By Daniel Lippman ’08

Many sports games these days are rough-and-tumble with referees required on the field to keep athletes in line, make sure they follow the rules, and don’t hurt each other (too much) as they try to dominate their opponent. Not so with ultimate Frisbee, which is self-officiated and where being a good sportsman is not only important but also rewarded.

One family that has played a leading role in making ultimate an increasingly prominent sport comprises five Titcomb siblings: Zahlen ’00, Xtehn ’01, Vehro ’03, Rohre ’05, and Qxhna ’11, all of whom attended Hotchkiss and found their love for ultimate.

Driven by passion for the sport, they own two top ultimate professional teams in Seattle, the Seattle Cascades and the Seattle Tempest, which went undefeated during this season and won the first ever Western Ultimate League championship this past spring. The siblings have also racked up medals and media attention over the years.

Rohre, whom USA Ultimate Magazine once called the best women’s player in the world, is one of the Tempest coaches. Qxhna is a starting player for Tempest and has won renown for her ultimate career, even garnering the cover of USA Ultimate Magazine. Both Rohre and Qxhna have won Beach Worlds gold medals. All three male siblings have taken home several medals as players for the U.S. Men’s National Team and gold medals for Beach Worlds.

While there had long been an ultimate club at Hotchkiss, it was only once the Titcombs came to campus that ultimate became a varsity sport.

“The boys and Rohre and Qxhna were all remarkable athletes, and they really believe in and embody and promote the spirit of the game,” says David Thompson, director of international programs and varsity ultimate coach.

The Titcombs’ success and love of the sport also led them to found the Five Ultimate apparel company in 2006, which came to life in their parents’ garage and expanded to a full-fledged company with manufacturing in Asia and an office in Europe. The siblings ran it until 2019 when they sold it to another apparel company in their sport.

Growing up mostly in Seattle but partly in Italy and France, their lawyer-investor father John Titcomb ’68 and artist mother Linde Behringer saw ultimate as a way for their children to bond while keeping them occupied.

“When you have five kids and you’re trying to coordinate activities, having something where many kids can participate is a pretty nice thing,” says Qxhna. “My dad was never the type of person who said, ‘let’s throw a baseball in the backyard or kick a soccer ball;’ he was like, ‘let’s throw a Frisbee.’”

Hotchkiss Magazine talked to all five siblings about their careers in ultimate.

Career Aspirations Growing Up

Rohre: When I applied to Hotchkiss, I had to write an essay about my dreams. What I wrote about back then was wanting to compete in the Olympics and be on the first team when ultimate was in the Olympics.

Vehro: I knew I wanted to be in business, as cheesy as that sounds. I never knew what form that would take until starting this business with my siblings became a reality.

How Hotchkiss Helped Them Succeed

Rohre: It instilled in me rigor and discipline. And I think that really has helped me be successful as an athlete. And just in life, I think the people around me would describe me as a very resilient person who can take on any challenge and will succeed. And my experience at Hotchkiss was definitely one where I was constantly being challenged. I remember getting to college and thinking, “this isn’t that hard.” And that’s because Hotchkiss really pushed me.

Zahlen: Hotchkiss gave me the clear understanding to seek knowledge and try to understand how the world works. For me it’s the idea that you can always learn something. And if you have a question, there’s someone willing to answer it for you. It showed me the path that lifelong learning was possible and a yearning for knowledge was something I enjoyed.

Why They Love Ultimate

Vehro: The best part of playing ultimate is everyone gets to be the quarterback.

Qxhna: It gives me a competitive outlet. And it allows me to develop skills that are related to confidence building and leadership skills and being part of an environment where you can fail without consequence.

Xtehn: It’s a really accessible sport. You need a Frisbee, you need a mostly flat space, and it’s no contact. It rewards strategy and skill.

Zahlen: One of the core elements of the sport is a strong belief in the idea of self-officiation and integrity coming onto the field. And when you have players that all respect each other at a high level, you can actually achieve great things. You can take that concept into everyday life and solve a lot of problems.

What Made Ultimate a Great Business

Vehro: For us, it was a product-market fit. And I think that really boils down to the fact that we spent so many years in the sport. As players and consumers, it’s almost impossible to not understand who your target audience is, what they care about, what’s important to them, and how to be helpful and be valuable.

Rohre: When we started, our mental model at that time was Burton. And we saw what Burton did for snowboarding and what snowboarding did for Burton. Burton is synonymous with snowboarding, and we wanted to create a brand that was synonymous with ultimate.

How Equity is Shaping Ultimate

Rohre: A lot of the global conversations about gender equity, specifically in the sports world, translate very directly into the ultimate community. We wanted to create access for putting women on the professional field, as close to the beginning of men being on the professional field as possible … to really not create this lagging kind of younger sibling, smaller secondary dynamic that you see in a lot of the other professional leagues out there.

Qxhna: There’s been a lot of conversations within the sport, not just about gender equity, but also about the intersection with racism, classism, and ableism. And honestly, those are conversations that are never ending. We’re at just the start of conversation and starting to figure out how to include social justice and anti-racism in all the work that we do as a sport.

What’s in Store in the Future?

Rohre: Well, I still have my Olympic dream. So maybe someday?  

Daniel Lippman ’08 is a POLITICO reporter covering the White House and Washington and can be reached at daniel@politico.com.