off and on for about two-and-a-half years” before joining Kenyon’s team last year. She said her boyfriend of four years, who graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University this year and was the captain of their team, sparked her interest in the sport.

At first, the Kenyon team was not sure how to accept a non-Kenyon student, but Doerr said the team warmed up to her in a hurry.

“Honestly, the Kenyon women’s Ultimate team was so welcoming,” she said. “It helped that I’m not terrible.”

Team Captain Emma Peaslee ’14 said there was nothing too memorable about Doerr’s first few days on the team.

“I don’t really remember, and I think that’s kind of telling of her personality,” Peaslee said, referring to Doerr’s easygoing and relaxed nature.

“It wasn’t really jarring at all, it just happened seamlessly,” she said. “She really meshed with the team.”

Since she does not attend Kenyon, Doerr is not allowed to play in sanctioned tournaments unless there is a proven affiliation between the College and MVNU.

She said, however, that the team only played in one sanctioned tournament last year and believes that proven affiliation is a vague rule.

Despite the little interaction between the two schools, Doerr interestingly noted that her friends at MVNU are fascinated by Kenyon.

“The students at the Naz see Kenyon as this alternate reality that is so grand,” she said. “They’re just jealous that I get to live outside of the bubble.”

MVNU students are not the only curious ones.

“As much as students at the Naz ask about Kenyon, people at Kenyon ask about the Naz,” Doerr said. “I feel blessed to see both cultures because they’re totally different worlds.”

Doerr characterized MVNU as “a normal college, but it’s founded on Christian principles.”

She said the main difference between the schools is that MVNU has stricter rules, the most notable of which is that students are not allowed to drink alcohol. She also noted there is less diversity of opinions at MVNU.

“It’s assumed that everyone shares the same viewpoint,” Doerr said. “Other religions aren’t discussed.”

She added, though, that the school has panel discussions and “groups made for the purpose of having open conversations.”

Though she said she does not often hang out with the team on the weekends, Doerr eats with them at Peirce Hall after practice.

“The food at Mount Vernon is terrible,” she said, adding that Peirce is much better than her dining hall, where she claims “everything is fried.”

She suggested a state of gastronomic desperation at the Naz. “Some girl tried to press a sandwich in the waffle maker,” she said.

Of course, she does not go to Peirce just for the food. She said she values the small amount of time she spends with the team off of the field.

“Even though I don’t hang out with them on the weekends, I still consider them a big part of my life,” she said of her Kenyon teammates.

Doerr’s passion for the team and her teammates is more enthusiastic than intense. She said she loves Ultimate for the game, not the result on the scoreboard.

“I’m not a super competitive person. I just like to run a lot,” Doerr said.

Doerr, a biology education major, transferred to MVNU for her sophomore year from Indiana Wesleyan University in Marion, Ind.

She said she transferred to be closer to her boyfriend and felt that a teaching license from Ohio would be more valuable than one from Indiana.

She takes an online class in addition to her full class schedule and teaches 11 hours per week at Mount Vernon High School (MVHS).

Next semester, she will teach full time at MVHS and take two evening classes.

In addition to the extra coursework, Doerr mentors six freshman girls in high school and does additional volunteer teaching. Even with her busy schedule, she still makes time for Ultimate practices.

And despite attending a religious school and having a pastor for a father, Doerr said she does not like the terms “religious” or “Christian” because they carry too many negative connotations as major denominations have staked out controversial positions on social issues.

She said she tries to emulate Christian principles, “which to me means loving people. Christians often get caught up in wrongs people are doing,” she said. “I get so angry when Christians hate people.”

Peaslee said that Doerr’s kindness is one of the things that makes her presence on the team so welcome.

For Doerr, some of her open-mindedness has come from her Kenyon teammates.

“They’ve taught me a lot about life and how to view people,” she said.

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