MIRANDA KNOWLES

Is it a challenge to be the head coach when your husband is on the team?

Ultimate Frisbee superstar Miranda Knowles directs the all-male Atlanta Hustle, a semiprofessional team that includes her husband, Matthew, on the roster.

She’s heard the (somewhat jocular) comments from friends: Ohh, does he get mad at you when you bench him?

Short answer: No. If Knowles, the coach, needs to offer guidance to Knowles, the defender, well, Knowles, the defender, already knows what the coach is going to say.“Usually,”said Miranda Knowles,“if I have to give him feedback, he’s thought of it first.”

For his part, Matthew Knowles, 36, a software engineer when he’s not throwing discs, is happy to be playing for a team coached by a woman who has secured just about every honor available in the sport: She has won national titles twice at the club level, and is the first athlete to win as a player and as a coach at the World Games. Last year she was inducted into the Ultimate Hall of Fame.

“The entire time she has been in my life,” said the husband, “she’s been someone who knows way more about ultimate and is way better than I’ll ever be.”

Knowles, 40, grew up in Atlanta and played on the boys varsity ultimate team at Paideia School, which would become an ultimate powerhouse.

As an undergraduate studying neuroscience at Carleton College in Minnesota, she led the team there to the national finals, then did the same thing as a graduate student at the University of Washington in Seattle.

She began coaching early in her career, and by the time she retired from active play at age 35, she’d been coaching for 10 years, including stints as a member of the coaching staff at the World Games.

A mother of two, she joined the staff at Paideia in 2013, teaching AP biology, anatomy, physiology and medical botany, and coaching the girls ultimate team. Her squad at Paideia has won nine state titles over the past 10 years and was ranked first in the country in 2016.

The Hustle is part of the 24-team American Ultimate Disc League, or AUDL, which is working hard to turn what was once a hippie pastime into a valuable business enterprise. Miranda Knowles, as the coach for the Hustle and Paideia teams, is about as professional as one can be in the sport right now.

As a business enterprise, ultimate is in its scuffling stage. But Knowles said there are signs a transformation is underway.

“In 30 years,”she said,“when we look back, right now is the crux point in the sport, where it’s starting to gain national and international practice.”

COURTESY