WATCH: Michael Ing is awarded the 2020 Callahan Award as best College Ultimate Frisbee Player

The announcement of the Callahan award, the most prestigious designation in ultimate, was already one of the premier events on the calendar for 2020, but has taken an even greater importance in an age of COVID. With college ultimate on hold until maybe November at the earliest, the race for the Callahan award has been the last vestige of competition and genuine excitement around a season that was otherwise left hanging. Some of the more creative videos (perhaps the result of editors with a lot of time on their hands?) in recent memory and long Twitter testimonials have shown an appetite for salving some of the pain from the season’s abrupt end with an exciting, meaningful Callahan race.

Michael Ing (-250)

With lots of support pouring in online for Ing after he was mocked by Seattle Mixtape on Twitter and everyone freaked out, Ing has certainly garnered the most effusive praise down the homestretch of the race. Pitt has run an achingly earnest but likely effective campaign for their guy, and several of his opponents have popped up with testaments to his spirit and attitude. Add an excellent video (by editor on the rise Max Charles) to the mix and it’s clear why he has become the front runner.

Winning a major individual achievement like the Callahan would be a somewhat ironic, if still fitting, end for a player whose college career was defined by his willingness to subsume his individual talents into a team structure. Ing rarely played like a superstar because Pitt didn’t shine a spotlight on him, instead deploying Ing like a Winston Wolfe-esque fixer, plugging any hole the team had and rushing in to save the day when trouble arose.

Shuttled between offensive and defensive lines Ing never developed a signature style or role other than just general excellence. He became harder to put in a box and assess than some of his peers because there was no one thing he did on the field that first comes to mind the way you think about demolishing the deep-deep on a jump ball when I say Tannor Johnson or rocketing a flick blade into triple coverage when I say Kai Marcus.

Perhaps as a result of his harder-to-conceptualize role, he never won a POTY award, and may never have gotten quite the respect his talent deserved during his college career. But capping everything off with a Callahan award would serve to validate the sacrifices he made for his team and prevent anyone from questioning his personal legacy.

Award Presentation,