What a cool, well written article. I'd hardly noticed how long it was until I was nearing the end. Although I never played this and honestly didn't even know it was a thing, it makes me wish more people took time to document histories of things in this fashion.
It sounds like he has awesome parents. I wish I had 1/10th the zeal and entrepreneurship his Dad(and seemingly his uncle) had.
The only thing I didn't quite grasp is this excerpt. I feel like it's implying something I don't pick up.
Is it saying they didn't work together? Was sending the sample sets rude?
> He did make a final good-faith effort to partner with the sport's originator, Wayne Godinet, offering to purchase $20,000 worth of product. It was almost a third of the profit earned from reselling the Japanese shipment. Godinet sent back two sample sets with a bill for the cost of goods and shipping.
My read of it is that Godinet wasn't interested in scaling up and turned down the offered 20k purchase (which would've likely been at a nice profit) and instead just sent a couple sample sets - with a bit of a "do what you want with it" implication, IMO - and a bill just to cover costs instead of asking for more.
So then he felt free to go do his own version.
I think this is supported by the next paragraph:
> In a similar vein, Nike was founded in 1964 only after a running shoe company called Onitsuka lost interest in partnering with a recent Oregon track grad named Phil Knight. While his shoe empire was born between the grooves of a waffle iron, Bob and Jill's cup empire was sketched on the back of a Fresh Fish Co. paper placemat.
There was someone else in the space, but they weren't interested in working with the newcomer who ended up being bigger.
Love that the Kiwis turned up as the All Stacks (derived from the All Blacks).
We've also the Wheel Blacks for wheelchair rugby, the Tall Blacks for basketball, and of course, then in cricket it's the Black Caps. (A "cap" in cricket is when you get to play international cricket).
And of course the infamous time the national badminton team tried to call themselves the Black Cocks.
National soccer team is the All Whites.
And womens' sports teams tend to derive from the Silver Ferns (national netball team), plus a reference to their code.
So Black Ferns, rugby, White Ferns is not soccer as you'd expect, but cricket (the traditional "cricket whites" are only worn in test cricket these days), the soccer team is the Football Ferns.
And I'm unsure if there was ever a Fern Cocks badminton team.
Wonderfully written and a rare exemplar of the rise of a fad from its primary source. Usually these things get lost in urban legend before anyone has the sense to document them properly.
This is a pretty entertaining story about a “sport” I was only vaguely aware of, because my school did not do sport stacking (or maybe I’m too old). But I have seen a few videos of it online, and it’s pretty neat to find out it was popularized by an enthusiastic clown/school teacher who made some risky business decisions. I’m glad it worked out and they didn’t go bankrupt with thousands of cups in their basement.
I would make fun of this as a PE event, but when I graduated high-school (US) we were still wearing parachute pants and break dancing to the Fat Boys. So I'll refrain from throwing stones. Each generation has their own precious cringe.
To be fair, they had demand and were lacking supply at the point that they made their first large purchase. It was a bit risky, but probably not near as bad as an ordinary startup's chance of failure.
Followed the YouTube recommendations to really see that this seems to be a fairly international sport that continues to push the limits: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MUwOWIyRhGo
> You've probably heard Rachael’s voice. Her effusive reaction on a stacking YouTube video meant for her small group of friends is behind the iconic "YES, OH MY GOSH!" scream, sampled in one of EDM's most mainstream hits, "Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites," by Skrillex.
That video, along with the Skrillex track, is the only reason I even knew about cup stacking. Until today I had no idea that it was an actual serious sport with international competitions.
It's always very interesting to see this kinds of subculture crossovers.
My dad was an amazing P.E. teacher at my school as a kid in the late 80s, and we did cup stacking, probably around 1990. I guess he probably caught onto it before it got really big. He wasn't a conventional P.E. teacher so he loved finding new stuff like this. We loved it! Interestingly he also taught all the kids chess. In the U.S. I'm not sure how common that was.
I forget how many PE sessions I had with cup stacking but it’s definitely ingrained somewhere in my head. If anything I thought at the time it was for hand-eye coordination without having a ball flying at you and it was surprisingly easy to pick up with those competition cups.
Nowadays it makes for a fun free for all drinking game as everyone fumbles stuck together red cups.
Due to this practice long predating me, and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43053844 appearing next to this item, I misread it as "If you ever stacked gpus in gym class". I think that might also make an interesting sport to watch.
Ive practiced and done all sorts of useless tricks and games, but this is one I still do not "get" in any way. What do people find satisfying or like about it? I could see doing it for a day to get alright at it, but much beyond that I don't really find it all that impressive shaving off fractions of a second. It doesn't even seem like a great party trick because you need special cups with holes in them so they don't stick.
But I guess it does build up atleast some level of hand-eye coordination and dexterity. Which is utterly lacking in most of today's youth and educational worlds where using actual tools and making things by hand is viewed as "dangerous" by many, and only a small fraction of kids get into many sports, and all of our focus is on more abstract concepts.
> What do people find satisfying or like about it?
I ask myself the same thing about a lot of the various fidgety things like the spinners. Or the point of the games that are just nothing but how fast can you click like the paperclip games.
some people just like different things. even when you ask, they just say they like it. dopamine hits maybe? better that than dope then I guess
Honestly, that question could be asked about popular sports too ... exactly what thrill is there in beating some other team at kicking, bouncing or hitting a ball?
They're all just games of dexterity in the end. No different from videogames, come to think of it.
Love this american dream story between opportunity and mission as well as its great family insights.
Would be great to also have one on that boys & girls club where the whole idea was invented and what else they might have come up in the 80s.
The "invent a game with cups" at least is a great hint towards motivating kids (on a different level than actually competing in the resulting game) close to a Sesame Street kind of mindset from back then and might deserve a story on its own for "hacking" cups into being toys and even a sport in the end.
I am so damaged by our local school districts outrageous outlays that reading this all I can think of is how this family traveled the country on tax payer money over a pretty stupid non-sport.
Which I recognize is over the top, but in particular the covid ESSR funds to schools were invitations to everybody and their sister to bilk public schools anyway they could with programs like this.
Our regional tiny PreK-4th grade school gifted itself with a $25k wall to ceiling video game system along the same lines (https://play-lu.com/). These companies even have marketing literature on how to use ESSR funds.
For those who want to dive down this ea bit hole a bit for our local spend dilemma:
I did this with my son. It was fun for both of us and we could compete on fairly equal terms. And the cups are cheap. I really recommend trying it, especially if you and/or your children aren't very sports oriented.
I think it’s having a comeback, at least it’s popular at my kids elementary school - a pro came by to show it and all the kids wanted a set. Watching the videos of competitions with my kids was surprisingly fun
Shit, that's a memory I hadn't recalled for a long time. I'm not old enough to have attended their original school tour, but we had the cups in my elementary school. It seems stupid, but it's actually quite fun. I'd do it today.
Uh oh, I’m getting old. I have never heard of this until now. The term “sport stacking” is completely new to me. I suppose because I started high school in 2003?
It sounds like he has awesome parents. I wish I had 1/10th the zeal and entrepreneurship his Dad(and seemingly his uncle) had.
The only thing I didn't quite grasp is this excerpt. I feel like it's implying something I don't pick up. Is it saying they didn't work together? Was sending the sample sets rude?
> He did make a final good-faith effort to partner with the sport's originator, Wayne Godinet, offering to purchase $20,000 worth of product. It was almost a third of the profit earned from reselling the Japanese shipment. Godinet sent back two sample sets with a bill for the cost of goods and shipping.