My Perennial Struggle

The Nashville footbag scene has been struggling the past 2 years to maintain a core membership of 4. We've had a number of people shuffle in & out the past couple years, yet we still only have the 2 dedicated players that we had way back in '08. However, I've held out hope that we might be able to turn those numbers around. Since I have a kid now my time is more valuable, and my patience is shrinking; I don't have spare time to wait around for indecisive members of the group to show up. So I'm left with the question that I've been pondering for over 2 years... why don't I just switch to takraw for good?

Nashville Pro/Am Tourney

We had a little pro/am tournament with 3 teams last week in Murfreesboro. It was the first time we've had a Nashville only tournament in a long long time. I have to say it was nice to get some competition from within the group & probably something we should encourage more often. So congrats to Alex & Lee for staging a comeback in the final game.

1. Alex G./Lee S.

2. Elliott J./ Andy S.

3. Andrew C./Nikolai T.

I Cannot Find a Hacky Sack Sans Internet

There aren't any retail stores (in metro Nashville at least) that sell hacky sacks anymore. I've tried going to Academy Sports, Dick's Sporting Goods, Hibbetts Sporting Goods, Target, K-Mart, & even Wal-Mart. How is this sport ever supposed to grow if you cannot even walk into a store & buy one? Do I have to go to a head shop to get a footbag? How cliche is that? I personally blame that jackass who invented the mini-soccer ball for the demise of retail footbag. Is this what we look like in the eyes of the general population!?

Entering a New Era

I started a group called nashville footbag on facebook. Blogspot is a good way for me write about footbag, but I seem to be the only one using it. As technology progresses peoples attention spans keep getting shorter, and reading something more than 120 characters seems to be a chore. People have to remember to check blogspot, however, if they joined the group on facebook they'll get the update when they login to check their profile. It's just easier. I will attempt to keep using blogspot, yet I don't feel it's a very effective tool for keeping people in the loop.

69 Dead Footbaggers

In my attempt to find new footbag blood, I've logged in quite a few hours in the footbag.org members section. I searched Nashville & every podunk town in about a 50 mile radius of the city. So I created an excel sheet of all the footbaggers, year joining footbag.org, e-mail, & phone numbers, and by the time I finished, I had a list with 70 people on it. I began e-mailing & calling profiles that were created all the way back in 1998. Sure there were a tons of expired e-mail accounts & disconnected phone numbers, but a few people e-mailed back. Unfortunately the most popular response was, "who are you?" followed by, "what's footbag?". Yup you guessed it... the phone calls were even worse. After it was all said & done, I found 1 person who answered the call to play some footbag & is still with us today. It was worth it - even though I discovered 69 dead footbaggers.