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Maddie Purcell On The Future Of Ultimate Frisbee

PORTLAND RISING CO-FOUNDERS MADDIE PURCELL (LEFT) AND CHLOË ROWSE

Maddie Purcell is a professional Ultimate Frisbee player and a co-founder of the Portland Rising in the Premier Ultimate League. The Premier Ultimate League was created in 2018 with four teams, and has since expanded to include eight teams around the country. Below, Purcell talks with Just Women’s Sports about the foundation of the Premier Ultimate League and her journey with the sport. 

Can you give us a little background on the Premier Ultimate League and the Portland Rising? How did it all come to be? 

Ultimate frisbee started in New Jersey and was a grassroots sport for a while. With ultimate, there are men’s, women’s and mixed teams. Having a sport where multiple genders play on the field at the same time leads to what seems like an opportunity for gender equity all the way up. A professional men’s team started in 2012 and a lot of the community was like, “Wait, why just men’s?” Why are we feeding into this sports narrative that puts men first and then women as the sideshow? As a female athlete, it was extremely disappointing to see.

The community discussed this in different pockets for a long time. There were some showcase opportunities here and there for women’s teams, but it was nowhere close to equitable. In 2018, the idea came about for the Premier Ultimate League, which is for women and non-binary folk. We had a pilot season in 2018 with four teams who played a couple of games. Then, we had the full launch in 2019 with eight teams from across the Central, Eastern and Southern parts of the country, as well as a team from Colombia. The first season was so successful that we were able to expand by 50% in year two. And that’s where Portland Rising came into the picture. Portland has a lot of minor league teams who get a lot of support from the community. And yet, we’re just not seeing women on the professional sporting field. For us, it seemed like a responsibility and a privilege to make this happen.

How did you personally get involved in ultimate frisbee? 

I came to ultimate frisbee pretty casually. I first touched a disc in eighth grade but I couldn’t really throw. I had a group of friends who would play ultimate with like 25 people on the field — normally it’s 7v7. We would huck it one way and then huck it the other. It was not good ultimate, but I got a little taste of the bug. I started playing in the Portland summer league when I was in college.

I went to Colby College in Maine and when I graduated, I was like, “Okay, what now?” I had some tough personal things going on and I really missed physical activity and team sports. I started playing for club ultimate teams, since there weren’t any professional teams, and it was a lot of fun. At that point, a lot of people had started playing in college, so I wasn’t very far behind the curve in terms of disc skills.

In a lot of women’s sports leagues, players have to work multiple jobs to maintain a steady income. Is that a similar situation in the Premier Ultimate League? 

Yes. There are a few players in the men’s professional league who play for their career. I’m not sure if there are any in the women’s league. For Rising, our five year goal is to enable any rising player who wants to play ultimate as their career to be able to do so. We want it to be a combination of team pay, sponsorship endorsements, and things like that. For players on our team, that’s very exciting. Professional women’s ultimate didn’t exist until two years ago, so the concept of being able to get paid for something that players have invested so much into is awesome. And also, club ultimate can be very expensive — flying to tournaments and paying for your own uniforms. We’ve had a lot of conversations around who’s left out of that. My hope is that we’ll be able to change those barriers so everyone has the opportunity to access the professional level.

Can you talk more on how the league is trying to break down those barriers and bring people in? 

I think it’s imperative with understanding the world a little better to first understand the ways that systematic discrimination have impacted absolutely everything in our country. As a league, we are putting half of our resources into equity work to build a sustainable and equitable organization over the next year. Part of that is just because it is the right thing to do, but there is also opportunity there. What does it look like to build an organization that gives representation and power and prestige to folks who haven’t previously had it?

After George Floyd was murdered, a lot of people, myself included, woke up on a bigger level. As a league, we realized that we had gotten some social credit for being an inclusive and forward-looking organization. But a lot of the people benefiting from it, percentage-wise, were still just white women, who were getting more credit for being on the socially just side of things without necessarily spreading their resources to the extent that they should be. So yeah, we’re working on it really intentionally and we’re looking at the WNBA as great role models.

Why do you think it is so important for athletes to speak out on social issues? 

There’s nothing like rooting for sports and the emotional connection you can develop to teams and specific players. We saw it with Kobe, we see it with Diana Taurasi, Megan Rapinoe, and Colin Kaepernick. It’s incredible when you see athletes recognize that we love being fans of sports, and they take that attention and direct it somewhere where it can do some good.

One of our athletes, Hannah Baranes, did a birthday fundraiser recently and she was talking about how, as a young child, she was very behaviorally challenging. And because she’s white and because of the system, she was able to have those behavioral challenges addressed. She was given outlets, like sports, and now she is playing at the professional level. If she hadn’t had that privilege, maybe it would have looked like the court system or juvenile detention. So, I think there’s a lot of understanding on our team and a lot of desire to help create better outcomes.

Taking a step back here, but how do you recruit players to join the league? 

We’ll see moving forward. The first year, we held an open tryout because there had been no professional ultimate team in New England before. We sent out invites and opened it up to all corners. We had about 115 athletes come out and the energy in that room was insane. I was surprised the roof stayed on that first tryout. And the talent, too. Getting to see ultimate at that level and having it be inclusive was really cool.

We signed 27 players to the roster and then when it became clear that we weren’t going to play this year, we gave everyone an opt out clause. So far, 25 players chose to stay with the Rising through this extended offseason. Our hope is that many of those 25 players will be on the roster next year, and then we’ll see what we need and who’s available. I doubt we’ll do an open tryout again, but maybe we will have a community pickup game to give people opportunities to be seen.

How has COVID-19 affected your team and the growth of the sport? 

Honestly, I don’t think we’ll know the whole story until like three years from now. Within the team, people are dealing with it in different ways. Everyone has been affected in some way. People have lost relatives, people have lost jobs, and just the mental health struggle of it all is impacting everyone. Most players don’t have a gym, so it has been a challenge to keep our bodies in shape and our minds in shape. But people are also taking this time to educate themselves and take action. I’m really proud of the way everyone has dealt with it.

For the sport itself, that’s a really good question. I’m very optimistic about Portland, but the sport, as a whole, I don’t know. Ultimate will always exist, but a lot of ultimate companies are struggling without game play. I will say that, while every sport is important to the people who play it, most ultimate players find their identity in ultimate. I’ve never felt this almost cultish excitement and love for a sport until ultimate. So, yes, there is a pandemic and we have shut down for a year, but I’m excited to build from the other side.

What is it about ultimate frisbee that is so different from other sports? 

Are you familiar with “Spirit of the Game”? It’s the guiding principle of ultimate. Ultimate doesn’t use referees, except at the men’s professional level for some reason. And without refs, there’s this level of integrity. It’s also just the fun of it. For some people, Spirit of the Game means a dance party and for some people it means competing at the highest level. People have different definitions, but Spirit of the Game means something to everyone who plays ultimate and it creates this different culture.

What are your hopes for the future of ultimate? 

In Portland, we want to make ultimate a mainstream sport and the groundwork is there to do it. Our community in Portland loves being fans and loves supporting our town. The community is ready for a women’s professional team and we want to promote women competing at the highest level. Across the sport, there is a lot of work to be done to reach full equity and full inclusion. We want to make ultimate a safe community for everybody, not just the people who are at the core of it already. There are a lot of questions like is ultimate going to be in the Olympics soon? What kind of investment will there be at the pro level versus the youth level? But definitely all of it is moving towards growth.

LPGA Stars Tee Off at the 2025 Evian Championship

China's Miranda Wang plays a shot during the Pro Am before the 2025 Evian Championship.
The 2025 Evian Championship tees off in Évian-les-Bains, France, on Thursday. (Stuart Franklin/Getty Images)

The fourth major championship of the 2025 LPGA season teed off on Thursday, as golf's best gathered to compete for the $8 million overall purse at the Evian Championship in Évian-les-Bains, France.

Along with eight other past champions, 25-year-old Japanese golfer and world No. 16 Ayaka Furue entered this week's edition looking to defend her 2024 title, finishing the opening round at four-under-par to sit in a respectable nine-way tie for seventh place.

No. 17 Céline Boutier, the 2023 champion, trailed Furue by one stroke, with the Frenchwoman heading into Friday's second round tied for 16th with six other golfers, including the US's No. 35 Megan Khang.

Currently leading the US contingent are No. 36 Andrea Lee and No. 38 Jennifer Kupcho, whose six-under opening round has them tied with three others at the top of the 2025 Evian Championship leaderboard.

Two strokes below the leaders — and clustered in that seventh-place tie with Furue — is world No. 1 Nelly Korda, making a solid start by finishing the day with four straight birdies.

Korda is hunting both a third career major title and her first win of the 2025 LPGA season this week.

"Overall, a couple parts of my game helped me and rescued me, and the other parts let me down," said Korda, following her opening round play. "That's golf. Just going to try and figure it out on the range."

Should Korda, or the other US contenders, finish the weekend atop the field, the US could see its first Evian champion since Angela Stanford in 2018.

How to watch the 2025 Evian Championship

The 2025 Evian Championship runs through Sunday, with live coverage airing on the Golf Channel.

Frontrunners Advance as 2025 Euro Kicks Off Final Group-Stage Matches

Spain attackers Alexia Putellas and Salma Paralluelo celebrate a goal at the 2025 Euro tournament.
Spain advances to the 2025 Euro quarterfinals with two wins in Group B. (Aitor Alcalde - UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)

The third and final round of 2025 Euro group-stage matches begins on Thursday, when some teams will battle for survival while other tournament frontrunners rest easy having already secured their spots in the knockouts.

Of the competition's 16 teams, four punched their tickets to the quarterfinals in their second matches, with four others conceding elimination.

World No. 16 Norway led the charge to the European Championship knockouts, becoming the first team to advance by topping Group A last Sunday.

No. 2 Spain followed suit with a dominant 6-2 Monday win over No. 20 Belgium to top Group B, while No. 3 Germany and No. 6 Sweden wrapped up Group C by notching their second Euro wins on Tuesday.

On the other hand, Belgium, No. 12 Denmark, No. 14 Iceland, and No. 27 Poland saw their 2025 Euro hopes end this week, as two losses plus other group results snuffed out any chance to advance.

The remaining third group-play matches will now decide the second Group A and B teams to make the quarterfinals, with host No. 23 Switzerland and surprise contender No. 26 Finland squaring off for the Group A spot on Thursday.

While No. 13 Italy can lock up a knockout berth with a win or a draw against Spain on Friday, No. 22 Portugal is not out of the Group B running just yet — though their path to advance is tough, requiring an Italy loss plus a high-scoring win over Belgium.

France celebrates Clara Mateo's opening goal during their 2025 Euro group-stage match against Wales.
France leads the "Group of Death" with six points. (Marcio Machado/Eurasia Sport Images/Getty Images)

"Group of Death" comes down to final day of group play

The 2025 Euro's notorious "Group of Death" still has everything to play for, as all four teams in the hyper-competitive Group D could still technically advance — though some have wildly clearer paths than others.

No. 10 France sits in the lead with six points, while defending champions No. 5 England and the No. 11 Netherlands will go into Group D's third matchday on Sunday tied with three points apiece.

The Dutch have arguably the toughest task on Sunday, likely needing a goal-heavy win over Les Bleues to keep their Euro dream alive, while a draw would see France secure their quarterfinal spot.

After saving their back-to-back title campaign with a 4-0 thumping of the Netherlands on Wednesday, the Lionesses will face No. 30 Wales to close out the group stage, advancing with a defeat of their UK rivals plus either a goal differential lead over the Dutch or a Netherlands loss.

"We bounced back from the previous game and showed we were more than capable [of] showing the world what we can do," England goalscorer Lauren James told the BBC after Wednesday's win.

As for the Euro debutants, Wales saw Seattle Reign midfielder Jess Fishlock score their first major tournament goal in team history in their Wednesday loss to France, keeping spirits high despite trailing in Group D with two tournament losses.

That said, a massive Sunday win over England plus a French implosion against the Dutch could statistically, if improbably, see the Dragons sneak through.

All in all, the 2025 Euro group stage has presented mostly straightforward results in the early stages, but there's still room for a few more twists and turns before the knockouts.

How to watch the final 2025 Euro group-stage matches

Each group will take the 2025 Euro pitch for their final first-round matches on consecutive days.

All matches will kick off at 3 PM ET:

  • Thursday, Group A: No. 26 Finland vs. No. 23 Switzerland, No. 16 Norway vs. No. 14 Iceland
  • Friday, Group B: No. 22 Portugal vs. No. 20 Belgium, No. 13 Italy vs. No. 2 Spain
  • Saturday, Group C: No. 27 Poland vs. No. 12 Denmark, No. 6 Sweden vs. No. 3 Germany
  • Sunday, Group D: No. 5 England vs. No. 30 Wales, No. 11 Netherlands vs. No. 10 France

Live coverage of 2025 Euro matches will air across Fox Sports platforms.

Las Vegas, Washington Look to Break From the Pack

Las Vegas guard Dana Evans defends as Washington Mystics guard Sug Sutton drives to the basket during a 2025 WNBA game.
Las Vegas and Washington are currently tied with 9-10 records on the season. (David Becker/NBAE via Getty Images)

Locked up in a mid-table traffic jam with 9-10 season records alongside the No. 7 Indiana Fever, the No. 8 Washington Mystics and No. 9 Las Vegas Aces will aim to break their WNBA standings tie during their Thursday night clash.

With both teams currently hugging the league's playoff line, the Aces and Mystics are on very different trajectories as the 2025 WNBA season nears its halfway point.

Just two years removed from earning back-to-back championships, Las Vegas has struggled to create a foothold in the 2025 standings — a task that seems even more difficult with 2024 MVP A'ja Wilson's recent wrist injury, with her likely absence looming large over Thursday's matchup.

On the other hand, Washington appears to be surging ahead of schedule, as a pair of All-Star rookies are exceeding expectations as the Mystics continue their controlled rebuild.

In Thursday's other game, No. 1 Minnesota will look to right the ship as their West Coast road trip continues:

  • No. 1 Minnesota Lynx vs. No. 11 LA Sparks, 3 PM ET (WNBA League Pass): There's no rest for the league leaders after a disappointing loss to No. 2 Phoenix on Wednesday, with the Lynx facing a grueling back-to-back tilt against the Sparks in LA.
  • No. 9 Las Vegas Aces vs. No. 8 Washington Mystics, 7:30 PM ET (Prime): With playoff spots on the line, Las Vegas will want to prove their quality against a Washington team taking everything one game at a time.

Connecticut Sun Shock the Seattle Storm to Log Third Season Win

Connecticut Sun rookie guards Saniya Rivers and Aneesah Morrow bump chests in celebration of a 2025 WNBA win.
The Connecticut Sun earned their third win of the season on Wednesday. (Erica Denhoff/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

A young Connecticut Sun team upended the WNBA on Wednesday, as the league's last-place squad defeated the No. 5 Seattle Storm 93-83, earning their third win of the 2025 season.

Veteran center Tina Charles — the WNBA's all-time top rebounder and second all-time scorer — led the Connecticut charge with a 29-point, 11-rebound double-double.

Also helping snap the Sun's 10-game losing streak were starters Jacy Sheldon, Bria Hartley, and Saniya Rivers, who added double-digits points of their own to top the tough, veteran-heavy Storm.

"It was great to see a collective team effort," Charles said after the game. "It wasn't just me. Everyone involved got this win for us."

Elsewhere on Wednesday, No. 7 Indiana failed to hold off the No. 6 Golden State Valkyries, falling 80-61 to the 2025 expansion side despite the return of Fever star Caitlin Clark to the court.

After hanging the No. 14 jersey of retired WNBA champion Allie Quigley in the rafters, the No. 10 Chicago Sky logged an 87-76 win over the No. 12 Dallas Wings, buoyed by Rebecca Allen's season-high 27 points off the bench.

Also stealing Wednesday headlines were the No. 2 Mercury, who chipped away at Minnesota's lead atop the WNBA standings, shrinking it to a three-game buffer with a 79-71 Phoenix victory — only the third Lynx loss this season.

Along with a career-high 29-point performance from forward Alyssa Thomas, the Mercury win also marked DeWanna Bonner's return to play, with the veteran forward putting up seven points and six rebounds off the bench after signing with Phoenix on Tuesday.

"Today, she got thrown into the fire, [she] didn't know everything. But she did the things she could control, which is playing defense and rebounding," said Thomas about Bonner. "It's scary to think we're not even full strength yet."

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