How I Became "Toes"

Prior to the founding of Flying Clipper I used to live in a small farming town by the name of Tangent. I would come every Saturday to the Eugene Saturday Market to kick with a circle that was there every Saturday. I used my toes a lot when I kicked. A friend (Gary Baker) saw me coming to the circle one Saturday and said “Oh look, here comes those toes from Tangent”. I told him, “Don’t call me that Gary, it might stick.”

Of course the name stuck and that is how I became Toes back in 1979. All of the folks in that Eugene Saturday Market circle became my good friends. Along with Reed Gray, my future business partner at Flying Clipper, there was of course Gary Baker who became my best friend, Will Winget aka Star Cloud, Jack Schoolcraft aka Mirkan and Steve Amundson aka Birdman. The energy was always high and they always welcomed those “Toes from Tangent.”

Incidentally I co-invented a 14 panel footbag with my partner Reed Gray in 1983 and we named it the Tangent. Those early days were about trying to invent a better footbag than the Hacky Sack which tended not to be round. Out of that early circle of friends came the first multi panel footbag (a footbag with more than two piece construction) the 12 panel Soc Sac (Rick Steinmetz/Reed Gray) and that footbag design opened the door to all new footbag designs that followed.