By Neil Blackfield ’71

In the spring of 1970 I ran for student body vice president. I was part of the Frisbee Party ticket, one of several political parties on the campus ballot. Some of our opponents were members of the Young Republican Club.

The Frisbee Party consisted of me and four college friends and sometime roommates. Jim ran for president. Curt ran for treasurer. Ron was our campaign manager, and Chuck was our press secretary. (Chuck also wrote a column for the California Aggie.) We had already brought the campus “Johnny Fanto and the Vicelords”—an altered-reality version of a rock ’n’ roll band—and so we decided to take over the student body as well.

The first thing we did was get our picture in the Aggie. If you check the editions for that time period, you will see us posed inside of our apartment at 808 F St., each of us wearing nothing but a Frisbee. The second thing we did was put out our Frisbee Party position papers. We had 20 to 30 position papers to hand out around campus, but the administration stopped us after the first one. Position paper No. 1 showed a drawing of a couple in the missionary position and was titled “The Frisbee Party, A Return to Traditional Values.”

Next we had to give campaign speeches in front of a rather large student audience in a big lecture hall near the Quad. The Young Republican running against me for vice president wore a nice suit. There was some applause at the end of his speech. My turn came. I walked down the aisle from the back of the room. I was wearing a pair of my surfer baggies, no shirt or shoes, and I was carrying a large, 3-foot stuffed tiger. I went to the podium, was introduced by the MC and then proceeded to stand in front of the audience playing air yo-yo for my three minutes, without uttering a single word. At the end of my time, I thanked the audience and received a standing ovation.

The Frisbee Party was on a roll. It was now time to make our Frisbee Party movie. Ron had a 16-mm movie camera. We shot it in black and white and recorded the sound live on a tape recorder. Ron was the director. I played “Frisbee Man,” and the chancellor’s daughter was the female lead. We shot the movie live on the Quad, using all of the students there as extras. The plot consisted of Frisbee Man using his magic Frisbee to rescue the heroine from some bad guys. (I still have the movie, though the soundtrack was lost.) Again, more publicity for the Frisbee Party before the election.

Election day finally came around. The only trouble was that the election was held the same day as a large anti-ROTC sit-in. (Remember, students were also protesting the Vietnam War then.) I lost by a few hundred votes and always blamed it on the people participating in the sit-in. They sat-in all day and didn’t take the time to vote. Oh well, that’s the way it went in politics. Remember, though, the Frisbee Party, a return to traditional values.