Nov 27, 2013


Gary Auerbach uses his skills as both a former world freestyle Frisbee champion and as an inspirational speaker to help young people learn the tools they need to be successful.

Auerbach, who won the World Freestyle Frisbee Championship in 1995 while living in Toronto, has been speaking to youth at school assembly programs for close to two decades.

He made a special visit to Land O'Lakes Public School in Mountain Grove on November 21, where he engaged the entire school in an assembly and conducted small workshops focused around Frisbee skills. “It's not so much about showing them what I can do with a Frisbee but showing them what they can do with one,” Auberbach said. “Frisbee is the perfect life-long physical activity that they can do with family and friends and it gets them outside, away from all the little screened boxes and puts a fun circle in their hands.”

Auerbach was invited to the school after LOLPS student support teacher Kathy Bateman saw Auerbach years ago at an Ontario Physical and Health Educators' Association conference. “I loved what he did and have wanted to get him to come to Mountain Grove for years now,” Bateman said.

Auerbach, who is a citizen of both Canada and the United States, now works and lives in Winchester, Virginia but comes to Canada often to visit family and friends. Mountain Grove was just one of the two Canadian stops on this trip and he captured the attention of the LOLPS students from the get go. He demonstrated the many ways to throw, roll, balance, juggle, flip and handle a huge assortment of Frisbees in all shapes, colours and sizes. He told of the history of the Frisbee and how it was modeled after tin pie pans made at the Frisbee Pie Company in Connecticut, where workers liked to toss the tin plates around on their breaks. After plastic was later invented, the first Frisbees, which were then called flying saucers, were made from it. Later they would be named Frisbees after the owners of the Connecticut pie company.

Auerbach delivered a polished performance and his lively sense of humor and friendly delivery had students smiling, laughing, and generally falling in love with the game. What staff liked most about him was his underlying message. LOLPS Principal Emily Yanch said Auerbach's presentation fit in perfectly with the school board's focus on the development of “growth mind set” in students. “The idea is to encourage effort and perseverance in students and to show them how both pay off in terms of becoming life-long learners,” Yanch said.

Auerbach's presentation reinforced those ideas. When he demonstrated one “next to impossible” under the leg move but did not succeed, he quipped, “It's okay to mess up but not to give up." He then tried the move again with the words “Take two!”. He had the students mesmerized with the huge assortment of Frisbees he performed with: a yo-yo style Frisbee, a long-tailed Frisbee, a tiny baby one, a kite-tailed one, a huge oversized yellow one, a pizza Frisbee, a feather-tailed Frisbee, one ninja, one Elvis and a recycled plastic Frisbee, a flying saucer, and one with raised markers, which is used by the visually impaired.

He spoke of initially being scared of Frisbees but gradually overcoming his fear. After a lot of practice he became good at it and later on a world champion. He likened the flight of a Frisbee to the way an airplane wing works. "Throw it straight - it goes straight; tilt it upwards and it flies upwards.” He showed how to angle or blank its flight, and how to fly it upside down.

Auerbach invited any students with new Frisbee ideas to let him know. The students I spoke to said the presentation inspired them to play the game and some even said they planned on making their own yo-yo style Frisbee at home.

Support local
independant journalism by becoming a patron of the Frontenac News.