Pittsburgh Parcha

Pittsburgh Parcha is a club ultimate team based in Pittsburgh, PA. The team competes in the Club Women's Division of USA Ultimate (USAU).

Team photo by Atle Bjanes
Instagram @atlebjanes

The VC team loves chairs (it’s true!), and unique colour combinations – which means we loooove your uniforms and the fan apparel offered in your fundraising store! Can you tell us about Parcha’s uniform concept/design?

When we first started meeting with Jeremy Kanter back in spring 2020, we knew we wanted to mix up the design style from what had previously been seen in Pittsburgh.

We created a moodboard of typography and color concepts before deciding on a more retro theme inspired by 70s graphic design. Fast forward to the 2021 season - we revisited our moodboard and Jeremy came up with a very cool roster announcement graphic for Parcha inspired by Rinny Perkins' (@rinnyriot) work.

Running in line with that concept and using his design guidance, he came up with the cream full sub and dark jersey screenprint designs. We were very excited, to say the least. After a few design tweaks and feedback, we finalized everything you see in our team store!

What’s your team’s story? Can you tell us about the chair? Is it really hard to park near your practices?

Confused? Read about Pittsburgh's history of the Parking Chair here.

Pulling a great quote from the above linked article, "It’s all a reminder that history is about people... objects gain their meaning from us,” Przybylek said.

This really embodies how the spirit of "Parcha" came about for us. We were having a team name brainstorming session in February 2020 during a Super Bowl party where several future members of the team were together. It was quite silly and Parcha got dropped, and we just kind of ran with it. Parcha for us has always been more than just representative of a parking chair, and you can embody and showcase your team spirit however feels natural to you. Come as you are.

You’ve got a stacked roster. How did the team come together this year?

The team really started coming together in early 2020 prior to COVID hitting. Charlotte Koerner and Natalie Barnhart had approached leadership from the previous women's teams (Eliza Furnace and Hot Metal) to see if we could revamp the women's club scene and start pulling players who had chosen to play with out-of-town teams back in.

On top of gaining back some of those local players, we were fortunate to have some high-level players move into the city over the last year and a half. We only have 2 players on the 2021 roster who are not local to Pittsburgh.

We are grateful to everyone for sticking with us through a virtual 2020 season, and the excitement of actually getting to play together in 2021 kept the momentum going.

What has you most excited to either be back on the field, or looking ahead to the future?

Most excited to be back on the field - throwing celebratory chairs (check out Philly Amp's Twitter).

For the future - continuing to build a program with Parcha and Incline that fosters growth and community with all of our incredible Pittsburgh athletes!

Parcha has qualified for the 2021 USA Ultimate National Championships in San Diego, CA. Follow along on the team's Twitter account (@PghParcha) and pick up some sweet fan apparel today!