2009 Road Trip

I have never blogged or written a diary for only my eyes, so it is a little strange to be writing about my experiences that everyone can read. It is also a little vain to think that people would actually take the time to read this crap.

This will be filtered; it won't be the voice in my head that would be too frightening. It will be some observations on my DG experiences for the remainder of the year and possibly some stories about some past events in this calendar year.

First off is there any way to spell check this stuff without copying to word?

I don't know exactly how many events I have played this year; I think the Homie at Lemon Lake will be number 32 or 33. Living in northern Illinois has given me a chance to play many of the fine Wisconsin Tour Events, a bunch of the Illinois events, one in Iowa, a handful in Michigan, and my first Indiana tourney of the year, coming up this Sunday.

Playing this many events would be impossible without the handwork of Terry Miller, Larry LaBond, Bruce and Jon Brakel, Brett Comincioli, Scott Reek, Scott Pitner, and all the other fine TDs who run multiple events and work so hard and thanklessly for what they do. Then there are guys like Brad Dow, Brad Wendt, Jim Van Lanen, Ryan Hornickle, Donna Justin, Brian Cummings, and Tom Jenkins who work very hard to promote disc golf by running one or two events on an annual basis. These people take a great deal of pride in their work. Often times it is a thankless job and very nerve wracking. It is tough to please one person let alone 100 people. The first thing I do and the last thing I do at an event is to thank the TD, because without them I wouldn’t have had the great experience of playing in a PDGA sanctioned event.

There is so much work that goes on beyond the scenes to get an event to run smoothly, it just doesn’t happen. The group of people mentioned previously have experience of running hundreds of events, they know what they like in events, and try and provide that experience to players. Some TDs like different things, so they do things in different ways, there isn’t a wrong way or a right way, just different ways. There should be a TDs union, but that is a whole different story.

[Tino "SilverBack" Medina]

with you 100% on this. The TD's job is under appreciated. I have not had the cahnce to be one (thank god) but fully support the people that have. I call before the event and offer my help with anything, be it hanging banners welcoming new players, anything. The TD has to be supported for everything to function. After the event, thank them not bash them. We are all in this together!

[mark ellis]

Thank God for TD's. There should be a rule that no player is allowed to gripe about anything (other than their own playing) until they have run a few events. The penalty for violating this rule should be the offender has to run an A tier the next year.

[Terry "the Pirate" Calhoun]

Hi, Tom, nice post. I once figured out for an Ann Arbor club event (A-Tier) that if we had paid our volunteers minimum wage we would have had to double the registration fee. People who haven't been involved in the production of an event often have no clue. It's the "tournament fairy," you know. One wave of the wand and there's a cash bank, lots of merchandise, scorecards and leader board cards, lunch, players packs, and all that.