Cornhole: the game develops, expands and brings people together
By Michelle Kearns
We are excited to welcome American Cornhole (ACO) to town this weekend for the ACO Buffalo Major at Buffalo Riverworks! The Buffalo Major is also the site of ACO’s inaugural Adaptive Cornhole division in collaboration with Greater Buffalo Adaptive Sports.
Buffalo Niagara Sports Commission
As the toss game named for the corn once used in its bean bags attracts players with its ease and competitive challenges, the sport of cornhole has adapted to reflect its thousands of fans. Its reach now includes a new Buffalo tournament for players with disabilities — September 14 -16 at the city’s RiverWorks waterfront sporting venue.
This will be the first time that the American Cornhole Organization will have a wheelchair division of cornhole.
“We’d love to have as many people as possible come out and do it,” said Norm Page, president of Greater Buffalo Adaptive Sports, a foundation serving 100 area athletes with disabilities. “It’s a natural for us. We’re always looking for something for our athletes to do, no matter their disability.”
It serves about 100 area athletes with disabilities and organizes events and athletic forums for sled hockey, wheelchair lacrosse, stand up lacrosse for athletes with cognitive disabilities, wheelchair football, tennis, curling and, now, cornhole. About a quarter of its players are under 18 and Page has been working to encourage more young people to join the programming. He hopes cornhole will help draw in more players.
“It’s so easy to do,” said Page. “We love the ease of cornhole and being able to play anywhere anytime.”
Page, his wife Sandy and son Adam, an athlete with spina bifida and paralysis below both knees, founded the foundation in 2015. At first, they focused on sled hockey, a version of hockey, which replaces skates with seated sleds. Adam Page, now 31, is a three-time sled hockey gold medalist in the Paralympic Games.
As the Pages developed the foundation, they expanded to include more sports. “We’ve certainly realized that not all athletes can or would like to play sled hockey,” said Page. “Seeing the growth of adaptive sports in Western New York is very exciting. The bottom line is that we’re excited to see that athletes with disabilities can play just about any sport and do anything that they would like to.”
For Frank Geers, CEO of the American Cornhole Association, the new Buffalo tournament and connection to adaptive sports is a welcome turn in the continuing evolution of cornhole.
Geers, aka the Cornhole Dude, founded his organization in 2005 and the original concept was to sell branded cornhole boards and bags to help businesses market themselves. About a year and a half later a client, Carnival Cruise Line, asked for better bags. The ones with corn were degrading over time: As the corn dried, the bags got lighter. To keep the heft consistent, Geers’ company started to fill the bags with plastic resin pellets.
Within six months of making the new bags, Geers became convinced that cornhole could become more than a backyard sport. He began working to build standardized equipment, including bags with a different kind of fabric on each side – a slicker, faster side and a stickier, slower side.
The sport has been developing ever since. This year will be the 18th annual national tournament season that attracts 700 to 800 competitors from more than 30 states and several countries. The season starts in September and continues through May, with the world championships in July, and divisions for women, seniors, juniors and coed players.
“I’ve always believed that cornhole was and is going to grow into the world’s most recognized game-slash-sport,” said Geers. “You don’t normally see 80-year-old people out playing a lot of soccer. But they can easily go out and play a game of against a 20-year-old. The other reason cornhole has a chance to be the world’s biggest game is because it is very simple … It’s not a very complex sport. Anybody can play it right out of the gate.”
This year’s September tournament in Buffalo will be one of the first with players with handicaps and serve as a demonstration for a division that will become a regular fixture of the season.
“My goal is to be able to crown the first adaptive cornhole world champion at our world championships in July 2024,” Geers said. “As we embark now on this journey to make cornhole one of the world’s greatest and most recognized games and sports. Buffalo is a front runner and part of that historical year for us as we break into the adaptive cornhole world.”
