by Rick Reese

What an incredible year for freestyle. We saw more people hitting huge tricks and combos than ever before imaginable.

At the Portland Heart of Footbag Freestyle Tournament we gathered together five or so current members of the B.A.P. (Big Add Posse). "The Torch", Ahren Gehrman, was nailing barfly to blurries while "Hugh-Mungis" Paul Munger and "Kosmo" Steve Kremer put together some long strings of their own. The combos by the "Disco Ninja", Tuan Vu, were the craziest of all. How does blur, legbeater, blur, atom smasher, legbeater, blur, grab your attention? Definitely worthy of a spot on ESPN's "Plays of the Week." Somebody send them a videotape!

Moving on to the Western Regionals on the Stanford University Campus in Palo Alto, California, "The Executioner", Peter Irish, and "Stik Man", Tim Kelly worked their way from downtown San Francisco to show that they had been doing more than just juggling last winter. Peter is, without question, the smoothest kicker around, and Tim is as strong as anybody. Watch for future doubles freestyle domination from these two. Showing up at Westerns this year and demonstrating what a year's hard work can do was Ryan Mulroney. This 18 year old youngster is amazingly quick and smooth. His ripwalk, blur, double-down, blizzard, pixie b-fly, paradox whirl, reverse blender, bar-fly is just one of the many wickedly-dialed combos to watch out for from this Bay Area phenom.

The big daddy of them all was, of course, the World Footbag Championships. Bringing it all back home to Portland was the theme this year, and WOW, how true this was! Shredders were everywhere. I was in awe of the caliber of play this year, blurs and bounds over last year. Cameras were rolling in full force all week long as shred circles popped up at the golf course, at the net site and at the host hotel.

The big highlight of the week was the induction of six new B.A.P. members with plenty more to come. Ryan Mulroney headed the list along with "The Wizard", Noah Dubrueil, "Shred Red" Fred Hustead, "Big Add" Chad Devlahovich, "Humboldt" Dave Holton, and "Tu Huge" Tu Vu. There were plenty of other notables. You know who you are. Keep on kickin', and we'll see you in future B.A.P. circles.

The Underground can't close without noting a couple of jams. A few blocks away from the Worlds' host hotel was an old, run-down, oil-stained, concrete slab under a half-lit automotive garage. It was an unlikely setting which, strangely enough, became THE place to shred Friday and Sunday night. I was unfortunately detained from seeing Friday night's spectacle, but from first foot experience "Stik Man" and the "Blur Brothers" (Josh "Chiseler" Casey and Steve "Kosmo" Kremer) described the unbelievabl power of Ryan Mulroney. Every time he touched the footbag he seemed to get stronger and stronger, hitting such things as blurry whirl to bedwetter and symposium-paradox whirl to flurry. OUCH!

Sunday night drew a crowd of over fifty freestylers to witness the last epic jam session of the most decorated footbag player in history, Kenny Shults. The cheers were many and the cameras...few.. This night will be forever engraved in the minds of those attending. Let me tell you, Kenny was awesome. After winning doubles net and taking second in singles net to Randy Mulder in what has to have been the best match in footbag history, no ordinary mortal could possibly have had the stamina to bust out double whirls, down doubles, and scorpion tails for nearly two hours. But, "The Enforcer", Kenny Shults, is far from ordinary! This was his night, and he was not to be outshone by anyone or anything! We love you, Kenny, and we'll miss you in the Freestyle Underground!