Incredible Turnout

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Institutional Torque

In 1999, a former Broward Community College professor who was an expert in volcanoes introduced the sport of Ultimate Frisbee to her pupils. Inspired, the students founded an Ultimate Frisbee team at the school, calling it Pompeii's Children, in reference to the city near Mount Vesuvius. As years passed, the professor moved to Hawaii and students graduated. But a love for the game lived on. The BCC students even returned to campus for practice — three times a week! Who knew a little sport could inspire such massive devotion?

"To an Ultimate player, that disc [Frisbee] is like crack cocaine," explains an athlete who calls himself "Manskirt."

Team captain Kristin Deffler says school authorities allowed Pompeii to stay on as an intramural team, with alumni and community players permitted to join BCC students on the field as long as all players signed waivers. Over the years, she says, more than 100 BCC students have flicked a disc with the team.

By January of 2007, Pompeii set its sights on playing a big tournament in Hawaii. It would make their old professor so proud! One player, Ilan the Magician, offered to stage a magic show to raise funds for the trip. The high-spirited team agreed to split proceeds with two charities that benefit children.

Deffler arranged to use BCC's auditorium for the show. It sounded like a great deal — BCC staff would handle cleanup and work the cash registers at the box office. In a pre-show meeting, Deffler says, a BCC staffer told her to open a bank account in the team's name; funds could then be transferred to her control. When the curtains went up, Ilan's two performances drew some 1,300 patrons.

But when Deffler went to collect the $3,715.17 in earnings, controllers of the purse strings pointed out a school policy: They could only disburse funds to on-campus club accounts, not to the team's outside bank account.

Deffler says that she can't access a club account because she's no longer a full-time student. She concedes that the school has a rule on its side — but that doesn't mean it's fair. She was misinformed while setting up the show, she says, and besides, she sees other loopholes: "If I'm a full-time student, I can raise $3,000 in the spring semester, and in the fall semester, not have access to it if I go to school half-time."

The team never made it to Hawaii. But Deffler has recently reignited her fight for the money after giving up last spring.

"Right now the money is in a student life account inaccessible to us," she says. "Charities are saying, 'Where's our money?' Sure, [the current accounting staff] may have walked into something that probably wasn't set up the way it should have been done — but what's the harm and why are you making it so difficult for us?"

Asked for comment, two BCC officials failed to return Tailpipe's calls, and Operations Coordinator Diana Honeyblue-Monroe — who has ignored Deffler's emails and still seems to be missing the point — would only say, tersely, "All she has to do is open the club account."

At least Deffler's education served her well. She's all growed up now — and she's an attorney. If BCC doesn't work with her soon, she says, the school can expect a demand letter from her law firm.

An alumni donation would have been so much... friendlier.