In the early 90's I was bartending at the Cork Bar in OCMD. Fresh out of college, I worked radio in a small station in PA and decided my talents needed a bigger market. Ocean City's population swelled to 100,000 in the Summer months. And so, here I was, living at the beach. A bartender and an afternoon drive DJ who drank, surfed and rarely slept. I would like to note here that I sucked at surfing, but that's another story.
That was the Summertime...
Wintertime comes to the beach also. And in the 90's, Labor Day marked the point where the town began to shutdown. The Sunfest weekend festival, a couple of weeks later, was the party which officially shut down the town; it was when the 'See You Next Summer!' signs were hung in almost every window and door or placed as sandwich boards on the sidewalks.
When the Sunfest hangover cleared you picked up hours where you could, saved your pennies, adjusted your weekly food budget and watched a lot of TV until the hotels were booked again. Cycle of Life Mufasi, Cycle of Tourist Town Life...
There were a couple of bars on the island which remained open. These were places you avoided in the Summer. They were rough locals-only joints which didn't feature frozen mugs for your beer, much less table service, and the last time these places had even gotten a whiff of fresh air was when a wall was torn out to repair termite damage. Good news was that if you were running low on funds and couldn't afford a pack of smokes, you could slide on in and nurse a beer. And inhale the atmosphere deeply; smoking laws were still a couple of years away and the air in these places put talk of west coast smog to shame.
Again, there were only a couple of these establishments which remained opened and at some point you had to breakdown and introduce yourself. They had nicknames like 'the bloody bucket', enough said.
So I did, I timidly stopped in, kept my back to the wall, and checked my wallet repeatedly... And one of the first things I noticed was the sense of community that Winter brought. It was like becoming part of a tribe. The other thing which really struck me was how much the leagues were a part of life.
Pool, Bowling and Shufflebowl (yes, bowl!) Leagues ruled. Everybody played or came out to support their spouses, lovers and friends...
And I was hooked. I didn't play any that first Winter, but I watched, I drank and I supported my friends.
Something which became obvious to me was how the locals loved the leagues and how these leagues supported the bars which remained open. As much as the locals depended on this friendly social competition, the bar and it's employees banked on a certain amount of business on league nights, from beer and food to quarters in the machines, this was how Winter was endured by everyone. Circle of Life Mustafi, Circle of Life...
And another Summer came, and another Summer was gone. And here were those leagues again.
Only this time the Cork Bar decided to try to stay open. There was a new dart league, The Cork was fielding a team and as a bartender who depended on the business coming in, I was made captain of our team...
Over the next couple of years I learned all about recruiting new players and new teams and new bars, captaining, how the coin-ops businesses work, hosting tournaments ... you name it and I probably ran into it. And it was the school of trial-and-error, so much so that a little later I started up a show on the local cable company's resort channel called the League Show. And I talked about the leagues on the radio...
Anyways, that's my story...
And that is why I am so driven to put together theLEAGUEFEED
A soon to be resource with articles (original and resteemed) about these adult social sports leagues (podcast in the works)
If learning to play these sports, from how to find a league to sign up with, through all stages of learning the game you choose interests you, along with seting up and running leagues, well give me a follow.
If you are posting anything along these lines, leave me know. If it's quality I would love to resteem!
Building Stronger Leagues is name of the game....
and don't forget to Feed the Leagues!
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Swansed