Let’s talk cornhole and party sports.
Anything in which there is competition and you keep score can be considered a sport. Any physical activity in which skill is involved can be considered a sport. But are some things really activities and not true sports?
Party sports, tailgate sports, and backyard or park sports seem to be recreation and pass-the-time activities, but they have grown such followings that many consider them real sports.
There are a ton of popular party games and tailgate competitions. Among them are softball, ping pong, volleyball, wiffleball, pickleball, kickball, touch football, frisbee tossing, ladder ball, wiffle ball golf, disc golf, kan jam (a frisbee toss game), croquet, bocce ball, lawn darts and video game competition. There are bowling parties, mini golf get-togethers and batting cage assaults.
But one of the most popular games that emerged as a real sport (well, that is open for conjecture, but a fast-growing organized athletic competition) is cornhole.
According to lawnstarter.com, Houston, San Diego and Phoenix are the top three U.S. cities for playing cornhole. Locally, Cincinnati ranked 16th among 200 cities in the study. Dayton was 39th, Akron was 33rd, Columbus came in 41st and Cleveland was 69th. Canton was not in the study.
Cornhole involves players taking turns throwing a bean bag at an angled board that has a hole in the top end. There are four bags to a set, and the bean bags will have different colors for each team. While rules can certainly vary depending on where the game is taking place, the American Cornhole League does have specific rules and regulations.
The goal is to toss the bag to where it slides up the inclined board and into a six-inch hole.
Early forms of the game can be traced back to the Blackhawk Tribe in Illinois, where bags made from dried animal bladders were filled with corn kernels to be used for competition.
Others believe a German cabinet maker, Matthias Kaupermann, invented a similar game in 1325 where grain-roled bags were thrown into a box. He made the bags after he saw his children throwing stones into a hole that was dangerous for them to play in.
Another origin story began in 1883 when Heyliger de Windt applied for a patent for “parlor quoits.” The game was found in the U.S. Patent records and may be the earliest known version of a board. It had a square hole instead of a circle.
In more modern times, the game can be traced to the west side of Cincinnati in the 1960s and Kentucky, where a pioneer and farmer played “Baggo” with friends.
The game has a variety of names, including “Baggo,” “bag toss,” “tailgate toss” and “bean bag toss.” While the origin has several possibilities, it is now popular for people of all ages.
The American Cornhole Organization was founded in 2005 in Milford, Ohio, and in 2015, the American Cornhole League was created.
While there are no cornhole clubs listed for Mount Vernon, there are plenty of opportunities in the surrounding towns to play the game. The Village of Ashley, Ohio, sits 25 miles from Mount Vernon, and the recreation sport has a following there, and really, you can set up your own cornhole competition or party game easily as simple cornhole sets can be found at a variety of sporting goods and department stores and can run as low as $27.
Cornholefinder.com has links to organizations all over the country, including U.S. Cornhole in Ashley, which not only promotes and runs cornhole tournaments across the country but also makes boards and bags of all different types. The Facebook page for uscornhole.com is followed by 3,000-plus people.
Nearby Newark, also about 25 miles from Mount Vernon, is home to 740 Cornhole, with a Facebook page of more than 740 followers. The organization also puts together tournaments and events and is a hub for all things cornhole.
Ashley is also home to 1040 Cornhole, described as “the most exciting, most entertaining place in Southern Ohio” on cornholefinder.com. The organization’s Facebook page highlights tournaments and videos of people playing the game every week.
So are you a cornholer? Do you play? If you do, do you consider it a sport? What is a sport to you? Pin the tail on the donkey? Hot dog eating contests … nope. Not even Nathans, with apologies to Joey Chestnut. Where do YOU draw the line? Let me know at mike.blake@mountvernonnews.com
