Most of you are not going to understand this story. You can try, but you don't have the experience. It was prompted by the disc golf segment during ESPN's college football broadcast the other night.
When I started playing, there were 2 courses in my state. On the only course we knew of and played, there were---maybe---a dozen disc golfers we ever saw. No one I ever met had any idea what I was talking about.
I remember the first time I ever saw baskets on another course. We had to drive 2 hours to see them, but it was amazing to play another course---one completely different from the kind of course we'd been playing.
Then there was the first time I was driving by an elementary school and saw baskets on the playground. Havre, MT, I think it was.
Or the first time I stumbled across a course that wasn't in any directory. I was at an empty crossroads in the Iowa countryside. I'd pulled off the road to look at a map, looked out my side window, and there was a basket about 15' from where I'd parked.
I recall my astonishment when I went to a physical therapist and, when I went to explain what I was doing that hurt my shoulder, he said he'd played disc golf before and understood.
The time I got tourist materials from the state of Mississippi, and the state parks guide listed all the disc golf courses.
Or the time some customers came into our office, saw the discs we have, and revealed that they play, too. Or when I was in a grocery store in a little town in S.C., and some folks saw my disc golf tee-shirt and came up to talk to me, because their son plays.
Which brings me to the marvel of the segment in the Alabama-Miss. St. broadcast. Not just that they showed disc golf. But the real thrill is that they didn't bother to explain disc golf. They just presented it as one of the other competitions between the two schools, as routine as any other.
That's about 17 years of "firsts"---each with more recognition of disc golf than I'd yet encountered, each a very pleasant surprise.
When I started playing, there were 2 courses in my state. On the only course we knew of and played, there were---maybe---a dozen disc golfers we ever saw. No one I ever met had any idea what I was talking about.
I remember the first time I ever saw baskets on another course. We had to drive 2 hours to see them, but it was amazing to play another course---one completely different from the kind of course we'd been playing.
Then there was the first time I was driving by an elementary school and saw baskets on the playground. Havre, MT, I think it was.
Or the first time I stumbled across a course that wasn't in any directory. I was at an empty crossroads in the Iowa countryside. I'd pulled off the road to look at a map, looked out my side window, and there was a basket about 15' from where I'd parked.
I recall my astonishment when I went to a physical therapist and, when I went to explain what I was doing that hurt my shoulder, he said he'd played disc golf before and understood.
The time I got tourist materials from the state of Mississippi, and the state parks guide listed all the disc golf courses.
Or the time some customers came into our office, saw the discs we have, and revealed that they play, too. Or when I was in a grocery store in a little town in S.C., and some folks saw my disc golf tee-shirt and came up to talk to me, because their son plays.
Which brings me to the marvel of the segment in the Alabama-Miss. St. broadcast. Not just that they showed disc golf. But the real thrill is that they didn't bother to explain disc golf. They just presented it as one of the other competitions between the two schools, as routine as any other.
That's about 17 years of "firsts"---each with more recognition of disc golf than I'd yet encountered, each a very pleasant surprise.