He Went Pro at Disc Golf Before Anyone Thought It Was Possible

Welcome to Work Unscripted. I'm your host, Savan, the show where we talk to people with unique, fascinating, and extraordinary careers. Today, I've got my good friend, Nate Sexton. Nate is an absolute legend in the sport of disc golf. Some say he is one of the top three ambassadors of the sport of all time. I'm honored to have you here with me today, Nate. Welcome. How are you?

I'm good, thanks for having me. I'm excited to do the show.

Yeah, I appreciate that, man. I want to open up with, Nate, you are a little bit older than most of the people that are touring now. You're sort of like in the next phase of your career. You've had many chapters throughout your career. You've been the athlete, the ambassador, commentator, content creator, dad. When you meet a complete stranger, and you tell them what you do or who you are, how do you do that?

Yeah, so that's interesting. You know, that happens to all of us, right? When you meet somebody and they want to know what you do for work. And I usually kind of preface it with like, I've got one you maybe haven't heard before because, you know, generally people are pretty surprised. It kind of runs the gamut as far as, you know, less and less these days, you get people that are, you know, nearly unaware of disc golf. But generally I would say most people know what it is. but they're a little bit surprised at least that there are professionals and certainly that there are professionals that you could call it a legitimate career. Because I think people are not too many people are aware of that and why would they be? So generally there's some follow up questions for sure about, know, whoa, like how have you done that? And my main motivation usually is to try to leave a a conversation like that with somebody who, you know, I think I might have a relationship with in the future. I tend to want to, for my own ego, make it clear that I'm not just like riding my wife's coattails and like, you know, traveling around the world as supposedly a professional, you know, like, so obviously I'm not

Uh-huh.

trying to toot my horn too much, but I have seen that sort of sentiment online from uninformed people where they're like, well, his wife is a doctor, so he probably just does whatever he wants. And I, you know, for my own ego and really no other reason, I try to push back against that notion just to make it clear that it is a legitimate career for me, and I've been really lucky to find myself in that position.

Yeah, that's amazing. We were gonna talk about family a little bit later, but since you mentioned your wife, I wanted to ask you, when you started dating your wife, did she know what she was signing up for when you guys got together? Is that something that's like, okay, he wants to play disc golf and I'm doing these things? Was that a big thing?

I mean, I was certainly very into it, but my wife and I have been together since we were in high school. So there was really no, clear path forward, you know, not certainly not to a career in disc golf. so I had other plans. I was definitely not a person who, if you asked me what my career was going to be, I never would have said professional disc golfer. I would have said, you know, I hope that it's my number one hobby. I hope that I can.

wow.

Right.

you know, bring some money in with it because it is, you know, inherently a sport where we, do play for money. But, but no, it was not any kind of situation where I had this roadmap and I was aspiring to be this pro. Like I didn't even, I didn't dare to dream that that was possible. the other way around was pretty locked in. My wife is, you know, a driven person. And I would say I did know what I was signing up for that she was gonna

Right.

Yeah.

chase down the dream of medical school and residency and all the difficult years that come with all that.

All right.

Yeah, that's amazing. At what point in your life did the math of disc golfing make sense for you financially? Were there inflection points where you said, okay, I brought in this amount of money, it can sustain me at least in terms of a livable wage? When did you see that and what did you end up doing to double down on that investment on yourself?

Yeah, definitely. So, I think part of the story again is, it starts with my wife in that she was a very competitive track and field athlete and she had signed a contract out of high school, sort of like an eight year semi-pro contract in lieu of, in lieu of the, the American college path. We started out at the university of Oregon to run track and field there and cross country.

Right?

Yep.

but didn't get along with the coach, was approached by a private organization that was kind of taking this tack that like the U.S. college system was burning out athletes and that was why the U.S. wasn't having Olympic success. Now the U.S. is much better. But at that time was not as strong in kind of the middle distances. So a roundabout way of saying my wife was still chasing her athletic dreams. And you know, medical school was next.

Yeah, for sure.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

You know, it was still some years off. So I was in a similar position and I was like, you know, I mean, if you're, if you're working out and, running and, and, you know, chasing your athletic endeavor, I'm going to keep doing that too. as long as we can pay the rent and we can, you know, keep food on the table and, be fairly happy with our lives. weren't that concerned. You know, we were very young. We weren't that concerned with, saving money or.

Right.

or anything at that point. So I was pretty content to live sort of a that college student existence that I was used to. I was in college as well. But I remember certainly like getting into being about probably 25 or 26. And I can remember, you know, having conversations with my wife and saying, Okay, well, if I don't if I don't make 30,000 this year, then I'll then I'm gonna move on, you know,

Yeah. Yeah.

Right, you know.

or whatever it was. It wasn't that big of numbers. It was 30,000, something like that. If I could bring that in, you know, enough to keep us somewhat comfortable, nothing extravagant. I'll see if I can do that. And then maybe I'll allow myself another year to keep chasing. But it was like that tenuous where I was like certainly considering pivoting. And I was, you know, I had gone back to school. My plan was to be a high school science teacher. I did a

Yeah.

you

Yeah.

Nice, love it.

I did a like a hundred hour internship observation teaching assistant thing where I was, you know, at a high school with a science teacher, you know, helping teach the classes, helping grade homework, all that stuff. And my degree is in environmental science. So that was kind of, you know, those were my favorite classes as a, as a student. And that was kind of my plan was that I was going to be a high school, like biology life sciences type of teacher.

Yep.

Yep.

So I was sort of preparing for that eventuality and still kind of trying to chase the dream. And I was playing quite well, you know, so I had already had some big successes. I was a sponsored professional. I was not interested in going on the tour because, you know, unlike a lot of my peers who maybe were, you know, didn't have a wife already or weren't in a very serious relationship, even before my wife and I were married, we waited quite a while to get married. partially because I kind of wanted to pay for our wedding, you know, like I wasn't, I didn't want to, you know, I didn't feel in a huge rush. So we didn't get married for probably eight or nine years, you know, from when we got together in high school. But yeah, there were definitely times where I was sort of putting those hurdles out in front of myself. And if I meet this goal, then I'm going to allow myself to continue chasing. And thankfully I was able to do that two or three years in a row where I would go, okay, well this next year, it's got to be 40,000.

Right. That's pretty important. Right.

Yeah.

Right.

And then I would play a bunch of tournaments, hustle, try to teach clinics, teach lessons, you know, find any way to monetize my skill set. And yeah, that was kind of those, I wouldn't even say the early days. That was like the middle days in a way of my professional career.

Yeah.

Yeah, what time frame was that Nate? Like just give give the listener some reference

Absolutely. Well, I played my first professional tournament in 2004. So I would have only been 19 or so 18 or 19 at the time. I would say for at least the next five or six years, I was just kind of playing as many tournaments as I could somewhat locally and then flying for United States Championship, World Championship, something in California that felt that was big. had gone to Japan.

Okay. Okay.

so I was traveling some and certainly playing some global level events, but I didn't have any desire to like go live in a car and couch surf and be away from my, you know, then, then girlfriend and soon wife. that wasn't really an option that appealed to me. So I was like, I didn't really have any designs on being a full-time touring player. I was just sort of thinking, okay, I'll, I'll try to get as good as I can locally.

Yeah.

Maybe I could, you know, take some top fives at some majors and you, but I don't see myself, you know, on the road for months and months and months, following the tour around. So yeah, I would say the times, the years when I was setting those benchmark goals for myself would have probably been 20, 11, 12, 13, sort of those, those types of seasons where I was like getting a little older, starting to kind of

Yeah.

.

wrestle with the fact that I was having a lot of fun, but my retirement accounts were still reading zero or if they hadn't been, or they hadn't been opened yet, you know, or they had very, very limited preparation for my future. So I was starting to feel the weight of that a little bit and kind of go, okay, yeah, I mean, I could definitely keep chasing this as long as I want, but then what about, what if I wake up one day, look in the mirror and realize that I haven't positioned myself very well for my future.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's really that bet, especially over a series of years on yourself and not knowing if you're gonna hit that. like looking back, if you would have failed, let's just say you got 29,000 instead of 30,000 and you've invested five years of your life. Were you in a mindset of saying that was still a good investment? Like I tried that or, you know, would have had been, man, I wasted five years and, you know, I tried to do this thing and what I... get out of that, investment, no retirement. There's a lot of those challenges that happen when you're trying to work on a new endeavor, whether it's a startup or investing yourself in a sport.

Sure, sure.

Yeah, I was, I think I would have had very little regret. I was young enough. And again, you know, I feel like I had, I have an unshakable faith in my wife's destiny to achieve her aims, you know, of, becoming a doctor and she delivered on that. And I just never really doubted. I never had a lot of doubt that eventually we would do that. Then she would be able to, you know, get to a place where we would be comfortable. So I think part of my willingness to bet on myself comes from the security that I felt from her, even though we hadn't even started that journey yet. It was just that that was her goal and she's not the type of person to come up short on a goal.

Right.

That's just not her way. So I think I would not have felt regret, but I think I would. And it wasn't like I was ever gonna pivot and go, I'm done with discs, I'm selling my discs. I always would have been at the B-tier playing in the pros and probably winning, even if I had been a teacher. Part of the reason, honestly, a big part of the reason that I moved towards I'm gonna be a high school teacher is because I knew I'd have the summers off to play disc golf.

Right, absolutely. Absolutely, yeah.

Yeah, that's great.

That was like a, that was a big part of why that, I mean, I liked science, but that was like a huge part of like, I could see myself in that career. Cause I couldn't just give disc golf away. There was no, I was never going to be a guy working 50 weeks a year and not, not taking the time to travel and, chase the competitive part. felt I was too good a player to, be like, I I'm just going to not do that because I, could make money playing. And I felt like I could win important tournaments. And it was like,

Yeah.

that competitive outlet for me where I wanted to prove how good I was and I felt like I could, you know, on a good day, I could beat anybody in the world if I was, things were going my way. So it was never gonna be a situation where I just like walked away. And so it would have been a situation where I shifted my primary focus to something else, but I would have always been in tournaments.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. Do you think, know, most of the for the listeners, I don't know, there's a disc golf pro tour that happens and they go through a bunch of major cities. In my opinion, this is Savannah's hot take there. It skews very heavily in certain regions, certain regions of America, less on the West Coast, you know, than on the East Coast and maybe the South. Do you feel like players that are from the Pacific Northwest or the West in general?

Sure.

have it harder because it's more taxing in terms of travel, it costs more, you're sort of like in elements that maybe you're not used to. Because there are some damn good players here in the Pacific Northwest, yourself, Scottie Withers, you know, a bunch of players. And I wonder if we had more tournaments here during the Pro Tour, we would get more players from this region.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, think I would agree with your hot take, but I would qualify it with maybe ever so slightly. I wouldn't say it's like there's at this major disadvantage, but it's similar to when you see the little infographics about the Portland Trail Blazers or the Seattle Mariners and how they got to put in so many more miles than most of the other teams because geographically they're a little bit isolated.

Yep.

I think the most serious players, and we've got a couple of great young ones now in the Pacific Northwest in Cole Riddle and Ty Love, Dallas Garber taking his shot. So we've got Ella Hanson. We've got players that are out there full time. And once you make that leap, if you have a sponsor or you've worked another job and saved up enough money to make that

Yeah, I'll see you.

Yep.

thing happen where you have a vehicle and you have kind of a way to stay comfortable on the road, then maybe that disadvantage is going away a little bit. But, you know, I think there's something to be said for the opportunity to kind of swing by home a little more often if you're, if you were somebody who lived in Arkansas or someplace where you're, you're not ever all that far from there as the tour kind of moves around the Midwest. But I also understand why it is the way it is and

Right. Right.

So.

You know, the West is more spread out and sparsely populated in areas and you know, miles are difficult for the pro tour employees, for the players, you know, they got to move all those assets and all those people to, to stage another event, know, thousands of miles away. So I think the tour schedule is, what it is, but, but yeah, I agree. Maybe a very slight disadvantage.

Right. Nate, you've been playing disc golf for a long time. There's been an evolution of how players make their money. You talked about setting up goals for yourself, $30,000 a year. I'm sure that's grown over the years. And the way disc golfers make money, especially professionals, has changed. Even since you've started Breakdown sort of like as you've progressed and gotten better as a player, what parts of the business have you picked up so that you can start to build a career out of this hobby that you were exceptionally good at? Like what did that look like in terms of the sponsorship breakdowns? How do you get money from other places?

Yeah. Yeah. I guess the first thing I'll say is there are income streams available to the very best players that are available to no one else. So I wouldn't say that across the board, the way that pro disc golfers make money has changed. are hundreds of people trying to make money in the exact same way that I was doing it 20 years ago, but there's opportunity at the top now that there never was.

Right.

Right.

20 and 30 years ago in the age of online shopping and social media and sort of global brands where you can get any disc you want in two days. And you don't, you know, you don't even need to be in a place where there's a local shop that's extremely well stocked or whatever that is. So in terms of income streams, I think the, the number one income source for a top 20 player in the world,

Yeah.

maybe even a little deeper than that is certainly going to be kind of like royalty payments from signature products, discs, shirts, whatever that is, bags, things where your fans are going to buy something, you know, a for its performance on the course, but hopefully partially because you've endorsed it and they're a fan of you and they want to be associated with a player that they respect or like to root for. So that becomes a game changing.

Right.

way to make money when you have a sponsor who believes in you and wants to collaborate and you're valuable enough as a brand and as an ambassador that both sides of that deal are making money together. And then they're incentivized to provide you more avenues. If you're showing yourself to be a marketable player, like an asset on their ledger as a team member, whatever that is. So these days, there's

Yep.

Great.

There's a lot of opportunity for that kind of thing, not to mention the fact that the actual prize money has gone through the roof from where it was even 10 years ago. You know, it's probably doubled since then. So there's a lot more money available week in, week out just to be won by players.

Yes, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And for the people that don't know, Nate's been sponsored by Innova, I think your entire career, is that right? From one company.

Yeah, I was unsponsored for a while, you know, before I was good enough. But yeah, I've never been sponsored by a different disc manufacturer aside from some time when I was double dipping with Discmania, who was like a sister company of Innova at the time. So I was dual sponsored, but I've never had a different primary sponsor than Innova.

Right, right. And you mentioned this is probably the way that most players will sustain any type of consistent money coming in. What does it mean for players when they sign with a company like Innova or Disccraft or MVP? Like just generally, how does that break down?

Yeah, I I have only a little bit of firsthand experience, but it can be anything. I mean, I think in the early parts of a player's career, there might be little to no guaranteed cash value in a contract. could potentially be, depending on, it's all levels, like the levels of the teams. So lots of sponsored players get zero money.

Wow, I didn't know that.

their income from the company would be reduced, you at the bottom level it'd be like, you know, a certain number of discs, reused, shirts, things like that. They might start eventually paying some of your entry fees, your PDGA fees, things like that, which would make your expenses a little bit lighter. Eventually you might get to a place where you'd have a guaranteed monthly amount of money, often would be like,

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

against predicted royalties off of a product that maybe they were going to sell with your name on it. But I think in any good contract, there's going to be like a minimum there where it's like you can count on this much money. And if you overtop that, you could have the overages, but we're not going to leave you out in the cold if somehow you didn't sell any discs that month. So that kind of thing. And then eventually, you know, higher up the scale, you're starting to get travel paid for, and you would have a much bigger guaranteed

Right.

payments against those royalties. I don't know how every company does it, but that's a rough outline of what a contract might look like. You'd have some money where you buy clothing yourself that you liked and send that in and they would probably reimburse you for that and emblazon that with their logos, that kind of thing, where basically costs associated with doing the job are covered by the company.

Right.

Yeah, that's amazing. I love that breakdown, Nate. For you right now, recently, I think you signed a three-year extension with Innova, that right? That's awesome. Congrats on that. So what does that commitment to you mean right now, especially at this point in your career? What does that look like at this stage? Is it...

I did. Yeah, I did.

more of a security thing? Is it more of a loyalty thing? Is it something else? Because I'm sure with you being around the sport this long and being such a familiar name, you probably had a bunch of different options in front of you. But you signing this commitment, a three-year commitment, which is pretty long in disc golf years, what does that mean to you?

Yeah, I was thrilled. know, technically, yes, I do have options in front of me, I think, but I did not explore them. You know, my goal was to resign with Innova. So I was not interested in, if they were happy to have me, I'm happy to stay and it turns out they were. So I think I was just coming off a five-year contract.

yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

and now extended into three more, which I was thrilled about because like you said, I'm 40 now. I'm not really on the tour nearly as much as I was. But the fact that I can still serve in that team captain role, it's been a little bit fun having the MP40 competitions open up to me where I was able to win that United States title last year in the over 40.

Amazing.

had a good time, you know, so I felt like that was a little shot in the arm in terms of my fire and my, my drive to try to continue to become a better player. And even though, you know, father time always wins. So it's like, I don't really have any illusions that my, best disc golf is in my past in terms of my, my best shot making my most consistent play when I was out there on the road and playing every single day. And it was my soul, soul focus, but, you know, trying to, trying to fight the good fight and, and hold onto the skills you have and, try to keep, keep my body in decent shape where I can be injury resistant and, all that. Those things are, I think, helped by the fact that I can win tournaments in the MP 40 where it's kind of unlikely that I'll ever win again at the high level of MPO. think, you know, you're talking about less than a 5 % chance that I would ever

Yeah.

Yeah.

have a trophy at a tournament where again, and Burr and Ricky Wysocki and all those guys are in attendance at this point. I've had my few times in the sun, but that's not likely to happen again. And that's okay. But yeah, I think Innova's faith in me, their value, the value they associate with me is something that makes me feel a lot of, I feel honored.

Right. Yeah.

Yeah.

by the contract that they extended to me and all the contracts I've had in the past 10 or 15 years. you know, yeah, I feel like they've really valued my contributions to the brand and to the game of disc golf. And I think that they've continually, you know, been there for me and my family and supported me in basically anything I wanted to do. So I couldn't be happier.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, that's amazing. mean, I think when you think of Innova, there's definitely a very small amount of people, you, Philo, that are a consistent sort of figure in the space for that company. How has your branding sort of changed, or maybe it stayed consistent since you've released the exceptionally well-sold Firebird and you're essentially tied into that disc now?

Yeah.

tire or walk away from disc golf, do you see yourself continuing to brand that disc as a source of revenue for you and your business?

Well, mean, there is no scenario where Innova would say we would like to make Sexton Firebirds and I would say no. So, you know, it's it's it's as the ball is in their court in that sense, where if it's if the disc is. Popular and desired and selling, I can't see why they would acts it as it has done very well. So we have at least these three more years for sure.

Right.

Yeah, exception.

And then, know, it's kind of, it's a new Uncharted Waters a little bit. You know, like I might be the first person to retire.

Right?

comfortably from a career in disc golf, you know, like, don't know that anybody else older than me has had that luxury. So we're kind of moving into some uncharted territory where, I've been, I've been able to be so successful in the right time, you know, in the right place at the right time in the right era of the game, you know, to be rewarded in a way for, for my,

Absolutely.

Yeah.

my efforts and my successes, you know, in a way that I've set myself up fairly well. And, and, know, so now it's a, it's sort of new territory where, you know, I'm signed now until I'm 43. And what happens after that? I don't spend a whole lot of time trying to predict, but, I would like to think that there's still space in the market for the Sexton firebird in 2029 or whatever year that is. think, uh, we've had a great run and, uh, you never know.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, absolutely. Nate, I want to maybe break down a little bit sort of the ways that a professional disc golfer could actually make money, especially with such a broad set of skills and experience that you've had. We talked about your signature disc as one way. You have brand sponsorships with things like shoes. and then you're doing commentating, I don't know if you're still doing it for Joe Mez or not or for the Disc Golf Pro Tour, but what parts of that sort of like bring you the most money and what parts of that, you don't have to go into exact figures, but what parts of that were you surprised by in terms of, like somebody's actually paying me to do this, I don't believe it, like it's shocking.

Yep. Yep.

Of course, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, no, I mean, the lion's share is my end of our contract. No, no question about that. But yeah, I mean, I've done it every way. Early on, my most of my, the money I would make was tournament winnings. You know, those are those are $500 at a time, you know, so it's not, or if you're doing well, maybe 1500. But it's not like you're, you're not putting away a lot of money that way.

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Right. Right.

Absolutely.

teaching lessons is another thing that I used to do more and still do today. You know, I don't, I don't really advertise it at this point, but if people are in my messages on Instagram, hoping to get a lesson, I I'm usually happy enough to schedule that and meet up with somebody. So that's a way that an up and coming player would, would generally make some mid week money, you know, instead of having to wait for the weekend and the tournaments. Once I was on the road full time with Paul McBeth, you know, and we had celebrity status in the bubble, in the little bubble of the disc golf world, then more options are available to you. Now you can run events. So we had something called the McBeast challenge. And later when I split off, I made one of my own called the Sexton shootout. And then now we're announcing.

Absolutely.

to a local club, we're going to be in town. You can get, come get discs from us, meet us. We'll teach you a little clinic. You can watch us throw, play a little round. We'll give some trophies, you know, and then we were getting sometimes 200 people to come in, you know, would be there, you know, when we would get, when we would roll into town and we would run, you know, two different courses full of people and they're all getting a couple of discs from us playing the round. would, I would always,

Wow.

We, the basic premise was you brought your own putter and you got two discs from us, a mid range and a driver. And you had to play the round with those three only. And I, and I would, take my three and I would play a hole and then I would run up ahead, finish, say, thanks for coming by. And I would jog to the next hole and play with that group and jog to the next hole and play with that group. So then I would, I would try to make sure that I played one hole with every person that came. So all of them could have a moment where they got to see how I approached a shot or.

wow, that sounds fun.

Yay! That's a lot of steps. Yeah.

you know, some invariably, sometimes they would, would pit of tree and they would get a birdie. And I always thought that was cool that they would have this memory of, I only ever played one hole with them, but I beat him. So, you know, I would, it was fun. I would get a little, a little sweat going, a small workout in running around the course. And I just get to kind of have a little bit of FaceTime with every person. and, hopefully leave them with a memory they would enjoy. And then we would, usually teach a, teach a clinic for

Yes!

Yeah.

45 minutes, take some questions, throw a few discs as far as we could, give the people what they want. And that was a really valuable way for me early in my touring career to make significant money by doing that kind of thing. And it was such a win-win because I felt like I was moving product for the company. I was making new fans. And it was like, I can remember thinking about that.

Yeah.

Yep. Yep.

you know, in relationship to the other ways I had made money to that point, I was like, you can't have a bad day doing this. Like, I can teach a clinic with reasonable effectiveness every single day. It's not like I'm bad at putting today and now I get no money. Which is how it is when you're in the competitive sphere, you know, it's stressful. Because if you don't bring your A game, that's money out the door. So I can remember sort of feeling more control.

Now. Yeah.

absolutely.

Yeah.

over my financial future. Once those opportunities started opening up, like, hey, I can do this. Like, you know, I can schedule these. people want to meet me, fantastic, I'll be there. And we can do as many of these as, you know, I was begging Paul McBeth to do more because he was financially, you know, in a better position. He was a world champion already multiple times over. So, and he was very gracious about that. He would, you know, I took the lead on the, I'm more the public speaker of the two of us anyway. You know, and, you know, that was a

Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

a really a sea change moment in my career. I'm sure we maybe are gonna talk about that, but that was kind of a major level up for me when I was able to do that. And then, yeah, after that, I think we've kind of already discussed the royalties agreements and the manufacturer contracts. If you're a top 20 name slash player, that's probably gonna be where, you know, over half of your income is coming from that source.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, that's amazing. I did want to touch on something that you had mentioned briefly, which was the engagement with the fans and building sort of that following of people that watch you maybe every week that buy your products. I've got two stories I want to tell you and I want to get your reaction. So the first one is our first time we communicated, I asked you to come down to my toy store that I recently closed in Longview and you were like, sure. And I was just like, I looked at my wife and I said, hey, Nick Suckson's coming down. And I think everybody's like, what, like what, what is he doing coming down here? Blown away by it. The other one is my friend Patrick, who you had also met his son was birthday was coming up and you agreed to meet him in Olympia and he drove up there. and you signed his disc and he came back and he's like, dude, just met Nate Sexton, he signed my disc, I don't believe this happened. And he consistently has still talked about that to this day. The thing about you, Nate, is you don't just have the brand, but the everyday engagement with your fans, the things that you do to build this following and this trust is unparalleled. I don't think there's another person in this sport that does what you do to do. to build the loyal following. How has that engagement and that respect and trust from your fans, how have you fostered that through your career? Was that something like when you started playing, you were like, okay, I'm gonna make sure I take care of the fans, because eventually they will take care of me.

Yeah, it always felt really pretty easy to me and continues to feel pretty easy. know, people will kind of often joke like I have lots of go to little jokes in fan interactions. People will come up to me. People come up to me and say, Hey, can I bother you for a signature? And I go, you can try, but it's not gonna be easy to bother me with this. You're gonna have to do a lot more than this.

Okay, yeah, let's hear one, let's hear one. What do you got?

You know, because the people think it's, what a bother. It's literally my job, you know, to be, you know, it's like this little slice of celebrity that I found myself in. None of it, it's all on the backs of the fans. And like, there's been days where I've signed, you know, 700 autographs, like a huge line at a big event. And, you know, people ask, oh, your hand getting tired? No.

Yeah. Yeah.

No, it's not. I've been a frisbee throwing kid since I was two years old. If I ever feel, if I ever catch myself feeling kind of like, ugh, I have to do this appearance, I always go, 18-year-old you would not believe that what's happened here. Would be beside himself, that your name is on a disc, like your favorite toy.

you

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

a frisbee that I've been playing with my whole life and now my name is on them and people want to shake my hand just because I threw a frisbee pretty straight. You know, ultimately it's like surreal. So, you know, things, anything I find my fans are generally pretty respectful. If their request is reasonable, then I'm, you know, happy to make that happen. You know, I get plenty of people like, Hey, could you

Yeah.

you know, send a, send me a video that just says happy birthday, Mike, you know, and it's like, that takes me two seconds. Sometimes they're sometimes they'll even pay me five or 10 bucks. Not that I, not that I demand that, but it's like, you know, they'll all Venmo you if you want to whatever, but it's pretty easy for me to go outside on my deck and just go, Hey Mike, happy 40th or whatever. Or, you know, congrats on your wedding. So

Yeah. Right.

Yeah.

Yes.

You know, if I get messages like that all the time, I get, I get so many messages that just want like, I'm doing a tournament to raise money for the local dog shelter. Like, could you send a signed disc? Sure. You know, you got to pay this. I asked people to pay the shipping or send me a shipping label, you know, because I do a lot of those. So it adds up for sure. But I, but I have so many discs and I got them all for free, you know, because I've been lucky and I've been sponsored. So I.

Yeah. Right. Yeah.

I don't want to paint myself as some, you know, like I'm so generous or, you know, it's like, it's all, it's a bunch of stuff that I got for free. It's a, it's a standing within the sport that I didn't exactly get for free, but I like, you know, I worked for, but it's like, I've, I've often gone on the record and will again now saying that I, well, I am sure that there are people more fortunate than me in the world. I have not personally met one.

. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, so it's like, feel like I am, my job has been to play disc golf when I feel like it. You know, especially late in my career where Innova gives me the leeway and the latitude to set my schedule and not necessarily be out there for everything. There's certainly been times in my life where it felt more like a grind.

I love that.

Yeah.

And there will be again this year, you know, through the middle of the summer when I'm away from my family and I'm playing bad, then it does feel like a grind and that's fine. That's work. So it's still the best job there is and beats a lot of other things. But yeah, would, I'd be lying if I said it was always the easiest thing ever. I mean, you got to work at it. And sometimes there's super frustrating days. And sometimes you're alone in a hotel room going, why the heck am I even here in the middle of the country?

Right.

when I could be at home with my family and now I'm sitting in 80th place doing nothing for anyone in that world. And it is a selfish career in a way too, where I feel some guilt over like, I like to think of myself as someone who cares about the environment. But if you look at my choices and how many airplanes I've been on for the sake of throwing Frisbees, I'm a taker more than I'm a giver, part of the problem more than I'm part of the solution. And that is something I struggle with as well, that this career

So.

Yep. Right. Nate, how do you get over sort of those mental hurdles? You talked about being in middle of nowhere and maybe not shooting your best round.

Well, it has given me such an amazing opportunity to travel. My consumption of resources is way outpacing my fair share globally.

There's some rounds, I personally like when I go out on a weekend and I'm plus 12 at Trojan and I've lost five discs and I have to go back home and I've spent four hours out there, I feel bad about it. Like, and I didn't even like commit to the sport. Like how do professionals, how did you sort of get over those mental hurdles of grinding through that? Cause that has to be damn hard.

Yeah.

yeah, yeah. mean, sometimes it lasts months, you know, and there's been times where I kind of will get a little, you know, like I feel like I'm kind of coming out the other side of it, but the last couple of years I felt kind of like a little bit of disconnected from my backhand and crisis of confidence at times. And, you know, if, if I play that way, I'm on the fast track to 70th place. You know, when I throw with

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

commitment and I'm in my game is clicking, then I have a chance to be in the top 20. But, but yeah, when I'm when I'm struggling like that, and I and I've had plenty of that these last few years. It's hard, it can be it's certainly like a lot of soul searching, especially when you're kind of in the place of your career where I am where I'm flying in and out for most tournaments. It's not like I am going like caravanning with my friends from the last tournament to the next Airbnb and we're all hanging out and you know, it's like I'm coming in hotel practice room, practice room, tournament, round, tournament, round home, you know, or whatever. So there's a lot. It's like a lonely existence sometimes where you're kind of, yeah, I'm here to do this job. It's like a business trip and it's fun. And I do see some friends while I'm out there. Don't get me wrong. Like I still have friends on the tour, but it's like a little more

Yes.

Right.

it's a little more like feels more like a job sometimes, especially when you're playing badly when you're playing well, it doesn't feel like the job at all. It feels like there's nothing I would rather do than compete in a sport and be great at it. There's there's no bigger thrill I've ever had in my life than than caring as much as I do about the competition and winning. You know that nothing beats that for me. Like that's that's the competitive spirit in me. And I think in every serious athlete where there's like no higher high than going like

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I know that all of you care about this as much as me and try as hard as I do and I'm going to win.

Yeah. Do you feel like at this point in your career, maybe there's a little bit more disconnect from the tour itself? Like you mentioned, you fly in, you fly out. Like I do the same thing. You know, I used to work at the Pentagon. I was there for eight years, splitting my time between here and DC. you know, every time I'd go, I'd go for a couple of days, I'd check in my hotel, I'd come back home. And I...

Mm-hmm.

In my 20s and 30s, I would go out with the team, I'd do all these things, and now I'm like, when the day's done, I'm going back to my hotel room, I'm eating dinner, I'm going to sleep, and then finishing my work and going home. So my 40s, it's a lot different than it was back then. Is that the same for you now? Because you look at the Instagram feeds of all the players, and there's a handful of them that are always hanging out at AirBnBs.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yep.

Does that make you feel more disconnected or is that something that you've come to terms with as part of your sort of journey and you're at that sort of arc of your career?

I would say yes to both. Absolutely more disconnected and also accepting of that fact. I you know, it's not like, you know, I think, like I said, I still have a lot of friends on the tour and I would, you know, I would count even like a Ganember among my friends. Like we're not super close, but that's a guy that I enjoy talking to. I think we have a mutual respect and he's someone who I enjoy spending time with more than you would think. considering he's like 19 and incredible. you know, he has, he's more, he's more sort of humble than, he has any right to be. You know, I think, you know, I think he would, I think where I in his shoes, I would probably be more annoying than I would say he is. So, you know, it's like, I absolutely invariably, think you're going to disconnect from, from the sport.

Yeah, I was gonna say, what do you guys do together?

Ha ha!

as every single year, there's more guys on the tour that I've never personally had a conversation with, you know, because it's new, it's turnover and I'm aging out and there's new guys always coming in. I'm really lucky to still be where I am at age 40. There's not a lot of guys my age that are still here. So yes, I'm for sure I do feel more disconnected, but yeah, it's like I wouldn't want to feel super connected because then I'm at home all the time. You know, it's like I'm connected to my family.

Hmm.

Right.

and I'm a little bit connected to the tour, but you can't have both. There's no possible way unless you're on the road with your family, which I did get the chance to do that, but you can't be super connected to the tour and connected to a home life. And that's one of the tricky things about the tour. You make some great friends and you'll have all these amazing memories and then you'll get home for the winter and realize like your old friends like do different stuff now or they don't even bother to invite you because they assume you're out of town.

Yeah, there's a toss.

Yeah.

You like it's hard, can't keep connections all over the world simultaneously.

Right, right. Yeah, I love that. I absolutely love that. Nate, last question about accessibility to players. You we talked about you being very accessible and approachable. Now that the sport has grown so quickly, especially since COVID, do you feel like the accessibility to players is something that... is going to be a linchpin of this sport in that, like, when I go to basketball game, I know I'm not going to go shake an NBA player's hand, but if I'm going to the Disc Golf Pro Tour, that accessibility is still there. However, with more money coming in and more competition that could invariably change, is that like, what's your hot take on that? And how do you feel about the accessibility?

Yeah. Well, it certainly already has changed because now you have to now you need a ticket to come see the disc golf pro tour. And when I, know, for years that no one, the only the USDGC had ticketing for years. So that is a barrier in accessibility slightly, but I don't see major changes coming to disc golf. Certainly the tickets are for one day or, you know,

Right?

hopefully somewhat affordable to most people. But I don't see anything major happening. mean, inherently, you know, we play a sport outside over hundreds of acres. When you talk about the whole complex of a disc golf pro tour venue. it's not, there's no way that it's ever gonna be as tightly controlled as a basketball game or a football game where there's physical barriers. You know, we've got like ropes, you know, between the players and the fans just to make sure that there's.

Yeah.

you know, not too many safety problems to make sure the fans are in a place where they're not going to get hit by a disc ideally. So I think, you know, that's a great thing about our sport and, and we aren't, you know, as big as we get, I always try to remind myself that we're not as big as I think we are because I'm on the inside of the bubble. And so we're still very small and are not in a position to expect some kind of crazy,

Right.

Mm-hmm.

divide between the fan and the player. Where they're, you know, everybody's, you know, like an NBA, you know, where the people are such big celebrities that, you know, they can't really, it's not maybe that they don't want to have an interaction, but they can't set a precedent of, hey, you know, I'll shake your hand because the line will be 10,000 people long. If that precedent was set. the control has to be tighter. Not even because they're,

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, absolutely.

out of touch mega millionaires, which some of them might be and some of them probably aren't. But it's just that there's no reasonable way to offer the everyman a chance to see LeBron James and year in and year out, you know, like he would his whole life, he could spend weeks sitting at a table signing stuff and people would still be lined up. You know, so the fact that we're as small as we are is the only reason we can have that accessibility.

Yeah.

Right, right, right.

because the line of people to see Anthony Barella is 300 people long, not 30,000. Still long. And you know, and we're very lucky, you know, that our fans are as passionate as they are and that we can kind of, that we're big enough that the best of us can have a reasonable career. athletics is an interesting thing. You got to make your money, you know, quickly because your body lasts, you can only, you only have a short window. It's not like other careers where you might have 40 years.

Right.

pretty long still pretty long yeah

Right.

to look forward to as at the, your, at your essentially your peak or whatever it is, you know, if you're just doing your job, athletics is totally different. You have maybe, you know, in a lot of sports, you have maybe a 10 year window to really kind of make hay. So it's like the fact that disc golf has got where it is where salaries can be fairly high, but they kind of have to be, if you want someone to give their whole youth to, to athletics and make it a career, the salary's gotta be pretty good.

Right.

Thanks.

to make up for the fact that when they're 40, there's not really a place to turn to right away, really easily and just enter the workforce for the first time and go, hi, here's my resume. I've been throwing Frisbees in the woods for 20 years. What do you think about that? You know, it's...

man. Yeah, I never thought about it that way. That's super interesting. That's actually a great segue to the next series of questions I want to ask you, Nate, which is around being a dad and what that looks like. You have a daughter. Do you have two daughters or one daughter? have one. Okay, I have a daughter as well.

What? Yep. Yep.

I've always wondered, you know, if she had come up to me and said, dad, I want to be a professional pickleball player at 16, 17, whatever. If your daughter came up to you and said, hey, dad, I want to go be a pro in this obscure sport. Let's just pick one, golf, pickleball, whatever. What would that conversation look like with her, especially knowing that this is something that's just like a glimmer in her eye and she wants to do it?

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

but she may not necessarily be great at it.

Yup. Yeah, I mean, nothing but encouragement, I think. But you know, my daughter's eight. So it's way easier to be like, absolutely, let's see, you know, it would be a little different conversation with a 17 year old. If I truly felt they didn't have much aptitude. And they thought maybe this is going to be their career. It would probably be a thing where it's like, okay, you know, you need to take you're going to have to take this a lot more seriously and really find out what your ceiling is.

Yeah.

Alright.

If you're, if your dream, you know, you have to outwork people now, if you're, if you're in a position where you're, your natural abilities have left you still a few levels below the people you aspire to be, you know, there's no way to close that gap except through, you know, out more work. So I think that would be a different conversation as someone got older. if they show, if they were showing, you know, my daughter was showing aptitude for their, her chosen thing, I would

Right? Right.

be nothing but supportive. I I love sports. you know, I think it's been such a big part of my life. Disc golf, you know, professionally, but way before that soccer and ultimate frisbee and, you know, basketball even when I was young, any any any sport, you know, so I feel like they've given me so much. And yeah, it would be a hard position to defend from me personally saying don't

Yeah.

GoPro in a niche sport, you know, like.

Right, or your wife, mean your wife was an exceptional athlete as well, right? Like doing the thing. Yeah, that's amazing. I don't know how I would have that conversation with my daughter. It's, cause I feel like I'm a mediocre athlete, but I play a lot of different sports and my wife is probably about the same. It's just the cost of that investment, especially when they're younger and the things that they would have to give up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Bye.

because you need to practice or you to commit to things is, could be pretty high.

Yeah. Yeah, I think, but I think if you give them the opportunity to give the things up, they'll find out fairly quickly if that is a good trade, you know, in their eyes is my, that would be my estimate. If it's like, okay, well now we're pickleballing five nights a week, you know, so it's like, and if that, if that starts to become a burden, then get out of there, you know, because that's that the dream isn't what you thought it would be. It's not play pickleball once a week and then you're pro. It's like,

Yeah.

Yep.

All right.

It's like give up the other stuff and go all in. And if you still love it and you have talent, then you have a chance. But even then only a chance, because there's so many skilled people in even the niche sports. I've often thought how lucky I feel. There's a little part of me that goes, okay, if I was 20 right now and I had come up with YouTube and all this stuff.

Yeah. Yeah.

I want to be able to say, I would throw 600 feet. I would. But, you know, I only ever learned to throw a little over 500 feet and I didn't have any YouTube, but I don't know that my skill set is an exciting 20 year old disc golfer against the backdrop of who else we have these days. Like, do I ever make it? I don't think it's, it's certainly not a guarantee. I don't have something supreme talent where you go, Oh, drop this guy in any era and he's going to win a major and make a name for himself.

Right?

You know, so I think part of my success and probably to a certain extent, everyone's because I wouldn't be surprised if in 20 years we're going, holy cow, these guys are even a whole level above. They're doing stuff we never even thought of. You know, so it's, like, there's, there's parts to it there too, where I go, yeah, I don't know that I'm breaking into the sport and, finding my way to that. Cause just breaking into the pro tour is a whole different animal now than it was. It's not, there's not as much opportunity.

Yeah.

absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, did you see, you see, did you see like an influx of potential professional players during COVID? Was that, was that a big thing that happened?

think that's probably true that, you know, just more people playing more kids giving it a chance enough to realize that they kind of have that thing where it clicks and they can throw it 450 feet quite quickly. but I think, you know, these days with all the, you know, and this is a necessary development, but kind of the gatekeeping of like the tour card and you need to qualify even to sign up for these tournaments now, which makes sense because

Right.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

people want to see their favorite players and they want sort of a unified tour moving around the world. But it used to be that all you had to do was sign up, you know, at the right moment and you're in, you know, for the world championships. it was very easy to get an invite or a national tour, you know, you just had to, you would have at least half of the field was like locals and the rest of the field was the touring guys. But now it's like the whole field is the traveling field. There's very little opportunity for like a 17 year old player.

Yeah.

17-year-old player.

who's rated 995 to get even if the pro tour comes to his town is not necessarily guaranteed he's in the tournament.

Yeah, absolutely, But what part, and really sort of like, this is a good segue to the community question. So I'd ask a couple of the listeners who are also disc golfers if there are things they'd like to ask you. So here's a series of community questions from the listeners. The first one is very related to what we just talked about. You'd mentioned that the...

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Exceptional touring players are the ones that are usually playing the bigger events. my hot take is I think that's better for the product in general because if you're watching the Disc Golf Pro Tour on the Disc Golf Network, you want to see a good product. You want to see good throwing, good putting. And I feel like that product in and of itself will sell better and it will sustain the sport in a much longer way. Right now, there are courses like The Big Easy Open, I think it was in New Orleans, it looked exceptionally hard. It looked like a big bomber course. And then there are other courses that are very technical. Let's just take Blue Lake here in our backyard. Very technical in Pier Park or any one of those. In your opinion, in the spirit of that consistency of producing a good product for the fans, Is there a prototypical or stereotypical product in the form of a course that you think would both videotape better but also sell better in terms of people going there to watch it?

Yeah, it's sort of a difficult problem to solve because I think the real soul of disc golf certainly involves wooded play. But wooded play is extremely hard to sell valuable tickets to watch in person because you can come and maybe 40 people can see what's going on behind the tee pad.

Right, absolutely.

Right.

But you can't really put people down range like in the fairway in the woods where the disks might come careening off of trees. So I think my answer is variety is the number one thing you want to get out of a course. You don't want the course to feel like every hole looks the same. You want sort of like, you know, signature places where you're, oh, this is that big downhill one over the water. I always remember this one. Then we've got this right brake, par four, par three, you know, like any course that any of us would dream up where it kind of has a little bit of everything. And that's not easy to find. You know, you need perfect land, you need a place that can park a ton of cars, you need a place that can control the entry. You know, that's part of the reason you see us on a ball golf course is a little bit more often these days because it is so much simpler from a crowd control and like ticketing and parking.

and

aspect than when it's just like, like a place like Maple Hill, incredible venue, incredible land, one of the best courses we have in the sport. But like, it's like, on a normal day, the parking is like a little field. It's a, it's in the middle of nowhere. There's no, you know, like, so it's not, it's a hard place to solve that problem. So, you know, like a perfect venue, that's a tough thing because the golf courses cost

absolutely. Yep.

you know, thousands and thousands of dollars for the pro tour to reserve and that solves some problems. But, you know, perfect venue is, don't think we've ever found one. It's, it's, it's a tricky thing to check every single box. But I think as far as fan enjoyment and player enjoyment, you just need variety. You need some water, some uphill, some downhill, some open, some woods, some long, some short, some left, some right. and if you have all those things, it's a hard, it's hard to imagine somebody not enjoying their time.

Mhm.

property as a player or as a spectator.

Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. All right, next question is this person had asked, you're on a beach, you find a genie to give you three wishes. Your first two wishes, you wish for a pizza and beer. You have one more wish, right? And the wish is you want to grow the sport in a massive way. What would be the one thing that you would change? You've been close to the players, the culture, the media. You've seen it from all different angles. What would be that one thing that makes sex a-

If the goal was growing the sport, then...

Gosh, it would probably be like, you know, kind of aligned with like what you play is doing, where if you could snap your fingers and say, okay, disc golf is in every single school's PE. In the same way basketball is, where every school has the equipment, and every school, every school with a little bit of acreage has like a little tiny course. And every kid is

Yep.

Yep.

is introduced to the game. But you know, growth doesn't come without a price, you know, because I always hear people going, grow the game, grow the game. But then during COVID, I also heard people like the courses are so crowded now. And it's like, what do you want? You know? Yeah, so it's like, we would also need if that was going to happen, we would also need disc golf in every public park that it isn't already in. Because if you are if you're taking it for granted,

Yep.

Somebody's gotta complain about something.

that the vast majority of the places we get to play are free in parks. need to get on St. Patrick's Day and pinch yourself because we are fantastically lucky that disc golf grew organically in public parks and we get to play a golf course that's being maintained by our tax dollars. No one is like the proprietor. No one is charging us to play and you could go play every day for free.

Ha

Yeah.

on great venues. You know, and there's certainly room for the pay to play and some of those are even greater because they have a little bit of money behind them. But what sport is that true about? You know, the disc golf course is like 40, 20 to 60 acres of land. By and large, public land with no barrier to access to go out there and play this like meticulously designed and often like very well cared for.

Yeah. Yeah, it's massive.

Yeah, yep, yep, yep. And you can go pretty much any time and thus, you know, the sun goes down. Even then you could go and play, you know, glow golf, right?

acreage and you pay zero like you're living the dream already

Yeah!

Yeah, it's incredible. It's it's every other sport should be so lucky, you know, but like, we have so many great options and building more all the time thanks to our wonderful volunteers all over the world. But but yeah, we're in a good place. You know, I'm not sure that I would. I'm not sure I would use my genie wish on well, definitely not on beer. I don't drink beer, but pizza sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But I don't think I would, I don't know that I would hope for like explosive growth. I want healthy, steady growth. Sure, growth is great. I've got so much joy from disc golf, why wouldn't I want more people to have the opportunity to see if they feel the same joy that I feel? Not everyone would, but I would love for people to at least get a taste and see if it bites them the way it bit me.

Yeah, sustainable.

Yeah.

and if it could become something that they would want to go back and do. So access, I would love to see that, but yeah, like I don't want what comes with snapping your fingers and now we have 10 times as many players as we used to have. Even if that means that the pros are paid crazy, you know, well, it's like, we're not ready for that from an infrastructure perspective. And once the pros, you better believe that we're not that far from

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

from the money starting to get big enough that bigger money notices us. And then I think more business minded people are going to try to find a way to squeeze the money out. And then access might not be as easy, you know, because it's like, once there's an opportunity to make money, you know, whatever you want to call it, that's the American dream, you know, and sometimes there's a dark side to that. So I'm not convinced that

Mm-hmm.

Right. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

growth is the goal in any kind crazy way, because I think we are kind of on that precipice of like, the pros may double what they make now, all of sudden, it starts to be like, wait, hey, wait a minute. Like, you know, we ought to start opening some private things here. you know, why is this in the park and nobody's even paying? These people would pay. Don't you see these people would pay? You know, so, and we would, I would pay. If they took away my courses, I would pay.

Yeah.

Yeah,

But I don't really want to see that happen.

Yeah, mean, I think Paul McBeth is probably a good template for somebody who's done exceptionally well and reinvested back in producing great courses and building courses outside of the United States and doing the things that you need to do to sort of give accessibility to more people.

Yeah.

Yep. Yeah, it's great.

Nate, one of the questions that people had asked was how do we get more municipalities to either adopt or build disc golf courses in places that have readily accessible land or city land? And actually I have a vested interest in this one as well because we were trying to get the city of Longview to expand on their nine holes and then the city of Kelso. to fix a lot of their baskets, but how do people work with their local government to invest in disc golf? Because I know all the benefits of it and I could speak to it pretty well, but how do we get the community to understand it?

Yeah, think, again, I'll take a little bit of the devil's advocate position here. Disc golf in public parks, well, awesome. It is as activities go in public parks, disc golf is maybe the most dominant of its space of any activity. Not only does it demand a ton of space, but it doesn't

Right?

play that well with like a lot of hikers because the discs are dangerous. You know, going to, yeah. So it's like, you need the right combination of like an underappreciated park, you know, and a, and a motivated local organizing, you know, committee of people club. And then you can really improve a park, you know, and I found that a lot of, you know, it's like, it's like a running joke, at least around here that like,

Mm-hmm. Yeah. It hurts when you get hit.

The disc golf course is often pretty close to the sewage treatment plant. You know, like it's just cause, cause we're not getting the choice. We're not, we're not in the flagship park. And I would almost, and I would argue we shouldn't be because that is for the walkers. Everybody walks. Lots of people ride bikes. It's on playgrounds. Everybody's kid goes on the playground. We're, we are small disc golf, disc golf is small.

Yeah. Right.

Right.

And we're lucky to have what we have in terms of access and acreage and we continue to grow. But I think, you know, showing up a municipality, what a course can do for the adoption and the use of a park. If you have an underutilized park, that would be attacked. I would go for if there's some undeveloped land that they hope will be a park someday. You know, that's where I would attack and go look at, you know, we'll get the Blackberries out by hand.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Right?

Look at, there's hundreds of stories of forgotten parks being saved by disc golfers because they're going to take ownership and they're going to take pride in that place. You know, but if you're trying to go, hey, we want it in Central Park in the middle of downtown, I would say get out of there. Like it's too dominant of its space for us to think we're entitled to, you know, acreage in the prime park in town.

Yeah.

Yep.

Yeah. And it is dangerous to a certain degree, especially if you're a newer player and there's bike paths and kids running around and you all those things.

for cause our use cause our use case is niche.

Yeah. yeah. Yeah. That's where course design, you know, that's where I'm a big believer in, know, making sure you designing at least by committee and involving as experienced a person as you can get your hands on in terms of, minimizing the friction points with other users, because that's the nightmare is all the work. Not only could a person be hurt, but all that work and all that money and all that passion only to have it.

Right.

Right.

yanked out from under you because, you know, either an irresponsible disc golfer or irresponsible course design, or even an irresponsible other park user who's unaware of the space that they are sharing, running right into the path of a disc. And, you know, nobody wants to see that.

Mm-hmm Right, right Nate I'm gonna ask this question maybe in a slightly different way and it's the greatest of all time question It's I'm not gonna ask you who you think the greatest of all time disc golfer is Because I'm sure people have asked you that in the past what I am gonna ask you is Who do you think is the greatest of all time disc golfer that has had the most?

Okay.

success in their career in totality whether that's through brand ambassadorship We'd mentioned you in my opinion the top three one of the top three ambassadors in the sport ever But who do you think is the goat just in terms of leveraging all the different things that disc golf has brought them of all time?

Uh-huh.

in of leveraging.

I mean gosh, It's not humble, but it might be me in a way. Like I think I have more success with less on course talent than anyone. And I don't think it's close in terms of how much I've actually won versus my standing as a kind of a household name.

For sure.

Yeah.

ambassador and I think that's because I was really eager to, you know, do basically anything I could, whether that was commentary or the clinics or the lessons or anything like that. I don't think I'm the most important player or the best player by any stretch in history. But if you're, if the question is who has maximized their potential,

Yep.

the most, then yeah, then you're probably looking, I would probably, you know, I put Paul McBeth on that list too, even though he did it in a much more traditional way, just by being the actual greatest player, you know, where you go, well, of course he's found success because he's the king and he's won everything many times over. But he's also done a good job of leveraging that, taking the talent that he had and turning that into

Thank you.

Right. Right.

you know, record breaking numbers of wins. And you could put 10 Climo in that category as well, or, or some of our greatest FPO players to Paige Pierce or a Juliana Korver or whoever. So I think they can't be discounted because they've certainly leveraged in a different way. But in terms of like, putting my hands into all different baskets and, and like, I always was pretty upfront with Innova and it's been sort of like a mantra of mine that I want my on course result to be the least important thing about me because it's the thing I have the hardest time controlling. You know, so like, well, I am at the root. I'm paid to be a professional disc golfer. I want to offer you, you know, you know, and I have a unique skillset in that I am a natural, comfortable public speaker and I'm comfortable in front of cameras and I, and I'm a natural teacher. I feel like that's, those are things that come very easily to me.

I love that. I love that.

Yeah.

So whether that's me going into Innova, like when do need me down there? I'll fly to LA and we'll film, whatever you want. I'm making myself available in ways I don't see my peers. I see my peers sometimes like, why don't they ever call me? And I go, I called them. You know, it's like, why aren't they? Why aren't people tabbing me to do commentary? It's like because you're just sitting around. Why would anyone just reach out to you? You know, like it doesn't make sense. You you make your own way. So it's like I was I was I've certainly been asked to do tons of commentary and early on, you know, that was one of those moments to kind of harkening back to a question you asked earlier where I couldn't believe they were going to pay me at a certain point. I'd been doing commentary for a few for years for free because it was fun.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yep.

And I knew I was building, I knew I was gaining fans because I knew that I was showing my personality to the fans in a way that you can't show it while you're playing. And I think that's the secret sauce in the success of the Sexton Firebird is that people feel like they know me better than they feel like they know Paul. Not that he hasn't, he's, he's brute forced his way to success because he's undeniable as a, as a champion. But it's like, I think I didn't have that.

Yeah.

yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I like that.

Like I wasn't, I've never been that good and I was never going to be that good. So it's like a different avenue, you know, to sort of, uh, forge a connection. And then I can remember in 2016, the first time they offered to pay me for commentary, I thought I was putting one over on them. Like, wow, seriously? I was, I would have said yes for free. You idiots. Like why are you, why are you paying me? You know, is that's how I felt initially.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Did you did you feel like you had to prep for that? Or was that just something you're just gonna go in and wing it? Yeah.

Commentary? I've never done a whole lot of prep, because it was so casual at the beginning. It would just be like, you know, some local guy in Portland, like, hey, we're gonna make a DVD out of the Rose City Open. I think that was the first time I ever did commentary. 2007 Rose City Open on DVD. And it's just like a B tier or whatever, you know? And we just did it like at my friend's house.

Nice.

All Yeah.

then we're just watching footage and talking through it and going, yeah, that's why I threw my white one there, you know, because I wanted to turn. So it's so informal at the beginning. And I kind of felt like, I wonder if anyone will ever even see this, you know? And then it turned into something that I knew like a hundreds of thousands of people might see, or, know, some of the best viewed Joma's videos are over a million views, you know? And it's like, then it just kind of became, I pride myself on like,

Great.

absolutely.

I'm like comfortable enough and free of anxiety enough that I feel like the personality you would get if you knew me and you were hanging out at my house and the personality that you hear on Joe Miz is a very small difference between those two things. And I think that that authenticity is not manufactured. And I think that's why my fans

Yeah.

have connected with me over the years. And that's, again, it's like a talent. Like I don't, I'm not saying everyone has that. And I'm not, and I can't explain to you why I have it, but it's like something where I just be myself and try to be funny when it's called for and try to show my passion for the game when that's called for. And I'm basically just having a good time, you know, watching the sport that I love and being

Yeah.

Right. Yeah.

genuinely odd when I'm odd by the skill of the players. But yeah, I don't know. think it was a job I was born to do. It wasn't like a bunch of prep, I guess, short answer.

Yeah Yeah Yeah, Nate. I mean you've you've built this life, you know of this career without a clear template it's not like something you can go to University of Oregon or UW and be like this is the template that you use and Disc Golf MBA school to get you to this point in your career

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

With all of these things that you've done, is there anything that still feels unfinished to you, either personally or professionally?

Unfinished. I don't think so. That word, you know, I still have goals. I still like winning. I still enjoy being connected to the game. So like, don't conflate that with me saying like, I'm ready to step away or I feel like I'm done. But do I feel like my legacy is like,

Right. Right.

Like I could get the chisel out and add more to the stone, but I feel like what I've done is in the stone. You know, already. So I don't feel like I'm in a, like I'm happy to try to build on it, but I feel very secure in what I've accomplished and proud of what I've been able to do and the life I've been able to live. And yeah, am I hungry for more? Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

But do I feel like if I don't get over the hump, it's all going to be no, I don't feel any of that. Like I feel like content, you know, if if if I never if I never won another tournament, I'd be annoyed. But I wouldn't be like it wouldn't be like my legacy is is tarnished and I, you know, why did I do all this? And if only I had done this, you know, so nothing jumps out at me when you when I think about the word unfinished.

Yeah, that's amazing.

Nothing really jumps out at me, but do I want to keep giving my time and my skills and my passion to disc golf? Absolutely.

All right, Nate, last question, my friend. And this is more of a forward looking question, but let's just say 20 years down the line, your daughter is thinking about you and reliving your glory days as this prominent figure in disc golf. And at that point, how do you want her to describe her dad? 20 years down the line.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I think I would like to be known as sort of like a little bit of a trailblazer in that obviously I'm following in the footsteps of the greats that came before me in terms of even having the audacity to think that I could be a professional disc golfer. You know, that's all thanks to Ken Climo, Barry Schultz, Dave Feldberg, Avery Jenkins, and they have people to thank before them. So trailblazer doesn't mean I'm the first.

Mm-hmm.

But in terms of the first two, of like make it about so much more than the course and trying to leverage my skills through the whole disc golf ecosystem. I would like, and whether my daughter would perceive that, I don't know. She's gonna have to just take my word for it probably.

Yes. Yep.

Hey.

But yeah, know, just to be known as somebody who was a fan favorite, you know, at the end of the day, that's, guess, something that I take a ton of pride in, is being like a sort of thought of as like an every man a little bit, and like, he doesn't throw it crazy far, like he's just, you know, doing his best. you know, people identify with that, I think, a little bit. Like, yeah, he's not gonna, you can sort of imagine, you know, there's a lot of people, not a whole ton, but there's, quite a few people that physically can kind of do a lot of the things I can do. But whether you can put it all together and stand up under the pressure and do all these things, know, so being a fan favorite is important to me. You know, I won the Bob West Sportsmanship Award in 2017 for the Sportsman of the Year. So I'd like to be known as somebody who is a pleasure to play with, you know, somebody who, when my comm...

Yeah.

my peers look up at the board in the morning and go, I'm one day that's and they I hope they smile when they when they know they're going to share the day with me and they know it's going to be a, you know, some laughs and some good shots and, and that we can, that you're not, you're not likely to get a, a distracting outburst or, you know, anything where I'm, hopefully not annoying anybody. You know, if anything, I probably talk a little too much, but, but yeah, that's, that's kind of, you know, a great champion.

Right.

in my moments, but a fan favorite and a favorite of my peers, I hope.

Yeah, I love that. I love that. I love the way we kept it up, Nate. I appreciate you coming on the show, my friend. This has been an excellent conversation. You are definitely my top ambassador of the sport, and I wish you well.

Yeah.

Thank you. Thank you. Yes, likewise. I had a good time.

All right, my friend, I'll talk to you soon. Take care. All right, bye bye.

All right. Bye.