On a searing Saturday afternoon, echoing softly across Butler Green at Campus No. 805 is a constant drumbeat of “thump … thump … thump …” It’s the sound of Eggo-sized bags, filled with pellets, coming in for landings on long panels of wood, a sound not unlike dropping a five-pound sack of sugar onto a kitchen counter.
It is the inaugural Huntsville Tailgate Classic, a cornhole tournament presented by the American Cornhole Organization, with assistance from the Huntsville/Madison County Convention & Visitors Bureau. Nearly 100 players, along with families and friends, have converged to have fun, play for a modest amount of cash, consume product from the neighboring brewpubs – and to remind us all that the word “sport” has expanded to become a gargantuan umbrella.
Cornhole, to the uninitiated, is the art of lobbing a square bag through a round hole cut into an inclined board. It’s a simple game – one that has evolved into sport. It’s on TV. There are college teams. People make money. The ACO has a full tournament schedule that culminates in a national championship in, well, of course, Las Vegas.
So, as Huntsville continues to stretch its own umbrella for varied sports tourism, it only makes sense to welcome cornhole underneath it.
The sports landscape has changed drastically in recent years. There has been a reluctance of a younger generation to embrace traditional sports and 24/7 sports media has brought to the forefront more non-traditional activities. Cultivating that are cities and municipalities that invest in spaces to host such events, recognizing the two-fold value of quality of life for the taxpayers and in attracting visitors whose spending boosts the local economy.
Huntsville has been well ahead of the game, whether it’s building pickleball courts at the new Sandra Moon Center on the old Grissom High campus to the transformation of the former Becky Peirce Municipal Golf into a multi-sport complex to the grandest of its investments, the world-class Huntsville Aquatics Center.
Consider this two-mile central-city stretch where there are facilities for nearly two-dozen sports. Tennis. Baseball. Cross country. Sand volleyball. Soccer. Lacrosse. Quarter-midget racing. Shooting sports. Ice hockey. Curling. Ice skating. Swimming. Softball. Disc golf. Horseshoes. Football. Basketball. Pickleball. Table tennis.
And, yes, even Quidditch.
Cornhole tournament champions (L to R): Jaxson Garrison and Randall Garrison from Cullman.
I’m meeting Sarah Woolsey on a Monday afternoon in Louisville, Ky., less than 48 hours after the last “thump … thump … thump…” faded at the cornhole tournament. She is the executive director of US Quidditch, a niche sport popular among the fan base of Harry Potter movies. With flying broomsticks yet to be invented, these real-life participants simply run around with a broomstick between their legs, firing a ball toward a hoop.
Sarah, who seems legitimately interested in bringing a regional tournament to Huntsville, is at a table in a massive convention space at an event called Connect Sports. There are more than 100 “providers” who have sports looking for a place to play. There are four times that many of us “suppliers,” with places to play. They try to convince us why we should marshal our local resources to bring their events to our cities, or we try to convince them to come to a place like Huntsville, with facilities as good as anywhere – but also with myriad attractions and superb geographical convenience.
Among the appointments as I tablehop through my schedule: Softball, basketball, baseball, tennis, lacrosse and hockey. But, also, disc golf, cheerleading, table tennis, horseshoes and drone racing. It’s all a bit peculiar for a man with deep roots in traditional events.
I stop by a table in the far corner of the room to see Frank Geers, the CEO of American Cornhole Organization, a 51-year-old bundle of energy who bills himself as the “Cornhole Dude,” and who became mesmerized at Connect a year ago when I introduced him to the potential of Campus No. 805. As we say goodbyes, there are these magic words from Geers:
“Man, we want to come to Huntsville again next year.”