2009 US Open Freestyle Footbag Championships

The 2009 US Open Freestyle Footbag Championships were a huge success!  Check out the write up below, written by the tournament director Ethan "Red" Husted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Friday Night Registration:

 

 

 

 

 

We held registration around the front of Nautilus about 7pm on Friday.  For the next two hours people trickled in and out between the site and hotel (across the street).  There was essentially a two hour session on Nautilus Drive. 

 

 

Scott and Nick played a bit Friday, these guys really represented all weekend.

 

 

As we were packing up for the evening I snapped off a picture of the Drive, nice sundown shot of the flags.  The Nautilus Headquarter Facility is pretty large, the next day we would have our event around back in the sports area.

Saturday:

Groove Nation

 

The next day we kicked right into it with a show from Groove Nation, our local hip hop dance group.  That actually brought in quite a few people, which was helpful.  We are talking about coordinating with them and creating a larger event, their energy really pumped up the crowd!

 

We had many booths and tents set up around the area, basically surrounding the center court around along with the bleachers.  There was quite a bit going on all over the event area.

 

It was good to see my old friend Alex Zerbe, he is kicking again and enjoying fatherhood.  Thanks for making the event Alex!

Ianek played a key roll working in many of the events, either organizing the details, or at the least acting as a judge.  Here he is giving the players a breakdown of how Circle would run.

We had some good Shreditas circles, I was happy Jane made it to our event to see it!  We have been interacting on a few different avenues regarding the promotion of women's shred.

We had a few good old school circles, this one had Alex Zerbe, Sean Wingert, and Brian McKenzie.  I wasn't able to jump in any myself as I kept busy, but I always have to cheer on the homies.  Go 90's freeestylers!

Hall of Fame Inductions:

After the first day concluded, we went over to the outside picnic area next to the freestyle court to hold the HoF ceremony.  We were lucky enough to have the entire event catered both days by three different sponsors (thanks to NW Deli, Panera, and James Chance for providing the food).  We had dinner and kicked into the inductions.

Ted Huff kicked it off with a little history lesson about the beginning of footbag and the HoF.  After that he read an acceptance speech from Carol Wedemeyer (as she could not attend the event that year). 

Jane was the only inductee that could make it, here she is seated with her husband (Alex Zerbe) and Sunny Freeman Genz, who was representing Daryl Genz (also absent from receiving his award in person).

Sunny accepts Daryl's award on behalf of him, and give is an emotional speech on her and her husband's feelings about the sport.  I was honored to read Daryl's acceptance speech to the attendees, it was short but sweet!

Jane accepts her award, and conveys her appreciation for the sport.

Cameramen

Brian McKenzie acted as the cameraman for most of the weekend (along side Chase Card-Burns, thanks guys), that is, when they were not shredding!

All the attending Hall of Famers.

Day 2:

Jim flew in Sunday morning, right from his brother's wedding.  Thanks Jim!  He did not compete officially, but instead performed a great exhibition routine for the crowd.

I had been a little concerned about the weather, it had rained the night before and hadn't dried out yet.  Luckily, we had received a sponsorship from the Marriott host hotel in the form of a free conference room, so we were covered with a back up spot right across the street.  We also had a secondary back up spot at Groove Nation's dance studio, they were very nice to offer it weeks before the event.  Luckily, for most of day 2, we were ok with the weather.  Always have a backup plan though!

We continued finals of our events, crowd turn out was surprisingly good the second day as well.  There were a lot of people moving through the event, many spectators.  We had a decent amount of players there, but far more spectators, friends, staff, Groove Nation people, and newbie kickers.  This was good, there was a lot of mingling of people!  (above is Circle finals by the way).  Reid Strellner played great, and in an upset won his top position in Circle prelims over Scott Bevier.  Flash came back in the Last Chance Round however, and made it back to finals Sunday.

 

This new kicker was apparently from around our area.  We hope to see him more!

Essential Jim representing.

 

The Fourkast Footbag Company

I was happy we were able to announce and launch the new company officially at the US Open.  What better place, right?  I always try to listen to my instincts while balancing the logistics of things, thus when we decided to move forward with Fourkast, it felt like the next logical step.  Footbag has been very good to us here, and we are happy to give back.  Again though, more on this soon : )

The staff working our Fourkast booth, many thanks to them!

The appearance of footbag and the way a player looks is something I am greatly interested in.  Thus I dig apparel a great deal!

We didn't have all of our stuff available (some is shipping in over the next month), but we did present a fair amount, including most of our flagship footbags, which are all produced either in Portland, or by Fair Trade/Business Social Accountability certification (the only way we will go).  I believe socially conscious business practices should be upheld first and foremost : )  We also connected to the company that produces Amaretta, thus all of our footbags save the crochet bags are Amaretta.  Quality to the people!

 

Fourkast kids!  We work with kids and perform at schools a great deal, I am happy to educate them early about footbag and exercise!

Kenny Shults Interview

Johnny had a segment were he interviewed Kenny.  It was very touching, the two men have known each other for a great deal of time, Johnny remembers when Kenny was a bright eyed kid in the world of footbag.  We were lucky enough to film the whole thing in HD.

Workshops

We offered two workshops that weekend, one per day.  Johnny ran the first one for basics, Nick ran the second more a little more advanced.  Nick is a far better teacher than I ever was, he is very good at breaking it down in a very fundamental way, and the kids really look up to him. 

Also, if you'll notice in the right hand corner, there is a guy standing there with white hair.  His name is Ken Moller, and he kicks with Lavers, in his early 60's.  He competed intermediate, and wanted to show the people you can do this at any age!  We also had a great casual kick master named Victor "Old School" Burnham.  He has been kicking for 33 years, and has a very smooth natural style that involves zero stalls.  Quite frankly, we need more of this mastery with the new school coming in, it really stood out!

BAP Vote

As we had announced, we had the BAP vote at the US Open as Worlds is in Europe.  I receive the opinions of other non present BAPer's (both stateside and in Europe), and we all processed it with our opinions.  Kenny Shults threw down his opinion as well, but is not present in these shots sadly (he had to take off early from the event).

Big Add Posse Inductee

After all was said and done, there was only one unanimous decision, this guy simply rocked the event.  For almost three years I have voted no for his induction, while others were asking when he was getting in, I simply did not believed he was quite ready.  Nick is my greatest Next Gen, but I didn't want it perceived he was getting a free ride because of me.  It had to be undeniable, and this year it was.  Not just at the US Open, but for the last 9 or ten months he has truly impressed in his commitment and quality.  We decided our inductee by not only technical merit, but also whether we see the person as being an icon in the sport that will contribute for years to come.  All this being said, and without question, we welcome Nick Landes to the Big Add Posse.

Nick gets to see I am not a hard ass to him all the time : )

The gang!

Best 3 begins, Aaron calls his combo.

Matt Kemmer doing his thing, at the US Open a second year in a row!

Rain!  At the very end of the event, it started to drizzle.  Luckily, we had all the major events out of the way, and Best 3 was concluding.  Right after this we all headed over the hotel for Request Competition and the awards ceremony.

Request Competition:

Evan Gatesman really tore it up!  It came down to him, Nick, and Jim in Request.  The contest started out with everyone standing in a circle, while we filmed in the middle.  Everyone hung tough, but eventually it came down to those three.  Nick got knocked out first, then Jim, leaving Evan for the win!  Great job Evan, I have heard this shredder has been playing on and off, but his game looked great this weekend.  I was also very impressed with Reid Strellner, he is the only one I had a chance to kick with before the Open, we threw down pretty hard.  He has a great ability to perform well under pressure, he played great that weekend.  Props Evan and Reid!

Awards:

Yup, it was this guy's year.  Bevier is a true performer, I believe many freestylers should take a page out of this guy's routine book.  He really puts on a great show.  Congrats my friend, you deserved every bit of it!

We weren't sure we were going to have a women's routines event this year, but Shawnell came in and really wanted to do it, so Sunny joined in and it happened.  We need more enthusiastic Shreditas like Shawnell Tolliver, I hope this motivates her even more to practice and further represent!  Congrats to the 2009 US Open Women's Freestyle Footbag Champion.

Evan receives his award for Request.

Nick receives it for Circle and Best 3.  All we would need would be for Kenny to be there and we would have all the generations of Portland footbag in the picture.

The Champions.  Marc Strauss, Scott Bevier, and Shawnell Tolliver.  I was happy Marc made the event, I think I sold it to him when we were at the Green Cup.  Looks like the journey paid off, he's now the 2009 US Open Intermediate Freestyle Champion!

Sole Purpose Inductions

Scott accepts his Sole Purpose jersey.

Shawnell with the hugs!

Here's a guy who's on a journey, but completely committed to the Portland group.  Welcome to Chase Card-Burns (who can also keep up with me on the sci-fi talk)!

I have known this guy since he was a pup more or less.  Ten years ago he joined our Boulder Blades shred house, I am happy to say he again is our roommate and welcome member of the group.  Big shout out to Brian McKenzie!

Sole Purpose 09

The Chang/Boychuk duo.  There's a comedy routine here somewhere.  Both these guys are great, he hope to get Chang in the Portland area sooner or later, and wish Jay all the luck at Worlds this year!

After the awards, Panera catered the event, people kicked for a while longer, than we wrapped it up and headed back to our place.

The Water Temple:

The weather was good again for us, and the Water Temple Jam went down as always.  The Scott/Jim/Nick circle between platforms was sick, the video of what all three put down will be amazing. 

Jeff films for Fourkast!

Great pic of Scott.

Jim does what he does!

A couple of good Nick shots.

 

Another good video guy.  I picked up a copy of Dawn of the Shred, it was sick!

Slant shot.  I think it works.

More good shots.

These guys were really center stage all weekend.  It's always fun to see the footbag greats throw down together!

And finally...

The end of the tournament.  Many thanks to everyone involved in footbag, the US Open (shout out to our camera people), Fourkast, Sole Purpose, and freestyle in general.  See you next year, and see you in the circles! 
Red Husted

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