<bbreviation for Gods of Plastic and the Grand Old Party. One is currently a major political party and led by President Donald Trump. The other is Carleton’s Division III frisbee team led by captains Abe Eichner ’18 and Will Yetvin ’18. For many of the frisbee team’s players, this similarity in their titles lead them during this election to question if GOP was the right name for the team. According to Yetvin, the night after the election, the team began discussions about their name, reputation, and how to positively affect both campus and community culture. Eventually, they decided to formally change the abbreviation of their name from GOP to GoP, as part of a larger effort by the club team to institute new changes about the way the team in general presents itself.
The Gods of Plastic were founded back in the 1990s as Carleton’s D3 men’s Frisbee team. With Reagan as President at the time, it created a unique name with a satirical abbreviation. Eichner said that at this point in time, some team members “would make jokes about trickle-down economics and Reagan and the like – whether that was funny or worthwhile back then is not for me to say, but it was pretty clear to everyone on the team that we couldn’t (and shouldn’t) make similar jokes now.”
Yetvin said that after a couple of team meetings, the Gods of Plastic came to the decision to keep the team name because “most people on the team felt like changing our name was a pretty minor part of a larger discussion we are having about our team culture”.
Instead of completely changing the name, Eichner said the club decided to instead focus on trying to “foster inclusivity in different ways, beginning by being critical of our own and our teammates behavior.”
Yetvin said that some of the team’s plans to foster this inclusivity include not only adjusting their abbreviation to GoP but also choosing to write out Gods of Plastic whenever possible. They will also try to stop using Republican imagery on their jerseys, and also have team discussions with groups on campus about how they can foster a more inclusive environment as a team.
Another change the team is planning to make is to discuss about team traditions. According to Eichner, the Gods of Plastic “want to be deliberate about what kinds of traditions we want to keep and ones we don’t.”
Among the team’s many changes this year due to the recent election outcome, as well as the country’s overall political climate, one of the team’s goals remains the same- to play great Frisbee day in and day out.