What I learned at a National Tournament

I attended the ACL National Event in Salt Lake City a few weeks ago to watch some action first hand! With the Final Chase event coming up this weekend, I just wanted to give a few takeaways of things I learned and there are some good ones...........

First and foremost I learned that no matter how big you are in this sport, even as pros, this community is a family. Being at a pro event is like being at your local regional, where everyone is cutting up, everyone is having fun with each other, and everyone is friends! Everyone just happens to throw insanely well!

Next thing I learned, these are real people through and through. You may be in awe when you walk in the door and the first thing you see is Ryan Windsor, or Trey Burchfield, but what you quickly realize, is most of them are the nicest people you will ever meet. There isn't one single person that won't take a few minutes to answer questions. Shout out to Trey Ryder and Anthony Ayon who took time out of their extremely and hectic days, and talked to a guy they had never met before.

Another thing I learned........ Matt Guy is one of the coolest guys on the planet. I didn't even get a chance to talk to him, but my wife and daughter left in the middle of the day to take a break from all the madness and when they came back to the building, Matt Guy was outside the building on the phone, 20 feet away from the door. He saw them walking up, and literally ran over while on the phone, to open and hold the door for them. What a stand up dude and a story my family will never forget.

I also learned that all those people that say you have to have a perfectly flat bag to be good at this game, don't know what they are talking about. Over and over I watched bag flight of top 50 pros. There are all sorts of different styles of throws. The key is learning to own your throw and be consistent.

Now an important thing that I learned is that if you go to one of these events, the most entertaining team to watch is Daymon Dennis and Philip Hayden. These two good old southern boys, have the funniest dialog between the 2 of them that you will hear. To watch them bicker between each other, and neither of them hear half the other one says, follow by one of the saying " just do whatever the hell you want to do." Is literally hilarious. The one liners are real between these two.

Lastly to reiterate how down to earth and real these pros are, you don't get to hear it when you watch the live streams or broadcast, but when these guys miss bags, there are loud F bombs dropped on the regular, and it makes you feel right at home!!

If you get a chance to go check out one of these events I highly recommend it. I promise you will walk out feeling like family!

-Nick