David 'Buddha' Meyer
Emails from Friends
From: MuppetManiac584(at)aol.com
Subject: Ultime Website
Date: March 10, 2004 5:55:58 PM PST
To: joe(at)seidler.com
Hey!
I was playing around on the internet and I happened upon your site. This was really cool to me..because my name is David Meyer...and the David Meyer who originally helped found Ultimate was my uncle.. I'm named for him..
I wanted to say thanks, so many websites fail to mention his name or the fact that the official rule book is dedicated to his memory. I never knew him, but I grew up listening to stories about him and rummaging through his old room at my grandma's fascinated by this guy.
If you ever need any information about him, let me know..im sure I could help you out.
Just a little note for ya..his middle name was Louis...lol just so ya know. I see David L. Meyer a couple times..figured thats some help i could give ya,.
My uncle's family is still intact. There is his brother Joe, who is my father..his other brother Robert lives in hong kong. His mother still lives in Maplewood. And he has several nephews...my 3 brothers matt, andrew, and brandon..and my cousins from Robert: michael, ben, and rochelle.
all the best!,
David
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Does anyone remember David Meyer? According to what I've been told, he graduated from CHS, was nicknamed Buddha, and founded the Columbia University ultimate team in 1973. Apparently his nephew found us.
Joe
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Of course I remember Dave. He was CHS '73, the year behind our class. He was a great big bear. Always a true adherent to the spirit of the game. He had one speed -medium- but he could maintain it through an entire game. Man-oh-man could he launch a disc, though. (With remarkable accuracy.) He was rather a fan of using a throwing hand glove, as I recall. Also, an early aficionado of the air bounce. A true lover of the game and a great loss. I know he'd be playing still.
Geoff West
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I played against Buddha when I attended Penn State (probably at the 1976 Nationals in Massachusetts). I remember him – he didn’t look like he was in shape (a little on the portly side) but he really knew what he was doing and could throw as good as or better (accuracy-wise – he wasn’t a distance thrower) than any other player out there at that time. He wasn’t really fast, but had a good knowledge of where to go and how to get open.
Snuffy
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Snuffy, it was actually in the 1977 Nationals in Amherst, MA that we (Penn State) played Columbia (and Buddha, Peter Bloeme, and a number of the other gods of frisbee) in the first round of the tournament. I remember that before the game we tried to psyche ourselves up (and not psyche ourselves out!) to be playing these really great disk handlers, especially Buddha, since we had heard so much about how good he was. The game ended 15-13 in our favor and one might say played a huge part in building our confidence to win that tournament (since we had just beaten some of the best Frisbee throwers in the Universe). Three other tough games followed, but that game against Buddha and Columbia certainly set the stage.
Andy Klein
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David Meyer WAS nicknamed "Buddha". He passed away years back. He was a huge and very warm and welcoming presence on the field. His brother, Robert Meyer, lives in Hong Kong. Robert, can you please give us some additional insight on Buddha? Joe is putting together a "history of ultimate" and David figures large.
Best regards,
Ron Kaufman
PS: Others on this list who were touched by David may wish to tell Robert just how much impact his brother made on your lives. He certainly had a very positive impact on mine, and in a very short time.
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Anyone who played with Buddha will always remember the "Buddha shuffle". He was a big guy, and would shuffle down the field alternating dropping/sliding the disc down his back in a self-pass from each hand. From the front, you couldn't really tell what he was doing.....but it was really hilarious to watch.
Marc S. Hirsch
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I have very fond memories of Buddha.
At a time when I was a rookie, and one or two of the oldtimers were mean, I became insecure, and wondered whether or not this was the game I should be involved in. In a completely unsolicited fashion, he stood up for me (gave the two guys some crap for me), and encouraged me. In an unsolicited fashion he just came up to me, put his arm around me, and said something to the effect of, "I think these guys are acting like jerks, too, don't worry about it, ignore 'em."
He was a real mentch. He didn't take anything too seriously (including himself) and raised the level of the spirit in his game with a wry sense of humor. He also became very friendly to me hanging out around the computer lab at high school, giving me insider tips, and so forth.
One more cent:
Wasn't one of the posters, or t-shirts, or something like that -- a picture, or silhouette of Buddha throwing his patentened wrist flip? And isn't there a picture of him in the 3rd Edition Rules?
Let me add one other story:
In 1986 a very spirited friendly nice and good solid Ultimate player, Tom "Poopers" Rooney died (I think he was riding a bicycle that was hit by a car????). That fall, I inaugerated, for the UPA Mid-Altantic Regionals, a spirit award that I named the "Buddha-Poopers Cup." (It was won by the team from Wilmington, which at that time had the name of "Nobody"). Due to disorganization, I let the matter drop, and it was not continued in subsequent years.
Buddha was a really great guy.
Sholom Simon
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Here's some more information on the great David "Buddha" Meyer, who was a year ahead of me at Columbia College (Buddha designed the CC team shirts to be identical to the old CHS t-shirts). Dave was, in fact, at LSE for a "Junior Year Abroad" (75-76 academic year). He told me that, while there, he practiced Freestyle in one of the parks and was as a consequence interviewed by the BBC on what he described as "the British equivalent of 60 Minutes." On the broadcast he did a series of Buddhaesque stalls, delays and catches. During the intro to the segment the announcer said to the audience "I'm going to introduce you to someone who can make a Frisbee talk." This, Dave thought, was very cool.
Buddha founded the Columbia College team that continues to this day. In 1977, his senior year, we made it to the East Coast Championships in Amherst where, alas, in the first round we lost to Penn State (the eventual tournament winners). I have on my office wall a beautiful silk-screened poster from that tournament, featuring a winged Ultimate player streaking across a starry night to catch a Saturn-like disc. It's a constant reminder to me of his friendship.
Dave suffered a cerebral aneurysm on September 29, 1978 and fell into a coma in which he remained until his death on August 13, 1983. The Columbia College "Old Blue" of Buddha's era hold an annual alumni game on the weekend prior to Labor Day. We talk about him every year and ensure that he is not forgotten. He was one of a kind.
Best regards to all.
Mark 'Schotz' Silverschotz
July 2002
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There is a picture on the inside of the fourth edition of the rules which shows Dave Meyer, Robert Evans, and an third person (whose face and body are blocked out - could be me??) jumping for a high throw. Ed Levy is off to the side watching.
As was often the case, in this picture Dave is wearing one balck glove on his right hand. As this picture was taken probably in 1972 or 1973, he was waaaay ahead of Michael Jackson.
Irv
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Yep, Cap'n, that third figure is indeed you. (By the way, Ed Levy caught the disc in that shot.)
Dave Meyer was one of the most gentle, considerate people you would ever meet. He and Dave Kyle started coming down to the Harvey J. Kukuk Memorial Field around the same time, and were both initially on the "social fringes". Buddha quickly showed a flair for and love of the game. It was his way to take other newcomers under his wing in later years.
He had very broad shoulders and a wide build, so that when he would pivot, his throwing arm would be FAR away from where it was when you first tried to block him. He also had a great eye for making the first pass that would lead to a series of open passes. He was quiet for much of the time, so that when he came out with a comment or a jest, it had larger impact.
I have spoken about Dave to many people over the years, and miss him.
Joe Barbanel
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As others have written, Buddha was a really special guy. I think about him so often and miss him greatly. He had such a zany sense of humor and a unique way of looking at things. At first glance, people might not have thought that they were looking at a fine athlete, but he really was. He knew how to play the game and made the very best of what he and his teammates had to offer. That's really the highest level of play we can hope for, isn't it?
We were lucky to know him.
Stork
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Buddha's sense of humor is what I remember the most - he did a series of skits at the 1975 Rose Bowl party (including a devastating parody of me) that had the crowd in stitches. Also, he had one of the best overhand wrist-flips in the game...I miss him, thanks to all for this thread.
To air is divine.
JK
John Kirkland
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I don't believe I ever saw or met Buddha, however, having gotten to play alongside people like Marc Hirsch and Joe Barbanel at Lehigh they regaled me with the stories of him. I would say that they used him as the prototype for the spirit of the game, even before he died and people had a chance to exaggerate what he was. (Plus back then using an airbounce was considered a good thing). The one thing that causes me a little bit of a downer while hearing stories from teammates and other friends is this- Irv- you didn't catch that one? I thought you always came down with them. Oh well.
Old in age - but ...
Gimp
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1. What's wrong with an airbounce? Are they out of fashion?
2. Anyone got pictures of Buddah that they can attach? I'd like to see them.
David Abrams
Staples High School
Univeristy of Connecticut
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Dear Guys,
This is Bobby Meyer in Hong Kong, David Lewis Meyer's ("Buddha") older brother.
I am really touched by all the tributes to David which have come pouring out of you guys over the last two days--and all such good stories about my exceptional "little" brother, David.
Regarding Ultimate Frisbee, all I know about it is second hand: David was in Columbia High School in Maplewood, N.J. when I was already away at Columbia College in New York, where he went after high school while I continued on in law school there.
I understand that David and his friends at Columbia High School together invented the game of Ultimate Frisbee in the auxiliary high school parking lot on Parker Avenue on the other side of Valley Street from Columbia High School in Maplewood. David should always be remembered by the now world-wide Ultimate Frisbee fraternity and sorority as a co-inventor of the game. It would do David's memory honor if you could see to it that this occurs in the future.
What can I say about my little brother? David was a very warm, intelligent and very funny person with a heart of gold.
He was super-organized in his personal life, one of those guys with all the contents of his desk drawers lined up neatly inside! And yet, he was so funny! Our family can remember many funny "David" stories, pranks and tricks which went beyond the usual puerile stunts of his age group to being downright edgy, brilliant, comic tours de force. In another email I can write down some of these funny stories. I would very much appreciate hearing from each of you your favorite funny "David" stories.
David was on the Dean's List at Columbia College for seven of the eight semesters of his undergraduate career there, as I recall. He had to overcome a difficulty in taking standardized tests to get into Columbia College. He did not do well on his SAT's even though he was an "A" student (mostly) in high school. He had the same problem with his LSAT's, which is why he did not go on to Columbia Law School but "only" to Georgetown University Law School.
Some time after his cerebral hemorrhage on September 29, 1978 (caused by an "AVM", a bleeding in the brain owing to a congenital arterio-venus malformation), my mother went through his college term papers and found one on "Woodrow Wilson As A Historiographer." David had earned an "A" on that paper and his college professor had commented, "This should be published." My mother showed the paper to me and I read it. It was incredible in that the "voice" of the writer was that of a super fluent, worldly, learned and wise college professor type, and it was hard for me to put that "voice" together with the image of the Buddha who we all knew dressed in T-shirts and cut off shorts, making wisecracks, smiling his wry smile and being the quintessential younger brother!
David was very kind to my Mother, who suffered a lot of tragedy in her life, and phoned her all the time from college and law school to tell her that he loved her and cared about her. This was not the usual custom of most young guys in the 1970's. My Mom always remembers David with love and with tears in her eyes.
"Bobby, Joey and David" were the three boys of Jean and Morty Meyer. I was the oldest, born in 1949. Joey ("Joe" today) was the middle son, born in 1953 and David was the youngest, born in 1955. It is incredible to think David would be turning 49 this July 11th! David and I were probably more alike--both interested in history as undergraduates and in law and intellectual matters. Joey was a more typical middle child, marching to his own drummer. And yet, David got along extremely well with both of us. He and Joey were closer in age than he was with me. I always thought that was a wonderful thing for the three of us. David was more the "glue" than Joey and I in keeping the three brothers close.
I will close this e-mail now but I could continue with a lot more about David.
On behalf of my mother, my brother Joe and myself, we really appreciate your remembering David and our receiving these wonderful stories about him. We miss him terribly to this day.
Best to all,
Bobby
Robert L. Meyer
Hong Kong
E-mail: rlmeyer(at)sal.com.hk
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Dave joined the Princeton team for the 4th of July tournament in Mars, Pennsylvania (1978?). I drove with Dave from New Jersey to Western Pennsylvania, probably four hours. As you remember, at that age, when trapped together for that length of time, two young people get into heavy discussions of Life, Truth, The Universe, and, of course, Everything. It was great. (We were completely sober, in case you were wondering).
Dave honed the “no-look pass” to perfection. I remember one goal at Mars where he drilled a backhand into the corner from maybe 35 yards, and turned and walked off the field right after he released it, in the same motion, before it got to the receiver. He thought that he was the coolest thing. The rest of us tried to talk dissuade him, to no avail.
He was the most fun person I ever played with. He would have been a great adult, and a wonderful father.
- Robert Evans
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