From Struggles to Success: Scott Stokely’s Journey

Summary

In this conversation, Scott Stokely shares his journey through disc golf, from his early influences and the challenges he faced to his personal growth and the evolution of the sport. He discusses the importance of honesty in his autobiography, the turning points that led him back to disc golf, and his mission with Stokely Discs to promote adaptive disc golf and support local pro shops. Stokely emphasizes the need for community support and the importance of seeking help from those who have what you want in life.

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Hey everybody, welcome to this episode of the disc golf answer man. I’m Bobby Cool Daddy Slick. This is a special the gam episode where I have an interview with Scott Stokeley. I’ve had Scott Stokeley on two other times back in the early days of disc golf answer man and back when I was doing my own thing of Cool Daddy Disc Golf podcast. Always a great conversation with Scott. So this one is also another great conversation. Um he we go back to his early days of when he started playing disc golf uh at Oak Grove playing with some of the legends, some of the influences they’ve had on his life and then talks about some of the uh struggles he’s had. Very transparent about some of the challenges he had with uh people he hung out with and uh substance abuse and then of course um him help reaching out for help and how he overcame some of those challenges. So a really great conversation with Scott Stokeley. Let’s take a listen. [Music] All right, cool. Okay, so where where are you at right now? Oh god, you’re mobile. You’re Yeah. So I I have no idea. Um so that I’ve done more podcasts from the the vehicle just just because I’m on the road every day. It’s there’s no way around it. Um I am in uh we’re leaving Minneapolis. I’m heading to uh I’m running a seminar in uh Madison, Wisconsin on Wednesday. a a seminar. What What kind of seminars are you doing? So, I do um this I’ve been doing these for a few years now. I do full day um they’re called Stokeley Method seminars. Full day Stokeley method seminars. Um I cap them at well, it was six people. I’m actually going to cut it back to five people. Uh but it’s five people. It’s all day. It’s an intensive training session. Backhand, sidearm, putting, mental game, uh utility shots, just every single part of the game. And it’s just where I I take my lifetime of teaching disc golf and I make people throw better. I like it. I like it. Yeah. Well, I’m sure I’m sure. Oh, go ahead. I was going to say um I have my schedule posted for the rest of the year. Uh I have a few more in Wisconsin, but then before the end of the year, I have a seminar scheduled in Colorado, Utah, Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona, California, maybe a couple other places. But it’s Scottstock.net is where you find the information. They all fill up. So, if someone’s interested, they should sign up because they all they every time they sell out basically. Nice. Well, just in case, and I’m sure most of my listeners, uh, if not all of them have heard of Scott Stokeley, but uh, just in case, let’s kind of go back to the beginning and hopefully I got my facts straight. Let’s see if I got my facts right. But, uh, it was back in Oak Grove and you were seven years old. uh while most kids were trying to learn how to ride bikes and play little leagues, you were out throwing with uh some of the disc golf le leg legends that maybe people have heard of, Dan Rodic and the Leeman Brothers. Uh so looking back, what do you remember most about those early days at Oak Grove and how it shaped uh who you are in the sport now? Yeah, so uh when I first played my first round of disc golf, it was on the world’s first permanent frisbee golf at the time. world’s first permanent frisbee golf course when it was the only course in the entire world. Uh so I actually started at the basically ground zero for the game, at least as far as the the course uh permanent courses go. Uh my dad had just passed away and not long after my mom of course would take me in all the local things in the area and uh every park had something about that park. you know, the biggest merrygoround, the tallest swing, you know, something that made the park the thing you go to. And this one park called Oakrove had a Frisbee golf course at the time. It was just one of the park activities. I mean, there were no other frisbee golf courses, right? So, it was just a thing that that park had to do. So, when you went to Oak Grove, you brought her Frisbee and I would play, but I wasn’t playing regularly then. Uh when I was 11, my mom’s business started doing well. So she moved from a kind of a working-class neighborhood to this uh kind of rich neighborhood, Lockinata of Flint Ridge. The park bordered Lockinata. Uh it wasn’t in the rich part of town, but it was close. And I didn’t fit in to the rich kid neighborhood, especially back then. It was like a John Hughes movie. Everybody had brand new bikes, you know, fancy designer clothing at 11 years old. And uh I didn’t have any of those things, but when I went down to the Frisbee golf course, it was bluecollar, it was hippies, it was kind of the people that I grew up with. And I also didn’t have a dad. And what I’ve realized since then is that I gravitated towards basically all the grown men uh in the Oakrove Gophers Club as father figures uh as well as my they were my friends. I didn’t have a whole lot of friends at school. I had the Oakrove Gophers. They were my people. So everything Yeah. Everything in my early years I I got from them. Uh the way I’ve described it is, you know, it was a very imperfect group of people. Um especially back then, if you played frisbee golf, most of the not all, but most of the people were kind of on the fringes a little bit. It was not mainstream by any stretch. But they were the best men I’ve known my entire life. And I learned different things, valuable things from all of them. I probably learned a few destructive things from a few of them who I you know I still love these people but uh I basically just all all the good stuff in the world I found in somebody there and I learned those things from them. So yeah it it didn’t just help form me it completely formed me. Nice. And and I know you’ve written a book. Um I I have I apologize. I haven’t read the whole book, but I know you haven’t. And I’ve seen a lot of people talk about it. And in the book, I I I’ve heard that you really don’t sugarcoat stuff. You don’t sugarcoat your past. You talk about it. Um and before you became a champion, you were living kind of, as you kind of mentioned, maybe a wild life. Um battling certain things. Um and you’ve been honest about those years. And what And that honesty, I think, resonates for a lot of people. And you and I have had several conversations. And I love your honesty and I love your approach to to disc golf and just talking with people and helping people. Is there a turning point of something that happened that made you go from these wild days to now I want to I want to reach out and I just want to help people and give back. Yeah. So it’s funny because when I So the autobiography is called Grownup Discol. You can get it at Amazon or Audible. Uh it’s been doing really well for the past 5 years. Uh, so much of these things I I really learned about myself when I wrote the book because I had to then revisit these things and write about and actually ask, well, why did I do this or why was I thinking that for better or for worse? And when I wrote the book, I made a very early decision. I was either going to be honest in the book or I wasn’t going to write the book. But it’s not going to be some list of like, oh, these are these cool things I did and look how smart I was this week and look how great I was that week. Like, that’s a book. I don’t know if I can swear, but that that is the definition. You’re fine. Autobiography. Uh well, it’s definitely not a good story. I I showed up and I played well in one. Yeah, I wasn’t going to do that. I got into, you know, as a teenager, I got into trouble. I partied a lot. I was I had legal trouble, you know. I uh and yeah, this is all like a lot of this all all of it’s in the book. You know, the first time I ever got arrested, I was 15 years old and I was I had I had a motorcycle. I wasn’t old enough to drive and I I I tried running from the cops and got pulled over and to me that was just like a well it kind of still was like a right of passage you know getting arrested for harmless teenager angst but I also started doing drugs and and you know when they became harder drugs it started going you know yeah it tends to go bad pretty quickly um but that was what I was doing I was you know I was selling drugs and you know that was my world but the the the turning point more than anything else was that it was the Oakrove Gophers. Um, but not not not all of them. It was I started not just Oakrove Gophers, but I want to expand. I was it was the whole Southern California disc golf community that I started realizing that all the things I kind of got a pass for as a teenager when I started getting older, there were people who were always kind and always friendly, but I also noticed they kind of didn’t want me around. I just wasn’t like as welcome with them. And those were the people whose respect I actually wanted. And I I I was like, well, I want to kind of be part of their group. And I was fitting in with my my people just fine. And when you sell drugs, you tend to fit in with the people using the drugs you sell, right? That’s it’s a pretty tight community, but that’s not who I wanted to be uh respected by. You mentioned Dan Rodic and then, you know, Katie Ugaldi. Uh, but it was, you know, Mark and Susie Horn and it was Beth Ferish and it was Cliff Town and it was Dan Mangone and it was Snapper Pearson and it was even some people um in in the early days people from End of a Champion like Dave Dun and Pace and Tim Solinsky uh Harold Duval were all friends of mine back then. I wanted their respect and I certainly didn’t have it. They were not part of that my crowd. And so I and by the way I was also unhappy and I also thought wow these people seem pretty damn happy. they go out and play disc golf and like if they have a bad round doesn’t seem to screw their life up. They’re they’re they seem to uh have their together and so I kind of just gravitated towards wanting to impress them. I mean it really was a important part. Um but I’ve never forgotten all the goodness in the people that were part of these other groups cuz they were not bad people. They were just had the same flaws I did. So I I didn’t abandon those those people by any stretch. I just was trying to impress the other ones. I feel like with some of the stuff you’ve done and I app Scott, I totally appreciate your honesty and your transparency and that’s something I’ve always really admired about you. So, I appreciate that talking about that stuff, but um it seems like some of the things that you’re involved in teaching, doing seminars, um even some of the players that you sponsor um it it feels like like you’ve I don’t want to know maybe you won’t narrow it down to learn lessons, but like you’re wanting to now put positive out in the world rather than the stuff you were doing in the past. Well, okay. So, here’s the thing. I when I was doing the things with the drugs and everything, I wasn’t out there like like I was a punk kid with an attitude, but I I was never like like like trying to harm people or anything like that. I mean, there’s people there’s plenty of people that do drugs that are good people that are struggling with something. Um, there’s plenty of people who do do drugs who are terrible people, you know, regardless of if they were sober, they’d be terrible people, right? So, they can be an independent, you know, description of a person. Um, so I I I certainly I never had like bad intentions in my heart, but I just was making bad decisions. So when I I’m going to fast forward then really quickly. So then I I I stopped using drugs and I went to college and then I went on tour and spent the ‘9s on tour and um my daughter was born in 2000 and then I was I I kind of stopped playing sound to raise her. So now we fast forwarded up to like 2013 and um I I wasn’t a partyier at all all this whole time and but in around 2012 2013 I started using using drugs again and very quickly escalated uh rapidly into foreclosure, divorce uh the uh you unable to sustain myself financially uh which is a very fringe way of moving. I mean, when someone like says they’re living on the street, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re on sidewalks, but it could mean that they’re scraping together money for a hotel room with a couple people they don’t know very well a given night. And then you’re shacking up with this person that you probably wouldn’t be shacking up with for to get have a roof. Like it it’s a very ugly existence right on the fringe. And I I was at that point that’s what I was doing. And uh it’s probably going to on my tombstone. is probably going to be my favorite story in all of disc golf was I reached out to Dave McCormack at Gateway Discs. Dave had been a friend of mine back in the ’90s and uh well first I reached out to Discraft and asked them for help and uh uh Jim Kenner and Mike actually did some things to kind of help me out here but I was still using the drugs so I wasn’t able to succeed with the help they offered and kind of burned ridges. They’ve been mended since but I I screwed that up. But I reached out to Dave McCormack and Dave’s like I can help you out. I need to get in my discs into stores. I’ll send you a bunch of discs and you can get them into stores and keep the difference, the margin, you know, be a sales rep. He didn’t know I was doing the drugs. He had no idea that that was probably a bad move. Uh not in hindsight, but at the moment. So, uh I I walk into Fly Green Disc Golf Store in Denver, Colorado. And the the way to to uh paint the picture or paint the scene is that I’m on the doorstep of Fly Green. And I for all intents and purposes am the biggest loser on earth. I hated myself. I hated my life. I felt like the biggest loser. I didn’t feel like anybody would would love me. All the cliche stuff. It’s pretty, you know, it’s cliche because it’s accurate. And that’s where I was when I was walking into the store. And I’m going to have to now I’m going to have to tell these people, remind them, oh, I used to be really good at disc golf back 20 years ago, so therefore, you know, you should trust me and carry these discs and blah blah blah. So, I walk in the door and I look up on the wall and there’s a freaking poster of me, autographed poster be up on the wall of the store and the guy behind the counter just looks up and goes, “Scott Stokeley’s here.” And he runs to the back and I hear him in the back yelling, “You guys, Scott Stokeley’s out front.” No, I’m not joking. He’s he’s in the store right now. And there were two customers in the store. It’s a true story that recognized me and and one of them’s like they said something like, “Oh my god, I’m your biggest fan.” And I’m like, “What the hell is going? Don’t you I’m You guys, don’t you realize what a loser I am? What are you What are you doing praising me? This is insane.” Wow. And the guys come out from the back and next thing I know I’m signing autographs and I’m telling stories. This one guy in the store is telling stories about me. Oh yeah. Hall three at Grateful Disc Championships. There’s this building over here and Mike Randolph had him by a stroke. And I’m like I’m like this is like Twilight Zone. Like I didn’t think anybody would remember me, let alone I’m being praised. And I absolutely at that moment didn’t feel like a loser. I felt like I felt like Scott Stokeley, right? I’m now I’m like, “Oh my god, I’m like this, you know, at least in our little world, I’m this important person, you know, again.” I I remember thinking, I got to get off the draw. I’m going to get off the drugs and quit the drugs and and I’m going to make my I’m going to change my life and get back into disc golf and, you know, keep this feeling going. And then I walked out the door and like five minutes later, I’m like, I really need to get high. And I went and bought drugs with the money from the disc I sold because um you know it’s not a movie. It doesn’t doesn’t work like that. But I had that thing in my head of like, oh, I know how this feels. How do I want to feel? And I didn’t realize I could feel it without the drugs again. And then I was like, well, my solution here is I need to I need to get back into disc golf. I hadn’t really played for 13 years. I’m like, I got to get back into this community where there’s things that make me feel about myself that I wasn’t feeling. It’s a, you know, kind of it’s a long story. You know, everyone’s got their own version of their their their path. But basically, I got off the drugs and then I was like, “Oh, all I want to do is get high, but I’m not using drugs.” Fly Green gave me a job. I’m working at Fly Green. I’m actually I got an apartment. I’m I’m now I’m paying my bills and I’m miserable because, you know, the reason I did whatever reason I was doing the drugs doesn’t just go away. So, I was doing better, but I was like every day like I’m going to get high tomorrow. like I know I’m I know I’m going to because I I you know it’s not a really you know I’m minimum wage. I’m living in someone’s basement. It’s an apartment but it’s not a life I wanted. And uh I was like what am I going to do? I’m like I got to go out on tour. This is it. I got to go out on tour. So um but I didn’t have a driver’s license at this point. You tend to lose those when you do drugs. I didn’t have a driver’s license. I didn’t have a vehicle. Uh and I had no money. So I called up Barry Schultz in North Carolina. who I hadn’t talked to him in like 15 years. I’m like, “Hey, Barry, Scott Stokeley.” It’s like, “Well, what’s going on?” And I just sat on the phone and I told him everything I’d been doing, all the stuff that had been going bad, just completely honest with him. And I said, “I need to go out on tour.” I go, “I need your help.” And he says, “I live on a disc golf course and I got a spare room. Just get here.” And I was like, I’m like, “Well, first off, he has his roommate, Brian McCree.” I didn’t even ask him about coming out. I said, “I just I don’t know what to do, Barry. I’ve been away from the sport. I don’t know how it works anymore.” And Barry, I hear him like turn away from the phone. He goes, “Hey, Brian.” He goes, “Stokeley’s coming to live with us.” I never asked him. He didn’t ask me. He just told told he Stokeley’s coming to live with us. And Brian’s like, “Oh, sweet, Scott Stoker. That’s awesome.” And so he gets back. He goes, “Yeah, I just get to North Carolina. I got a place.” And I said, “Barry,” I go, “I don’t I don’t have any money.” He goes, “I didn’t ask you for money. Just get here.” And I said, “How long can I stay?” I said, “How long can I stay?” And his exact words were, “As long as you need to.” And that’s how it started. Love that. Oh, I’m I hope this isn’t too long of a story. So the short was, so now I’m out. All right, now I’m going to go out on tour again. And it’s like I would go to a tournament and I would get praised. Wow, you throw really far. Oh, I knew you back in the day. I heard blah blah blah. Your sidearms really good. That felt good, but it was still incomplete. Like I still like it was kind of not superficial, but I’m like, you praising me for throwing frisbes. Well, that feels good, but that’s not the same. That isn’t the feeling I actually needed. And I ended up dating a woman whose son had autism. and I started running events for kids and adults with special needs. Went to 270 cities and taught a free disc golf class for kids with special needs while I was touring around having these events. And that was it. That was what did it where I went people were like they weren’t saying, “Oh, I love how good you are at Frisbee.” They’re like, “I love what a good man you are. I love what a good person you are. I hire you.” And and oh man, that was that was that was the drug that I was looking for. So the last years whether I’m sponsoring special needs players or I’m I’m donating all I mean in the last four years I’ve donated all my prize money at tournaments to special needs or developing uh organizations are developing kind like everything I do now is I’m just seeking a different drug which is I want to like help the world and I want to make people better and like I’m happy now. I want to share how to become happy and um I’m financially successful now. I’m doing really well and I so now I want to share with other people how to be financially successful. Um, none of these are paid gigs. This is I’m just seeking that drug of I want people to look at me in a way where I feel good about myself because that’s my that’s my drug if that makes sense. If that makes sense. Oh yeah. No, that makes a lot of sense. That’s a really good thing to That’s a 100,000 page book summed up in like 8 minutes. So, I hope I like it. Well, I definitely tell people to go go get the book so they can actually get it, you know, take a deeper dive and learn more about it cuz I think the book ends in 2000. The book ends when I quit this golf when my daughter was born. But the book ended with my daughter being born and I’m like, what the hell am I going to do now? I play frisbee golf for a living. Oh, when you need sounds like we need a second book, the the next chapter or the next, you know, saga. No, I’m writing three books and and Okay. So, My Empire Strikes Back is in the works. Nice. I love I love that analogy. That’s Oh, no. Well, you’ll appreciate the analogy cuz this is the heavy, dark, moody one. This is This is the Oh, okay. And then after that, the the third book is all going to be about I’ve now I’ve gone to 40 countries in the last 3 years. I’ve I’m going to my 40 41st country next week. So, the last book’s going to be all fun and rosy with the Ewoks. I love it. And I love the way your brain thinks of you’re you’re thinking two, three, four, five steps ahead, which is which is a fantastic way to look at it. So, um, so let’s talk a little bit about kind of the journey. You know, disc golf has grown up. You’ve grown up with disc golf. You’ve been through a lot of lot of different, uh, challenges and overcome those challenges. Um, so tell me a little bit about, you know, you’re coming back, but now you’re you’re playing disc golf now and then you played back uh when you were uh you played the Open at 50 years old and not not a lot of players can say that they’ve spanned large generations of disc golf, right? What’s the biggest change you’ve seen in disc golf? Um, and is there anything that you miss about the quote unquote old days of disc golf? Yeah, that’s a fantastic question. So, uh, the biggest change has just been the cultural acceptance. Like, the fact that the like the whole world’s upside down now as far as disc golf goes. Like, we’re like this real sport. I mean, we might not be the biggest sport, but we’re not this fringe thing. Um, you know, there’s respectable ball golfers who think disc golf’s a a cool alternative to ball golf. You know, there’s parents aren’t ashamed of their kids when they want to play. They actually try to figure out how to help their kids go on tour. Cities are cities approach companies and say, “We want a dish golf course in our park. Can you send someone, you know, where do we buy the baskets?” They used to show up with with torches and pitchforks if you tried to put a course in back in the 80s. Nobody today has any understanding of how much work the early pioneers of our sport did to get the disc in the ground. I mean, they literally fought city hall nearly every time they put a course in. It could be a fivey year. It could be five years of working with the neighborhood just to get them to approve a tenative plan. Yeah. So that’s the biggest difference now. Now we’re just this real sport. If you start today, you you just think of disc golf as just one of those alternative sports that you know 8 million people play. It wasn’t like that. Uh as far as what I miss about the old days, I I’m not ever going to be the grumpy old man who says back in my day things were better. If I was to list 20 different things about disc golf, 19 of them are better now than they’ve ever been. You know, with from the cultural acceptance to the explosion of the women’s field to how many juniors play and, you know, the pro tour and technology and the how cool the courses are and, you know, 19 of the 20 are better than they’ve ever been. The one thing that uh can’t be the same just because we’re bigger is that the the the family aspect of the sport. It it just can’t ever replicate the way it used to be just because we’re big now. Now, okay, disc golf is like a family. Yes, you can go to any course in the world, post to Facebook, hey, I’m in town. Um I need a place to crash. Some disc golf willer be like, I got a couch. you know, like there’s still this thing that we have that’s incredibly unique and special, but it’s not the same as when there were, you know, nine of us, right? Right. Like, so the way the way I described it, it was because we were it was such a group made up of like outcasts and misfits and you know, most players, you know, there’s there was we had a doctor here, a you know, scientist over there, but you know, mostly we were misfits. And there was this um it was this us against them mentality. I mean like nobody I mean and I mean nobody understood what we did except for us. I mean you had you had guys who would and this was not this is a common story in the old days. They couldn’t tell their boss that they were going to a disc golf tournament to get time off. They had to lie because their boss would have no first they have to explain what disc golf is and then it would sound stupid to them and they’d be like yeah you’re not taking time off for this this thing. It’s like people hid it from their wives and uh so you know our our our you know we were the outcast group and because we’re the outcast group we bonded over this in a way that just can never be the same. We call it the Frisbee family. We still call it that today. Like there’s just nothing like it. We just I went to the Virginia State Championships I think the 48th annual with and it’s mostly old school players. The majority of people at that tournament have been playing longer than me and I hugged a hundred people and so did everybody else. It was it was absolutely a family. We were never going to get that back. Um, you know, for better or worse, that’s that’s the thing that’s different. And me personally, I would give up the other 19 things I do for that. But yeah, I love where the sport is. I think it’s great. It’s growing. I love the Pro Tour. I’ll tell you something that that people don’t or they ask me all the time and and and they don’t understand how I don’t think they understand how strange this is. But on the Pro Tour, basically nearly every single person on the Pro Tour are like really good people and they actually genuinely really like one. Like they’re competing. They’re competing, you know, where if I beat you, I’m taking food off your plate and the money is at a level where if I beat you, you might not come out next season. Like there’s there’s a line where people aren’t going to be able to afford to keep doing it. There’s every reason in the world for it for people to butt heads and have animosity and there’s almost none of it. I like No, they’re competing. I mean, there’s not a single player on tour that takes it easy on the person. No, you’re trying to you’re trying to smash the person on the course. there’s there’s no lack of competitiveness, but they there’s also love at at the same time where it’s like when you beat somebody, you’re happy you won and you feel what they’re going through at the same time. I don’t think that exists. I don’t think anybody in the NBA has ever been like the Chicago Bulls were ever like, “Oh, I feel so sad for those Detroit Pistons. Oh man, I bet they’re really I bet they’re they’re I bet they’re sad right now.” There’s there’s empathy. So, it it’s a wild It’s wild, man. It’s It shouldn’t be like this. So, that’s the carryover of the Frisbee family that we still got. I don’t think this is a sport in the world that has the quality of people playing it that we do. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I’ve been watching, you know, uh since coming back to Dynamic Disc, watching a lot of YouTube disc golf videos where guys are just out there practicing and then showing, you know, what they do on off the course. And I that’s something I noticed is that these kids are having a great time together, laughing, being goofy, and they’re all from different manufacturers because they don’t care. They just They’re friends. They’re They’re out there having a good time doing the same thing, have the same goals, cheering each other on, and just having a great time. So, yeah, I think that’s Yeah, I couldn’t speak any higher. I’m so proud of them. I mean, they’re they what they’re doing is they’re carrying on the Frisbee tradition, the Frisbee legacy, and and uh I’m proud of all of them. I think they’re and they’re my friends. I love all of them. Yeah. Yeah. Let’s change directions a little bit. You held both the backhand and sidearm world distance record. Um, so you’ve had some big accomplishments when it comes to the to distance and I know on the disc golf answer man that’s one of the biggest questions we used to always get was how do I throw farther. So in your eyes what do most people get wrong when it comes to throwing far? So throwing far is just it’s technique and it’s practice um with with an overtone of like you know your physical you know abilities you know taller physics is on your side. Um, I suppose that there’s this fast twitch versus slow twitch muscle thing that probably, you know, it probably is if that’s valid. I I’ve never looked into it enough to know if that’s just a trendy uh, you know, observation of athletes, but if it’s true, there’s probably some there’s there’s some genetics involved, but but that’s the overarching like kind of ceiling. It it’s technique and it’s it’s mechanics. If you don’t throw with proper mechanics, you don’t throw far. So, here’s how I’ll describe it. It’s real simple. Mhm. A 7-year-old cowgirl can can break the speed of sound with a piece of leather. If she has the proper technique, she can crack a bullhip. A 25year-old male bodybuilder can’t break the speed of sound if he doesn’t crack the whip properly. Mhm. Now, it there’s obviously way more to it than that, but that’s it’s a pretty accurate analogy. Proper technique, physics becomes on your side. Put the whip in the right position. Move the whip the right direction. Physics takes over. The whip accelerates. Snap. There you go. You just broke the speed of sound. Improper technique. You just have a piece of leather flying through the air. Not doing that. And as far as when people say, “Well, what is the one thing?” I’m not dismissing the answer. It’s not one thing. There are a number of things and every one of them if you don’t do those will remove a measurable amount of your distance. So, no, it’s not an exact formula. But let’s say that you let’s say that be based on your height and your physical attributes and your age and how long you’ve been playing, let’s say that had you been throwing perfectly the whole time, you you potentially had a you could have been a 500t thrower. Had everything done been perfect. The way I look at it is well, if you don’t do this thing over here, if you don’t plant your foot before you start pulling the disc, if you start pulling before you plant, you’re losing, you know, that’s 45 ft of distance you’re losing over here. And then if you’re keeping your head forward, which prevents you from rotating the shoulders and reaching back, that’s another 52 ft over here. And now you’re putting the nose up on the disc, that’s another 27 ft. And so next thing you know, you’re you’re now throwing 330 ft. Well, if you fix the nose up on the disc, well, that’s going to get you back that 30 ft. Wonderful. That you were losing, but you’re still losing the distance from these other things. Every single piece of the puzzle adds or subtracts a measurable amount of distance. When you get everything perfectly, then you’re kind of at your ceiling as far as what your physical body can do. And that’s where there are differences in bodies. This is what it really comes down to with uh with like on the Pro Tour. Everybody on the Pro Tour rips the desk. I’m going to talk about the guys just cuz I’m more familiar with the guy division. I mean, mechanics, there’s there’s not a whole lot of flaws on the Pro Tour mechanically. So when somebody throws 500 ft and someone else can throw 650, that’s the last part where it’s like, well, yeah, but they’re 6’2 and you’re 5′ 10 and and yeah, they happen to have those fast twitch muscles and you don’t. But everybody is their mechanics are so good, they’re kind of throwing at their ceiling. Like nobody on the Pro Tour that can only throw 500 ft today will be throwing 650 in 3 years because their technique improves. you’re not on the pro tour if your technique isn’t really damn close to I hate the word perfect, but perfectish, right? Yeah, I got you. So, what’s what’s what’s I guess one thing that uh for the listeners if that’s that’s something to want to aspire to is getting on the pro tour. Um it sounds like getting out there and just practicing and getting down the techniques and not realizing like you said and something I know we’ve talked about before on the show is that it’s not just one or two things. It’s a it’s a multitude of things go working all together uh in a positive way to absolutely get that distance. But I guess to someone what would you say to someone that thinks that they’ve reached their ceiling? Is it is that something that prevent them from being a pro if they can’t quite get that big distance? So no. So it’s not about having a big distance as a pro. Um throwing farther. So okay there’s a term they use called tour distance. into our distance range. Can you throw a 450 ft hiser, which is basically a controllable shot? Can I throw 450 ft and land it safe? If you have to throw an Annheiser flex shot to get 450 ft, you don’t have the control to play because you lose accuracy when you do a flex shot. When you do a hiser or hiser flip, you’re more accurate. You got to be able to get to that 450 range and every player on on tour does. That’s the the weakest players on the tour can still pop a 450 foot hiser. Um, anything above that is bonus, but the the frequency by which these the situations where you will use that come up gets smaller and smaller. The the farther you throw, the opportunity to throw that that far. Like, we’ll use him as the obvious example, throws a mile. But how often during a round is that an advantage? Like, well, every time there’s a basket shorter than than that everybody can reach, then there’s almost no advantage because they can all reach it. um when you have longer holes but you have OB in play which means you know AB’s not throwing full power anyways like so that all that power is not really going to showcase itself. So how many holes does he actually get to use that power? Well there’s a couple like wide open holes and there’s maybe a couple shots during a round where he gets to throw the big hiser window which is a bigger gap than the smaller window the weaker players have to throw. Okay. So yeah, so he he’s his distance gives him a couple strokes around, but so does uh you know, Andrew Marw’s circle one putting and so does Harsby’s, you know, the circle two shots he throws in seems seemingly every couple, you know, couple times around. So it’s it’s uh every part of the game gives you it’s a skill set that that you know gives you the edge over the other players or that you can use, but distance is just one of those skill sets. You still got to do all the other parts of the game. Gotcha. Yeah, you got to have a complete game for sure. Okay, so tell us Okay, so I as I did my research, obviously I found that you had your Stokeley discs. Um, so you’re coming out with some discs. So tell us a little bit about that. What’s this new adventure all about? Yeah, so um so I manufacture my own discs now. It’s uh it’s called discs. Uh it’s not the typical pro line because they’re not third party manufacturer. They’re not just tour discs, you know, like they’re they’re actually like I manufacture them. Me, me and my partner, we we like every single disc that that every single Stokeley disc you get is coming off of of a machine that we own. Um being from a mold that we own that we created uh shipped from a warehouse that we uh now I always want to be clear with people like we have some help within the industry in disc design and the manufacturing process. like that is an art that uh takes years to get good at. Like if you start manufacturing on your own machines yourself, you’re going to go through a several year learning curve where you’re going to burn through some bad. So we we didn’t do that. We jumped ahead and we got some experts to help with those areas. But we it we own the company, we own the machines, it’s our facility. I mean everything’s on um we have five discs out for Stokeley discs. Um the most recent one is the Paragrin which is the it’s my first high-speed driver. I’m super excited. Uh, if we were to compare, we’ll call it Halo Destroyer cuz everything is comparable to something else. But it’s an overstable high-speed driver. It doesn’t care one bit how windy it is. It holds its line. It’s really good. And, you know, I’ve got I I believe three more molds coming out this year. We’ll have eight by the end of the year for Stokeley Discs. Um, we also bought for the some of the people who’ve been around in a minute. We bought Ching Disc. Ching is a company that’ been around for years. Uh they they shut down in 2014 and uh they the important part of this story is they didn’t shut down because they weren’t doing well. I mean if people didn’t like the discs, we weren’t going to buy the company. Loved the disc. But the person that owned the company had personal reasons for shutting it down. He shut down successful company. Uh at the time all eight discs were being manufactured in China. And the very first thing we did when we bought the company is we bought uh we brought the mulch back from China. So they’re actually all in American um they’re being manufactured on our machines as well. So we uh the Guju which was the most popular out we’ve just been for stores releasing the um the precision but all eight of the ching bolts will also be released as well but we’re just pacing them you know probably two a year to you know build hype around each model. So yeah we’re we’re actually like this like we’re like this real production facility. We’re not just making one or two discs hoping to get it off the ground. We’re actually full speed ahead to to um to become a major manufacturer and and we’re we’re we’re going to be. It’s exciting. Yeah, it’s neat. That’s awesome. I love it. So, tell us tell if someone’s wanting to try out your discs, uh whether it’s the Stokeley disc or theQing, what why why would you tell someone as far as what your mission is, what your values are, why why do they want to try your discs? Okay. So, there’s that that’s a fantastic question and that’s the you know that’s the key to any type of marketing like are are we do we fly farther? Are we do we feel better? Are we less expensive? You know, like whatever the selling pitch is. Um there’s a couple things. The first is is the reason why I started this company because I I make plenty of money teaching disc golf. I could have a hell of a life just traveling around the world the rest of my life teaching disc golf and I’d be quite comfortable and it would be really really easy um relative to like you know grinding out the you know the 50-hour week job. I mean I could go to I could run one or two seminars a week the rest of my life and and be comfortable. The reason why I started the company my motivation was I have three things that I want to do desperately with my life and these things cost a lot of money. Um, I want to promote adaptive disc golf, special needs disc golf. I want to promote disc golf for people that the traditional game of disc golf doesn’t fit for. Um, just because of physical or developmental disabilities. I I want to open up the game to them. I am very passionate about bringing disc golf or and participating I should say helping to bring disc golf to countries where they don’t have disc golf. And this is primarily um developing countries. U we’ve been spending time in Indonesia, Cambodia. We just got back from Vietnam. Uh we will be going to Africa, going to South America this winter. I want I want to bring disc golf to people that the game doesn’t reach now just for logistic reasons and financial reasons. Mhm. So basically the the theme here is that disc golf disc golf in in the US and Europe and in the west is doing just fine without me. If if I disappeared tomorrow, disc golf, you know, I hopefully will mourn for about a minute and a half and then they’re going to keep doing great. uh I can’t make I can’t affect change in in the this the way I would like to where where I can affect change and grow disc golf are these areas that disc golf isn’t reaching well and that’s developed countries people adapt to disc golf so that’s where my my heart is and the third thing and this is very important to me is that there are more disc sports out there other than disc golf and ultimate uh it’s so important to me that these sports don’t go away we’re talking about guts and double disc court and and freestyle and you know I just everything that isn’t disc golf and ultimate uh sports are hanging on by a thread in some cases and it just needs an infusion of money. It needs an infusion of money from someone who doesn’t give about money if that makes sense. The the same reason I give all my prize money away I’ve been doing it for like the last four years. I I name an organization to donate my prize money to is the same reason I’ll be giving away the money from this company. like I’m not going to die with money under my mattress. I’m going to die broke. Everything I make is going to go towards. And so these disc sports where there’s no way to see a profit in them probably for many years if ever, they need someone who can throw money at it that doesn’t care about where’s my return coming from. Um I’ll add one more part of that. The tradition of Frisbee on the bottom of the first Frisbee, it said invent games. That’s the that’s the core of our of of flying disc sports. and there haven’t been a whole lot of games invented. So, I also want to like get behind whatever and encourage people to invent new disc sports that I can now get behind. All these things take millions of dollars and um that’s that’s where the money goes. And so, if I mean, look, look, we’re making great discs. They fly great. They good plastic. If the discs weren’t good or didn’t have good plastic, no one’s going to buy them because it feels good, right? like no one’s going no one’s going to shoot worse on the course just because they’re a supporting this thing they believe in. I mean nature. Um these discs are unbelievably good. They fly great. The plastic is super high quality. So they’re great discs but other people make great discs also. So then the choice is which great disc you choose. And with my company, when you are throwing Stokeley discs and chaining discs, you are fundamentally promoting disc golf in a way that no one else is doing it. And you’re you’re part of this. Can we call it the flock where we’re going to formalize the name? So all my discs are bird names, so we’re calling it the flock. But when you’re part of the flock, you are growing the sport of disc golf to the people disc golf doesn’t reach. You want to grow the sport, this is one way to do it. throw a disc that is just as good as any other company’s discs, but you are growing the sport when you do it. Wow. I like that. That’s That’s the biggest thing. I don’t I mean, I’m telling you, I I will die. Absolutely. I I don’t think you’ve met her in person. My girlfriend been together five and a half years not traveling with me. When I met her, I said I go I go good news and bad news. I go good news, I make a lot of money. Go bad news, I give just about all of it away. Like everything I don’t need. I I told her why I met her. said, “Look, you’ll be a we stay at hotels every night for the last 5 years.” I go, “It’s going to be a roof over your head. There’s going to be food on the plate. You are not going to see a savings account.” He goes, “Everything I make above what it takes for us to get through this week is is out the door for some cool thing that I want to do.” And by the way, if you look interview, that’s just how I buy my drugs. Like that this is what this is excited. I’m going to go do this cool thing over here and then then and then I get the dopamine hit from like, you know, whatever. So, whatever is a fun thing, I think, you know, I don’t know. Weird when it comes to money, man. I don’t like having money. I like making money. Another marketing question I wanted to ask you is the undercover shopping. I’ve seen videos where you’ve got the clever little mustache on um you kind of go in the store and do some undercover shopping. That’s not you. Is that you? I It looks like me, but no, I don’t have a mustache. So, what was that? How did you come up with that idea? And what’s been the the outcome of those uh adventures? So, as I’m traveling, cuz I’m I’m in the Stokeley Discs, you know, you know, Sprinter van with the Stokeley Discs logo on it. Uh people think I sleep in it. I don’t. We stay at hotels. Uh merchandise and I’m going to pro shop. But we’re already in about 300 pro shops in our first year, which is just mind-blowing to me. That’s awesome. Every everyone’s down with this. Everybody’s like, “Ah, this is really cool. Cool. You know, we want to be a part of this.” Right. So every all the pro shops have been great. So I’ve been visiting pro shops. But as I’m making my way back around now, I go to a town where there might be like like let’s say there’s a couple pro shops in this small town and one of them already carries my disc and one of them doesn’t. Well, it would kind of be crappy of me to like just skip the store that carries my discs to go make a sales call. What about these guys? You know, they were early adopters. So then then I was thinking, well, how I need to do something to um you know, I got to visit these places, too. So if I’m in town, I’m like, I want to visit, but what you know, I just I want to make it fun. So one of the big things I added to the list of like pro one of the ways I’m going to be making less money, but I don’t care cuz it’s fun, is I am adamant about promoting uh I call it shop local first. I believe that the single most important key to the growth of disc golf in our sport is all of the local entrepreneurs that are boots on the ground doing grassroots promoting of disc golf in their town. Like all the big manufacturers out there, the big four manufacturers have have all like they’ve put millions of dollars into the sport. I’m friends with all the big manufacturers. I respect all of them. They’ve done so much to grow the sport and donated so much money and what what they’ve done has been a they’ve done a lot of positive, but nobody is doing as much as as the guy that just opens the pro shop cuz he loves Corg woman or guy or girl, whatever, but they open the pro shop and now they’re running leagues and now they’re promoting the game and they’re putting courses in the ground. You know, I’m a big fan of, you know, free market capitalism. I’m a big, you know, go USA. Like I love our system because the way that our system works and I want to polarize my audience by being yay USA, but the way our system works is that if you own a pro shop, if you get another course put in the ground, you’re going to make more money. And that is what that drives people more than anything to to grow the sport. And and when I run leagues, I’m I’ll be able to sell more discs. That grows the sport. I the pro shops, the vendors, the pop-up course runners, the tournament directors, the clubs, the the private court owners. These are the folks that are growing the sport more than me or any manufacturers. So that was longer than I intended, but that’s these are the people we we need these people more than anything. I am adamant that we need our community to support these people by buying their discs from these stores. They need to buy their merchandise from these stores. When you buy directly from a manufacturer, you’re not doing what’s in your best interest because you are not keeping the person in business that you need to run leagues in your town and get new courses in. So, shop local first doesn’t mean don’t buy from the manufacturers. Doesn’t mean don’t buy online. What it means is give your local retailer first dibs at your business. You know, have a a orbit selling Ricky Weissaku selling. Call them. If they don’t have it, get it. If they don’t, if they can’t get it, go online and buy it. Go to the manufacturer. Like, get the disc you want. But start give that give that person first dibs at your business. It’s in our sports best interest. So, when I’m traveling, I’m going into these stores and all I’m doing is I’m shooting content to promote their store. I’m in town. Let’s put eyes on your shop. Let’s promote. So, I said I’m going to lose money by doing this. Um, I make about six times as much money when you buy a disc from me direct as you do when you buy it from a pro shop that I sold the disc to. That it is 6:1 difference. And I’m still telling people if they sell Stokeley discs in your town, buy it from the local store because I need that local store to grow the disc golf to grow the sport I love in your town. Now, if that store discs, they don’t have the discs you want, go to stokeleydis.com and buy it for me. I still want your business. I still want your money. I still want to sell you golf disc, but give that local vendor the first dibs. So, boots on the ground. I’m I’m out actively promoting stores and doing everything I can to help help these folks, man. We need these people. Every time a pro shop goes out, our sport takes a hit. Our entire sport. Yeah, that’s very true. Okay, I got one last question for you, but before I ask, I’m going to put a little seat in your head. Um, I’m going to try something different with these interviews. I want you to be able to ask me questions at the end. So, anything you’ve wondered about or or just curious about, you can ask me. But before we get to that, I want to ask you one last question. So, you’ve mentioned a lot of the challenges that you’ve gone through, some of your past that you’re that and how disc golf has been a very positive force in your life to help you to be where you’re at right now. What would you tell that one listener right now that is in that similar situation? and they’ve got a lot lot going on, a lot of challenges in life, but disc golf seems to be uh that saving grace, but they’re still kind of trying to struggle. What’s a piece of advice you would give that person? Yeah. So, the the first piece of advice would be don’t expect one piece of advice to be the fix. There’s the thing you have to do, and people are notorious, and I’ve done it, you’ve probably done it. People don’t do what’s in their own best interest. People make decisions every day that is contradicts what would be in their own best interest. You need to make decisions that are in your best interest. And the biggest thing you can do above all else is seek out the people that have what you want and figure out how to and usually the way you figure out how to get what they have is by asking them and learning from them. So, so when I wrote my autobiography, you know, it’s autobiography. It’s the story of my life. I get to put one one sentence as the introduction on the page one, you know, one quote, you know, that’s supposed to sum up what I believe in in 55 years of life. And what I wrote was go where the love is, not where it’s supposed to be. Yeah. Most important thing. And the reason why I wrote this was because when I was a little kid, um, I came from a crappy family. I had a great mom and then a bunch of not great people in my in my world. Um, I sought out family where the love was. And so I went where the love was, not where it was supposed to be. It’s supposed to be from your family. Well, it turned out it was a bunch of yippy disc golfers at a park. Doesn’t matter. The love was there. So I went and got it from where it was. But when I say seek out the people that have what you want. If you see someone that’s happy, talk to them about being happy. If you see someone, if your if you have substance abuse problems, talk to someone that has stopped using drugs. If your business is failing, talk to someone that’s successful at business. Go talk go figure out from the people who have what what you want. Go how many people actually like, oh, I’ve had three failed marriages and I’m crappy relationships. And if you ask them, well, how many people with good relationships have you grabbed and said, please tell me what you do? Mhm. Nobody does this. Go see, I want my marriage to be better. Okay. Well, do you know anybody with a good marriage? Go talk to them. And and that’s not one piece of advice, but that’s an overarching strategy. So, I have a page called uh well, two things. I have a Facebook page called Stokeley’s Longest Drive. It’s my nondiscolf stuff where I talk about all sorts of things related to career, happiness, and all that. And then I have a Discord server called uh scottstoley.net/isord. twice a week. Um, I go do a a live a live uh open discussion on mental health, physical health, you know, same thing. I’m in really good physical shape, right? Well, then you then you probably ought to listen to me if you want to get into shape because I have something that I can teach you make me an expert, but if I’m in better shape than you, then I know something that you don’t. All of my channels, um, my longest drive page mainly and my Discord server are all about me trying to share these things that I’ve learned in life that you can learn from me because you you didn’t want to learn from 30-year-old me. 30-year-old me didn’t know what the hell he was doing. But 55-year-old me is really good at life. But there’s other 55-year-old me out there in your town, in your disc golf club that are good at life. You got to seek these folks out. One final thing, not to just, you know, go on a rant, but if somebody has something you want, which means they’re good at relationships, career, happiness, sobriety, life, health, if they’re good at those things, I will almost guarantee you that that they are also then the same type of person who would like nothing more than to help someone who asks them. Like, nobody with a good marriage isn’t going to be like happy to talk to you about how to make a marriage good. Cuz the qualities that make a good marriage are probably the qualities that make you want to help someone who who’s looking for help. Seek those people out. That’s what I did when I was 19 years old. What does Dan Rodic do to be happy? Why is T why how come TDI just had a bad tournament? Well, I I went to TDI said, “Why aren’t you mad right now?” I went to Dan Rodic and and I just kind of observed. I didn’t talk to him as well. I’m very close with Dan Rodic. Um but I also observed how he led. He’s the he’s the greatest promoter in the history of disc sports and I and and you know he probably is our sport’s greatest leader and well no let me rephrase that he is our sport’s greatest leader and I just stayed I got close to him I was I became his DEC partner for 8 years and I just watched how does he lead? Why do people follow him? Because someday I’m going to lead and people are going to follow me. I don’t have nothing offered today but but someday I’m going to and but but where do I learn that? Well learned it from him. Yeah. Yeah, always be learning. I love that. And and yeah, I think one of the biggest thing I hear from that from what you just said is that don’t be afraid to reach out for help. You know, reach out for help. Uh people are willing to help and they want to help help you out. So, all right. So, did you think of any questions for me? I’d love to answer any questions real quick as we wrap this up. Yeah. Yeah. Let me let me go on a 10-second rant, though, about that. About reaching out for help, too, because Yeah. You may not you, if you’re watching this video, you you probably noticed I’m a man and men and women face different struggles. I can’t even speak to the struggles women face cuz I ain’t one. I can speak to men, but I I can tell you for a fact that they’re not the same because the the not only are we different, they’re the support systems, the empathy, the everything that’s out there is different for men than it is for women. And so without meaning to, it turns out that a lot of men are following me because I’m speaking to them not in a generic political direct. All of us are A, B, and C. No, I’m speaking to them um as a man about struggles men go through and reaching out for help is kind of contradicts what men are and in fact to a point that men have they struggle with things like when I’m in a relationship with a woman, the more I need help or show vulnerability or weakness, all of a sudden my partner feels less safe, less secure, and now I’m treated differently. I better keep my damn mouth shut. But men misinterpret that and they think, “Oh, well now I can’t talk to anybody because if I’ve seen weak and vulnerable, my partner’s less attracted to me or they’re” and then so men are like, “Oh my god, I got to keep my mouth shut.” Well, no, you don’t need to keep your mouth shut. You just need to not be vulnerable in front of a person who’s counting on you to be strong. You can go over here and be vulnerable where that person ain’t they don’t get to see you being vulnerable. Go cry on your best friend’s shoulders. Best friend, you cry on your best friend’s shoulders. That’s that’s where you need to be vulnerable. Not in those areas where as a man you have to be strong, but there’s places. And so go seek out as a man, go seek out help, but go seek out places where you’re safe to seek out help. And it ain’t everywhere. There’s select places we need to go. They exist. And closest place they exist is with our closest male friends. Not our group. I’m so glad you brought I’m so glad you brought that up cuz that’s so powerful. Um yeah, I have I actually have a group of men that that I trust and rely on. Um um we have a regular Tuesday morning meeting where we go have breakfast. I haven’t been able to go as often just with the new job and I’m working it out to where I can see them more often. But uh it is just that it’s a place we all we all have the similar faith. We have similar beliefs. So uh when we talk we know we’re talking from the same pl place, but um we don’t talk go there to judge each other. We go there just to be guys, be goofy, be dumb, but we also go there to be vulnerable. And it’s amazing. It’s so helpful to talk to other guys that have very similar struggles and challenges because from the outside you’re like, “Well, dude, he’s a dude. He’s making it. He’s successful. He’s over here. He’s got a great marriage. He’s” and you find out that yeah, they’ve got a great marriage, but it’s not without struggles. Yeah, he’s got a great business that’s growing, but it’s not without his challenges and days that he’s like just barely getting by, but he’s doing what he needs to do. So, it’s great to be able to talk to other men that are going through that similar struggles and challenges that you are and know that they’re just doing what they what they can do to make it. So, yeah, I think that’s great advice. Oh, so and and this is again this is just it’s it’s there’s a lot of I don’t want to go off in a total tangent here, but there’s this there’s a lot of mixed messages men get now that they never got in the past, you know, and we are told to be vulnerable in front of our partners. We want vulnerability, we want this, we want that. Well, we don’t get the reactions we want. Well, the reason we don’t get the reactions we want is that in most cases, that isn’t necessarily what the person wanted. They wanted our partners want us to be strong. They want us to be met. But in 2025, you’re not supposed to say that. That’s toxic. And it’s like, well, no, guess what? Guess what? No. No, it’s not. My my partner will tell you flat out, if I said to her right now, how would you feel if I was just crying in front of you? She’s like, I would feel unsafe. You need to be a man. Yeah. And she just verbalizes what I think a lot of people say, but you’re not supposed to in 2025. So, you know, the we got to be men. It’s okay to be a man. Nothing wrong with being a man. You should be proud of being a man. But you need to figure out where to be vulnerable. And it’s going to be with men. It just is in my opinion. Don’t get mad at me in the comments or don’t get mad at me. I don’t care. I’m I’m speaking what I believe. No, I want Yeah, I want speak what you believe. Speak what what you what you feel. So, I think that’s fantastic. People are going to hate, but I’m sure there’ll be plenty of other people that are uh glam. All right. So, what question do you have for me? Uh, oh god. Is there a god? What’s the meaning of life? No. Um, um, no. No. I Okay, I got a question for you. So, you’re back with DD, right? All right. So, I would love to hear and I’m going to go ahead and give you the platform. This is this is my marketing part of my brain. I’ll give you a platform to pitch this. Um, the thing about all the house at disc companies, I’m friends with all these. I’m friends with Rusco. I’m friend with Anders and Tomas and Fonte and Jussi. Like these are all my friends and and the I love every one of them and I respect them and they’re great people who ran great companies. And the perception was that when House of Disc came in that now decisions are being made that weren’t being made by disc golf people and there has been ill feelings in the community towards the House of Disc companies uh because of this. And of course people that don’t know the ends just think oh well now this this company’s this and that company’s that. They’re not behind the scenes realizing that the the original owners are pulling their hair out going, “No, we don’t like these decisions either, but we’re not in charge anymore, right?” Um, and but that, you know, to the outside, all it is is dynamic did this, cast the plastic to plastic that or whatever. Like, that’s all they see. So, my question is, what are you going to do to to let people know that these companies are still being run by the same? They’re not sorry. They’re they’re still most of the core good people that made you a fan of your companies before are still almost all of them are actively involved in the companies. How do you how do you turn public public opinion about this? Cuz you got an uphill battle. Oh yeah, for sure. For sure. That’s a great question. uh a question that I’ve asked myself that the from the moment I had a conversation with uh David Berglin of Latitude 64 when he talked about when he called me and asked me about my interest in coming back. It was a question that I still asked myself last night after some conversations I had with some of our team players. Um I can’t go back and change the past. You know, I don’t have that power. I wasn’t involved. When I left, things were like still on the huge climb um from the pandemic as far as sales and as far as interest in disc golf. They were climbing high um when I left um Dynamic Disc. And I didn’t leave because I didn’t like Dynamic Disc. There were some personal reasons going on in my life. I felt like I needed to be closer back with my family. Um so, but I was an outsider watching things happen and I my heart broke when I saw some of the news of of people getting laid off. I got mad when I saw certain decisions being made about pricing and things like that. I was like, “What are they doing with this? What is going on over there?” But I was on the outside, so I can’t really speak to a lot of the decisions that were made, whether they were great decisions, bad decisions, why those decisions were made. Of course, I have my own personal opinion about it. Um, but I can’t change that. I can’t change any of that. All I can do is move forward with what I have before me. And right now what I have before me is it’s less people here for sure, but the people that are here have that same passion for the sport, the same passion for the brands, and they want nothing but to see the sport succeed and of course the company succeed because it’s not that we want to make money a lot. That’s the thing that makes me mad is these Yes. Uh uh uh the people that invested in us, they invested because they want to see growth and they want to make money, but I’ve met some of them and they just want to see success, right? And yes, some of their decisions are based on the numbers that we have out there and decisions that have to be made. They’re not fun decisions, but they’re decision. It’s like I mean, let’s just be honest. Some of the decisions that were made is so that we are still here. If some of those decisions weren’t being made, we may not even have what we have now. So, I’m glad they made those decisions. Am I glad that some people had to lose their job or get laid off or decided to quit? No, not at all. But these we’re we’re here and what we have now is, like I said, a group of people that have a passion for the sport. And this just as you say you’re making money to do to see uh to live out your goals and to live out your mission and your vision. Same thing here. Our goal is to grow the sport. Yes. To be a successful business so that we can do something we believe in, which is see this sport we love grow and succeed. And so now my job is to not allow the negative stories to be what people hear about and that’s all that people uh concentrate on or focus on. My job is now to continue to tell the story of what we’re doing behind the scenes to help the sport grow and to help be passionate people and enrich people’s lives here through the sport of disc golf. I’m simply just going to show what’s going on and what’s been missed all these years. Um, it’s a tough thing because now I’ve got to kind of turn the tide and man that tide is the every day I learn this tide, the turn is heavier and heavier than I thought it was, but it’s still there and I still believe in it. And um, that’s what drives me is to make sure we we continue to tell the stories that’s happening here. Whether it’s our tournament directors, the great tournament sponsorship program we have, whether it’s our plastic, we have we’ve always had great PLA plastic. Um, the plastic has for some of the companies, nothing has changed. There’s we could get into the weeds of it, but you know, people keep saying, “Well, the plastic did this, plastic did this.” Yeah, maybe a little bit changed because of manufacturing, but they’re not all the same plastic. And like you said, people don’t know the story behind the story. And so that’s my job is to tell those stories to make sure that people don’t believe the the misinformation that’s put out there. Um, I know that’s kind of a rant on my part of of talking about what’s going on, but that’s that’s what I believe is that I’ve just got to tell the story because no one else is telling it. Um, and other people are just going to believe what’s put out there. Yeah. You got Hey, like you got you have an uphill battle and uh it’s going to be a smart. Can I give you my my old man advice to you? Please do. So disc golf is the way disc golf works. It’s very tribal. It’s very community and people are very loyal to their tribe and and every you know the the the the people dynamic uh through dynamic or people through castiplast they they that was part of their tribe and people felt betrayed. Yeah. They they they they felt betrayed and there’s there is there’s that’s the most difficult thing to overcome. So I’m going to give I’m going to take a quick aside here. I’m a pro wrestling guy. Okay. I do pro wrestling. I’m a I’m a heel manager. I do indie shows. I’m going to be doing another show here that I I love I love pro wrestling and when you’re trying to make a bad guy in pro wrestling like a new guy comes to your territory or new guy if you and I’m not talking about the modern version where everybody hangs out after the show signing autographs. I mean in the old days when there was actually bad guys that people hated if you wanted to make a bad guy the best way to do it if you really wanted to get people angry was you wouldn’t bring them in as a bad guy. You would bring him in as someone people liked, got behind, and then you betrayed them and let your people down because that is a different visceral feeling the audience would feel because they’re like, “I supported you. I bought your shirt. I took my kids to meet you. You signed my autograph and pretended you were nice, you know, at the expo last whatever.” And I think people felt betrayed. They felt betrayed when these things were happening. And winning them back is a lot harder um than if if they simply just didn’t like you and you tried to convince them to give them a chance. And the best way to do this is is I’m telling you, you guys need to own it. Like you need to own every single thing that was wrong and you need to own it with, “Yeah, that was a bad decision. We wouldn’t do that again. We know why it was wrong. I totally understand why that pissed you off.” That honesty is the first. And by the way, you’re not going to win everybody back, but I think the honesty will and and the accountability I think will will win some of them back cuz they they don’t want to not like you. They they just want to feel like they can trust you again, right? No, no, you hit it on the nail right there is that that’s part of the battle is earning back people’s trust. And the only I mean, I could say it over and over again, but I’m just going to have to show it. And it’s that’s that’s what I’m And you also have to take time. Oh, and you cannot tell them when to trust you again. that’s on their schedule. That’s like when you apologize to somebody, you you cannot decide when you’re forgiven. You can apologize and then the forgiveness happens on their time if ever. And that’s just the way it is. But and now of course you also have there’s still there’s a new audience. There’s people that don’t know anything about anything that you can win over from scratch. I think they’re I don’t say it’s easy. I’m trying to build an audience. It’s not easy, but it’s easier than the people any people back. But yeah, I would go honest and accountability and then that’s your first step. Well, I think that and I think that’s why uh why people like you said with the whole wrestling and I laughed at that because um I remember those they were like, “Wait, he was a he was a good guy, now he’s a bad guy.” Like it was it was like it threw you off. You want to turn someone off, sell someone a $30 shirt. Sell sell someone a $30 shirt with your logo on it and then all of a sudden betray them next week and now you just wasted 30 bucks. That’s like, you know what that Okay, I I’ll give you one more example. go buy a jersey from somebody on on your sports team and then then the next next week they demand a trade and and you’re like wait I just spent $100 on a jersey like that is meal to eat cuz because you you know started off here and came down. So yeah. Yeah. And that’s why I think I think that’s why Dynamic Disc got picked on the most when all this uh went down is because we were the brand that was like, “Hey, come join our journey. Come help come grow the sport with us, you know, and and we took you on our journey and we showed you a lot of behind the scenes and all of a sudden they felt betrayed.” But um you know now me being back was is is is literally an acknowledgement from a lot of the people in leadership that they needed to get back to what we did before which was being transparent, being honest, owning what we do, you know, making decisions, taking risks, and then owning the consequences whether they’re good or bad. And just having people join us for the journey cuz we’re all, you know, we’re all in this. We always had the we’re all in this together to help grow the sport we love, to share the sport we love with everybody. So, well, tell well then tell the story. I love it. Tell the story of the journey back then. That that that that’s that’s a story people might tune in for. Hey, I appreciate, man. I appreciate everything. I appreciate everybody’s excited to have you back. Thank you for having me on. Seems how I’m a competitor and honestly between you and me, you’re all going to be working for me someday. But but I will remember those people who were nice to me along the way. So when you come to work for me, you probably won’t start sweeping the warehouse floor. I’ll probably start you with like a a desk job. You’re still going to start down here. But still down below. Right. Right. Right. Right. No, no. Everybody starts off Everybody starts off low, but if they’re nice to me, they skipped sweeping the the the warehouse floor and they started menial guess work. So yeah, I I won’t forget you when I’m when I’m when I’m the biggest. Thank you so much for that, Scott. I appreciate that. I I’ll keep you to it. I’ll hold you to that. So, okay, you got it. No, thank you so much. I appreciate the conversation, Scott, and the transparency and the honesty, and I love the mission and everything you’ve got going on. So, I appreciate that. And thanks for being on the show. You’re very welcome, man. Say hi to everybody. Thanks. Bye. Bye. [Music]