GungHo is the Northwestern women’s club ultimate team that participates in intercollegiate tournaments nationwide.
We are a motivated group of girls with a passion for playing the game, having fun, and working with teamwork and spirit. Most importantly, we are looking for new ladies to join our team in what is sure to be a great season!
If you’ve never played Ultimate before- don’t worry! Plenty of us had never played before, either. Just show up with enthusiasm and we’ll take care of the rest. In the fall, we welcome all Northwestern women to come check out our practices, whether they want to join or just to have fun. We’ll start with the basics: teaching throwing, cutting, basic offense and defense. So come on out and get ready to learn an amazing sport, meet some new people and get a great workout!
Northwestern ultimate
The term is originally comes from the Chinese language as gōnghé, and it was introduced and used by the Marine Corps during WWII as their motto. Individually, the characters translate to ‘work’ and ‘together’, and although it doesn’t actually form a phrase in the Chinese language, its adopted meaning has become our logo and mission: working together with heart and spirit. It describes the close-knit teamwork that has led our team to success, and it’s the reason we love the sport.
In pop culture, the term gungho has other meanings, such as “dedicated”, or “passionate”, or “offensively ardent in one’s enthusiasm”, and those work, too, depending on which one of us you’re talking to. Although we officially live by the first meaning, you’ll find that all three of those definitions describe the team pretty well.
What does GungHo mean?
History Lesson:
It all began in 1998, when the Northwestern’s first ultimate players Erin Fitch and Kate Mazurek decided that it was time for Northwestern to have its own women’s ultimate team. The ladies split off from the men, who had already established a club team, and that year Erin and Kate became the founders of what’s currently the most fun-loving, dedicated and enthusiastic club team at school.
As a beginning team, the first few years of NU women's ultimate were not so pretty... in fact, they were literally ‘ugly’.
Dressed in orange camo jerseys, the women of GHOTI played savage more often than not and lost every single game.
In the second year, the team embraced the name "The Ugliest Girls in the World" (ugly dance and everything) and stepped up their play. They added more players, got a few wins to their record, and the Ugliest Girls took fourth in their region.
Then, as the story goes, the ugly duckling grew up. In 2000, the team became GungHo, and since then, Northwestern Women's Ultimate has been a force in the Great Lakes region. GungHo won Regionals and took 9/10 in their first appearance at Nationals. A year later, they repeated a 9/10 performance at Nationals after earning the Great Lakes region's second bid to Nationals. After finishing 3rd and 2nd in Regionals for the next two years--missing Nationals by just one game both years, GungHo returned to Nationals in 2005, where they finished 11/12.
Nobody likes to recall the wet, windy Regionals of 2006, so we won’t go into much detail there. However, the team returned stronger than ever in 2007, and after a tough season, pulled through in Regionals to beat out all other teams and take the only bid to Natties. GungHo then became the first Great Lakes women’s team to make it to quarters, and tied for 5th place. The RTN video recalling this epic experience can be viewed here. In 2009, the girls played through a competitive, fun season and with a ton of spirit and screaming sidelines, won the Sectionals tournament. GungHo’s season ended at Regionals that year, but it was a growing season for the underclassmen-heavy team, and the girls walked off the fields with big plans for the coming year.
2010: GungHo, under the wing of our new coach Ron, stepped into the series with confidence and big dreams. Our season came close to ending with several heart-stopping points, but in the end all our blood, sweat and tears paid off. To take the backdoor bid to Nationals, GungHo beat Case Western on universe point to end the game at 13-12. Epic.
2011: With a talented returning core and a 5 Ultimate sponsorship, GungHo entered the series with a desire to improve upon our Nationals 2010 17th place finish. Battling through an ugly weather Sectionals and a windy Regionals, GungHo took the second bid to Nationals 2011. At Nationals in beautiful Boulder, CO, GungHo had several impressive games. Most notably, we put up an electrifying 14-13 win on universe point against #1 seeded Burning Skirts of UCSB. GungHo rounded out the tournament to place 13th in the nation.
