Los Banditos
Originally started in 2001 a long time ago, Los Banditos suffered a big blow when all but one of its members graduated in 2005. That one member? Me. I’m all that’s left. Well, I was all that’s left, until Marcy, Anne and I revived the old legacy.
Right now, Los Banditos is a “Recognized Club” of Montpelier High School. We don’t have a budget and we don’t get to use a school bus.
Now that I think about it, the team this season is exactly like the team three years ago—that is, we’re not-quite-organized, we don’t know the Finer Points of Strategy and Etiquette in Ultimate, and we use student transportation. But there’s one difference: diversity. Hey, I’ll say it again: diversity. Because when I graduate, there will be people to succeed me. The team will not die out, like it did three years ago. There WILL be a Los Banditos legacy.
*EDIT: Los Banditos is the ORGINAL mhs ultimate frisbee team. the name was Ira’s idea way back…like more than 6 years ago.
The beginning of Los Banditos Ultimate Frisbee Club goes back to about 1997, when a rag-tag group of self proclaimed geeks decided to band together to play Ultimate Frisbee as a non-traditional sports team. The founders of the team were Matt “The Wall” Backman, Justin “Pope” Paull, Billy Goldwyn and the infamous “Coach” Ira Omeara-Costello. Ira came up with the idea to form our group (about 20 regular kids) into an actual school club and in the process, petition other schools around the state to form clubs of their own to promote competition.
The name Los Banditos came from a completely random phrase that we would shout victoriously after a touchdown/goal. The core of the team were all close friends and most were taking spanish class in school. I can’t remember who came up with it (I think it was me, ’cause I was always shouting something absurd after a goal) anyway, somebody shouted “Los Banditos estan en la casa!” and it stuck and we started calling ourselves Los Banditios.
Our first real season was in the fall of ‘98 and the spring of 99′, lead by the team captains and seniors, myself and Justin Paull. Ira used money out of his own pocket to buy shirts for us all, with our nicknames on the back and our club logo (designed by teammate Colin “The Machine” Gunn) on the front. I don’t really recall how many games we played or what schools we played against or even if we won any games because it was just about having fun and nobody on Los Banditos really cared about keeping score. I remember U32 having a decent team as well as Woodstock… but really all I remember about those days is having a ton of fun with my friends.
There’s probably a year book from 1999 in the library (MHS or Kellog-Hubbard) and somewhere in the Clubs section is a picture of a bunch of weirdos with the title Ultimate Frisbee Club. I’m the tall guy in the back. I graduated that year and never really thought a whole lot about Los Banditos after that… until this evening when I was looking for contact info on the MHS website and saw a link to Ultimate Frisbee. I’m really glad to see that there are still students keeping the disc tradition alive. Good luck, if you think I can help with something, don’t hesitate to ask.
Los Banditos estan en la casa! Viva la mano!